Out of Tune

Chapter Twenty-Nine

When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have—E.W. Howe

The school year came to a swift and shocking end.

Lennon didn't know where the time had gone. It felt like just yesterday that she'd landed in Los Altos, counting down the days until she turned eighteen and could go fleeing back to New York where she belonged.

Two-hundred-and-ninety-four days.

That's where she had started. Ten months.

Twenty-three days. Less than one month. That's what she was left in her countdown. Her birthday was on July thirteenth and then she would be eighteen.

Eighteen and free to do whatever the hell she wanted to do. She could stay or she could go. The world was open to her.

But Lennon no longer felt the urgent drive to leave Los Altos. She'd put down roots in the city – had developed lasting friendships and a wondrous blossoming relationship that she'd never expected to create in this place. Even her relationship with her mother was leaps and bounds ahead of where it had even been a week earlier.

Though that, Lennon knew, was because they'd finally come to a sort of understanding.

After their performance at Vibe Fest, Lennon had gone in search of her friends in the crowd. She'd found them just where Spencer had claimed that they'd be, at the picnic tables near the food trucks, her mother among them.

Their first conversation had been brief but the fact that her mother had shown up without prompting had meant more to Lennon than she could explain. Paige had even confessed that seeing Lennon up there on the stage had seemed like such a natural place for her to be, as if she had been destined for it all along.

Lennon hadn't been able to tell if her mom had meant it or if the words had been just said out of kindness but in any case...they were a bridge. A peace offering.

If Paige was willing to put the effort in then Lennon was too. And so after the festival, she'd driven home with her mother instead of with Spencer. Seven hours trapped in a car together, both unable to walk away, had led to conversation. Some of it strained, much of it awkward, but by the time they'd arrived in Los Altos, Lennon felt as if they were on a path to a healthy mother-daughter relationship possibly for the first time in their lives.

They were even discussing the potential for Lennon to move back home and while she hadn't yet made the decision to do so, the fact that they were even having the conversation was a monumental step forward.

Progress.

And yet there was a part of Lennon that felt...stuck. Because while things were improving in her family life and she had officially written her final high-school exams, there was still so much uncertainty about her future.

Lennon hadn't forgotten about Jay Dawson's words or Janice Winslow's proposition. Of her bandmates, she'd told only Spencer about the offer she'd been handed after their performance. He'd been silent as she'd spoken, no words murmured as he'd reviewed the business card that Janice had given her, and then he'd told her that she should do what was best for her. Even if that meant leaving the band and pursuing a solo career.

No hard feelings between them. No resentment in his eyes, his voice. No ultimatums or end of the relationship.

He'd been more upset about the fact that Jay Dawson had tried to kiss her but there had been a pleased glint in his eye when she'd told him about how firmly she'd shut it down. And when she'd vented about how much of a jerk she found the movie star to be.