Worlds colliding.
Kat drops her lipstick into her bag. “What kind of music are you into, Sophie?”
“Mostly modern stuff,” Sophie says. “I listen to a lot of remixes, I guess?”
“Have you heard the Manic Pixie Dreamboats? Or Chekhov’s Toothbrush?”
Sophie gives her a blank look. “Guess not,” she mutters. Suddenly her face pinches—it lasts only a split second, but it’s long enough for me to notice.
“Soph?”
“What?”
I lift my eyebrows at her. “What was that, just now?”
“Nothing,” she says quickly, right before it happens again. This time, she slides along my keyboard amp to the floor, clutching her abdomen.
All her life, Sophie’s never complained about illness or injury. Ankle sprains, common colds, stomachaches—she waves it all off. It’s why I’m convinced whatever is going on right now is something more serious.
“Shit, are you okay?” Dylan says.
“Fine,” she squeaks, but her eyes are squeezed shut.
Everything around me dims as I focus solely on her, my mind spinning.
“We’re on in ten,” someone says. Chase? Dylan? I’m not sure.
“Sophie?” I lower myself to the floor next to her as she tucks her knees to her chest and shakes her head.
“What’s going on?” Aziza.
“Is it cramps?” Kat.
I need everyone to be quiet for a moment so I can understand what’s happening.
“Is it—” I ask Sophie, unsure how to finish the question. Is it the transplant? Is it me? Slowly, almost imperceptibly, she nods. It’s a boulder shoved into my chest. The lowest A on a piano. “Has this happened before?”
“A . . . few times.”
Five worried faces peer down at us. Chase is the only one who knows about the transplant, and I’m not sure I want to get into my—our—entire medical history right now with the rest of the band.
“Should we call an ambulance?” he says.
“No!” Sophie cries out, a little too loudly. Then, more softly: “No. I don’t want to freak out my parents.”
But she looks so tiny curled up against the amp, hair falling in her face as she clings to her knees.
I did this to her, and I’ve never felt so helpless.
Is this how Sophie felt with me for all those years?
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask, gently brushing her knee. Because she’s too good. Because she didn’t want me to feel the way I do now.
“It doesn’t happen very often, and the pain—I can usually take a few ibuprofen and it’ll go away.”
“Usually,” I repeat, running my hands over my face.
“I have some,” Kat volunteers, rummaging through her messenger bag and passing Sophie a blue bottle. I hand her the water bottle she gave me so she can swallow them.
“Let’s give her some space,” Dylan says, and everyone but me backs up a few paces in the small green room.
But Sophie—she scoots closer to me, her body crumpling against mine, and I stretch an arm around her to rub her back. I’ve always liked the way her body fits against mine, that I’m able to hold her like this. Chase’s eyes meet mine, a frown tugging at his mouth. Don’t look at me like that, I want to tell him. This isn’t anything but one best friend comforting another.
“It happens sometimes, right after a transplant?” I say, more to convince myself that this is normal. Right after. It’s been more than six months. I have no idea if this is normal.
“Sometimes,” she says. “Sometimes later. Sometimes it lasts a long time. That’s what they said. There haven’t been a ton of studies done about chronic pain in organ donors yet.”
“A long time as in the rest of your life?”
She doesn’t say anything.
Someone knocks on the green room door. “Diamonds Are Forever?”
“For Never,” Dylan corrects.
“Right. You guys are up in five.”
“We should head out there,” Aziza says, but I don’t budge. To me, she adds: “You . . . want me to help you with your amp?” Her kit’s already assembled behind the stage. Everyone else grabs their instruments.
Sophie is not okay, and it’s my fucking fault. How can I go out there and play “Precipitation” and “Bad Ideas” knowing she’s back here suffering?
“Peter,” Sophie says softly, as though reading my mind. “You have to go.”
“Give me a couple minutes,” I tell the band.
“Okay.” Kat offers Sophie a sympathetic smile. “I hope you feel better.”
Everyone leaves but Chase, Sophie, and me. Three statues in a tiny room. Chase is still standing, guitar slung low across his chest, staring down at us as he turns a pick over and over in one hand.
Sophie breaks the silence. “I—I think I’ll take an Uber home.” The pain makes her stammer. Twists my heart. “I really want to hear you guys, but—”
“We’ll have other shows,” I say, but my voice sounds distant, like it belongs to someone else. “I’ll come home right after.”
“She’s going to be fine,” Chase says, and maybe it’s meant to be reassuring, gentle, but I detect an undeniable thread of annoyance. “We’re only going to be out there for half an hour, tops.”
Half an hour, and then I can rush home to her. Okay.
I stand and hold out my hands to help her up. As I pull her to her feet, she gasps, collapsing against me, and I only just barely manage to keep her from falling to the floor.
“Sophie!”
“It’s—fine,” she grits out, grabbing at her abdomen, but it’s so clearly not. She doesn’t have to put on a mask with me. She needs someone to help her outside, to sit in the car with her, to make sure she gets home okay.
I can’t leave her. And despite that my band is waiting for me, I don’t want to leave her either.
