𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐎𝐆𝐄𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑 ♫ 𝐣𝐮𝐥𝐢𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐨𝐦𝐬 ¹

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟗

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟗
𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐀𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐓𝐇

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Just as Lexi slid her phone back into her pocket, she and Carter reached their destination before the latter pushed open the door in front of them to reveal the studio. A small smile formed on the Daniels girl's face while looking around the room at all the instruments that she used to write some of her songs. While she sat down at the grand piano in the middle of the room, Carter took down a guitar that was hanging on the wall before sitting down on the stool next to her. The two of them just sat there in somewhat awkward silence for a long moment before it was broken by a question Lexi knew was coming but didn't know how to answer.

"Are you really playing at the dance tonight?" Carter asked without looking up at the girl across from him as he nonchalantly tuned his guitar.

"I...I don't know. I kinda want to but...I don't know," Lexi answered, causing the Wilson boy to stop what he was doing to look up at the redhead. He just stared at her with an emotionless look that made the Daniels girl fidget in her seat for a moment before she let out a long sigh. "Can we just start on the project? Like you said, the sooner we finish the better."

"You can't seriously be considering it," the boy said, completely ignoring her request as he continued to study her. When Lexi didn't respond right away, his blank expression turned to annoyance while he placed his guitar on the stand next to him before moving forward to get closer to the girl. "Why would you even want to get on stage again after everything that happened?"

As his question sank into her head, the anxiety that was once flowing through Lexi's veins vanished and was quickly replaced with another emotion she hadn't truly felt in a long time. An emotion she'd rarely felt throughout her life. Anger. She was mad at the boy and his sister along with their candy-colored minions for what they did. She was mad at how the whole school followed them in attempting to ruin any chance of her getting back on stage. But, most of all, she was mad at herself for trusting two people she always knew would stab her in the back.

"'Everything that happened'? Seriously? You make it seem like what you did was an accident," she scoffed while trying to keep her feelings hidden as her intertwined fingers clenched into fists in her lap. As her eyes stayed glued to the boy before her, one question rang through her head that she never had the courage to ask. Until now. "Why would you and Carrie bring me into your lives if it was just gonna end up like this?"

"In all honesty, we never planned on doing that. Care wanted you in Dirty Candy because you were talented. We never thought you could actually outshine us," Carter told the girl before going back to tuning his guitar again like he was in the middle of a casual conversation, "it was kinda embarrassing that you beat me to our break up but, either way, everything could have been avoided if you just toned down your talent and stuck to being in the background."