Chapter 26

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Laney

Adam holds onto me for a long moment after he says the words, then he presses a kiss to my temple, murmurs an "I'm sorry" into my hair, and turns and walks out the back door.

I know, instinctively, that I shouldn't follow him. Adam has shown me that he needs solitude and time to process his emotions, and I get the sense he just admitted something to me that he's never admitted to anyone before.

So I let him go.

When he's halfway across the field beside the barn, I call Goldie and send her outside after him, watching until she reaches his side, and his hand falls to her head.

At least he won't be completely alone.

It feels wrong to just leave, and I cling to the hope that Adam might return, so I do the dinner dishes while I wait. I package up the leftovers and put them in the fridge. I load the dishwasher. I hand wash our wine glasses and leave them on the counter to dry.

But that only takes twenty minutes, and there's still no sign of Adam.

I don't know what else to do but leave, so I scoop Ringo up from where he's been sniffing at my feet and go home.

There are so many things I want to say to Adam.

Starting with I love you.

That became perfectly clear when we were standing in his kitchen, and I wished with my whole entire soul that I could hug the hurt right out of him.

But I also want to tell him he's wrong—that he deserves every happiness. I recognize why he blames himself, but he was just a kid. A kid dealing with a lot of pressure, surrounded by a lot of adults who did not have his best interest at heart. If I were making the call, I would lay the blame squarely at Kevin's feet. But I'm not the one who lost my mom, so my feelings aren't nearly as tangled as Adam's.

When I get home, I send Adam a text asking him to let me know when he gets home safe.

I type out and delete a hundred more messages, but it doesn't feel right to send any of them. Adam doesn't need my reassurances, he needs his mom's. And I can't give him that. No one can.

An hour later, Adam finally responds.

Adam

Home safe.

A few minutes later, another pops up.

Adam

Thank you, Laney.

Laney

Thank you for telling me.

I'm here, okay? Whatever you need.

I send the message hoping he'll respond, but nothing comes through.

So I wait.

And wait.

Tuesday night turns into Wednesday, then bleeds into Thursday, and soon, it's the weekend, I haven't talked to Adam in five horrible days, and I'm beginning to think I might completely lose my mind.

Right before Adam walked out of his kitchen, when he said he didn't think he deserved any of it, I assumed he was talking about fame. But the longer we go without talking, the more I'm starting to wonder if he was also talking about me.

If he's convinced himself that his past actions somehow negate him from experiencing any happiness.

It doesn't make any sense. But grief doesn't always play by the rules. And while I'm definitely not an expert on these things, I'm pretty sure Adam is still grieving.

Percy is over, and we've just finished Saturday morning yoga at my neighbor's studio, but I'm about as zen as a sugar-hyped preschooler in Chuck E. Cheese. I can't relax. Can't focus on anything but my all-consuming worry for Adam.

I've texted him two more times in the past week. Once to send a picture of Ringo, who, as fully expected, is the sweetest boy on the planet. And a second time to ask him if he's doing okay.

He hearted the photo of Ringo, but he didn't answer my question.

Finally, on Thursday, I texted Sarah just to make sure he was still alive and eating and taking care of himself, but she couldn't offer much by way of encouragement. She'd been out of town since Sunday visiting a friend in Tennessee and won't be back until Friday morning.

She could at least guarantee he was alive because they'd texted multiple times about rescue business, but he hadn't mentioned our conversation at all.

"Are you googling Midnight Rush again?" Percy asks from the couch beside me.

"Obsessively," I answer, not even trying to hide my phone.

When Freddie texted me the final cut of "The Start of Forever," we texted back and forth enough for me to know they have no choice but to go forward with the concert in Nashville, as well as the two in Los Angeles and Chicago, even without Adam, and promotion is in full swing.

It's possible reading every scrap of news is my coping mechanism for not talking to Adam.

Freddie, Leo, and Jace have all made individual appearances on various talk shows, but so far, they haven't made any together, a strategy that likely has everything to do with Adam's absence. Ticket sales open any day now, so I'm surprised they still haven't mentioned that Adam won't be there. That feels like something fans need to know before they decide to go. But knowing Freddie and his perpetual optimism, he's likely hoping Adam will change his mind.

I've been careful not to let my love for Midnight Rush influence my feelings, but I can't help but wish for the same thing.

Especially when I listen to "The Start of Forever."

The song sounds like Midnight Rush, but better. Mature. Grounded, somehow. And Adam's voice—it was amazing when he was singing around the fire, smiling at me whenever he caught my eye. But on the track, the rich tone of his voice comes through loud and clear.

According to Freddie, they won't keep the song in the setlist without Adam, and they won't release it, either. I recognize Freddie trying to do the right thing, and it means a lot. But it still kills me to think that no one will ever hear this song but me.

"Anything new?" Percy asks.

"Freddie was on Jimmy Kimmel," I say. "But that's it."

"It's starting to look funny that they aren't doing any appearances together," Percy says, and I breathe out a sigh.

"I know."

"I'm not saying I blame him. But shouldn't the three of them at least show up somewhere?"

"Unfortunately, no one is consulting me about their marketing decisions," I say. I toss my phone onto the coffee table and groan, tossing my arms over my face. "Yoga didn't work, Percy. I don't know what to do."

Percy's quiet for a second before he says, "Laney, just go over there."