Over the top of her head, I flick my gaze over to Chase. “I can’t go. Onstage, I mean. You’re”—I swallow—“you’re going to have to play without me.”
Chase’s shoulders rise and fall. His eyes move between Sophie and me, and then he nods once, as though suddenly understanding something. It makes my stomach drop to my toes because that is not what this is. He can’t even see it. Can’t tell the difference between what this is and what it isn’t.
“We played without a keyboard before,” Chase says. “I guess we can do it again.”
Then he’s gone, leaving Sophie and me alone in the green room, pressed up against my keyboard amp that won’t be amplifying any keyboards tonight.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie’s saying as she slides back down to the floor, and I join her there. “I’m so sorry.”
“Hey.” I touch her knee. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
The sounds of stage setup echo back to us: the beats of a bass drum, a guitar lick from Chase. I can’t hear them introduce themselves, but I imagine it: We’re Diamonds Are for Never, and we were always meant to have only four people!
Then the opening chords of our cover of “This Is Radio Clash.” Their cover. My chest aches with longing, though I’m confident I made the right choice. I’m here with Sophie, who gave me more than anyone ever could.
“I’ll get an Uber,” I say. “If you think you can make it out there?”
“I might need a few minutes.” She pauses, and then: “Could you maybe just call my dad? That way you could stay here, and I don’t have to ruin your entire night.”
“Sophie,” I start, intent on telling her she isn’t—of course she isn’t—but she just raises her eyebrows, and I relent.
He and Sophie’s mom are at a restaurant, but he says they’ll be here in fifteen minutes.
“My parents are obsessed with yours now,” I say to Sophie, trying to lighten the mood. To distract her.
“The feeling seems to be mutual.”
Her makeup is smeared, and as though compelled by instinct, I reach up to swipe off the black streaks beneath her
eyes.
“What are you doing?” she asks, a laugh in her voice.
“I . . . don’t know,” I say, laughing now too. “Your makeup looked so nice earlier.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”
We’re quiet for a few moments, Sophie’s mascara tattooed on my thumb. Her knees are still pulled up to her stomach, and while I’m sitting close to her, we’re not quite touching. Together we listen to the applause after one song and then another.
“I’m so sorry,” she says to her knees for the twelfth time. “I feel shitty about all of this. I didn’t want you to miss the show, I swear. I know you guys have been practicing so much, and—”
“Hey. Stop.” I scoot closer, placing a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to look at me. “This is exactly where I want to be right now. Obviously it would be better if you were feeling okay, though.”
She lifts her head, and something about her expression, the pureness of it, kills me a little. It’s gratitude and pain and still, I think, love. I’m not sure what kind—only that I’m lucky to have it, something I wonder if I forgot or at least pushed to the back of my mind over the past few months. I’m lucky to have this girl in my life, this girl who changed my life.
“Thank you,” she whispers.
“Is there anything I can do for you right now? Before your parents get here?”
She shakes her head. “Maybe—you could just hold me?”
“I can absolutely do that.”
I put one arm around her shoulders and one around her legs, and she leans into me, settling one of her palms against my chest. Tonight she smells like some foreign perfume mixed with something achingly familiar. I rest my chin in her hair, and although it tickles, I don’t dare move.
We stay nearly frozen like that for a while, breathing each other in.
When Sophie’s parents arrive, promising to call the doctor on Monday, I load my keyboard and amp into their car but decline a ride home. Instead I hide in the back of the crowd during the next two bands’ sets and then wait in the loading zone behind the venue for Chase. Regardless of how worried I am about Sophie, she’ll be fine with her parents, and Chase and I left too many words unsaid between us.
It’s colder than it usually is in February in Seattle, and my hands are frozen. If I tried to play piano now, it would be slow and stilted.
Chase is the last one out, after I’ve traded awkward, sympathetic good-byes with the rest of the band. At first he says nothing as he loads his guitar case into his car. Then he shuts the trunk and walks right over to me.
“I’m not going to pretend I’m not angry about this,” he says, hands jammed in his pockets, breath meeting the air in white puffs. “But I also want to make sure she’s okay.”
“Her parents picked her up. They’ll go to the doctor next week.”
“Okay.” He’s quiet for a few moments.
“I’d hope someone’s health would be more important than some show.” It’s not the nicest thing to say, I realize that. But his coldness toward Sophie is a little maddening.
“Did I not just ask how she was?”
“Not before informing me how pissed you were. So I could tell you really cared.” I cross my arms, unsure where this combativeness is coming from, this protectiveness of Sophie.
“Seriously?” he says. “You bailed on us!”
“Because the girl who gave me a kidney was in pain! I’m sorry if that takes precedence.”
“And you’re a doctor? You staying with her made that much of a difference?”
That hits a nerve. “Yeah. It did.”
Chase scuffs the frozen ground with his shoe. “Is she always going to come first?” he asks, his brows drawn in a way that makes him look more hurt than angry. It’s not an accusation. It’s an honest question, and it makes me think.
“I—don’t know.” I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Tonight she came first. She had to. Will she come first for a few more months? Years? As long as her kidney is functioning in my body?
