Present Day 

Kat

My friend Laurel has skills. Lots. Car karaoke is not one of them.

I worry my lip and look out the car window as she shakes her blonde curls in the backseat and wails along with the chorus of Soundcrush's multi-platinum, alt-rock ballad, Little Sister:

Don't try to smile a little Sister

Cause you think it helps me leave.

Rather you cry a little Sister

It's your tears that let me breathe.

Can't even hide a little Sister

You took my soul when I spilled your blood.

We'll let it ride a little Sister,

No more touching in this flood.

But I swear to you my heart is yours for good.

Unable to take anymore of the song, I switch off the car stereo, and my other friend Maddie shrieks, "Turn that back on, bitch! It's our pre-show jam!"

"Fine, just play a different Soundcrush song, that one is played out," I suggest, as I tap the screen to advance past the song, which is what I always do, when Little Sister comes up on a playlist.

It's not really Laurel's singing that is making me twitch. It's the song itself. Or actually the singer himself. Leed Lawson is the front man for Soundcrush and even though, to the rest of the world, he's obviously the singer of this song, to me, he's not. It's just all kinds of wrong, to hear those lyrics coming from Leed's sex-soaked voice, when in my mind, every time the song starts, I expect to hear Trace's edgier, tighter timbre reluctantly confessing the lyrics.

See, Trace is the main song-writer for Soundcrush, not Leed. And I know that Trace wrote the song about me.

I'm not being vain. I'm just being honest. I'm the Little Sister, and the song is all about that New Year's Eve two and half years ago, the night that got so messed up.  The night he kissed me, the night my whole body sang beneath the touch of his lips...

The night everything went wrong, and my outlook on who I was took a huge detour. The night I was  more out of control, more humiliated, and then more scared than I have been...before or since.

 Shit. I snap the elastic I always wear against my wrist. Hard. I don't want to think about that night, and I don't want to think about Trace Gallant. Not his mouth on mine, not the regretful groan he made when we kissed. Not his hands firmly manipulating my body in the dark, because I was far too drunk to do it myself. Not the things he said then, or the things he said after...

Shit, shit. shit. I snap the rubber band three more times.

From the driver's seat, my boyfriend Colin looks at me curiously.

"You okay?" he asks mildly. He took psychology with me junior year; he knows the elastic is for a "bad habit" of mine, but he doesn't know that bad habit was previously unleashing a torturous guitar solo on his radio. Colin has no idea a rock star wrote a song about me. All of my friends have recently become aware that Trace used to be my next-door neighbor, but that's all they know. I switched schools after sophomore year, determined to leave all the people that Trace and I had once had in common behind.

"Yeah," I nod at my sandy haired, adorable boyfriend. Quarterback, National Merit Scholar, Habitat for Humanity volunteer, handsome, surprisingly humble. Classic southern boy, says yes ma'am, looks equally good in a sweaty jersey and in a pink checkered button down with khakis. Desired by every girl in school, and yet for some reason he spent our entire junior year chasing me. Probably because I was the mysterious new girl. At first I turned him down. Not because he wasn't amazing, but because he wasn't Trace. But that only made him chase me harder.

 I get that. We all want what we can't have. So finally, I decided to put the poor guy out of his misery and date him. It wasn't a bad decision. It's fun, dating Colin. He's great. We've been together most of our senior year. I'm a lucky girl.

Lucky, lucky, lucky. That's me.

"Kat!" Maddie thrusts her phone in my face. She's pulled up a picture of Trace, sitting alone on a wide set of stone steps, playing guitar. I've seen the photo before in a magazine spread. Black and white, maybe taken somewhere in Europe? The steps look medieval somehow. Trace filling out a slim, white button-down and ripped jeans, his Docs casually resting on the steps. He's looking heavenward, and he's beautiful, almost glowing in the soft light. Like an angel. And yet, if you look closely, there's just the slightest tuck of a smirk on his lips. And his right eye is squinted just a tiny bit. I've seen that squint a thousand times. That's mischief in the making of Trace Gallant's mind. And if those tiny tells aren't enough--well then, there are the eyebrows. Heavy and arching over his icy almost-grey eyes, clearly defining him for what he is.

Trace Gallant, the devil-next-door, apparently sent to torture me for life, because I can't get out from under him.

"Did he look this hot when you knew him?" Maddie cuts a side at Colin with an evil grin. Maddie and Colin are cousins--nearly as close as siblings. She loves to rile him up.

I, on the other hand, don't like to tease my boyfriend. Not about this, anyway. "God, no. Trace had pimples, braces and bad breath." All lies. Fallen angels never have an awkward phase.

