How could I ever think Reid and me could be more than the rivals we always were? I knew the rules and I ignored them because I guess I thought we could change. But apparently nothing about us has changed.

So the truce is over. And this time I’m making the first move.

Reid’s Albany Institute fate is in my hands.

I have the ability to hurt him too.

Anything But Music

It turned out, my friendship with Madeline Park was nothing more than a brief interlude.

At the end of seventh grade, Madeline and her family moved to Wichita.

She and Reid ended in a no-drama mutual breakup the week before she left.

She and I ended without saying goodbye, without fixing anything.

The summer afternoon that the moving truck pulled away, I set my clarinet down after a solo bedroom practice and went downstairs—extremely in my feelings—to find Reid, in the kitchen, making an epic sundae. Mint chip ice cream with chocolate sauce, more whipped cream than ice cream, and two maraschino cherries on top. Maybe not epic by everyone’s standards, but the perfect sundae to be consumed by one Natalie Jacobson. Two maraschino cherries were Reid’s trademark move.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

Reid didn’t owe me an ice cream. I’d be the first one to claim it if he did.

Rule nine was specifically prank-related.

Oh my God.

“It was all a prank,” I whispered. “I was right.”

Reid frowned. “No. That’s not…”

I waved at the ice cream, the hard evidence. “Rule nine!”

Reid closed the jar of cherries, his neck flushed pink, further evidence. An entire year’s prank just because I had beaten him for first chair.

Then it hit me.

It was summer.

We’d be doing the first chair wars all over again. Competing with Reid didn’t get me anywhere. If anything, my dad paid more attention to Reid now than before! It didn’t strengthen my friendship with Madeline. And it definitely didn’t make me fall in love with the clarinet.

I spent so many hours practicing and crying.

Forcing myself to get a little better at something that just… did not come naturally.

For what?

“It doesn’t matter. I’m done,” I said.

“Done?” Reid asked.

“With the clarinet.”

The words spilled out but I didn’t want to take them back because it was the truth and it set me free.

“Wait. You’re just… quitting?”

I expected Reid to be thrilled. Wasn’t this what he always wanted?

Instead, he was mad.

I nodded. “Yeah. You can have the chair. I don’t want it.”

“I didn’t want it like this!”

“I don’t want it at all. The music, the pranks, Natalie vs. Reid? I can’t do this anymore. You win.”

“What’re you going to do?” Reid asked.

“Anything but music,” I snapped.

“It doesn’t have to be—”