Page 101 of Once Upon a Boyband
But then Sarah shows up on my front porch.
“Oh good, you’re here,” she says when I open my front door. “We definitely need to talk.”
I invite Percy to stay—he’s earned the right with how much he’s listened to my whining all week—and the three of us settle in my living room, Percy and me on the couch, and Sarah in the chair across from us.
“Okay, things are bad,” Sarah says. “I didn’t know just how bad until I got home, but yeah. It’s not good.”
She goes down a list, checking things off on her fingers while she talks. The music room is totally packed up now, guitars gone and piano closed up. His hygiene is suffering—he smells worse than the kennels on cleanout day—and the house is a mess. Only the dogs are in good shape, because Adam has apparently thrown himself into running the rescue with single-minded determination.
When Sarah finishes, I give them a rundown of the last conversation Adam and I had, sharing everything but what he said right before he left. That feels too personal to repeat, but I don’t have to, because Sarah seems to understand exactly how her brother feels.
“He blamed himself,” she says. “And honestly, I blamed him too. At least, at first. I felt like he left me to handle everything on my own, but that’s not really fair, because he was the only reason Mom still had her house. She couldn’t work for the last two years of her life, so we had no other income but Adam’s. Midnight Rush might have kept him from us, but it also sustained us.”
“Which is a hard burden to carry when you’re only eighteen,” Percy says, and Sarah nods.
“It’s always been Adam’s nature to take care of people. Which is amazing. But I’m sure he felt a lot of pressure. AndKevin—I didn’t realize how terrible he was until I interacted with him at Mom’s funeral. With Kevin pushing the way he did, it’s a wonder Adam didn’t crack sooner. He was juggling a lot of people’s expectations.” She breathes out a sniffly sigh. “All that to say, I forgave him a long time ago for not being there when Mom died. But I don’t think he’s ever forgiven himself.”
“How did your mom feel about Adam being in Midnight Rush?” I ask.
Sarah wrinkles her forehead as she thinks. “I mean, she missed him. And there at the end, I think she was concernedfor him.About how he would feel if he didn’t see her before she…” Her words trail off, and she lifts her hand to a silver flower pendant hanging around her neck. “But I know she was proud of him. She actually moderated a fan group on Friendly Fans so she could talk about the band. The group was small, only like a hundred people or something, but they had their own fan name, and they had watch parties for media appearances, stuff like that. No one knew she was Adam’s mom, but she liked being in charge because then she could keep it a safe space where stuff stayed age-appropriate, and it gavehera place to talk about what Adam was up to with people who were as excited as she was. She tried to get me involved a few times, but I was a teenager and thought people fangirling over my brother was weird, so I was never very interested.” Sarah lets out a little chuckle. “Gosh, I haven’t thought about that in so long. I’m not even sure I ever told Adam about it.”
“Wait, wait,” I say, sitting up a little taller. “Do you remember what the group’s name was? Was it the Night Riders?”
My heart is in my throat, becauseIwas in that group.And the moderator was amazing. She was basically like a mom to all of us. Giving us advice on high school and boys and friends. I mean, there werea lotof Midnight Rush groups on Friendly Fans. The whole point of the website was to create small communities within a larger one to foster friendships and more personal connections. But what are the odds the random group I was in was the same one Adam’s mother ran?
“I don’t remember,” Sarah says. “It definitely could have been.”
“What about your mom’s username?”
“Are you thinking you were in her group or something?” Percy says.
“I might have been.”
Sarah sits up a little taller, brow furrowed. “I don’t know it off the top of my head, but I can guess. My mom’s name was Dahlia, but she was just Dolly to her friends, because of how much she loved Dolly Parton. Probably something with Dolly in it?”
I shake my head and start to laugh. “Something like DollyDaeDreams? But day was spelled differently. D-A-E.”
Sarah grins. “Dae was Mom’s middle name. So youwereinher group?”
“We talked all the time,” I say. “She gave me some of the best advice when I was dealing with my parents’ divorce. And she had this thing she always said…” I close my eyes trying to remember. “Something about worry.”
“All worry does is give a small thing a big shadow,” Sarah says.
“Yes! That’s it!”
Tears spring into Sarah’s eyes. “I don’t know why that makes me so emotional, to think you got to know her.”
It makesmeemotional, too.
I knew Adam’s mom.
We may not have met in person, but for almost three years, we chatted multiple times a week. Even today, I can hardly think of Midnight Rush without thinking of DollyDaeDreams. It’s incredibly surreal to think that I knew her then, and I know Adam now.
Like somehow, this was always meant to happen. We were always meant to be together.
“She was amazing,” I say to Sarah. “Truly. She was like a second mom. Half the time, we weren’t even talking about Midnight Rush. She was just checking in on us. Making sure everyone was okay. She always seemed to know what the band was up to, which makes so much sense now, so we relied on her to keep us in the loop. She made the group what it was.”
Sarah shakes her head. “I had no idea her group actually mattered to people. I always thought it was kind of silly.”
