Lifeline

Epilogue

A/N: and here we are. It's bittersweet, the end, don't you think? We finally get closure, but what happens after? After the lights go down, the cast goes home, the horses ride off into the sunset? The good part (and the bad part): it's up to you. Please do my characters justice in your imagination, and someday I'll have more for you. For The Queen will hopefully be starting up this November, and once I finish I'll have it up on Wattpad as soon as I can. See you at the end!

The next day, they all sat Cody down in the lounge part of the bus to figure out what the heck happened. He slept late, but when he woke up he knew he owed both bands an explanation. They were all waiting for him, and everyone's attention was trained on him as soon as he rolled out of his bunk.

"What happened last night?" Devan broke the silence as Cody sank down onto one of the seats. He looked terrible; his hair was messy and he had dark bags under his eyes. His cast seemed to weigh him down and he looked rather pale. No one was really mad at him, but they were concerned.

"I learned that Marin has been cheating on me since almost the beginning of our relationship," Cody began, sighing and kicking his feet up. "Yesterday before the show I got a call from my old friend Lauren, who is in the same sorority as Marin. Apparently, Marin has been seeing someone for months. Lauren doesn't think the other guy knows about me, but she felt really bad about the whole thing and decided to call me. I talked to Marin right before the show and she didn't deny it; she said it didn't mean anything and she had only seen him once. Lauren told me it had been going on for months..." Cody rubbed his eyes hard with his palms, and then flopped his hands down onto his legs. "She's been cheating on me. It's not even a surprise, I just... I had hoped she wasn't, and I believed that she wasn't, and she was, and I..." He trailed off, shaking his head. He thought she was the one, although he had always been skeptical. He guessed he should have listened to his gut.

"Well shit," Blair said, looking around sheepishly after he did so. He didn't mean to say that out loud. "Sorry."

Cody chuckled a little, smiling wanly at his friend. "It's okay, girlfriend. It is shit. I'm really sorry I freaked last night, and I feel so bad for the fan I snapped at. Is there any way I can fix that situation?"

"Actually," Blair spoke up again, pulling out his phone. "That was the same girl that asked us to come to Roseville in the first place. She was one of our first followers on Facebook," he told Cody, who covered his face with his hands.

"Did I just drive away one of our first fans?" He thought this couldn't go any worse, and now he was driving away fans. Great.

"Don't worry, Westie. I caught her before she went out the door and talked to her. She was totally chill, and it's fine. But if you wanted to send her a message over Facebook I'm sure she wouldn't mind." Blair tossed Cody his phone, and then sat back with satisfaction, having saved the day.

"Thanks, man." Cody took the phone and started to maneuver to the messenger app, but he froze when Tyler spoke up.

"What are you gonna do about Marin? Did you break up with her yet?" The rest of For The Queen nodded at his question; Cody just hung his head and sighed again. Of course he hadn't. He had just hung up because he needed to get ready for the show; he had let her think she had gotten away with her lie.

One conversation, some theatrical tears, and a lot of yelling later, Cody was single and ready to go back to bed. All thoughts of messaging the girl he had snapped at were out of his mind, replaced by thoughts of Marin, home, and a simpler time in his life. In the mirrors of the bus, Northern California grew more distant, leaving five exhausted teenagers to get ready for school on a concert high they wouldn't come down from for a few days.