Revolution that's been dancing in the rain (Book 1)

9. Disappointments and understandings

"Any sign of them yet?" Julie asks for the second time that night pacing the floor
"Sorry Jul's not yet" I say looking out from behind the curtain towards the dance floor
A hundred students dance to Flynn's music but the three ghost boys are not among them
"We're on in 10 minutes, they wouldn't ditch me, right?"
I look back towards the sound of pacing at my best friend.
Panic written across her face as her pacing becomes more sporadic
"We might need to come up with a plan B, just in case"
"Flynns gonna stall for us a bit"
She nods
"They'll be here"
I sigh, peaking back out from the curtain
I hope they do show up but its becoming more and more unlikely
"Okay well is there anything I can do" I ask walking over to her
"No, go, enjoy the dance, nothing to be done till the guys show up"
I take a deep breath "okay come get me if you need anything"
I go mingle and dance with the other students, meeting up with Ronnie since of course her boyfriend was running late.
Carrie and Nick join us about 20 minutes later, Ronnie and Carrie going off to dance and Nick chatting with his lacrosse friends leaving me virtually alone

10:30 rolls around and there's still no sign of the boys.
I watch as Nick heads backstage and follow after him
"The machine won't work"
I hear Julie say trying to explain why she's not performing to him
"Here's the problem"
I see Nick hold up the unplugged wire
"it's the Hologram file that the boys sent over actually"
I say stepping towards them "the file was corrupt so the Holograms are fully fucked up. We were stalling waiting for them to send a new file but we haven't got it yet."
"Yeah you know Holograms tricky stuff" Julie agrees sending me thank you eyes
"Oh I don't think I can be much help then"
Nick looks disappointed he can't help
"It's okay Nick thanks for trying" I smile at him kindly
"Yeah no problem" he smiles at Julie and walks back to the dance
Flynn comes over to us
"Guys I can only stall for so long. Julie maybe you should just play without them you'll still be great"
"You saw me last time Flynn, I can't play alone" She says beginning to panic again
"Okay that's it, I'm not letting this happened" I say
"What do you want to do then?"
"Flynn tell everyone that the issue with the Holograms can't be fixed,
But Julie will preform without them at 11. Jul's follow me"
Julie follows after me
"Jessie I can't go on alone"
"You won't be, I'm going on with you"
Julie stops me
"What you? Jessie you don't preform in front of people, not unless you have to."
"I'll be fine, I'd do anything for you" I reassure her
She holds my hand smiling brightly at me
"Now come on we have 25 minutes to work out a set list"

"Okay so we should start strong and work down in terms of energy level and then finish strong"
I points to the list we wrote up
"We both know all these, we just need one more to make it an hour"
"What about one of your songs?" Julie suggusts
"My Songs? Well I mean do you even know any of them?" I really don't want to preform one of my songs but we're running out of time to find one we both fully know and as much as I don't want to play my own songs, I want even less for Julie to be embarrassed
"I know love is embarrassing"
I pause and sigh
"Yeah okay I suppose we can finish with that one"
I grab a guitar and Julie and I rush back to the stage
Julie hesitates before we step on stage
"Jul's look at me you can do this,
it's like I always say you're on the edge of greatness all you gotta do is-"
"Jump" she nods "let's do this"
Julie and I walk on stage and setup
"Ladies and gentlemen" I say into the Microphone
"sadly Julie and the Phantoms aren't available this evening but I can offer you something just as good, please make some noise for Julie, oh and I'm here to"
The crowd laughs and claps
Julie and I preform our first song and it doesn't take long for the anxiety to wash off us. I don't sing with her but I kill it on the guitar backing up her amazing vocals.
Two songs in we're dancing around anxiety nowhere to be found.
I notice students recording but seeing Julie so happy makes me push those anxieties away.
We're finishing off the last song, my song,
which the crowd seems to be liking but I'm still shitting myself over, when in walks the boys.
They don't notice us before we're offstage
"I can't even talk to them" Julie says to me hurt evident in her voice
"I'll deal with it, go enjoy the rest of the dance"
I walk past boys and out to the hall
"Come on"
I mutter as I passed them.
They follow out behind me "You need to leave"
"But we're meant to perform"
"Yeah at nine Patterson, you're too late it's 12"
"Jessie we can explain"
I turn to Alex
"Was it worth it?"
"What?"
"Your revenge, that's why you weren't here right. So was it worth it?"
"We didn't exactly get our revenge tonight, but we're one step closer"
"One step closer,
You ditched Julie embarrassed her and you didn't even manage to get your revenge" I scoff
"Jessie"
"Don't Jessie me, Patterson. You had a commitment, you knew this was important to Julie and you humiliated her. She's heartbroken and feels betrayed and I don't blame her.
She kept insisting you guys would show up, that you wouldn't do this to her,
that you wouldn't let her down.
She trusted you and you did, you let her down."
The door behind me opens
"Jessie"
I pretend to take an ear phone out and hold it to my shoulder
"Sorry I'm just on the phone, Chris right?"
"Yeah I just wanted to say you and Julie were great and well I was wondering if you wanted to dance, maybe?"
Maybe Flynn was right and he did want to ask me to the dance
"Yeah, sure. I'll be right in"
"Great" he goes back in and I turn back to the boys.
Luke looks even more angry then before
"You and Julie played?" Reggie asks
"Yeah, I have her back and wasn't going to let her down. You guys need to go Julie doesn't want to talk to you she's hurt and I'm disappointed"
Reggies face falls at this
"What you did was majorly selfish"
Luke immediately poofs away and I turn and head back into the dance
ignoring the looks on the boys faces

