The night of her first performance, Sawyer had left the stage trembling with joy and near tears from the sheer relief that she did, in fact, love playing the violin. The relief that Juilliard, with its insane competitiveness and stress, hadn’t managed to take that away from her was so intense, she’d been unable to speak for almost ten minutes after their show. She could have stood up there and played through every one of Victoria Vincent’s songs twice, if not more. She hadn’t wanted to get off the stage or stop playing, and it had been forever since playing the violin had felt like that.
Maybe she should have been playing the fiddle all along.
It was the same way in Columbus the next night, despite being in a smaller venue and half the crowd wasn’t paying attention. Vix hadn’t been pleased about that, and while she still sang her heart out and played with her usual fierceness, Sawyer noticed she kept her eyes closed a lot and didn’t engage with the crowd nearly at all. Unlike the night before in Chicago, no one bought her a drink and sent it to the stage. They opened for a band called Split Shade, who were in no way as nice as the down-to-earth musicians of Minus a Wildflower.
Victoria proclaimed they were “fucking douchebag tools.” Sawyer said they were rude, which was basically the same thing. They were late to sound check, took up the whole greenroom with their shit, smoked weed so much that Sawyer had to go outside to get away from it, and didn’t bother to try to learn anyone’s name. They had a rockier, edgier sound than the headliner from the previous night, with about half of the fans—but somehow there was a parade of scantily clad girls in and out of the greenroom before the show started and after Victoria Vincent’s set.
Sawyer felt that same performance high as the previous night and left the stage a trembling mess of emotion. Despite the unpleasant headliners and the gross venue (the women’s room had one working toilet and no soap, ew) and the lack of anything to eat that wasn’t pretzels in a bowl and a bottle of cheap vodka, she was so happy that she didn’t want to put the violin down, and played a few notes in the greenroom—until the douchebag lead singer for Split Shade told her to “knock it off, Yo-Yo Ma.”
“I play the violin,” Sawyer informed him. At his withering stare, she stiffly clarified, “Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello.”
“Yo, I played yo’ ma last night,” joked douchebag, which didn’t make sense but the girls laughed like he was hilarious.
“Even this secondhand contact high doesn’t make him funny,” Connor muttered, and Sawyer went to find somewhere to sit that wasn’t immersed in a cloud of weed smoke. The seating options were taken up by Split Shade, their groupies and their instruments, leaving very little room for anyone else.
“I’m so not buying any of their merch,” Sawyer said, arms crossed over her chest. She checked the clock, hoping the other band would go on stage soon and she could, at the very least, air out the greenroom a little. Last night in Chicago they’d gone out to watch Minus a Wildflower perform, but somehow Sawyer didn’t think any of them were up for that tonight.
Vix, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor and didn’t seem to care that it probably hadn’t been cleaned since the late nineties, looked up at her. Vix was small, which Sawyer hadn’t remembered from high school and tended to forget about now, given her personality. On stage, her presence and that big voice of hers made her seem six feet tall. In reality, she was tiny—small-boned, short, with features that might be considered delicate, despite all the tattoos and brightly colored hair. She looked a bit like a rocker elf. Or a pixie sprite. She’d probably punch Sawyer if she said that, though. Vix hated it when anyone called her cute.
“Wow, Sawyer, that’s . . . quite a threat,” Vix said, with that grin of hers that made Sawyer feel like they were back under the tree in high school.
“I bought a shirt from Minus a Wildflower.” Sawyer felt sort of stupid. “They were so nice!”
“Yeah, they were fine, but you don’t have to do that.” Vix rolled her eyes and teased, “I bet you wrote a Valentine’s card to every kid in your class, huh.”
Technically her mom had, but Sawyer didn’t say that. “I can tell you I won’t be sending any to Split Shade.”
Vix snorted a laugh and held her hand out. “Here, help me up. I gotta start packing up the gear before I fall asleep. They could have at least smoked better weed. Ugh.”
Sawyer wondered how she was going to get that smell out of her dress but didn’t want to ask. She had a feeling she knew the answer—she wasn’t. Not for the foreseeable future, anyway. And if that was the price she had to pay to be this happy . . . she’d take it.
Touring in a rock band was nothing like the tours Sawyer had been a part of back in school. Several weeks into Victoria Vincent’s summer tour, she’d already done about five things she never would have thought herself capable of—showering in a truck stop at 2 a.m., sleeping on a chair in an all-night laundromat while Vix played endless games of pinball to keep an eye on their clothes, and making sandwiches in a moving vehicle, to name a few—and while she was certain this kind of lifestyle took it out of you in the long run, so far she was having a blast.
Luckily, Split Shade had been the exception and not the rule, so most of the bands they interacted with were pretty cool. Sawyer wasn’t surprised that most of them were fronted by men, and she had to admire Vix’s determination in the face of a very gendered industry. Her sound was a bit more Americana and less rock than some of the others, but the band got a great reception, and Sawyer heard quite a few murmurs of “They’re great, I’m going to check them out on Spotify,” after their set.
