I'D BEEN LISTENING to the same song on repeat for two weeks. There was always something new to find in it. The drums rattled through my earphones and beat against my chest, pushing me through the massive crowd of bodies as we all surged off our buses and into school.

The singer's voice rasped into clarity, like he was singing right beside me. His name was Jack Wilson, lead singer of a band called Gallows Humor. If I played my audition right, I could be standing next to him for real as early as two weeks. I wasn't worried that I wouldn't, though. I wasn't listening to the same song for weeks for nothing. I needed to memorize it. I needed to be able to play it in my sleep.

Both Jack Wilson's voice and the drums he played were the perfect accompaniments to the guitar, which was as loud as it was vicious. That was the part I needed to learn. I scooted past the other students, breaking into the atrium, my steps as quick as the riffs. I couldn't stop the subtle, nervous itch my fingers made as they copied the notes of the guitar. It was a comforting habit, something to ground me as I delved into something out of my comfort zone. Something illegal. Something dealing with my ex.

The hair on the back of my neck rose when I caught eyes with Dustin Callahan at my locker. An easy smile spread across his face, a leering kind of grin most girls here thought was sexy. I used to think so, too, at the beginning of sophomore year when puberty slapped him in the face with cheekbones that could rival Adonis. But then he opened his mouth at a party I could barely remember now, and I found out he had the audacity to match Zeus. After that, he looked more like a picture someone cut out of a magazine: pretty, but superficial and agonizingly flat. He'd been able to sing, and that was enough for a little while. I hated that I'd needed him then, and hated it more that I needed him now.

I paused my music and pushed my tattered headphones off my ears as Dustin leaned heavily on the locker next to mine. I reached for my lock. "Do you have it?" I asked.

"Good morning to you too, Jo," he drawled, which immediately got on my nerves. How could he sound so calm?

I opened my locker and yanked out my English textbook. I had to physically restrain myself from smacking him with it, so I settled for closing the locker with a little more force than necessary. "Stop screwing around, Dustin."

"I wish we still were," he countered. Then he caught my glare. "Oh my God, chill out. You can pick it up at my house tonight. Trey will have it by then. Our parents are out of town so we're having a party."

I already knew they were having a party. Everyone always knew when the Callahan brothers were having a party. "You should come," he went on, but he was looking at the ground, like a little kid who got in trouble. It set me more on edge than his usual cockiness. "The guys will be there. Maybe we could play..."

I bristled at the suggestion. "The only reason I have to go to your party at all is for my ID. Nothing else. Bye –"

"Hold on." Dustin caught my shoulder. I turned another glare on him. He cringed, but pressed on. "When we joked about getting fakes before, you always brushed us off. Now you've been breathing down my neck, like, every day for one. What are you using this for?"

"Why do you care?" I demanded.

"Because we're still... friends, right?"

I didn't say anything. I didn't need to. The pause before "friends" said it all.

Dustin frowned, looking more like a kicked puppy than he had any right to be. "You're the one who left the band, Jo."

"Only after you guys kicked me out," I snapped. I shrugged away from him. "See you later."

I headed toward my English class, but most importantly the set of lockers that belonged to my best friend. My only real friend in this hellhole who didn't have an agenda for me that involved trying to hook up at a random party, getting an invite to a random party, sneaking my mom's beer out of the fridge for random parties, or – in Dustin's case – how I could play guitar so well I could get any band in for an open mic night and secure a slot at an eighteen-plus venue.

Tonight would be the last time I'd ever need anyone for anything. I could survive one more party. The thought alone lightened a weight that settled in my chest as soon as Dustin's stupid face voiced that stupid proposition, "Maybe we could play..."

I smirked. He knew what he lost. Him and the rest of the band.

Claire Barnett was already at her locker. She didn't look up as I took my usual place at her side, too busy flipping through one of the many novels she kept on hand. It was an older book, probably one of her favorites, from the way the spine was creased. I waited for her to look at me.

She didn't. "You seem... pleased." Her voice had a way of carrying over the tumult in the hallways as the other kids bustled around us, even if it didn't hold much volume. Everything about her was soft like that: from her mousy brown hair to her bookish looking style she emulated through clothes we thrifted together, and her bright blue eyes.

Besides us always ending up next to each other in classes because our last names started with A and B, we agreed it was our opposites that established and solidified our friendship. She was quiet where I was loud, gentle where I was harsh, and hopeful where I was cynical. She was the only person I trusted completely. Like me, she would get out of our nowhere town, compared to everyone else who said they would just to say it.

My smile widened as she turned the combination of her own locker. "I got it."

She frowned. "You didn't."

"I did. We're about to meet my alter ego – the one that can get into bars and play for real bands."

Claire shook her head. "I can't believe it. What if it's not good? What if you get caught?"

"That will be a problem for future Jo," I said airily, pretending I hadn't asked myself those questions every second since I gave Dustin the money. "Dustin said he'll have it tonight. I just have to pick it up. He invited us to his party, too."

Her nose wrinkled with her distaste. "You mean you got invited."

I shrugged her off. "Everyone knows you're my eternal plus one. Hoes before bros and whatever."

"Are you sure that's such a good idea?" she countered. "It's only been, what? Two weeks since the breakup?"

As in the band's breakup and my own with Dustin. "It wasn't anything personal." For me, at least. "Dustin even asked if I would play with everyone tonight."

"I never liked him," Claire said. "When he's drunk or high, he just gets... weird."

Weird for Claire was another word for horny. But she still had a point. "I'm only going to get the ID. Then we can get McDonald's or something."

"Okay," she sighed. "Can I borrow some of your clothes?"

"Okay?"  I echoed. Parties weren't Claire's thing. It usually took a lot more convincing to get her to do anything that wasn't studying in coffee shops or browsing in bookstores. "You actually want to go tonight? And wear my clothes?"

"Sure," she shrugged, which brought my attention to her eyes and the dark circles underneath them. I also noticed the distant expression she had as she surveyed the hallway, which was weird. She was usually the one leading the way to our class. "You're going to go no matter what, right?"

I took one step out into the hall, letting her follow suit. "I mean... yeah. But I don't want to force you or anything."

"No, I – I want to go." I doubted either of us really believed that. We melded in with the rest of the crowd, following the flow toward our class as easily as she was going with my plans. "I need to do... something."

Something. I didn't like the way she said the word. There was an edge to her tone, a chill I'd never heard before. I stopped, right in the middle of the hall, and grabbed her arm. "Claire," I said, pulling her focus back to me. "Are you okay?"

Something behind her eyes wavered. Dread bloomed within me as my thoughts hurtled toward the worst. I kept my voice low. "What happened? Is it your family –"

The bell rang. Suddenly, the hallways emptied out, and Claire pulled  us toward our classroom. "Nothing," she said. "It's nothing. Just daydreaming, that's all."