“In theory. Hopefully.”
“Been following your career. You’ve taken off lately.”
“Really?” I glanced over at him.
His face was clouded over with a frown. He glanced to the rearview mirror at the kid babbling happily.
“I gotta say something real quick,” he said.
My stomach dropped.
It wasn’t that I had ill feelings toward Jethro. It was just that I had no feelings toward him. I had happy-ish memories of some real wild nights together, but all my big feelings, the real ones, those were all wrapped up with a man about to step on stage alone. A man I needed to get to ASAP.
“Go ahead,” I said.
“I have to tell you how sorry I am for everything back then. How it all went down.”
“Thank you. I know you aren’t that guy anymore.” We’d all talked about that in the SWS. How he’d changed. Though we would never admit it. The SWS, while formed from a place of anger, had morphed into something so much more. It was about friendship and love and support. It focused on the beauty in life and on letting the past go.
“Still. It eats me up sometimes when I think about it,” he said.
“Jet, I walked into that bar looking to ruin my life. That’s not on you.”
“Yeah, but I was all too keen to help, wasn’t I?”
How many of us are holding on to our mistakes? It made me sad, but at the same time, look where he was now. Everything had worked out just as it should.
I said, “Somebody recently told me that the mistakes in our past are not meant to be life sentences. You’ve moved on from that life, and so have I.”
“That person sounds real wise,” he said.
“He has his moments,” I grumbled.
He took a deep breath and nodded once. He wasn’t done. “I have to tell you something else.”
His eyes scrunched up tight like he was finding courage to say the next part. “I told your parents about the drugs hidden in your cello case that night. I put them there. I’m the reason you went to rehab.”
My heart jumped, skipped, then totally stalled out. “You what?”
“That night your parents confronted you, it was because I’d sent them an anonymous message. I—well, I won’t go into all of the reasons why, but you were too good for that life. You know, I’d heard about you before I met you. People talked about your playing. You were so talented. You had to get out. I thought if you could get help, you could get away. I was too chickenshit to do anything more than that.”
I absorbed his words. He was the reason I went to rehab. I had always thought my parents just stumbled upon it. All these years … Shouldn’t I feel angry? But I didn’t. Everything he’d done had turned my life around. I shuddered to think where I might still be if I hadn’t gotten help. A month ago, I would have been angry. I would have felt sad at all the wasted years, but now, I didn’t care. All that mattered was the future.
“Thanks for telling me, Jet. You were mixed up deep back then. I can’t say I’m happy about that, but I understand.”
He pulled up to the front of the performance center.
“Thanks for finding me,” I said. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t showed up.”
“It’s sort of what I do.” He shrugged sheepishly.
“Lucky for me.” I held his gaze and smiled wide. “Bye, Jethro. Bye.”
I jumped out of the seat and waved goodbye to him and the kid in the back. I grabbed my cello from the back and was about five feet from the car when the window rolled down.
“Just keep playing,” he said. “No matter what happens, just keep playin’.”
My heart skipped. I frowned, but he was gone before I could say anything else.
I didn’t have time to replay that. I had a performance to make. I ran toward the entrance. Time to forgive my past too, and start my future.
“Where have you been?” Gretchen yelled. “I’m sweating like a sinner in church.”
“I know.” I had just raced up to them through the crowd of musicians gathered quietly backstage. My hair was falling loose and sweat made my skin sticky. “You will never believe what happened. I’ll tell y’all later.”
I peeked behind the curtain on to the stage. Devlin had already started playing. If I didn’t get up there now, all those hours I’d played non-stop since returning home wouldn’t mean anything. I was ready for this. I was weirdly strengthened by my interaction with Jethro. It was like running into the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Blithe, Suzie, and Gretchen circled me. The three were dressed in matching black with their hair pulled up, looking like a bunch of second-rate ninjas. When the SWS made a plan, we didn’t mess around.
“Where’s Roxy?” I asked, just noticing her absence.
Gretchen widened her eyes and sucked in a breath. “Girl, now that’s a story for another day.”
“She wanted to be here though. She told me to tell you to kick booty,” Blithe said.
“She’s okay though?” I asked.
Gretchen and Blithe exchanged a look. “Think so,” the blonde said.
“She will be,” Gretchen said. “Don’t worry about that right now. You focus on getting up there.”
I nodded and glanced down to check my appearance one last time. I wore a comfortable outfit of black stretchy pants and a long, see-through, flowing top that went down to the back of my knees, over a thin-strapped tank. My hair was up but not as tight as usual, with a few loose tendrils framing my face. I felt comfortable in my body.
“Is everybody here?” I asked the girls scanning the crowd around me. As far as I could tell, most of the symphony waited to go up, dressed to the nines.
Blithe nodded. “Mostly. I don’t think Carla could make it.”
Gretchen rolled her eyes.
I glanced toward the stage. This was it. Do or die. Only one thing stood between me and claiming my life—one teenage boy with straggly hair and a knit beanie. He was a stagehand and he currently blocked the only entrance about five feet away. Devlin’s voice rang out. Chills prickled my arms. His voice would always do that to me.
“I have an idea,” Gretchen said. “That guy’s what? Like, eighteen tops?” Gretchen looked over my shoulder at the kid. “We’re four beautiful women, or as Kim would say, ‘objectively not ugly’.”
“We could distract him, and Kim could run on stage,” Blithe finished.
“Uh, hello?” The kid in question walked up to us. “I can hear y’all. You’re actually being really loud. Can you quiet down?”
“Sorry,” we all mumbled, looking at our feet and not feeling badass at all.
He looked at me and blushed. “I know Christine Day. I was here that one time with Ford’s Fosters, so if you just wanna …” He thumbed behind him.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I mean, you’re not planning to mess him up, I’m guessin’.”
“But we had a whole plan.” Gretchen looked a little put out.
“Yeah, you’re harshing our vibe, kid,” Blithe said.
“I could put up a fight?” He cleared his throat before dryly saying, “No. Please. You can’t go up there.”