Darcy threw her hands into the air, worry and frustration twisting together inside of her. “Because I don’t understand why you two are standing there, looking like you’re about to tell me someone died.” She shot them both an impatient stare, demanding, “So? What’s goingon?”
Blythe reeled back. “No one died.” Then she paused. Then shook her head again, her expression far more muted than it typically ever was. Like… ever.
Darcy flexed her hands. “I swear to god, if one of you doesn’t tell me–”
“Now that the tour’s over…” Blythe started, the words jumping from her throat after Emerson hit her with her elbow.
…the tour?
Darcy’s heart rate started to slow back to something normal. “This is aboutmusic?” She dropped her head back, taking a deep breath. “Wow. Jeez, warn me next time.”
Blythe’s eyebrows furrowed at her.
Emerson’s stare was cast down at the ground to Darcy’s right.
Blythe set her jaw. Her voice was quiet, as she said, “I didn’t really… we don’t know how to warn you. So – I think we just have to say it.”
Blythe opened her mouth, as if she was going to say “it” only nothing came out.
She stood, frozen, her eyes holding onto Darcy’s, looking wide andnervous. Which, in turn, made Darcy feel nervous all over again.
Emerson glanced at Blythe, taking stock of her expression. Clearly noting how atypical it was, and thenshetook a deep breath. Darcy latched onto Emerson, instead.
Just in time for Emerson to tell her, “We don’t want to do another album.”
Everything –everything– inside of Darcy seized up. Her muscles, including her heart. Her lungs. Her brain. The matrix glitched.
“I mean…” She breathed out a laugh, forcing it through her lips. “I know I’m, uh, overzealous. I get that. But just because I’m ready to dive in with ideas doesn’t mean I’m expecting us to rush into anything. I know last year wascrazy. We can take a minute.”
No,shedidn’t intend to pause conceptualizing or writing, but they didn’t have to do anything official just yet. She could take a chill pill, give Blythe and Emerson time to decompress.
Blythe closed her eyes tightly, breathing in through her nose. And she didn’t reopen them, even when she spoke again. “It’s not that we don’t want to do another album right now. We don’t want to do it again, at all.”
Darcy could only stare back at them, feeling almost like she was underwater. Was that normal? That didn’t feel right at all. But she felt – she felt like it was hard to breathe, and hard tohear, and her mind was racing, and so was her heart.
“We’re… we’reWe, The Romantics,” she muttered, mostly to herself. “We.”
They’d done this, become so successful, as agroup. They’d done ittogether.
If – if Darcy was one-third of a circle, and the other two pieces of the circle decided not to be a part of the circle anymore – she couldn’t fault herself for not making sense right now! – then she was just a triangle with one weirdly rounded side.
“Darcy, you don’tneedus,” Emerson said, her voice so quiet, butverysteady.
Emerson was quiet, and when she sounded so… unshakable, it meant that a decision was already made. Emerson and Blythe were both decisive people, when it came down to it. Very different people, in terms of how they engaged with the world, but decisive, nonetheless.
“Idoneed you,” her voice broke, taking her by surprise.
Apparently taking all of them by surprise, as Emerson and Blythe’s eyes both widened, and they stepped closer to her.
“I need both of you. I need – you’re…” They were her family, her people.
For most of her life, they’d been the only people she’d ever really had. The only people she could count on. Her successes were their successes. Her failures were their failures.
When she’d told everyone in interviews during their skyrocket to fame that they made her better – that they all made one another better – she hadn’t been giving lip service. She meant it.
What did it mean for her? If there was no We, The Romantics… where was she? Who was she? She’d puteverythingshe’d had, her blood, sweat, tears, time, energy, money, into this for the last decade.
It was only then, as she pictured herself fracturing off from this group that was such a fundamental part of her, that was her foundation, that she replayed what they’d said.
