Chapter 1

“Morning,” I said, sitting down at the dining table across from Kat.

She was an early riser and usually beat me downstairs in the morning. This had, more or less, been our pattern since school had gotten out for the summer and everything had settled down. I wasn’t all that busy, but Kat’s schedule was packed, so this was basically the only time I got to see her all day. Knowing she was heading to college in a few months, I wanted to have every moment we could get together, even if it was just morning small talk.

I knew she felt the same way too.

“How’d you sleep?” she said, shutting off her phone and setting it to the side.

“Good. Have you had breakfast?”

“I already ate. I got up early and ate some cereal,” she said, and then paused for a second, as if she was considering if she should continue or not. “You were making some noise this morning. Another bad night?”

“I guess.”

On and off I’d been having bad dreams for weeks now. So far, I’d kept them to myself, only really talking to Kat about them. After months of drama, I just wanted everything to get back to some semblance of normalcy. The last thing I wanted was to have to start explaining to everyone that I was spending most nights reliving my parents’ deaths. Of all the people in my life, I knew Kat would get that. She was concerned, but she never pried.

“So, any word on tour dates?” she asked, instead of digging deeper.

“Nothing yet,” I said. “Warren’s been making calls, checking with venues he knows and whatever, but so far, we haven’t booked anything outside of the Blue Ridge. It’s a little frustrating. I mean, we did basically the same thing when we were with MAC, and he was always able to find something, but now he calls the same people he would have called then, and nothing.”

“Do you think maybe Warren isn’t up to it?” Kat asked.

“I don’t think that’s the issue. It’s not like his contacts dried up or anything. I think, or at least hope, that this is just growing pains. He needs to figure out how to do this without a label behind him. It’s only been a couple of weeks since he started doing this independently for us, so we need to give him time.”

“Okay,” she said.

I knew she wasn’t doubting him, but she’d been with me every step of this journey and had seen all the ups and downs and wanted the best for me. While I was being positive about the situation, at least out loud, she wasn’t asking anything I hadn’t thought.

“You know, if you need to, you can stay here in July, focus on your music,” she continued, looking down at the table, drawing small figure eights with her fingertip. “This is more important than my trials.”

“The hell it is,” I scoffed. “You’re so close to making the Olympic team. The trials are huge, and way bigger than me playing in some dank basement bar for fifty people. Millions will be watching you swim. No, I told Warren that week is off-limits and that I can’t do any shows or anything else because I’ll be in Indianapolis with you. Besides, he said he had something to talk to us about at practice today, so maybe we’ll have some progress on that front. Worse comes to worst, he can set up some gigs in Indianapolis for us, right?”

“Ohh,” she said, looking almost embarrassed. “Thanks, Charlie, it really means a lot. I just didn’t want you to put any of your stuff on hold because of me.”

“That’s your anxiety talking. I can work around one week and not have it mess up my career and still support you in yours. You’re crazy if you think I’m going to miss you making the national team.”

“Well, I mean, I am kind of...”

“Kat!” I said, stopping her there.

I knew she sometimes poked fun at her condition, but I hated it when she talked herself down.

“I know,” she said.

“Speaking of that, how’s everything going with Dr. Rothstein? With how crazy the last few months have been, we haven’t had a lot of time to talk about it.”

“It’s going really well, actually,” she said, her apologetic tone gone as she looked up from the table. “We’re making really good progress.”

“Really? That’s great. Does he have any idea, if it’s going well, how long you’ll have to continue with treatment?”

“I mean, forever, I think. It’s not a broken arm or something like that. You can’t just fix it. What I can do is learn to deal with it, recognize my triggers, and stay away from those, and recognize when my anxiety is getting out of control. Best case, I can lose the anxiety meds and just deal with everything by controlling my own situation. It’s why he has me pushing my boundaries so much. He says if I can recognize when it’s my condition telling me to give in or not stand up for myself, I can then ignore it, or at least work around it.”

“And that’s been going okay?”

“Yeah. I mean, I don’t get much chance to practice outside of our role-playing in therapy, at least not since school let out, but hopefully, I’ll get to travel with you to some shows and get more chances. And I can just keep telling you no and seeing how that goes.”

“You’ve gotten really good at that last part,” I said with a laugh.

She actually had. When we’d first made our strange agreement, she’d never been able to say no to me. Now, even when I really pushed her, worded something like a direct command, she was still able to say no. If she was able to do that everywhere, then she really was making great progress.

She just shrugged, but she couldn’t hide the pleased look that crept onto her face.

“I’m really proud of you, Kat. You’ve made so much progress in the last two years. There are times you’re almost like a different person.”

“Not different,” she said. “I think more like who I’m supposed to be. This is the real me.”

“Well I, for one, like the real you,” I said, reaching across the table and putting my hand on hers.

“Thanks, Charlie,” she said, giving a shy smile before pulling her hand away. “I couldn’t have done it without you. I think back to how things were when I was with Aaron, and I don’t even recognize myself. You’re the only reason I got out of that relationship and started getting help. Really, I can never repay you for it.”

“I got a best friend out of it, so I think I made out okay in that deal.”

She rewarded me with one of her rare, beaming smiles. They were less rare these days, as she slowly came more and more out of her shell, but it still felt special every time I received one.

The conversation turned to lighter subjects after that as I grabbed some breakfast. I really did love these quiet mornings together before Kat took off for her training. Mrs. Philips was out of town for some real estate thing, which meant I had the house to myself all day, so I spent the rest of the morning working on music. Just after Mom’s funeral I’d started thinking through a new song, I think as a way to help work through my feelings, but things had been so crazy, it had lived only in my head until a few days ago, when I’d started putting some music to the words flowing around my brain.

It was still too early to show it to anyone, and a little too raw for me personally, but I also couldn’t stop working on it either. Sometimes it happened like that, I’d get a song in my head, and I couldn’t stop until I got it out on paper.

After the end of the lunch rush at the Blue Ridge, I headed over to start setting up. That was the one downside of playing there over dedicated clubs. Because the stage was up in front of the dining area, we had to have our stuff set up before the dinner rush started, which meant it was hours between checking the sound and when we actually started to play. We hadn’t had a lot of problems doing it this way, but a few times something had come unplugged in between, causing chaos at the start of our set.

I let the afternoon get away from me a little bit and was the last one there. Seth had already checked over his drum kit, which we left there from Friday afternoon through Sunday nights unless we had a gig in between, and Lyla had already hooked her bass up and checked everything. We’d played here enough times that getting set up had become almost mechanical, although we’d still go through a few songs beforehand. If anything, it was good to keep the habit, even if it was always the same.