Take A Bow Part 11

"During the first song, you were out of control and you fell off the stage and your head hit one of the speakers on the way down. You broke two of your teeth and I guess you reached out to break the fall, but ended up fracturing your arm. It's going to be in a cast for at least six weeks."

Six weeks without being able to play the piano or guitar. I don't even know what this means for school or the band.

"I'm sorry," I finally speak.

Emme's quiet. She looks at the door. "Um, I need to let my mom and the guys know that you're awake now. I don't think the doctors believed for a second that I was your sister, but I wasn't going to let you wake up all alone. But it's six in the morning and ..."

"Please don't leave me." I feel a tear run down my face.

She hesitates. "Just give me a few minutes."

As soon as she leaves the room, a sense of panic overwhelms me. I've done stupid things. Oh, how I've done stupid things, but I can tell by the way she's looking at me that I've crossed a line I will probably never recover from.

She comes back and sits down. I reach my hand out for her. She takes it. Her eyes are puffy from crying and she looks miserable and exhausted.

"I'm sorry."

She doesn't respond.

"Emme?"

She looks at me.

"I'm sorry."

She nods.

"Please say something to me. Anything."

She closes her eyes and her lips start moving slightly. I'm temporarily relieved that she's doing something that's normal. Any sense of normalcy in this foreign environment is welcome.

She sighs. "Honestly, Ethan, I don't really think I can say what I want to say to you right now. It wouldn't be a good idea."

By the way she won't look at me, I can tell she hates me. But I need to know what she feels. I need to know she can still feel something toward me.

"Please, I know you're mad."

"Mad?" She clenches her jaw. "Mad is an understatement, Ethan. I'm furious." Fresh tears start pouring from her eyes. "Do you have any idea what you did? I thought you were dead." Her voice cracks and she buries her face in her hands. "I can't keep watching you do this to yourself. I can't ... I can't really object to what you do after a show, but before our biggest gig? You had to get wasted? Did you for even one second think about the rest of us before you did such a stupid thing? How much more do you think any of us can take?"

All I could think of was Tyler kissing Emme. An image I wanted to get out of my head as quickly as possible.

"I'm sorry." That's all I can think to say, but I know it isn't enough. Nothing I do will ever be enough. Especially now.

Emme sits there with me for the next few hours as doctors and nurses come in. She has tears in her eyes the entire time. But neither of us says another word.

"Ethan!" My mom breaks the silence when she opens the door and runs to my bedside. "Oh, sweetie, I'm so sorry we're just getting here now. We came as quickly as we could." She looks up and sees Emme. "Thank you so much!" She gives Emme a hug, but Emme doesn't respond. She just heads for the door.

"John!" Mom nudges my dad. "You'd better make sure she gets home okay. It looks like she hasn't slept in days."

I want to run after Emme, call after her, do something. But instead I lie here. In the bed that I made for myself out of self-pity and self-destruction.

One week.

That's how long I'm away from school. Away from the band. Away from Emme.

Everybody comes to visit me - Jack, Chloe, Ben, Mr. North, even Kelsey - but I don't hear from Emme.

I head into cla.s.s with my arm in a cast and sling.

"Welcome back, Mr. Quinn," Mr. North says to me as I settle into my seat.

"The prodigal jacka.s.s returns!" Jack says with a laugh.

Jack and Ben both seemed to have accepted my apologies for my behavior. I know Jack likes to have yet another thing to pick on me for.

"Oh, nice sparkly white teeth, Toothy McGee."

My tongue runs over the caps that were put on the teeth that I broke. If only there were caps to fix everything in life.

Emme walks into cla.s.s and gives me a halfhearted smile as she sits down.

"Hey," I say to her.

She nods at me.

Mr. North gives us the hour to go over our pieces for next week's concert. The one where I'm supposed to do a killer guitar solo.

Jack gets right to it. "We obviously have a problem with old gimpy here."

Mr. North pulls up a chair beside us. "Listen, guys, we still want you to perform. I discussed with the other department directors, and we are fine if you want to pull a guitar student from the junior cla.s.s to perform with you."

Jack and Ben start going over different guitarists to fill in for me.

Emme speaks up. "I'm going to do the solo."

"What?" Jack looks surprised.

