Take a Bow (11 page)

A cheer erupts from Ben as Jack throws down his controller. “Oh, I didn’t realize we could cheat,” Jack says drily.

Ben gets up and does a small dance. “You’re such a sore loser.”

Jack crosses his arms and pulls his bottom lip out.

Ben turns his back on him. “Emme, Ethan, I’m going to check out the first band; you guys want to join?” He then looks over at Jack. “You are of course welcome, Sir Pouts-a-Lot.”

Ben heads out of the dressing room, and the three of us follow him. As soon as we exit the room, we see Chloe approaching us with Carter … and Tyler.

“Where are you guys off to?” Chloe goes over to Jack and gives him a hug. His pout evaporates and he wraps his arms around her. Ah, young love. “We wanted to wish you good luck!”

Tyler comes up to me and gives me a quick kiss on the lips. “I brought these for you.” Behind his back is a bouquet of roses.

“Thanks,” I say quietly.

Jack starts to say something, but Chloe hits him. “Um, yeah, anyway …” Jack motions toward the side of the stage. “We were going to check out the City Kings, and um …” Jack can’t stop looking between Tyler and me. I feel the entire group’s eyes are on us and I don’t know what to do.

I grab Carter’s arm and lead him to the side of the stage, just as a group made of students from the LaGuardia school start their set.

“How are things?” I shout above the loud guitars blaring through the room.

He smiles at me. “Good. I’ll be soap-free by spring!” Carter fills me in on his progress of moving away from acting. He’s even looking into private art lessons.

“That’s fantastic.” A ballad starts playing and Tyler comes over, wrapping his arms around my waist. As if I wasn’t nervous enough before facing a packed crowd of five hundred people.

We all stand there and watch the band. I can’t really concentrate on the music — my entire focus is on Tyler’s hands and his breath hitting my neck. Jack nudges me a few times playfully, but I try to stare out at the stage and look like I’m not freaking out inside.

The City Kings finish their set and we head to our dressing room.

“I’ve never seen a show from the side before,” Chloe says. “That was cool.”

Jack puts his arm around her. “You can see our shows from anywhere you want. I know I don’t have a bad angle.”

The stage manager pops his head in the door and yells “Five minutes!”

“Yikes, we better get going.” Chloe gives Jack a quick kiss.

“Yeah, break a leg.” Tyler gives me a quick kiss as well.

Before the door even closes, Jack starts in on me. “Ooh, Red! You’ve finally snagged a groupie. My little girl’s all growns up!”

“Ah, guys,” Ben interrupts us. “Do you know where Ethan is?”

I didn’t even realize he wasn’t there. It’s not like the room is that big. “Where did he —”

Ben opens the door and looks down the hallway. “He left right when the band started — I thought he was going back here. Maybe he’s just getting some fresh air or running around.”

Ben and I head in opposite directions and I see Ethan talking to one of the members of the headlining band, Prophecy’s Cupid, an honest-to-goodness signed band.

“Hey, we’re on soon!” I call out.

Ethan turns his head toward me and I immediately smell alcohol on him. He hasn’t had a drink before a show since The Incident. He used to have a drink to loosen up his nerves, and I guess none of us ever said anything to him because we knew how nervous he was about being the front man. But then he started to have a couple more drinks that led to more Ethan drama, including his subsequent meltdown over Kelsey. I thought he was better, but he’s not. He’s wasted. He must’ve been doing shots or something to get this drunk this quickly.

“
Awesome
.” He barely looks at me. “Thanks, man.” He shakes hands with the lead singer.

“Are you okay?”

He stumbles slightly. “Yep, everything’s great, Emme. No need to worry about me. Thanks so much for your concern, though.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

He doesn’t bother to answer me as he heads to the side of the stage.

“There you are!” Jack screams over the audience. But the second he sees Ethan, he knows we’re in trouble. “Dude, are you feeling all right?”

Ethan gives a big smile. “Never felt better!” He runs out to the stage before we’re even announced.

“Crap.” Jack follows behind him while Ben and I stare at each other.

“Please don’t tell me he’s been drinking,” Ben says.

I shake my head. “Then don’t ask a question you don’t want to know the answer to.”

Ben runs out and I have no choice but to follow him.

Ethan grabs the microphone. “All right, New York City! I’m feelin’ good; how are you all doing tonight?” The crowd screams back. Ethan stumbles slightly as he reaches for his guitar. “I’ll tell you what. You all look beautiful tonight, you do.”

Some girl in the audience shouts, “You’re hot!”

