What Is Your Name?

Chapter 9: Acceptance... Maybe (Sky)

I didn't feel a need to explain myself to these entitled rich kids. Nor did I feel the need to struggle with Eli's stupid guitar in front of them. In fact, I had absolutely no reason to do the stupid talent show at all. So why was I?

It's because Lillian was actually entitled to an explanation. Fraternizing with the enemy or not, she at least deserved to know why I couldn't say my sister's name. And as much as I hate Eli's guitar, I have to admit it's easier for me to communicate through song.

So I wrote and rewrote and scrapped what felt like millions of drafts. Lillian and I made a system that if I put one of her hairbands on the door, I was writing and she must go yeet herself elsewhere. When I wasn't writing, Lillian and I trained. I started actively avoiding Tempest and her toxic vibes. If she actually wanted to apologize to me, let her work for it.

But something strange was happening. Tempest wasn't always sticking to her normal group of friends. In fact, she rarely hung out with them anymore. She would bounce from group to group, and she always seemed annoyed about it.

"Why is that?" I asked Grey. He was basically the only person I hung out with besides Lillian.

Grey looked at me. Really looked. And replied, "I think it's Tempest's job to tell you that."

And... "I think it's Tempest's job to tell you that." Lillian, too.

What I did notice is, group by group, clique by clique, people started accepting us as regular unpopular kids, rather than children-of-Satan unpopular kids. Hooray for progress. Boo for cliques (I say as I was very picky-choosy with who I hung out with).

"Why?" I wondered.

Meanwhile, my song was not going very well. I kept writing drafts. I knew the main idea of what I wanted to say. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the words out right. Usually, if I needed help writing a song, I'd ask Lillian. I mean, obviously. But I didn't want Lillian to hear this song until the talent show. And I didn't want her to hear it at all if I couldn't get it right. But I couldn't get it right without Lillian's help. This was the reason why I always started writing Lillian's birthday song months in advance, but I didn't have months this time. I had weeks. And I knew from trying other forms of help: Grey had no musical ear. Grey could not help.

"But Tempest could," he told me. "She plays the piano sometimes. Not as much as she used to, but I think any help would be better than mine."

I personally thought this was a bad idea. Tempest hadn't apologized to me yet. I could deal with the fact that she was training Lillian, but we still weren't really friends. The greatest improvement to our relationship was we had stopped flipping each other off every two seconds. We'd narrowed it down to once or twice a minute. Progress. Trust me, this is progress.

Yet it wasn't enough progress to take away the shock I had when Tempest knocked on my door one night. I opened it, and there she was, expression almost completely devoid of a glare.

"What do you want?" I sighed.

"Grey said you needed help with a song?" Tempest didn't sound very annoyed. Not even inconvenienced at coming here. It was simply an offer. An offer of help. "You know, the music room probably has better acoustics than your stuffy dorm room." She didn't want to be seen in here. I couldn't blame her. There were food wrappers all over the place. Lillian was nagging me to clean. Funny joke, huh?

"Thing is, no one talks to me long enough to tell me where the music room is," I scoffed.

Tempest rolled her eyes. "Grab your guitar, let's go."

The music room was tiny. Only slightly bigger than my dorm room. There was an upright piano in one corner, a dusty guitar in another, a couple folding chairs and music stands in a third. You would think such a rich school could afford a better music space. I think they could, they just won't. Too focused on resources to kill Eli. I guess I can respect that.

"Oh, by the way, isn't that the Shadow's guitar?" Tempest asked.

"Shut up," I replied.

"Is it?" Tempest asked again.

"Yes! Did you think I could afford a new one?"

"Sky." Tempest spoke carefully, like she actually cared whether or not she offended me. "Lillian told you we hang out, right?"

"Yes..."

"Did she tell you I wanted to apologize to you?"

"She did, but you didn't," I complained. "Lillian tries to see the best in everyone, don't you get it? Sometimes she judges people wrong, and then she ends up hurt. It's my job to be suspicious, so no one can take away what I have left."

"And I understand that," Tempest agreed, "but that doesn't make Lillian yours, Sky. She loves you more than anyone or anything, trust me, but she deserves to have other people in her life. And so do you. She tries to see the best in people because that's better than being suspicious, but when she realizes the truth, she chucks a katana at them." Tempest laughed. "I haven't apologized to you because you've been too much of a jerk to listen. So now I want to help you write your song. Can your bloated pride handle that?"

Literally the only person who had ever dared to speak to me that way was Lillian. She knew I loved her too much to get too mad about it. But maybe... and I could not believe I was about to admit this... Tempest was right. Grey had told me she had a good musical ear, and I did trust Grey. Maybe my song would be ready in time if I could just suck it up and accept Tempest's offer to help.

"Before I play this song, let's get two things straight," I decided.

"Sure, whatever."

"One," I began, "you have to promise me Lillian knows nothing about this song's lyrics, tune, moral, nothing, until I perform it at the talent show."

"That's pretty obvious," Tempest grumbled.

"And two," I continued, "you have to tell me why you keep switching friend groups. I thought it was nothing, and normally I couldn't care less, but Grey and Lillian said it's your story to tell. Meaning there's a story. Let's hear it."

I thought maybe Tempest would roll her eyes and leave. Or blackmail me into letting her help without having to tell the "story". Instead she turned to me and said, "It's not much of a story."

"Ok, then it shouldn't be too embarrassing. Go."

Tempest huffed. "All right." She sat in one of the crappy folding chairs. "As Lillian probably already told you, considering you two are the type that tell each other everything, I realize now that you guys aren't the Shadow. And before you say something like, 'Took you long enough,' the Shadow killed my mom, too. So she couldn't file a report for what he did to her." Tempest stopped talking and tried to compose herself. "I swear that no matter what you say or do, I'm killing the Shadow the second I get the chance, but I don't wanna hang out with people who are encouraging me to kill you, too. If that's their level of hate, I don't need them in my life. So I keep looking for better friends. Haven't found any yet, though."

Something clicked in my head. "So you weren't the one leaving threats in Lillian's locker? It's legitimately scaring her, you know."

"God, Sky, I'd never stoop that low! That was probably the clique I ditched last Monday. I've convinced some people not to say any garbage to your face, but they find ways of getting around me."

"You were the one telling people to be nice to me," I realized aloud.

"And now I'm the one helping you write your song. If you ever bother to play it for me, that is."

Tempest never apologized to me for those first couple days. After what she'd done in return, she didn't really need to, and I didn't try to make her. And Grey was right. She has an amazing musical ear.