Shit. Shit. Shit. I don't snap the rubber band again, even though I need to. Colin is still looking at me suspiciously.

We've been together long enough now that he can read my moods pretty well, although he rarely understands what's behind them. I smile at him but it feels brittle and forced. He chuckles and reaches for my hand. "Come on, Kat. All your AP exams are done. Graduation, and your speech are over. Even your housing assignment at Duke is settled. Your internship doesn't start for two weeks. We made it. " He bounces my hand up and down. "You can RELAX."

 I smile. One of the things I really like about Cols is his bright-side. Colin is the youngest in an affluent family of five. His dad is a doctor and his mom paints as a hobby, but is mostly a mom. His older siblings are well-adjusted people, so the pressure is off him to "perform," yet he's always aware of how good he's got it, and always motivated to achieve. He's signed to play football at a D1 school and set to major in broadcasting. He's already talking about us getting an apartment together "later on." He's probably got a secret five year plan that includes proposing to me his senior year at some big football game. He knows what he wants and he never questions it.

Unlike me. I question everything. I have ever since that New Year's Eve.

Colin chins toward the stereo. "Tonight's going to be fun. Soundcrush is great, and we have amazing access, thanks to your hook-up."

 My heart skips a beat at the word hook-up, but I know Colin doesn't mean it that way. Trace sent me four VIP tickets and four backstage passes last week via courier, with a simple note that read, We're at the Fox next week. Hope you'll come. —TG. It wasn't even his handwriting. Probably some assistant or publicist wrote it. Not surprising, since I haven't seen or spoken to Trace in two and a half years. The song Little Sister is a just a song about a moment in time. His heart definitely does not belong to me. Maybe it did for one crazy New Year's Eve night, but then things changed. He moved on. I've been trying.

 I would have thrown the tickets in the trash immediately, except that Laurel was with me when I opened them, and she flipped out and texted Maddie and Colin...and the whole thing spiraled from there. And I didn't want to explain to any of them that the very last thing on earth I want to do is go to a Soundcrush concert, because I never want to see Trace Gallant, international rockstar, ever again.

 Colin pulls up to the gate in my neighborhood and the security guard recognizes both his Lexus SUV and me in the passenger seat and waves us in with a smile. My friends and I are just coming back from lunch, with pool time at my house in our immediate future. We spend the next several hours laughing, horse-playing in the pool and drinking beer that Colin's brothers usually provide.

Normally, this wouldn't happen at my house, because my parents cracked down hard on me during the spring of my sophomore year, after my sister Ashlynn went off the rails. But in the last couple of years, since I've relinquished all my former rebellious ways and have given myself over to becoming an Ashylnn clone, they've eased up a bit. Especially now that I'm technically a legal adult with acceptance to a prestigious university. They even decided it was ok to take a much needed vacation, just the two of them. I can't blame them. It's been a hard few years for them. Their current vacation is good for me, too. It's like being temporarily released from a prison of expectations.

 Around five, my friends and I meander into the house to get ready for the concert. I think Laurel senses my reluctance to go. She hatched this group get-ready plan to compel me to follow through. As my two girlfriends head into my giant bathroom to start their turns in the shower, Colin lingers in my room. I've put on a pair of shorts over my bikini, but he teasingly plays with the ties of my top.

"You're never going to get your turn, you know," he jerks his head toward my bathroom. He comes behind me and tilts me toward my full length mirror. He moves my damp ponytail aside and kisses the back of my neck. "Come shower with me in the guest suite," he suggests.

 I gulp at my reflection, as I watch him kissing my shoulder. We look good together—both tan and toned. Dating a quarterback kind of encourages you to keep up your fitness level—we go running several times a week, and he even helps me weight train a little. My hair and eyes are darker than his, but we are the same kind of honey-tone.  We make a very attractive couple. Sometimes I wonder if I like the look of us better than the feel of us. It's not that I'm shallow. I think it's more like I'm...hollow.

 "Shower? Hmmm?" he repeats as he stops kissing me, and smiles at our reflection.

"That seems like a big step," I murmur, staring back at him.

I know it's weird that I'm not sleeping with my boyfriend of nearly a year, but it's just one of those things. Don't get me wrong, we do things, we just haven't gotten all the way there. I can't really explain my reluctance, and for a long time he was surprisingly patient with the slow progression. I guess his momma raised him right. Lately, however, he's upping his game.

Like right now. Proposing full-on naked and wet in the shower is a rather strong suggestion for running in the touch-down.