Ethan falls to his knees. “Who said that?” There are a bunch of screams. “It’s nice to know that somebody appreciates me.”

I look back to Jack, who motions for me. I run over.

“Can you do the main riff for ‘I Wanna Be Sedated’?” he asks.

“Of course!” I scream over Ethan’s incessant banter.

“You might as well do it because I don’t think he’s going to shut up.”

Jack counts off and I start playing.

Ethan starts jumping up and down. This probably isn’t the best way to calm him down, but we need to do something to get him focused.

Ethan runs to grab the microphone, but loses balance. Everything plays out in slow motion. He lunges forward, and although he tries to steady himself, he falls down into the small barrier between the crowd and stage.

Ben and I run up to the side of the stage.

When I look down, I see Ethan sprawled out like one of the chalk outlines you see on TV.

I jump down right as I hear voices screaming “Call 9-1-1!” around me.

“Ethan! ETHAN!” I’m afraid to touch him. He isn’t responding.

Ethan lies there unconscious with blood dripping from his mouth.

W
hat the hell is going on?

My head is throbbing and my mouth is dry. No, dry is an understatement — it feels like I drank the Sahara. I try to move my mouth around and feel something sharp.

“Ethan?” I hear a familiar voice in the distance. Emme.

My eyes feel so heavy, but I try to open them. As I move slightly, I feel my right arm encased in something. And a gentle squeeze to my left hand.

“Ethan? It’s me, Emme. Please open your eyes.”

My eyes flicker open. The effort it takes for such a simple task is exhausting.

I finally open my eyes all the way and it takes a second to soak in my surroundings.

Am I in a hospital? Why is Emme crying? Why is my arm in a cast?

Emme stands up. “Ethan, can you hear me?”

I let out some sort of noise. She lets go of my hand as she runs over to the door. I want to reach out for her. I don’t know what’s going on, but I want her back.

A nurse comes in, flashes a bright light in my eyes, and checks the machine I’m hooked up to. All I do is stare at Emme, who has tears trickling down her face. I know that I’m responsible for those tears. I wish I knew what I’m supposed to apologize for.

The nurse talks softly to Emme, who nods. Once we’re left alone, she picks up a glass of water. “Are you thirsty?”

I nod. Did I lose my voice? Why can’t I talk? What is this sharp thing in my mouth? What did I do?

Emme picks up a glass of water and puts the straw to my mouth. The cool liquid feels refreshing, even though I taste something metallic.

“Ethan.” Emme grabs my hand and sits down next to me. “I called your parents and they’re on the first flight they could get from London. They should be here in a few hours.”

I start to cough and she looks panicky. She gets up like she’s going to leave, and I grasp her hand so tightly she can’t move. She’s surprised by my strength.

“Wh … What?” I try to get out.

“What happened?”

I nod.

She bites her lip. “Um, to be honest, I don’t really know, Ethan. I was sort of hoping you could tell me. Because right before the gig, you disappeared and before we knew it …”

The gig. Tyler with Emme.

How do I tell her that I snapped, seeing them together, and tried to find a temporary reprieve to get me through the show? The headlining band had a bottle of vodka and, well … I knew it was a big mistake at the time. Clearly, this is one of the few instances when I should’ve listened to myself.

“During the first song, you were out of control and you fell off the stage and your head hit one of the speakers on the way down. You broke two of your teeth and I guess you reached out to break the fall, but ended up fracturing your arm. It’s going to be in a cast for at least six weeks.”

Six weeks without being able to play the piano or guitar. I don’t even know what this means for school or the band.

“I’m sorry,” I finally speak.

Emme’s quiet. She looks at the door. “Um, I need to let my mom and the guys know that you’re awake now. I don’t think the doctors believed for a second that I was your sister, but I wasn’t going to let you wake up all alone. But it’s six in the morning and …”

“Please don’t leave me.” I feel a tear run down my face.

She hesitates. “Just give me a few minutes.”

As soon as she leaves the room, a sense of panic overwhelms me. I’ve done stupid things. Oh, how I’ve done stupid things, but I can tell by the way she’s looking at me that I’ve crossed a line I will probably never recover from.

She comes back and sits down. I reach my hand out for her. She takes it. Her eyes are puffy from crying and she looks miserable and exhausted.

“I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t respond.

“Emme?”

She looks at me.

“I’m sorry.”

She nods.

“Please say something to me. Anything.”

She closes her eyes and her lips start moving slightly. I’m temporarily relieved that she’s doing something that’s normal. Any sense of normalcy in this foreign environment is welcome.