He’s shaking his head. “Peter. Sophie loves you, and not just as a friend. It’s . . . frankly pretty obvious.”
My first instinct is to deny it—but nothing comes out of my mouth. If it’s true, there’s something undeniably flattering about it. Something that ignites a dormant part of my heart.
Something I felt when I was holding her earlier.
“I really like you,” he continues. “But . . . I don’t want to get in the middle of whatever you have with Sophie, and it’s becoming clear that I am.”
“You’re not,” I insist, not fully believing myself.
“I felt it when we were ice-skating. And then you and me, at your house . . .” He blushes. “I thought it was going to be fine. I thought I would be able to ignore the deep connection you two have because you and I were building something of our own. When it’s only the two of us, Peter, it’s perfect. But I don’t want to be constantly competing. Because you know what? She’s always going to win. She’s known you longer, and she made a sacrifice that, to be honest, I’m not sure I ever could.”
“Sophie is my best friend. I’ve known her practically my entire life.”
“I’m not asking you to stop being friends with her. I know there’s plenty of stuff I’m not going to understand.”
“I’m not asking you to understand! Just to try.” I throw up my hands. “She—the entire reason I can even do this with the band is because of her.”
“And what she did was amazing,” Chase says. “I won’t ever deny that. I don’t want to be jealous, but I am, and I know part of that is my fault. I’m jealous of your best friend who gave you a kidney—because she gave you that and now she wants more from you, more than you want to give, maybe, and you won’t tell her no. You won’t tell her you need space. Maybe you feel like you owe her, or—”
“Don’t use that word,” I hiss at him. “Please. I don’t—I can’t go through life thinking I owe her.”
A few late concertgoers make their way out of the venue, clutching their coats against the cold. Laughing.
“I think—” he starts when they’re out of earshot, and then immediately stops. Brings a fist to his mouth, as though quite literally preventing himself from saying whatever he’s about to say next. “I think we don’t have a real chance until you figure things out with Sophie first.”
A strange sound tumbles out of my mouth. “What are you talking about?” There’s nothing to figure out with Sophie.
“Come on. You can’t be that naive.” There’s a harshness in his tone that wasn’t there a second ago, as though my perceived naivete offends him.
I take a few breaths, a few steps back. “I don’t get why you’d even say something like that.”
“Peter—Jesus Christ. You’re so fucking smart. How do you not get it?” He holds out his arms as though reaching peak frustration. Chase probably curses more than I do, but there’s something staggering about the way he wields it this time. “There’s something there. I don’t know if it’s that you guys have been friends forever or what, but . . . there’s something there.”
There’s something there.
Is there?
Sophie dancing on a football field.
Sophie kissing me at that party.
Sophie in the green room next to me, her body against mine.
My mind is like a scratchy old record, unable to play the track I thought I wanted. Instead it’s skittering all over the place.
“I like you,” I tell him.
“And I think some part of you might still like her, too.” It’s a tissue-paper theory, light as air.
I hold it in my hand, testing its weight.
Sophie with a scar to prove how much I mean to her.
Sophie. Sophie. Sophie.
It’s entirely possible he sees something I don’t. Something I haven’t seen in a while.
“I don’t—” I start, but I don’t trust myself anymore. “Chase
, please.”
“Don’t make this harder than it already is.” He rakes a hand through his hair. “I’m giving you permission to pick her. Okay? She wins.”
Those words cut deep. He says them so matter-of-factly. “I don’t need your permission,” I fire back.
Behind his glasses, his eyes blaze. “I know that. I was trying to be civil about all of this. But it doesn’t seem like that’s possible anymore.”
My heart is racing. “Wait. Are we broken up? Is that what’s happening?”
A beat. Then: “Yeah,” he says, softly now. “Yeah. I guess we are.”
Your first boyfriend is supposed to break your heart, Chase said all those weeks ago, and then shattered mine in a parking lot at midnight. A freaking premonition, that’s what it was.
I don’t respond. Can’t. The cold has fused my jaw shut. I stand frozen in the parking lot as he gets in his car and pulls away. It’s only after he’s gone that I fumble on my phone for the bus schedule.
I’m going home, but not to my house. There’s only one person I want to—need to—see after all this. The force of it is so strong, a buzzing beneath my skin. And it makes me wonder if Chase was right.
CHAPTER 29
SOPHIE
I NEED TO SEE YOU.
The text from Peter sends sparks through my body.
He needs me.
He needs me.
It’s past midnight and the house is quiet. Tabby, Josh, and Luna are at his place, and my parents went to sleep downstairs shortly after they thought I did. I’ve been in bed, but I haven’t been sleeping. For a while the pain kept me awake, but eventually it faded.
I missed Montana’s dance sleepover because of Peter, and he missed his set because of me. There’s an odd poetry to that. We’ve always been intertwined, our lives tangled. And now we are a great big knot.
Come over, I message Peter, and then I creep out of bed and into the bathroom across the hall, certain there’s enough electricity in my body to make my hair stand on end. Quietly I brush my teeth. I put my hair up and then back down. I change out of pajamas and into cuter pajamas.
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