Sun Damage (The Sunshine Series) (5 page)

He’s staring directly at me, the same way he always does—like he can see through me and gather the information he needs. Only now, I think he actually can.
 “I want to fix this,” he says.

“
I know.” My voice cracks.

Then his hand is on mine, grasping it so lightly that pulling free and walki
ng away would be effortless but I find that I’m too tired. So I let the slight tingle from the contact between our skin spread through my fingers and travel up my arm. I let him pull my hand forward so it’s in between our two bodies.

“
I love you,” he whispers.

That’s all it takes to break the contact. That’s all I need to almost fall apart in front of him as I take my hand from his.

I love him too, but now things are complicated. Now love is something that once again, has become something I don’t recognize, and that scares me more than anything else.

“
I should go,” I say, not looking back as I head upstairs alone.

My hands are shaking by the time I’m at Boo and Trei’s door. I have to open and close my fists a few times to make it stop. I knock three times but it’s too soft for anyone to hear. So I knock again. This time, I use too much force and it comes out as more of a slam.

I’m not sure if the footsteps I hear coming toward the door are actually that loud or if it’s my heightened sense of hearing allowing me to tune in to it. Either way, I have to resist the urge to turn around and act like I was never here.

Besides, Trei’s at the door before I can hide.

Sh
e’s wearing jeans and a tie dye T-shirt with her straight black hair is in a ponytail. I notice that she smells a little like a campfire, like she was burning incense or something, but it’s not a recent smell. I’m almost positive I wouldn’t have noticed that before.

Her eyes go wide when she takes me in.

“Sophie, oh my God,” she says.

I gulp.

Trei grabs my arm and drags me inside, hugging me like I’ve been away at war, and every ounce of apprehension disappears.

“Oh my God,” she repeats into my neck. I can smell the burned wood on her even more now, like I’ve stuck my face in a pile of ashes. “Are you okay?” she asks. “You look awful.”

My body stiffens. Maybe something about me is different. I was stupid to think they wouldn’t notice. But before I can dwell on it, Boo enters the room.

“Where the
fuck
have you been?” he yells.

I’ve never seen Boo like this. I’ve seen him angry before–many times–but not like this. I’ve never seen that gleam in his eye, I’ve never seen his face get so red, or heard his words come out sharp, like broken glass. It scares me.

I open my mouth to say something, but no words will leave it. Fortunately, he has more to say.

“Do you know how many shows we’ve had to turn down? Do you even
care
?” Trei shuts the door behind us, leaning against it and staring at the floor. “Not to mention how worried we were about you! What the
hell
is wrong with you?”

“I–” I stutter. Boo’s never made me stutter before. “I’m sorry.”

He snorts. “Yeah. I’m sure you are.”

I don’t know what to do now. I don’t know what I can possibly say to make any of this better.

“You still haven’t answered me,” he says, out of breath and not looking at me. He’s crossing and uncrossing his arms, like he’s about to explode from the inside out and he’s trying to hold himself together. “Where were you? I called Jade and he didn’t know, Myles had no clue–which I don’t believe for a second, and you don’t answer your phone for weeks.”

Now he turns to look at me, stepping in closer. “You were gone for three weeks and didn’t even bother to tell us what you were doing or where you were. That might have been fine when we were back in New Jersey, but this is our
career
now. You can’t do something like that without uprooting everyone else. You know, your
band mates.
”

Boo takes a deep breath, winding
himself up for more blows. “I mean,” he says, throwing his hands in the air. “The last time I saw you was when we were setting up for the basement show and you just–POOF!–disappear and never explain why.”

I had almost forgotten about the dingy basement and the last time I saw him, frozen because of Michael.

Trei finally unglues herself from the door and busies herself with a pile of laundry on the couch, folding and re-folding a towel three times before setting it aside.

Then Boo’s tone changes so suddenly that this, too, makes me uneasy.
“I get it. The whole Stevie thing was–is–hard,” he says. “But we lost him too.”

This is probably the sentence that causes me to unravel. Tears form in the corners of my eyes and spill over without my permission.

“I’m sorry,” I repeat. It’s the only thing I can say. Somewhere I know I shouldn’t feel so guilty. It’s not my fault I was infected. It’s not my fault Myles wouldn’t let me leave Evan’s house. It’s not my fault I died and came back.

Boo
’s expression softens. “You’re not going to tell us, are you?” Surprisingly, he’s not angry about this. It’s just a realization and nothing more.

I squeeze my eyes shu
t. I can’t tell them the truth but I can’t lie, either. Both options are too hard and too complicated.

“
I’m sorry.” This time, the words don’t leave my mouth, I form them without adding any sound.

“
I know you are.” He’s sincere and not sarcastic when he says it now. “I know.”

I sniff.

“So,” he says, finally closing in for a hug. “Just don’t make us worry like that ever again, okay?” He’s crying now too. I can smell the salt and I can feel the warm dampness in the fabric of my shirt.

I nod against him.
“Okay,” I whisper.

“
It’s a good thing we love you so much,” Boo says once we’ve stopped crying, the yelling and anger gone.”Because we had to make some executive decisions while you were gone.”

I turn to Trei, who’s come back over to us now that it’s safe.

“What kind of executive decisions?” I ask.

“
Well, we had to finalize the merch we want to sell,” she explains.

