Sunkissed, Kasie West [best authors to read TXT] 📗

I was looking up, thinking. Brooks had his notebook out and everyone onstage was staring at me. “You want me to play your game, but won’t teach me all the rules,” Screen Me said. It was the lyric I had offered that night. I remembered being nervous about it, feeling self-conscious. Onscreen, as the guys gave positive feedback, the video zoomed in closer and closer to my face. Finally I broke into a smile, which then became a still image and faded to black.

Everyone was silent for at least ten seconds. Then my sister closed the laptop. I looked at her and said, “Wow, Lauren, you are really good at that. No wonder you have six thousand subscribers.”

Her cheeks went pink. “Thank you.”

Mom stood, gestured toward the bedroom with her head, and Dad followed.

“You are totally going to get to sing at the festival,” Lauren said with a happy clap.

I hoped she was right. And if she was, it was all because of her. I leaned over and gave her a crushing hug. “Thank you.”

Lauren and I walked through camp hand in hand. Free! No more being grounded, no more worrying about my parents turning in the guys. Mom and Dad agreed that I could sing in the festival and do whatever I needed to do in the next week to prepare for that. And that’s where we were headed now, to tell Brooks we needed to resume band practice. We only had one week to get everything perfect!

“Avery!” I heard from behind me. I turned to see Maricela waving.

I pulled Lauren to a halt as Maricela collided with me in a hug.

“I missed you this week. Brooks told me you’ve been grounded!” she said. “How did they find out?”

“Well….”

“You can tell her,” Lauren said. “I was a jealous tattletale.”

“No, it’s fine. It all worked out.”

“So where are you going now?”

“To talk to Brooks.” I couldn’t wait to see him. It felt like forever.

“You’re heading the wrong way,” she said.

I pointed up the hill toward the employee cabins. “He’s not up there?”

“No…” She tilted her head, like I should already know what she was about to say. “He’s in the lodge…for band practice.”

“Oh! Perfect!” I’d told him I would be grounded for a week. It was exactly a week. Maybe he was setting things up for a final sign. When I walked in the door tonight and he saw me, he’d know once and for all that hope wasn’t dead.

I swung Lauren and I around and as we walked away, I called back to Maricela, “You’re still going to the festival, right?”

“Yes!” she said.

“Avery, you’re going to rip my arm out of its socket,” Lauren said as we continued down the path. “I know you’re excited to see your boyfriend, but you need to calm down.”

I loosened my grip on her. “He’s not my boyfriend.”

“Technicalities.”

“By the way, when we get back to internet,” I said, “I’m going to watch every single one of your videos.”

“That’s days’ and days’ worth. Don’t worry, I’ll tell you the ones to skip. I might completely delete my seventh-grade year. Eighth grade has a really crappy few months in the middle…” She continued to give me a rundown until we reached the lodge.

D was behind the desk, and if she was surprised to see us, she didn’t act like it. She just smiled. Almost too big.

I thought maybe it was all in my head until Lauren said under her breath, “That was weird. Since when is she ever happy to see us?”

I just waved; I was too excited to read into anything D did tonight. We reached the doors to the theater and I swung one open.

Music was already playing, drifting down the aisles and between the seats and filling the whole air. I was happy we were adding the drums and bass to the song; it would make it bigger for the bigger venue.

It took me too long to realize there was a voice mixed in with the music as well. A voice I recognized.

Lauren gave a little squeal next to me. “Ian?”

The lit stage displayed the band members perfectly, each in their designated spots: Kai on drums, Levi on bass, Brooks on guitar, and Ian behind the microphone.

A big smile took over Lauren’s face. Then she seemed to realize what I’d realized the second I saw him—I’d been replaced—and her smile faded.

I stopped, going still, and watched as Ian leaned into the microphone, perfectly steady on his feet, and sang “Rewriting History,” our audition song. He sounded good.

“Let’s go find out what’s going on,” Lauren said.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“But they can’t do that to you,” she said.

“Ian was in the band first.”

I didn’t know if we were talking too loud or someone just finally saw us, but the music stopped in a sporadic waning—guitar first, then Ian’s voice, and finally the bass and drums.

Kai raised both hands in the air. “Hi!”

We walked forward. I wasn’t brave enough to look at Brooks yet; if I did, I wasn’t sure what I’d do.

“You’re back?” Lauren asked Ian as we walked up the stairs.

He reached a hand up to his forehead, where his stitches had been. There was now a thin, dark pink line. “Not back, back.”

As I started to take a relieved breath, he said, “Just back to sing for the festival.”

And just like that, any last bit of hope I’d been holding on to vanished. Hope was for suckers.

“What do you mean?” Lauren said, and I grabbed her hand and squeezed.

“It’s fine,” I said. “This is perfect. Lauren already has great footage of you guys. She can pick up where she left off.” After having seen what an amazing job she’d done on the video for the parents, I knew she could make this band documentary something special. And since I hadn’t been honest with her, she had nothing of my singing journey. But she had tons of footage of Ian. She deserved this. It