My stomach drops. Not now. Not when I’m already feeling this on edge. The last thing, the very last thing I need is to try to navigate a loaded call with her about what I should and shouldn’t remember to do onstage.
“She wants to wish me luck, I guess,” I say to Zach.
He just watches me, expressionless.
The phone buzzes once more, twice, three times. And I dump it in the locker.
“Not now,” I say to him. “I just … can’t right now.”
He brushes his thumb against my shoulder. “It’s fine. You can call her back after. Just say you’d already dropped your phone off.”
I nod, then shake my head. “Actually. I think I might just tell her I was about to go onstage and wanted to keep my head clear. Because that’s actually not an unreasonable thing to do, and I don’t need to lie about it so she accepts it. I think?”
Zach makes a show of dropping his mouth open in shock. “Wow. You know that’s bordering on healthy, right?”
“I know.” I pause. “I shouldn’t text her right now, should I?”
“No, you definitely should not. Come on, we need to go up.”
Angel and Jon meet us near the entrance and we make the short trip to the stage flanked by guards. A few people on the edges of the audience catch a glimpse of us, hands waving frantically.
“I still think you three could’ve kept the choreo,” Angel says as we walk. “They could’ve hooked me up to wires and had me fly above the stage. That would’ve been way cooler.”
“You could’ve been our hype man,” Jon agrees.
“Exactly!” Angel says. “You get it. I would’ve been an excellent hype man.”
“Of course, it helps if you can raise both your arms above your head,” I say drily.
Angel glares at me and wiggles his right arm. “I’ll have you know I’ve regained a full eighty-five percent of my original swivel range, thank you very much.”
“You have a great swivel,” Zach reassures him.
“See, Ruben, your boyfriend likes my swivel just fine.”
“Whose side are you on?” I ask Zach, elbowing him playfully as we ascend the stairs.
“No one’s!”
“Pick a side,” Angel says.
“Yeah, Zach, pick a side,” I echo.
“No!”
“You can do it, Zach,” Jon joins in. “You’ve done it once; you can do it again.”
“That depends how today goes,” Zach says. “If I regret it, I might go back to being neutral forever.”
Angel pouts. “Why pick neutral when you have the whole rainbow?”
Zach shoots Angel a look so sharp he shrugs and mimes zipping his lips as one of the sound technicians approaches us.
“All right, here are your mics,” he says. He’s not much older than us, short, built, and blond. “Remember your number, because you have to make sure you get the right one onstage.”
I have number four. Zach has two. I can’t exactly muster up shock at finding us separated again.
They have us run through a few lines of “Unsaid” as they adjust the levels, then our mics are taken from us. Zach starts hopping on the spot to shake out his nerves, and I pace back and forth, my arms hugged close to my chest. Even Jon and Angel go quiet as we wait. Then the hosts are announcing us, and I’m walking onto the stage in a haze.
We take our spots in a row—me, Jon, Zach, and Angel— to a cacophony of screaming. Angel lifts his bad arm, still in a cast, and gestures at it with a cheeky grin. The screaming gets louder still somehow. I squint against the blinding sunlight and take in the rows and rows of people, all here to see us, a crowd pulsing with the frenetic energy only a concert can produce.
The interview is a blur. They don’t ask us anything groundbreaking; the banned topics list is three feet long at this point. No shipping. Nothing about Angel’s accident. Nothing about rehab.
How was your first international tour?
Which was your favorite city?
Are you excited to get back to Europe at some stage?
We’re so glad to see you’re feeling better, Angel. What did you all get up to on your rest break?
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
I answer the questions directed at me on autopilot. David’s walked us through what to say to which question enough times that I don’t have to think, which is how they want it. During the interview, I just want it to end, so we can get this over with, and I can stop anticipating the biggest moment of my life. Then, as soon as the interview’s over, my heartbeat goes into overdrive and I regret wishing for its end. I want to go back. I’m not ready. I can’t do this.