I smile.

"Find someone to fill in for my rhythm part. I'm going to do the solo."

"Red! That's my girl! Although, I don't mean to doubt you, but it's pretty hard."

Emme glares at Jack. "I can do it."

And the way she says it, there is no question at all that she can.

I'm waiting for Emme at her locker after cla.s.s.

"I'd say that I don't mean to stalk you, but ..."

She doesn't look surprised to see me, but she doesn't look pleased, either.

"What's up?" she asks.

I didn't think she was going to acknowledge my existence, so I don't really have a plan.

"We still need to record some more songs for our thesis projects. I wanted to see when, ah, you wanted to come over."

She stares at my sling. "Can you really work the soundboard with your arm?"

"I'm willing to try."

She lets out a small sigh. "I don't know...."

"Please." I feel the desperation seep into my voice and I don't care. I need to fix this. I need Emme. I hate myself so much right now, probably more than she hates me. If that's even possible.

She nods to herself a bit, apparently weighing the pros and cons.

"Hey, guys. Welcome back, Ethan!" Tyler approaches us and I try to look happy to see him. Okay, maybe not happy, but I try to push down the murderous rage I feel inside.

I hold Emme's gaze as Tyler stands between us, looking back and forth, waiting to be acknowledged. Then the corner of Emme's mouth turns up slightly and she tilts her head at me. She looks at Tyler and grabs him by the s.h.i.+rt and kisses him. Hard.

I've never been so jealous of a person (or s.h.i.+rt) in my life.

"Hi," she says as she pushes him away.

His eyes are wide. Clearly not the h.e.l.lo he was expecting.

She can hardly look me in the eye when she finally addresses me. "Yeah, I guess I could come over later. I'll call you."

She and Tyler leave hand in hand.

I feel sick to my stomach.

But I deserve that and so much more.

Emme does come over as promised. But instead of heading to the studio, she sits down on the couch in our living room.

"I'm pretty mad at you, Ethan."

"I know."

She starts playing with the tie that's on her s.h.i.+rt. "But that doesn't excuse me from not returning your phone calls or visiting you while you were out."

I don't even know what to say.

She continues. "I don't know. I felt like I needed to get back at you for what you did. Which is why I made a total fool out of myself today with Tyler in front of you. But I don't really think there is anything that I can do to make you realize what you've done. I want to move on from all of this."

"I'll do anything to make you not hate me."

"I don't hate you."

Part of me doesn't believe her, although I desperately want to.

I sit down next to her and take her hand. "Emme, I will do everything possible to make this up to you, I promise."

She doesn't respond. She slowly pulls her hand away. "There's something I want to show you." She takes out her phone and hands it to me.

I see an e-mail from Juilliard telling her she's been invited to audition in February.

"You did it!"

She gives me a weak smile. This is something she's dreamed about for so long. The old Emme would've been ecstatic, and a feeling creeps up inside me that makes me wonder if I killed that part of her.

"Emme!" I jump up on the couch. "You got invited to audition at Juilliard. JUILLIARD!" I jump right next to her so she starts to shake around.

She stands up. Her eyes get wide. "Flippin' Juilliard!" She jumps up on the couch and lets out the most glorious laugh I've ever heard.

I lose my balance and fall backward onto the couch.

"Ethan!" She lets out a little scream.

"I'm okay!"

She jumps off the couch, slightly out of breath, and sits back down. "I really needed this."

I nod at her. Happy to have Emme back, even if it's temporary.

She turns to me. "I'm sure you'll hear any day."

I pause for a second. "I did hear back."

She swats at my good arm. "You were supposed to tell me!"

"You were the first person I called, but, um, you weren't returning my phone calls."

"Oh." I didn't want to remind her of why she wasn't talking to me. "Well?"

I jump back onto the couch. "Flippin' Juilliard!"

She cheers for me and jumps back on with me to celebrate. We bounce around like idiots for nearly half an hour. I didn't want this moment to end. I'm afraid that the second our feet touch the floor (literally), she'll go back to Upset Emme.

But truthfully, I'll hold on to whatever part of her I can.

Alumni night.

Jack is uncharacteristically pacing around backstage. He finally pulls me aside. "I'm not cool with this. Emme hasn't run through her solo once."