Playing Autumn [PREVIEW, 10 CHAPTERS]

9 - Passing Through

Like a hurricane.

Oliver was being nice, Haley knew, but he didn't realize how being nice was making things complicated. She knew a weekend fling would be nothing to him. It wouldn't lead to love, or any certainty about her life.

Anything she started with anyone else would seem like another way of avoiding the question: Why not Logan?

Cass said that, when they were high school juniors, at a pool party in Logan's house. "Why not Logan?" Haley and Logan had been flirting around each other for a while, and she'd so far refused to date him because he liked dating, liked girls, never stuck with one for very long.

Cass was encouraging the relationship though, because she thought Haley was living in her "other worlds" too much.

"I'm supportive. I am. I love you and what you do. But maybe you could, you know, work on your balance?"

"Balance?"

"Help me out here. I'm trying not to sound like a jerk. Can you, like, live in the real world a bit more often? Our world?"

Cass meant hang out with us real people more often. As opposed to the online fellow fangirls, the once-a-year music festival group, the string of informal music teachers/friends, those other groups she flitted in and out of, while everyone else was at Logan's house or Roger's games or the diner where Tracy worked. Cass remained a friend throughout Haley's flakiness because it wasn't about Cass, it was about music, something none of her "real friends" were into.

"You're staying in Houston for college, right? I'm not. But most of the people at this party are. You're not going to be able to get rid of them, Haley. Might as well be nice."

It had been a continuing discussion with her parents, but the conclusion was, they'd pay for her college education if she stayed close, and absolutely did not study music.

Logan didn't have to tell her what the "special dinner" was about. Being himself, being deliberately present in her life even as she tried to make a new one somewhere else, was a loud enough signal.

This is your real world. We are your real people.

Maybe they were right? She was about to lose her job, and refuse someone's offer of security, and have to defend this and more to parents who had tolerated her missteps without making her feel like a failure.

But then again, Oliver seemed to be interested...

Down, fangirl.

It was so, so, so tempting to take advantage of interested, and ignore the realities of this weekend. Except it would solve nothing, and in fact blow out everything in her life, crap and all, and for sure she'd be left with the post-hurricane cleanup.

They made it back from dinner in time for Victoria's meeting with the mentors, at the Lake Star's café/restaurant. No one else outside of the festival participants, volunteers, and mentors were checked in at the boutique hotel, so they had all the facilities to themselves, including the dining area. The students had all been checked in and dismissed for the day, so it was time for the "adults" to find out what they had to do.

It was amazing, by the way, what Victoria was able to accomplish all for a few days in the fall every year. Sitting around the interconnected tables at the first mentor meeting, every year, were people Haley would come to admire and respect. Since taking over the festival, Victoria liked to mix it up every year with people from different aspects of the industry, and recently even started to invite successful Breathe Music alumni.