Backstage Girl

07 | perfectly composed

Ella hardly slept for the next two weeks.

They jetted from city to city, visiting a new one practically every night until the names became a blur: Los Angeles, Chicago, St. Louis, Arlington, Houston, Nashville, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Foxborough and East Rutherford.

She spent most of her days touring around the city with Louise, stuffing their faces full of Cheez-Its and learning about American culture. Some days, that involved touring things like the Washington Memorial. Other days, that involved sneaking into bars to watch American baseball with pints of beer.

"After all," Louise said, "I love the Blue Jays, but the States do it better."

By some miracle, Margaux managed to keep Ella and Louise out of the papers, so they were free to roam around without fear of paparazzi. The only time that they ever had to worry was when Oliver joined them, which he did more and more frequently.

"I've never been to America," Oliver explained to them as they biked around Liberty State Park. "My Mum would kill me if I didn't send her any photos."

Ella noticed Oliver called his Mom a lot — usually at least once a day, when she and Louise phoned Ophelia and Sophia — and it endeared him to her a little.

If only she were that close with her parents.

Ella still called them once a week, mostly out of a perfunctory sense of duty; Rory never phoned their parents, so it was always up to her to keep in touch. They spent most of the phone call peppering Ella with questions about how Max and Rory were (fine) and if the fans were crazy (always) and how the new bassist was (hot).

Okay, Ella didn't say the last one.

But she was definitely thinking it.

Ella saw little of Max, but that was because she was doing her best to avoid him; Lexi seemed to think it was her sworn duty to cover as much of his surface area with her skin as possible, as if she was a bodyguard shielding him from incoming bullets.

Ella and Louise both got sick just thinking about it, but for very different reasons.

"I mean, he's my brother," Louise griped as they wiped a gloopy brown mask off their faces at a hotel in New Jersey. "It's sickening."

"I know," Ella said.

Louise wet the towel. "I can never look Lexi in the eye again."

"I hear you."

"And it must be even worse for you, since you're in love with him."

"Yeah, it's—" Ella broke off, swinging around to look at her. "Wait, what did you just say?"

Louise arched an eyebrow. "Well, you are, aren't you?"

Ella busied herself with the face towel, unable to meet Louise's eyes. Oh, god. She always suspected that Louise knew about her crush on Max, but to hear her say the words was like having an entire coffeemaker emptied into her bloodstream.

"It doesn't matter," Ella said, wringing the towel. "He's with Lexi."

Louise snorted. "That won't last."

"And then there's you. And Rory."

"Oh, we don't care," Louise said airily, and then paused. "Well, Rory might, actually. But we can deal with that later."

"And Max is..."

Ella trailed off, scrubbing at a bit of face mask under her chin. Louise arched an eyebrow.

"He's what?"

Ella bit her lip. She wished she could tell Louise about her fears. She wanted to tell her that she was terrified Max would spend his whole life chasing after different women; that since he had never fallen in love before, she was terrified that he was incapable of it.