"I don't think I've ever seen you wear that much sequins in your life."

Nora had always been jealous of how easily Erin pulled off any style. He never looked out of place or like he was trying too hard, whereas she felt scrutinized for every little thing. If she wore the same outfit twice. If she dared to walk a red carpet with chipped polish. Not having big enough boobs. Wearing the most unflattering color that washed her out. A new style? Forget about it.

Not that Erin was to blame for any outside forces. She loved his eclectic style. He wore it with pride. As if he was telling the world to fuck off, and take their opinions elsewhere. Except he didn't care. Nora wished she didn't care. Life would have been so much easier if she didn't care.

He tugged at the flowy shirt that resembled a deconstructed disco ball. "I'm not sure what the theme is here but... I like it."

"Seasons."

Erin took in the outfit Nora wore and nodded. "Ah. Right."

While he was dressed in pastels and loose fabrics—a stark contrast to the dreary skies above—along with what appeared to be an entire Michaels' worth of glitter and sequins, Nora donned a muted palette of neutral tones and sharp lines meant to evoke a cold exterior. She didn't need all that to get the job done, but it made for some pretty pictures. She had already been torn away from Porter to take some of them while he pulled other band members in for conversations.

She had only caught a flash of Kinsley's outfit, but it was enough to know she was meant to represent summer. Lockewood, in whatever outfit he had been dressed in, probably looked stunning as the patron saint of autumn.

A break was nice, even if it hadn't been long since the day started and it went against her overworking nature. Nora was painfully predictable in that way. A tiny Porter could have materialized on her shoulder with red horns and said I told you so and she wouldn't have a comeback.

"Listen, we should talk—"

"You didn't call." Erin couldn't look her in the eye, which meant he was upset, even if he had done a good job of hiding it earlier. Her sweet spring child hated confrontation and arguing in front of a crowd. It was why, when Roslyn erupted into screaming matches, he remained the silent one who sat in the corner, not quite sure what to say but too scared to leave. "Not once."

"I didn't know what to say."

He didn't buy it. "Does anyone?"

She should have seen that coming. It was a pathetic excuse.

"Look, can I just say something?" Nora tried not to get frustrated. She only had herself to blame for letting herself get to this place, and as much as she wanted the chance to mend things with Erin, he had every right to burn her with scathing disappointment.

When she reached out and he instinctively pulled away, it chiseled deep into the center of her chest, and she withdrew her rejected hand with third-degree burns.

"What could you possibly say now that you couldn't have said in the past year?"

A lot, she wanted to say. A hell of a lot that she had been too scared to admit. But admitting those things meant confronting the root of the problem, and if she couldn't accomplish that in therapy, what luck did she have then?

It all led a vicious cycle. Feeding her ego and competitive nature, the insatiable need to reach perfection when she knew there was no such destination, and that included stepping on those who were there by her side the entire way. The people to whom she owed her career. A little resistance from all sides endowed her the chance to assert the dominance she always strived for, and, as a result, she burned a few too many bridges along the way.

"Do you remember that first night?" he asked suddenly. Nora untightened her fists pressed against her thighs. "Seems like forever ago."

"It kind of was." Eight years was a long time to know someone, especially since so many of those years were spent doing what they love. Loved.

"I can't believe I told you guys I'd never had a drink before and you gave me a long island iced tea."

Despite whatever was going on, it was hard not to laugh. The look on Erin's face when he took his first sip alone was worth the slap they had all rightfully earned. Nobody deserved to be welcomed into the world of booze with a long island iced tea.

"That's what happens when you show up with the worst fake ID I've ever seen in my life. You're at the mercy of whoever can actually buy alcohol."

Erin glanced down the barren hallway while they sat on the lowest three steps. For a place crawling with the crew for the photo shoot, it felt as if every turn they made led them to a deserted corner of the world. If she didn't know any better, she would have thought she was dreaming. Maybe even dead, or something just before death. One of those in limbo kind of hallucinations where she reflected on her life and everywhere she went wrong.

"I paid a lot of money for that thing."

"Is your name Fogell?"

He scoffed. "How dare you."

"You're right. McLovin's was better."

"The worst part about that was we were supposed to believe that dude was five-ten," Erin said.

Nora held her hand up, perpendicular to the floor.

Erin shoved it away. "Pretty sure I'm still taller than him."

"Let me check that ID first."

It didn't matter how many years had passed. Nora remembered that night, clear as day. The smell of her shampoo, the matching outfits she wore with Kinsley, how long Lockewood's hair had been and how he had let them put it up into pigtails, the naive and exuberant gleam in Erin's eyes. It was all so vivid that she could reach out and touch it. Put it in her pocket for a rainy day.

God, that was such a perfect time, that day specifically. Nothing had gone wrong. At least, nothing she could remember. If there had, all of the good memories washed them away like a line in the sand. Nora thought about that night often, especially when she lay there alone in her empty apartment. It was easier using those memories to procrastinate than it was to dream about them because, in her dreams, they felt real. And when she woke up to the reality of where their world had shifted, it caused her to ache more.

"I thought you three were the coolest people I had ever met," he said, a hint of a smile on his face with traces of bitter melancholy. "Couldn't believe you were talking to me."

Erin had arrived that night with a friend on each arm, and by an hour and a half later, they were nowhere to be seen. Some friends they were. (Then again, she hadn't spoken to him in a year. Never even called.) (She didn't have much ground to stand on.) Inviting him over to their table after he sang Radio Ga Ga, bringing everyone into that bar to their feet, was a no-brainer. The rest was history.

"You were the coolest person in that bar," she said.

"I wasn't, but that was okay 'cause I had you." He looked at her then, years older but with remnants of that younger man still present around the fragments of his current state. "I never had friends. Real friends. And then you three showed up, we sang Queen until they kicked us out, and I thought I had finally found my family."

Thought. As if they weren't. But they were. They had been. She had no idea if they ever could be again, but there was nothing more real, more raw and authentic, than the first night, and Nora didn't like that who they were in the present ruined that night for him.

Like the coward she was, the words became stuck in her throat. The apology she should have given him, the real one, for abandoning her family for an entire year. "Safe to say I'm not the coolest anymore, huh."

Erin stood up, dusted off his hands, and began walking away, but not before he tossed one last comment over his shoulder. "Not really, but you'll always be my favorite songbird."

"Remember me every time you drink a long island iced tea."

They laughed. He was never drinking one of those again.