She sighs. “Honestly, Ethan, I don’t really think I can say what I want to say to you right now. It wouldn’t be a good idea.”

By the way she won’t look at me, I can tell she hates me. But I need to know what she feels. I need to know she can still feel
something
toward me.

“Please, I know you’re mad.”

“Mad?” She clenches her jaw. “Mad is an understatement, Ethan. I’m furious.” Fresh tears start pouring from her eyes. “Do you have any idea what you did? I thought you were dead.” Her voice cracks and she buries her face in her hands. “I can’t keep watching you do this to yourself. I can’t … I can’t really object to what you do after a show, but before our biggest gig? You had to get wasted? Did you for even one second think about the rest of us before you did such a stupid thing? How much more do you think any of us can take?”

All I could think of was Tyler kissing Emme. An image I wanted to get out of my head as quickly as possible.

“I’m sorry.” That’s all I can think to say, but I know it isn’t enough. Nothing I do will ever be enough. Especially now.

Emme sits there with me for the next few hours as doctors and nurses come in. She has tears in her eyes the entire time. But neither of us says another word.

“Ethan!” My mom breaks the silence when she opens the door and runs to my bedside. “Oh, sweetie, I’m so sorry we’re just getting here now. We came as quickly as we could.” She looks up and sees Emme. “Thank you so much!” She gives Emme a hug, but Emme doesn’t respond. She just heads for the door.

“John!” Mom nudges my dad. “You’d better make sure she gets home okay. It looks like she hasn’t slept in days.”

I want to run after Emme, call after her, do something. But instead I lie here. In the bed that I made for myself out of self-pity and self-destruction.

One week.

That’s how long I’m away from school. Away from the band. Away from Emme.

Everybody comes to visit me — Jack, Chloe, Ben, Mr. North, even Kelsey — but I don’t hear from Emme.

I head into class with my arm in a cast and sling.

“Welcome back, Mr. Quinn,” Mr. North says to me as I settle into my seat.

“The prodigal jackass returns!” Jack says with a laugh.

Jack and Ben both seemed to have accepted my apologies for my behavior. I know Jack likes to have yet another thing to pick on me for.

“Oh, nice sparkly white teeth, Toothy McGee.”

My tongue runs over the caps that were put on the teeth that I broke. If only there were caps to fix everything in life.

Emme walks into class and gives me a halfhearted smile as she sits down.

“Hey,” I say to her.

She nods at me.

Mr. North gives us the hour to go over our pieces for next week’s concert. The one where I’m supposed to do a killer guitar solo.

Jack gets right to it. “We obviously have a problem with old gimpy here.”

Mr. North pulls up a chair beside us. “Listen, guys, we still want you to perform. I discussed with the other department directors, and we are fine if you want to pull a guitar student from the junior class to perform with you.”

Jack and Ben start going over different guitarists to fill in for me.

Emme speaks up. “I’m going to do the solo.”

“What?” Jack looks surprised.

I smile.

“Find someone to fill in for my rhythm part. I’m going to do the solo.”

“Red! That’s my girl! Although, I don’t mean to doubt you, but it’s pretty hard.”

Emme glares at Jack. “I can do it.”

And the way she says it, there is no question at all that she can.

I’m waiting for Emme at her locker after class.

“I’d say that I don’t mean to stalk you, but …”

She doesn’t look surprised to see me, but she doesn’t look pleased, either.

“What’s up?” she asks.

I didn’t think she was going to acknowledge my existence, so I don’t really have a plan.

“We still need to record some more songs for our thesis projects. I wanted to see when, ah, you wanted to come over.”

She stares at my sling. “Can you really work the soundboard with your arm?”

“I’m willing to try.”

She lets out a small sigh. “I don’t know….”

“Please.” I feel the desperation seep into my voice and I don’t care. I need to fix this. I need Emme. I hate myself so much right now, probably more than she hates me. If that’s even possible.

She nods to herself a bit, apparently weighing the pros and cons.

“Hey, guys. Welcome back, Ethan!” Tyler approaches us and I try to look happy to see him. Okay, maybe not happy, but I try to push down the murderous rage I feel inside.

I hold Emme’s gaze as Tyler stands between us, looking back and forth, waiting to be acknowledged. Then the corner of Emme’s mouth turns up slightly and she tilts her head at me. She looks at Tyler and grabs him by the shirt and kisses him. Hard.

I’ve never been so jealous of a person (or shirt) in my life.

