imagination || julie and the phantoms

twenty-two

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ALL THEY COULD DO WAS WAIT.

First, Julie had rushed to inform her family and Flynn the news. Everyone shared excitement, Flynn racing over to help her best friend pick an outfit for the performance at the Orpheum. Ray cancelled a meeting. Aunt Victoria decided to skip her pilates class and Carlos claimed, kind of strangely, he was pumped up to see Julie's bandmates again.

The ghosts, unfortunately, couldn't busy themselves in the same way. Luke attempted to plan a setlist, Alex and Reggie adjusted their instruments. But every few moments, a jolt struck. They were excited to perform, but feared they wouldn't even make it.

Charlotte couldn't take the tension and escaped to the roof to clear her head. Like so many times before, one leg pulled to her chest while the other dangled off the edge. Her arm rested on her knee while she fiddled with her newest accessory on her wrist.

The blue hoodie offered comfort around her shoulders, but the weight of reality hurt more than anything else. So many things in her life went wrong. Her relationship with her parents, dying too young with her dream slipping through her fingers. Charlotte didn't know what to expect after that night, but she remembered what she had wished for.

At first, it was for recognition. Possibly in the form of a record company executive or a manager, she wanted herself, the boys, and their music to be heard.

Then it was for peace. Sound check went by and the clock ticked toward the concert. Charlotte remembered anxiety washing over her while she followed the boys into the alley to the hotdog stand, or lack of a stand really. She hadn't wanted to go. She wanted to hang back with Bobby, fix some merchandise designs to keep her fingers from shaking. But Luke's big hazel eyes and his charming smile made her believe his words.

Just live for once.

After that, she remembered praying for survival - not even just for herself. She needed the boys to make it, too. She needed them. The agonizing pain ripped through her body. Her vision blurred. So many bright lights and screams. Flashes of the boys lifeless in the street.

In a way, her prayer came true. All of them died...but they were still together. At first in the horrible dark room and then back in the studio. When they became ghosts, Charlotte, like Alex, wanted to process it. But it didn't take her long to get over it. After all, she still had her boys. Her twin brother, her best friend, and the one who made the world so much brighter.

Now, Charlotte found herself wishing that would never change. Whether the jolts destroyed them or they crossed over, Charlotte needed to be with them. She couldn't handle life or the afterlife without them.

She felt the same way about Julie, the girl with the powerful voice and the kindest heart. Charlotte needed her, too.

And she knew sitting on the roof, she shouldn't be there. She needed to be with them, for all the time they had left. But this was the last chance she would ever have to read her dad's letter.

For weeks, she had kept it tucked away under her mattress in the loft. Her and Reggie never really talked about it, though she knew he had read his letter. Never once did he pressure her to read the one their dad left for her - which is why Charlotte believed she could finally do it.

A heavy sigh escaped her lips as she pulled the envelope out of the hoodie's main pocket. Her finger traced the name delicately written in her dad's handwriting. And before her thoughts could catch up to her heart, Charlotte decided to flip the envelope and pull out the letter.