“Tell me what really happened that night.” Val began, leaning forward.

 Her eyes stared daggers at me. 

She looked a lot different here than she normally looked in my science class, but that’s what I get for inviting my crush to my sister’s big audition.

“I don’t really want to get into it,” I stalled, taking a deep breath. 

“Alex,” my sister Cherry warned me. Her voice came out as a low growl. 

Fine. If they wanted a show, I’d give them one.

“Three years ago…” I started. I sighed as the night’s events replayed in my mind. 

“I was sitting in the studio. Starlit Singer’s studio. I had seen that poster you have in your room, Cherry,” I said. “I was there at the photoshoot.” 

I avoided Val’s eye roll, but hated the way it made me blush. She made the well, go on motion with her hand.

“And I snapped. I destroyed everything. All of it, besides what you found in my room.

“Once I started, the room never stood a chance against me. I broke all the records, instruments…even the platinum records.”

Cherry stifled a gasp.

“And then I found the contract. The one binding Starlit to the record company. The one that could end it all.”

“You know they keep extra copies of that, right?” Cherry said, snapping me back to the present. She flinched as Val swatted her, but she quieted. They both wanted to hear what I had to say.

“I had so desperately wanted to be the one on the poster. To look that perfect. 

To feel that perfect.

But I could never quite measure up.

“Then the policemen came. I panicked when they arrived. I didn’t know how to explain any of this away. So I let them believe that someone had just broken in. I didn’t think that it would spiral–”

“Into a murder case?” Val finished for me. 

“I never meant for any of this to happen. 

“Which part? The vandalism? The murder?!”

“So what happened next?” Cherry asked breathlessly.

“Somehow I carried myself home. Then I clicked the TV on, and by now, all of the major news channels knew. The whole world knew. And Luke, the Starlit Singer’s manager, promised to give me some of the cut.”

“So you did work with him,” Cherry mused.

“He didn’t think I had it in me.” I repeated what he had said to me that night. “He had always been good at telling people what they wanted to hear.”

“Do…Mom and Dad know?” Cherry asked.

“They don’t know you do.”

“You’re really…him?” Val asked, reaching out to touch my hair. She grabbed my shoulders. 

“You’re really…alive?” she repeated.

My hands started shaking. I tapped my foot, glancing from the doors, to the windows, to the parking lot.

“Here’s what we’ll do,” I planned. “You never saw me here, okay?”

“We’re not getting involved with this, Alex,” Cherry protested. Her eyebrows sank close to her eyes as she frowned at me. “First you hijack my audition, steal the show, and now you’re helping us cover up murder?”

“Technically, no one was murdered,” I corrected her. “And stop, people might hear you.”

Her face twisted up as she struggled to comprehend the situation. Thankfully, Val laid it all out for her. 

“So…You’re the one who’s responsible for Starlit’s death,” she began slowly. 

“Didn’t die,” I cut in.

“You didn’t actually mean to do it,” she continued. I nodded emphatically.

“So you panicked, and instead of admitting what happened, you ran.”

“Exactly.”

“Now that the truth is coming out, you want us to cover for you?” She finished. Her eyebrows raised as she looked at me.

“I’m so glad we’re on the same page!” I cheered. “So what do you think we should do? I’m pretty sure most of those windows open…”

Cherry grabbed my shoulders. “Alex, you’re done running,” she said, steering me towards the spotlight. “Get onto the stage.”

“No!” I protested, whining. “I’m not going back out there.”

“Yes, you are,” Val promised. 

And once again, for the first time in a long time, I found myself looking out at a crowd. 

One that thought I was dead. 

And so what did I say?

“Hi, guys,” I chuckled nervously. “Guess who’s back?”