“Hi,” she says as she pushes him away.

His eyes are wide. Clearly not the hello he was expecting.

She can hardly look me in the eye when she finally addresses me. “Yeah, I guess I could come over later. I’ll call you.”

She and Tyler leave hand in hand.

I feel sick to my stomach.

But I deserve that and so much more.

Emme does come over as promised. But instead of heading to the studio, she sits down on the couch in our living room.

“I’m pretty mad at you, Ethan.”

“I know.”

She starts playing with the tie that’s on her shirt. “But that doesn’t excuse me from not returning your phone calls or visiting you while you were out.”

I don’t even know what to say.

She continues. “I don’t know. I felt like I needed to get back at you for what you did. Which is why I made a total fool out of myself today with Tyler in front of you. But I don’t really think there is anything that I can do to make you realize what you’ve done. I want to move on from all of this.”

“I’ll do anything to make you not hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

Part of me doesn’t believe her, although I desperately want to.

I sit down next to her and take her hand. “Emme, I will do everything possible to make this up to you, I promise.”

She doesn’t respond. She slowly pulls her hand away. “There’s something I want to show you.” She takes out her phone and hands it to me.

I see an e-mail from Juilliard telling her she’s been invited to audition in February.

“You did it!”

She gives me a weak smile. This is something she’s dreamed about for so long. The old Emme would’ve been ecstatic, and a feeling creeps up inside me that makes me wonder if I killed that part of her.

“Emme!” I jump up on the couch. “You got invited to audition at Juilliard. JUILLIARD!” I jump right next to her so she starts to shake around.

She stands up. Her eyes get wide. “Flippin’ Juilliard!” She jumps up on the couch and lets out the most glorious laugh I’ve ever heard.

I lose my balance and fall backward onto the couch.

“Ethan!” She lets out a little scream.

“I’m okay!”

She jumps off the couch, slightly out of breath, and sits back down. “I really needed this.”

I nod at her. Happy to have Emme back, even if it’s temporary.

She turns to me. “I’m sure you’ll hear any day.”

I pause for a second. “I did hear back.”

She swats at my good arm. “You were supposed to tell me!”

“You were the first person I called, but, um, you weren’t returning my phone calls.”

“Oh.” I didn’t want to remind her of why she wasn’t talking to me. “Well?”

I jump back onto the couch. “Flippin’ Juilliard!”

She cheers for me and jumps back on with me to celebrate. We bounce around like idiots for nearly half an hour. I didn’t want this moment to end. I’m afraid that the second our feet touch the floor (literally), she’ll go back to Upset Emme.

But truthfully, I’ll hold on to whatever part of her I can.

Alumni night.

Jack is uncharacteristically pacing around backstage. He finally pulls me aside. “I’m not cool with this. Emme hasn’t run through her solo once.”

Every time we’ve practiced, she’s stopped playing when the break came for her solo. She’s simply said that she’s been practicing and knows what she has to do.

I don’t doubt for a second that she’s ready. Although there’s a small part of me that’s nervous for her, worried that she might freeze up. I don’t know if it’s because she got into the Juilliard audition, or she’s becoming more comfortable singing her own songs, but Emme’s starting to get this quiet confidence about her. I’m more excited for her than anything. I want to see her perform her solo, to finally be the center of attention.

“I don’t know, man.” Jack folds his arms. “I don’t like this. It’s like she’s suddenly become the unpredictable one. Look at me! I’m a nervous wreck. My hot girlfriend is standing over there in a ridiculously short flapper dress and I can’t even enjoy it!” Jack motions toward Chloe, who is getting ready for her twenties dance number.

Jerry Shan, the junior who’s playing Emme’s part, comes over to me. “Emme looks freakishly calm.”

Emme’s been standing in a corner, staring at her guitar.

I have no idea why this isn’t freaking me out. I, more than anybody, want to see her succeed. Maybe I’m just in denial about how much is at stake once we get on that stage. If it goes poorly, her confidence will be shattered.

Ben joins us. “What’s making me nervous is that
you
are calm.
That’s
unnerving to me.”

“Can everybody relax?” I plead. “Emme is going to rock this out. There’s no doubt in my mind.”

Okay, maybe there’s a tiny fraction of doubt, but I don’t think it would help Emme if she saw everybody in the band freaking out.

Jack throws his hands up. “Okay, is this some kind of a joke? Seriously,
you
are being the voice of reason here? I can’t handle this. Please start freaking out.”

My laughter just makes Jack more agitated. So I laugh even harder.