He nuzzles my neck. "It's just a shower. It's not like we are gonna do it for the first time with Laurel and my lunatic cousin in the next room," he whispers in my ear.

I laugh at him. "True, but if I shower with you, they will harass me all night for details."

He sighs and runs his hands up my sides. "You're right, they will annoy the piss out of us both. So...maybe after we drop them off tonight?" He's staring at me intensely, rubbing my arms lightly. "No chance of your parents coming home since they are out of the country, complete privacy, comfort of your own bed..."

"You aren't talking about a shower anymore," I whisper.

He flips me around and gives me a direct look. "Kat, I'm crazy about you. We've been dating almost all year, and everything is great between us, isn't it?"

"Yeah," I smile.

"Don't you think it's time? For us to have real sex," he clarifies gently.

"I get that, but it's just weird that we are talking about it. It seems like it should happen...naturally," I protest.

 He smiles. "Naturally hasn't really been working for us, has it? I think you are more of a planner, Kat."

 Ha. I didn't used to be. But Colin only knows straight-A, please-her-parents, ten-year-plan, already picked out grad-schools Kat. The Ashlynn replacement my parents so desperately need. He doesn't know the real me.

Colin is still talking about having sex. "We're both going to have a lot going on at college in the fall. Hell, you're off to Texas for a month long internship in a few weeks," he's saying. "It feels like this summer is either...level up or game over, baby."

 "Is that an ultimatum?" I murmur.

 He shakes his head. "No, it's just...the truth. It doesn't have to be tonight, but I don't think we're gonna make it if we're not giving each other more."

 Shit, he means it, and moreover, maybe he's right.  There's no reason on earth why I shouldn't be ready. We are both adults. I care about him. He's proven to be sweet and gentle. Everything else we've done has been good. Enjoyable. Yes. Okay. I should say yes. It's time to just do this with him. In fact, I can't believe we haven't had sex yet. It's ridiculous. I want to do this. After all, what am I waiting for?

 "Next level. Tonight," I murmur.

 Colin breaks into a grin like he just won the Super Bowl. "Really? You're sure?" he takes my head in his hands.

 I nod, smiling back. He puts his hands on his hips, thinking. He's probably trying to figure out if he has any unexpired condoms or something. Or maybe if he even remembers how to do it. I know he's been with a few other girls, but it's been at least nine months, since we went exclusive.  Suddenly, he shakes his head and laughs a little maniacally.

"Okay. Tonight. Wow." He kisses me thoroughly. "Kat, I'll make it amazing, I promise." He picks me up and dips me like a big goof. I screech in protest. I guess I can't blame him for being excited. I have made him wait a long time, probably for all the wrong reasons. Or maybe they are the right reasons. I'm not exactly clear on that.

When Colin closes the door behind him, I'm so nervous I feel like I might vomit. I'm going to have sex with Colin tonight in my bed. Right after I see the only other guy I've ever been in a bed with. I snap the elastic on my wrist again. And over and over again, until the sting of my wrist has distracted me from feeling like I might hurl. I turn to my bathroom.

 "Okay, help," I say to my friends. "I want to look really hot tonight." I stride to my closet and start pulling out the all the dresses I own. "Like, not myself hot."

 Maddie claps her hands in delight and Laurel wraps her towel tighter and takes the dresses from me, appraising, "Are we sluttin' it up for Cols or for a certain former-next-door-neighbor-turned-rock-star?"

 "Does it make a difference?" I ask.

"Of course. Your boyfriend basically walked off a country music video," she holds up a frayed jean skirt and a tube top. "But I bet a rock star  prefers a sophisticated lady, hmmmm?" She holds up a tight cap sleeve electric blue dress I wore for my eighteenth birthday party.

    Laurel is right on about these guys. If I wear that jean skirt and tube top, it will make Colin sweat. He loves bare shoulders and skirts. But it seems almost cruel; he's already stoked enough just from the idea of later tonight. But now I can't exactly wear the blue dress either. That would be making a statement to my friends—like I am choosing to dress for Trace. There's no choice to make. Colin is my boyfriend that I'm going to have sex with tonight, and Trace made his choice a long time ago. In the end, I go with a sophisticated salmon romper. Long sleeves, open back and plunging neckline, and shorts even shorter than the jean skirt. Laurel laughs as I put my cowboy boots on.

 "Wow, you might wanna rethink those cowboy boots," Maddie says, but she's looking out the window.

 "It makes a statement," I defend.

"So does the limo parked outside," Maddie laughs. "Girl, I think you have some explaining to do about you and Trace Gallant."

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