Four Boys in a Band

xx. downhill

For the first time since she met Wes, Taylor felt a sense of dread settle in the pit of her stomach at the sight of the double "Do Not Disturb" signs on the door leading to the stairwell. After the spectacle Stacy had caused earlier that day in the studio, Taylor was sure she could never show her face to any of those boys again. She wasn't sure she wanted to. But a small piece of her still held out hope that somehow Wes would be understanding. That's why she went into the stairwell.

Wes was pacing on the landing of the second floor.

"Hi," Taylor said quietly when she joined him.

Wes met her gaze, and she almost had to look away. She could see in his eyes that he was practically burning with questions.

"I can explain," she began, though she wasn't sure she could.

"Why do you put up with her?!" Wes burst out. The fury in his voice made her flinch; she'd never heard him speak that harshly before.

"Because she can help us," Taylor replied lamely. It sounded like an excuse even to her own ears.

"Taylor, she's insane!" Wes paced back and forth once more, running his hands through his hair and making it messy. Taylor noticed how the ends curled up ever so slightly. Wes came close to her, seeming to be in the midst of an internal debate. When he spoke, his voice was gentler, though still upset. "I saw what she did to Louis. She didn't even think twice. How much easier would it be for her to . . . to hurt you?" Wes blinked. "Has she? Hurt you?"

Taylor couldn't make herself lie to his face. She looked down at her fingers, which were twisted together much like the knot in her stomach.

"Taylor," Wes said, stepping closer and reaching out to her. The pity in that single spoken word filled Taylor with anger for some inexplicable reason.

She stepped away before she even realized what she was doing. "It's not her fault. She doesn't get mad without good reason." Her tone was clipped and biting, a new experience for her. She didn't like it, but she couldn't stop. "I thought you would understand. I thought after the bonfire that you might actually . . ." She faltered, but only for a moment. "I was stupid enough to think you might actually care about me. But I was wrong."

Wes furrowed his brow. The night of the beach party was all a fuzzy blur to him. When he said nothing, Taylor searched his eyes. Somehow she realized that he didn't remember. Her chocolatey brown eyes filled with tears, and Wes felt responsible.

"You don't remember," she said. It was a statement, not a question.

"There was something in the punch, Tay." Wes realized that somehow the tides had turned; somehow it was Taylor who was berating him, and not the other way around.

"You don't remember anything?!"

Wes's eyes widened. "Did I . . . did we . . ?"

Taylor narrowed her eyes at him, and in that moment he didn't recognize her at all. She looked more like Stacy than she ever had before. "Stacy was so right about boys. We're done, Wes Burke. Goodbye." She pivoted on her heel, lashing him with her hair and giving him one last whiff of her strawberry shampoo before she ascended the stairs back to her floor and, somehow, further away than she'd ever been.

*

The next two days were filled with tense, stunned silence. Each boy was lost in thought for a different reason. Wes was being eaten up by guilt for a night he didn't even remember; he also missed Taylor terribly and wanted to get her away from Stacy. But after the confrontation in the stairwell on Thursday, his chance of getting through to Taylor had gone out the window. Jacob was contriving and dismissing plan after plan for getting Stacy out of the picture, but each scheme he came up with had some major loophole. Plus Avery refused to even look at him, and the supply closet by the vending machines was always empty. Calvin's thoughts rotated regularly through the Harmony Angels, the Battle of the Bands, and Georgia. What was the CD that Stacy had gotten so protective of? Did it have something to do with the Battle of the Bands? Was it true that Farrah Faime favored girlbands over boybands? Would Georgia come to the Malibu performance? Did he want her to? Louis seemed to be traumatized. He spoke little, ate less. He could hardly find the energy to practice their performance for the Malibu competition. And for whatever reason, he refused to tell Reggie or Katrina about the painful, finger-shaped bruises on his arms.