Page 52 of A Duet of Darkness and Dreams

I don’t usually get mail unless it’s a package from my mom, and even though I shut down our conversation pretty quickly earlier, she didn’t say to expect anything. Oh god—what if this is about my applications. I put my bag down and stoop to pick up the letters.

Turning over the envelope in my hand, I see theEast Bay Chronicleemblem front and center. I frown at it, but tear it open nonetheless.

Miss Rodriguez,

After careful consideration, it is with regret that we must decline your application for the winter internship program.

My eyes burn. I figured this would come, considering Simon got the internship atEast Bay, but it still stings. Rejection never feels good on any level. As I look at the stack of other letters, an ominous feeling washes over me. Like a dark cloud rolling in when you’re frolicking in the sun. Surely there must be at leastone here that says yes, right? But as I tear open the letters, that dark, sinking feeling presses in on me until I can hardly breathe.

We’re sorry, but we are looking for someone with more experience with serious global issues at this time.

Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a place on our team.

Your writing has flair and we welcome you to reapply when you’ve had an opportunity to expand your portfolio.

Rejected.

Rejected.

Rejected.

Pain tears through me like a white-hot knife, stabbing and slicing through the layers of my very soul as I drop to my knees. The tears I’ve been fighting fall in rivulets down my face, sobs wracking my body like it’s forgotten how to perform its basic functions.

Every application is a rejection. A sea of nos, and it’s like I’m drowning.

After a while, my breathing starts to even out and I wipe at my face, numb. The overarching emotion that lingers is anger, and when I stand, I tear at the letters. Tear and tear and tear. Then I walk to the bathroom and let the pieces flutter into the toilet before flushing them away down the drain.

The sudden laughter of someone walking past my door makes me jump.Shit.For a moment I forgot the real world exists. Funny how that happens. When everything around you is falling apart—but for everyone else? The world just keeps on spinning.

I quickly gather my makeup from the counter and pile it into my travel bag. I’ll have to do it in the car on the way to Vegas. Ipromised Becks I’d do hers too. It’ll be fun. I can pull it together for one night. She deserves it, so fun it will be, even if it kills me.

Almost five hoursinto the drive, I have fixed my makeup, done Becks’s hair in a beautiful twist at the back of her head, and learned more about her past than I ever would’ve dared to guess. Thinking back to the first night I met the band, the first night I’d gone out in months, I now realize why Becks and James were so cagey when I asked my silly journalism questions. I can only imagine the trauma that goes along with escaping what is, as far as I see it, a cult. No wonder they’re so obsessed. They saved each other.

Halfway through the drive, we pull up to a diner off the I-15 to stretch our legs and grab something to eat. Carefree smiles plaster the faces of our eclectic group as the waitress delivers baskets of fries, onion rings, and cheeseburgers. Everyone is happy. And they think I’m happy too—thankfully. And while I do my best to avoid eye contact with Dave, I know he’s looking at me more carefully than anyone else.

I don’t know what to think about him, or us, if there even is an us. Somehow these situations keep piling up on top of one another. The phone conversations, the staircase at the release party, the car ride home the other night where he looked like a rabid wolf who would tear Simon to shreds if I asked him to. Again, I thought he might kiss me.

Or maybe it’s just that Iwanthim to kiss me.

Dave is a passionate person. Maybe I mistook his exuberance for life and flirtatious flair as affection beyond that of what he defined our relationship as. Friends.

“Are we shuffling around the driving arrangements for thesecond half of the drive?” Joel asks. “I’d like to take a nap so I’m fresh as a daisy when we get there.”

“I don’t think you could ever be fresh as a daisy, Joel,” Key says. “More like fresh boiled cabbage leaves.”

Joel shoves his shoulder. “Fuck off. You’re one to talk. You snore so fucking loud the walls shake.”

“I have a medical condition, thank you very much,” Key says defensively.

“A deviated septum is hardly a medical condition,” James counters. “Your halitosis on the other hand—”

Key leans across the table and points a finger at James. “You watch yourself, Walton, or I’ll mess up that pretty face of yours.”

“Not on my wedding day you won’t!” Becks says sternly, and I’m surprised by how quickly the boys switch from playful aggression to repentant children. She really has them all under her thumb.

“Anyway, what was I saying before being so rudely interrupted?” Joel ignores the way Key flips him off from across the table. “Dave can drive while I sleep, and I think Key wanted to have a nap in the back of your van, right, James?” he says finally as the waitress leaves the bill. A flurry of cash starts to appear, and I drop five dollars down to cover my food and drink and a small tip.

James nods, and I can practically hear the smirk spread across Dave’s face before he says, “That means you’re riding shotgun with me, Disco Girl.”

---