Boo steps away from me so he can grab a box from the corner of the kitchen and set it in front of me.
“Go ahead, look.”

I kneel down and peel the cardboard flaps away, the surface like sandpaper against my fingertips. Inside are folded black and white T-shirts, and tucked in next to them, hard plastic CD cases.

“This is our merch?” I ask. “I thought we had more time to think about what we wanted to sell.”

I
’m more comfortable now, talking about band things instead of my life, which has become even more separated from my friends than before.

“
Just look at it,” Boo says.

I take out a shirt first. Printed on the front are black outlines of a piano, violin, and
drum kit with the words “We like to play” below it. When I flip the shirt over, all of the instruments are smashed and destroyed with the word “Hard.” Under them. The band’s name runs across the top in old script-like letters:
An Anachronism
.

When I unfold a bl
ack T-shirt, the design is the same, except it’s in white.

The CD cases have the same design as the front of them.

All of this is overwhelming but my eyes keep getting caught on our name. The name we took so long to think of, the one we finally all agreed fit our band’s sound the best. We were in Boo and Trei’s house. Then we became a real band. This is what I’ve wanted since I was little. I never imagined it would get this far, or work out this well, despite the roadblocks and non-band related problems. Part of me is so happy that I can barely contain myself. The other half is terrified of what might happen and if it’s going to affect not only my relationship with the band, but the only friends I’ve had in my life.

“
You guys, this is amazing.”

“
No, no, no,” Trei corrects. “You haven’t even heard the
most
amazing part yet.”

I finally look up from all of the things with our name on it and both of them are smiling at me.

“What do you mean?”

“
Sophie,” she says. “We’re going on tour.”

My eyes shift from her to Boo and they both stare at me like their eyeballs are about to pop out of their heads.

“When...” I have to steady myself. Tour means leaving. Tour means Michael might find me. Us. I haven’t even been able to process that he might still want to kill me, maybe even more so now that I’ve turned, but here it is now, and I have to hide it from two of the most important people in my life. I don’t know why, but keeping things from them now is somehow different than when I was keeping my personal past from them before. This time, they could get hurt too. Like Stevie did.

I swallow
, hoping it’ll clear the lump in my throat and distract me from my thoughts. “When did this happen?”

They don
’t notice my internal struggle. “About a week ago,” Trei says. “Manny came up to us and asked if we would be interested in being their opening band. He wanted to tell you personally,” she pauses. “But...you know.”

“
I–” Words fail, breaking apart in my mouth.

Fortunately, my friends don
’t expect me to say anything else. They embrace me in a heap of hugs again. I can’t breathe for more than one reason.

I’m happy
but I’m more scared shitless than anything else. About touring, being a real band, about Michael and what will happen if he finds me.

And I will.

I hear it as if he were in the room with us. It makes my entire body tense up. Was it real? Did I just really hear his voice in my head or did I imagine it?

“
You okay?” Trei asks.

I realize that one of them has said something to me but I missed it.
“Sorry, what?”

“
I
said
,” Boo slows down his speech. “You look tired.”

“
Yeah,” Trei agrees. She comes closer and places an arm behind my back. I can feel how bony her wrist is through my trench coat. “You sure you’re okay now? We don’t want you to feel obligated to do something with the band if you’re not ready to go back to work.”

Boo
’s serious again. “Right,” he says. “It’s been hard,
real
hard on everyone.”

“
So if you don’t think you can do it,” Trei says, “We’ll understand. There’s always next summer.”

Not for you.

This time, it sounds like the voice comes from right behind me and I turn my head away from my friends just to make sure he
’s not there. There’s no one, just the couch with folded laundry on it. When I turn back to Boo and Trei, they’re staring at me, concern written in their expressions. “Of course I want to tour!” I hope it sounds as sincere and excited as I meant for it to be.

“
Okay,” Trei says. “Well, we leave on Sunday, so you need to go to Midnight and fill out some paperwork before then.”

“
What day is it?” I blurt.

Boo rolls his
eyes and I’m thankful he’s annoyed and not worried. “Tuesday,” he says. “You have some time.”

Not much.
Michael’s voice echoes in the back of my mind.

“
Paperwork?” I ask to distract myself.

“
Yeah,” Boo says, waving a dismissive hand. “You know...in case we get hurt or die on the tour we can’t sue the club.”

I know he
’s joking, but it’s really hard to laugh. “Okay,” I say after a few seconds of awkward silence. “I’ll get on it.”

I turn on my heel to leave when I don
’t really want to. I haven’t seen my two best friends in weeks. If I stay, they’ll want to talk about where I was and what was wrong and I can’t handle that.

“
Well, I’ve got some stuff to take care of, I guess,” I say. “You want to hang out later maybe?” I start to inch back to the door.

“
Yeah,” Boo says. “We could watch movies. Get some pizza. Like old times.”

Just like old times, only now everything
’s different. “I’ll text you,” I say. They both smile as I leave, like there’s nothing out of the ordinary at all, like there’s nothing different about me, like the monsters aren’t about to come out from under the bed.

Chapter 5

Caught Up

“Hear my voice, it’s saying something and I hope you’re concentrating.”–The Talking Heads

As soon as I’m back at my apartment, Jade wastes no time in jumping in with the questions. Fortunately, none of them concern my new life.