Chapter 4: Seat F7

"What's on your wrist?" I said.

He looked down.

Then he pulled his sleeve over it, slow.

"Occupational hazard."

"That's makeup. Right where his star is."

"You know where his star is?"

"Everybody in Ohio knows where his star is. Gwen has it on a mug."

He smiled at the lake instead of at me.

"Ask me on Saturday," he said. "If I'm in F7, I'll tell you."

"And if you're not?"

"Then you'll know I got scared."

I drove home with the peach in my lap.

I didn't eat it. I put it on my windowsill like an idiot.

On Friday we messaged all day.

He sent me a picture of the lake at six in the morning, flat as glass.

I sent him a picture of the peach stand at five, with Mom's hand-painted sign that said PEACHES in letters that leaned downhill.

"The S is falling over," he wrote.

"It's been falling over since 2009. It's tradition."

"What happens if somebody fixes it?"

"Mom would kill them."

He sent back a skull.

That night I stood in the Juniper wings in Rose's yellow dress and looked through the gap in the curtain.

Row F, seat 7, was empty.

I had put a paper sign on it that said RESERVED in my own handwriting.

Brynn walked past me in her blacks and looked at the sign.

"Saving it for your boy band?"

"Saving it for a friend."

"Sure."

The house lights went down.

F7 was still empty.

The first act went fine.

I didn't look at row F once, because every time I didn't look, I could pretend.