Page 95 of Sing Me Home
All those years loving Charlie from afar, I thought I knew what real restraint was.
I didn’t.
Not until I was forced to stand on that stage, singing a love song about a girl who was sprinting from the concert like hot lava was nipping at her heels. It took every bit of willpower I possessed to stay there and finish the next two songs.
The second I was done, Bowen met me at the bottom of the stairs and showed me a TikTok someone had already posted. My hands fisted into my hair as I watched the whole sickening thing go down again, this time with words.
I jogged for the school, texting like mad.
Hey. I’m so sorry. Are you okay?
I burst through the band room doors—the makeshift green room—and scrambled, hunting for my truck keys. I dropped them in my pocket and sent another frantic text.
Don’t listen to a word they said. You’re perfect and beautiful and there’s nothing I would change about you. Please believe that.
Dad stepped into the room. “Hey. You have to do the press junket.”
“Dad,” was all I said, not knowing how I could go one more minute without seeing Charlie in person and making sure she was okay. In the last ten minutes, I’d run every worst-case scenario through my head, all of them ending with me coming home to find her gone for good.
“I know.” He looked sick. “Theo said he won’t let her out of his sight.”
I exhaled, my stomach uncoiling a smidge.
Both of our phones went off.
Charlie
I need all the adults to come over as soon as you get this. I have something I need to tell you all. See you soon.
My heart put a chokehold on my throat. She was going to tell us she was leaving. She was done being part of a famous family. And could I blame her after tonight?
“Cash,” Dad said. “Let’s get this done and then you can head over. She’ll be okay.”
Would she?
“Twenty minutes,” I said to Dad. “That’s it and I’m gone.”
He nodded. “Twenty minutes.”
It killed me to put a smile on my face and answer their questions but I did it. True to his word, right at the twenty-minute mark, my dad stepped up to the microphone and took over, excusing me.
Forty-five minutes after she’d left the concert, Dad and I came rolling over the hill to her parents’ house. Vehicles lined the driveway. Despite the hour, the front yard buzzed with kids playing touch football. Whatever was happening inside had pushed bedtimes to the back burner.
“What up, Cash! Funcle Ford!” Blaze hooted as he dodged out of his sister’s grasp.
I gave him a hasty wave and jogged for the front door. We could see the family through the sidelights and hear their loud chatter, so we didn’t bother knocking.
Charlie stood in front of her TV, facing everyone else who’d gathered in the living room. I started for her but she held her hand up, silently asking me to stay where I was.
Ouch.
Her shoulders rose and fell a few times, eyes on her perfectly green-pastel polished toes, and then she began, “I didn’t ask you all to come because of what happened tonight.” She lifted her eyes. “But what happened tonight is why I’m finally telling you the whole truth.”
“Do we not know the whole truth?” Granny hissed to Gramps. “Is there actually more?”
“Yes,” Charlie said, though she wasn’t supposed to hear what Granny had said. Granny’s face confirmed it. But we Duprees had never been great at whispering. “Unfortunately, there’s more.” Her hands twisted around each other as she gave us a worried look. “I’d burn my entire life to the ground and take this to my grave to keep you all out of it.”
“Charlie,” Tally said, horrified. “We’re your family. We’re going to love you no matter what.”
