That someone is me, apparently.
Sadie looks round at me, her eyes sparkling with almost tears, but the shock of having me singing next to her seems to shake her from the on-stage nightmare. She takes a breath and bites her lip, holding the mic up a little higher so I can stand a little straighter. I sing the words without taking my eyes from hers, and not just because I know the words better than the pores on my nose, but because the colour is coming back to her cheeks and she’s almost smiling again.
I get to the end of Lila’s part and I wink at Sadie. She nods and we both look at Charlie, who sings Bud’s part next. I try to unfurl my fingers from her hand but she squeezes tighter, so I stay where I am and we watch Charlie mess up the lyrics. He looks down at her and waggles his eyebrows, and she laughs at her brother then hands me the microphone.
The audience claps along with the song, and I nod my head to the beat, smiling down at Sadie as I come in with my lines, then Charlie joins me and we’re singing together, both of us looking from the screen to Sadie, whose face is a picture – so happy that she looks like she could channel everyone’s elation and float above the stage. She still manages a big smile as she grits her teeth when I fail to hit the high notes, and Charlie sticks his fingers in his ears pretending he can’t bear to hear my voice. I mean, obviously he’s pretending.
We come to the end of the song and everyone at the VIP table is standing, cheering Sadie’s name even though she didn’t manage a word, and Roxy and Dylan wave at us like proud parents. I hug Sadie then glance at Charlie. He’s watching me, his smile the same as it was the first time he walked into my living room and he fell in love withVampire Fallsall those years ago.
And I fell in love with him.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
JULIANA THE DEMON HUNTRESS
It’s not goodbye. In Megna we say, until our next battle.
BUD LEROY
Kind of pessimistic, Jules. You’ve been spending too much time with McKinley.
Vampire Falls. Season one, episode twelve – “Masquerade Brawl”
“I’m so glad I’d writtendrivingtomorrowon my hand, so I’d remember not to do shots,” says Roxy, flashing me faint ink on the back of her hand. “I’d feel like absolute shit right now.”
I glare over her full English, trying not to barf at the smell of brown sauce (is she a middle-aged builder? Gross) and rub my forehead.
“Hmmm,” I manage.
“Do you? Feel like absolute shit, I mean?” she says.
“Ido,” confirms another voice.
We both look up at Vivian. She lifts her sunglasses and places them on her head. She may feel like absolute shit, but she does not look like absolute shit. She’s stunning as usual. Makes me feel like absolute shit. I mean, if I didn’t feel like that already.
“Hey,” says Roxy, her face brightening.
Vivian sort of scrunches her nose and smiles at Roxy in greeting. It’s cute. They’re cute.
“Packed and ready to go?” asks Vivian.
I nod. We said goodbye to Dorothy and Dylan after swapping contact details with both of them. Dorothy asked Dylan to drive her to the railway station and he obliged, carrying her luggageout to his hire car. I think she may have been asleep for his big reveal and still not actually know who he is.
The restaurant is nearly empty now and the few that remain scroll through photos of the weekend or look over their signed merch. I still haven’t told anyone what Damon Van Schwartz said about this being the final season, and I don’t think I ever will. I know how much people love this show and I can’t be the one to break their hearts.
“Are you leaving now?” I ask, looking at Vivian, then glancing, again, around the restaurant.
“Yeah, but I had to come say bye to you bitches.”
She smiles down at me, and maybe it’s nostalgia for the final convention or the belief that by touching her she might transmit some of her beauty to me, but I stand up and give her a big hug, before sitting down very quickly due to the restaurant spinning of its own accord. Weird.
“Are you driving back with Charlie?” asks Roxy.
“He and Sadie left earlier,” says Vivian, glancing at me. “I got the train here anyway.”
Knowing that Charlie is no longer in the same building as me makes my body overflow with sorrow, and it takes everything I have left not to rest my cheek on the white tablecloth and go to sleep.
“Are you OK, babe?” says Roxy, stroking my hair, as apparently, Ididn’thave enough of whatever it was to stop me doing just that.