I drop my hands and look at him. "To the rescue?"

"No, to the auto parts store."

"What? Why would I go?—"

"Of course to the rescue," he says, cutting me off. "Go see him. Be there for him."

I shake my head. "I don't know how."

"Nobody ever knows how. Sometimes we just have to act. Are you in love with him?"

I don't even hesitate before nodding my head yes.

"Then go tell him," Percy says. "Make him talk to you."

I'm tempted. Really tempted .

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. And Kevin—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 concerned for 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 gave her a 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, because I was 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 were a lot of 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 you were in her 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 makes me emotional, 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."

"Parts of it were silly," I say. "But she made a real difference in my life."

Sarah wipes at her eyes. "If I had no idea, then Adam definitely had no idea. He would love this though. It would probably mean so much for him to see what Mom was doing. Is the website still up?"

"Not anymore, but that might not matter." I stand and pace across the room, hands propped on my hips as an idea hatches in my brain. If Adam's mother had been disappointed in him, she wouldn't have run a fan group for his band. She wouldn't have posted pictures and talked about his music and mentored his fans .

In Adam's mind, his mother only looked at him through one lens. But if we can show him a different one, if we can show him how much she supported him in the only way her illness allowed, maybe he'll change his mind.

I turn and look at my friends.

"Who's in the mood for a road trip?" I say. "I know how to help Adam, but we've gotta drive to do it."

Four hours later, after Percy calls Mimi and reschedules a visit and Sarah delays her afternoon date with Jake and Ringo pees on my hoodie, then again on my shoe, the three of us, four including my very naughty puppy, pull into the driveway of my mom's house in Hendersonville.

"I'm just warning you," I say as we climb out of the car. "My bedroom might scare you a little. Mom hasn't changed it at all, so just…prepare yourself for a lot of Midnight Rush."

"Please tell me you had one of those sequin face pillows," Percy says. "I love those things."

I unlock my mom's front door with the same key that's been on my keychain since I lived here in high school. She and Sophie are shopping in Asheville this afternoon, so they aren't around, but honestly, it's probably better this way. I don't want to waste time visiting when what I really want to do is grab what I need, then race back to Lawson Cove to see Adam.

"One for every member of the band," I answer. "But only Deke's pillow lived on my bed."

"Gross," Sarah says.

"Trust me, the pillow should be the least of your concerns."

I leave them gawking at the sheer number of times Deke's face adorns my bedroom walls while I dig into my closet, pulling three enormous scrapbooks from the top shelf. I cough from the dust I disturb and cover my mouth as I use the sleeve of my hoodie to wipe them off.

"I might have underestimated the extent of your fandom," Percy says as I drop the books on the bed.

"Don't judge," I say. "I turned out normal."

Percy lifts an eyebrow. "Can we compromise and say normal-ish?"

I scowl in his direction. "The only reason I'm not elbowing you in the ribs right now is because you're holding my dog."

Sarah is already flipping through the first scrapbook. An enormous Midnight Rush band logo in navy blue and yellow is stuck to the front cover as well as the words, written in my lovely teenage handwriting, Year One. Inside, we find everything you might expect. Pictures of the band. Tour schedules. Magazine spreads. But it's more than that, too. It's a history of the Night Riders fan group. It's printed out screenshots of our conversations. Copies of the photos we all uploaded of our matching Midnight Rush socks. Concert photos people shared. Lists of our favorite songs. Our favorite song lyrics.

Dolly's comments show up a lot, and I watch as Sarah runs her fingers over each one as she reads.

@DollyDaeDreams: Just listened to the new single. Did anyone else notice how much stronger their vocals are on this one? They're all getting better, but Deke especially seems to be coming into his own.

@DollyDaeDreams: Just read the article in People magazine, and I'm just saying, I think the reporter could have been a little more gracious when he talked about what happened outside the arena on Friday night. These boys are working so hard. They don't need judgment and criticism. They need homemade soup and chocolate chip cookies and a night off.

"Was this about the fans who complained when the guys wouldn't get off the tour bus to say hello?" Sarah asks.

"Sounds like it," I say, reading over her shoulder.

@DollyDaeDreams: Thought you all might like to see a photo from backstage at the Chicago show. Was anyone there? I would love to hear all about it if you were!

"She asked about concerts a lot," I say. "I remember that specifically. She wanted to know everything. What the vibe was like. How fans reacted." I look at Sarah. "Did she ever get to see him perform?"

Sarah shakes her head. "Not in person. She was always too sick. She'd already started chemo by the time Midnight Rush was a thing, and she couldn't handle the crowds. Her immune system was too weak."

We spend a few more minutes reading through the entries in the first book. If I were Sarah, I would want to sit here all night just reading her mother's words. But I'm also anxious to get these to Adam.

I don't know much about what it feels like to be a mom. But I do know what it feels like to love someone. And I'd be willing to bet everything that Adam's mom loved him just as much as he loved her. That she was so proud of him.

Maybe it won't do any good. Maybe he still won't want to sing .

And I'll have to be okay with that.

But Adam deserves to know how his mom really felt.

And he has to know that whether he thinks he deserves it or not, I'm not going anywhere. Maybe I've always taken the path of least resistance, made the choices that are safe and practical. But Adam is worth fighting for. I'm not giving up.

And I'm not letting him give up either.