I go to school the next morning and don't see Julie for the first three classes.
She crashed at Flynn's last night so I don't even know if she's in school until she shows up 10 minutes late for dance class
"Jul's where have you been?"
"Someone didn't wake me"
"You said you were never going to show your face at school again and I'm a very literal person"
"It's okay it's those stupid ghost I'm really mad at, did you see them last night Jessie?"
"No I went straight to bed, crashed in your room hope that's cool"
"Yeah that's fine"
"So have you talked to Nick today, he was pretty chatty at the dance"
"No and I'm kind of dreading it, at least I won't have to see him in this class"
As she says this the lacrosse team walks in, the teacher explains that they will be joining our class for a few weeks and we are to pair up.
Much to her luck Julie is paired with Nick
"Partners?" I turn to see Chris with his hand out to me
"I mean we danced pretty well last night"
I take his hand
"yeah you weren't too bad"
We run through the steps of the dance
"You looked really nice last night"
"Thank you, you did look half bad yourself, At least you were wearing shoes last night"
I laugh nodding down to his feet
All of the boys had come in without shoes for some reason
He laughs "Ya coach thought dance class was a no shoe zone"
"So what happened to your date"
"What date?"
"For the dance"
I shake my head
"Veronica said you had a date"
"I didn't she must've been mistaken"
"Oh I wish I'd known that"
"Why were you going to ask me" I joke
"I was actually"
I'm not sure how to respond to that, so I stay silent 
"Would you have said yes?" he asks nervously
"Yeah probably" I shrug
Honestly I couldn't care either way, he seems nice and was cute but I've had no prior interest in him.
"Well in that case would you want to go out with me tonight?"
"Oh I can't do this evening. But I finish work at six on Saturday, we could do something then" I suggest
"We could catch a movie"
"Sure sounds good, I'll give you my number"
I put my number into his phone once the class ends
Flynn runs over to me
"Did Chris Abely just ask you out" she exclaims excited
"Yeah"
She squeals "This is so exciting stuff like this never happens to me"
"Come on let's go to class" I laugh as she continues on about Chris.

"Hey Jul's, I'm heading out"
She look up from the couch
"Again? Are you ever going to tell me where you go?"
"Nope.
I'll be back in a few hours. You talk to the boys yet?"
"Sadly, They apologised and got us a new gig but I chewed them out."
"Well I'm glad your sticking up for yourself, but if they really are sorry maybe you should think about giving them a second chance"
"Jessie they straight up abandoned me"
"I know hun, I'm not saying forgive them. Just think about if you really want to give up the band. I'll see you later."
I get on my bike and head to the same house I go to every few weeks, stopping on the way to pick up a bouquet of sunflowers.
I park my bike and knock on the door of the bungalow.
"Jessie dear how lovely to see you, do come in"
I walk into the small house filled with pictures and memories that I now look at with a different light.
"These are for you" I hold out the flowers and they are quickly taken from my hands
"How lovely thank you dear"
"Let me fill up a vase for them"
I walk into the kitchen to fill up a vase when I see it.
How could I be so dumb,
the thought never even crossed my mind.
Sat on the counter face full of tears,
staring right at me,
was Luke.