Reid’s silence is so loud, it consumes every non-Melted- related thought. At home, I search for reasons to go downstairs and interrupt their lessons, but I come up blank. At night, my phone glows with the messages we’ve sent, my eyes burning as I scroll all the way back to before—flirting in emojis, making weekend plans, sending links to the best Broadway performances. If it’s a really bad night, I scroll even further, to before before and the ease of our banter, the cleverness of our quips, the evidence that maybe I never hated him, not really. But I wish I still thought I did. I wish I still resented his talent, his relationship with my dad, his face.

I wish I had a reason to hate him, now that he has a reason to hate me.

“Come on, everyone,” Dad says, his voice clear and authoritative from the orchestra pit. “Henry, can you stand in?”

After another slightly less bumpy run-through, I call the rehearsal, cutting it an hour short.

“I think he’ll come around,” Henry says, his voice low in my ears.

Maybe for Melted. But not for me.

The future of the arts at LHS being in Reid’s hands once would have been my nightmare, but if he’s going to let everything burn to the ground, I can’t even be mad because, really, I’m the one who lit it all on fire.

“Reid says stop texting him,” Delia says, flopping on my bed belly-first.

I’m scrolling through the home page for the Albany Institute, writing down all emails and phone numbers. Communicating through the sisters is nothing we haven’t done before. Except it’s not childish rivalries and stupid pranks and being too stubborn to talk to the other person first. This is pointed.

“I’m only trying to figure out who at the Albany Institute Reid has already contacted.”

Since he won’t answer, I’m cold emailing everyone with an @albanyinstitute.edu address. I attach Reid’s audition pieces, which I managed to swipe with a flash drive from Dad’s studio computer. Someone will open the email. Someone will know Reid has to audition. Someone will have mercy on my stupid heart and give him a second chance.

“Hannah said you wouldn’t last a month. I hate that she was right.”

“Me too,” I say.

“Reid should’ve had the chance to choose,” Delia says. “Fix it.”

“I’m trying.”

She stands. “Well, maybe don’t text him unless you do.”

Delia pops bubblegum in my face and disappears back to her room.