One of Sawyer’s favorite things about the tour so far was the late-night driving. Vix hated to get up early and she was a night owl, so she usually took the last driving shift. They’d stop for dinner, and then Connor would drive until he felt sleepy, and he’d pull over at a truck stop. Sometimes they’d spend a few hours there doing their laundry or showering, but if not, it’d be a quick break and then back into the van. Sawyer would relocate to the front seat in her pajamas and keep Vix entertained as she drove. Sometimes they listened to music and sang together, a few times Sawyer played “guess this tune” with her violin (the guys in the band could sleep through anything) but most of the time, they talked. Vix was funny and easy to talk to, and Sawyer wasn’t sure she’d ever felt as comfortable around another woman as quickly as she was feeling comfortable around Vix.
She admired Vix for making her way in a tough industry, for touring hundreds of days out of the year, for putting up with the crowds of people who insisted on talking during her set. And yeah, Vix was also super hot. When Vix’s shift was over and they’d switch drivers again, sending Sawyer and Vix to the back of the bus, Sawyer would put her head on the window and close her eyes, wondering what it would feel like to fall asleep with her head in Vix’s lap.
Or maybe do other things with her head in Vix’s lap. Because it was starting to make a lot of sense to her why she’d never been that into Patrick. The little seed of curiosity—Am I a lesbian?—buried in her subconscious since high school, had finally worked its way to the forefront. Or . . . blossomed. Whatever, this was why she didn’t write the lyrics. All she knew was that her attraction to Vix went beyond admiration and friendship, and without the tension of school to distract her, she could finally spend some time thinking about her sexuality. About what it would be like, to be with a woman.
Thinking about having sex with Vix made Sawyer feel flushed and plagued by awkwardness and arousal. Sometimes Patrick had gone down on her, but he’d never done it for long and he’d never managed to quite learn how to get her off. He seemed to think that going down on her for five minutes was the same as her blowing him for five minutes. It was hard to explain that wasn’t how it worked—at least for her—but she’d never found the words to do it. Maybe she hadn’t tried that hard to explain. It was something she thought he’d done because he enjoyed it, but once she’d looked down and saw him staring vacantly off to the side, so maybe not. Maybe he thought he was expected to do it because it was something all girls wanted, who knew. The relationship hadn’t lasted long enough for her to be entirely comfortable with asking for what she wanted in bed.
Despite all the time they spent talking during their late-night drives, Sawyer never mentioned anything about Patrick or the real reason why she wasn’t playing in a chamber ensemble this summer. A few times she’d find the words caught in her throat, fragile things like fireflies trapped in a jelly jar, and she never could twist the metaphorical lid and let them go. She’d also never told Vix that they’d met before in high school, though why she was keeping that to herself, she wasn’t sure.
They played a set in Philadelphia, at a trendy place called MilkBoy that was part café, part restaurant, part bar and part live-music venue, and that was one of Sawyer’s favorite performances. Everything was on, in that way music sometimes was—the band was perfectly in sync, everyone was in a good mood and well-rested, Vix was killing it, and Sawyer felt like her fiddle was simply an extension of her physical body. The crowd was great too—a lot less talking than some of their other stops, and Victoria Vincent was the headliner, so they had a fair number of fans who were there to see them. It was one of those shows where Sawyer hated how fast it went, because she felt so comfortable on stage that she could have honestly played for three hours and not gotten tired. She was singing along a bit, though her voice had nothing on Vix’s. Vix didn’t only sing her songs, she breathed life into them and set them free.
Sawyer lost track of Vix at some point after the show, and figured she was mingling with fans or having a drink down at the bar. Sawyer decided to take her violin to the van (she was, perhaps, a little paranoid about leaving it lying around) and was surprised to find Vix in the alley next to where they’d parked, smoking and scribbling something in her ever-present notebook.
“Hey,” Sawyer said, smiling at her. “I thought you were at the bar with the guys.”
“Nah. I had a drink, but I got this idea for this song, so.” She waved the little notebook. “I like that place but it’s really loud.”
That it was. Sawyer watched as Vix finished her cigarette and threw it down, stomping it out. She was wearing jeans, biker boots, and a plain black tank top, her hair messy as ever, and she looked so much like the girl Sawyer remembered meeting that long-ago day that she found herself saying, “Did you know we’ve met before?”
Vix gave her a look. “We just played a show together, Sawyer.”
Sawyer stuck her tongue out. “I mean, we met before I auditioned for your band.” Why she was feeling the urge to tell Vix this now when she’d had so many other opportunities, Sawyer wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the warm summer air on her skin, the memory of the concert echoing like music in her ears . . . or maybe it was Vix, with those ink-stained fingers and the subtle air of cigarette smoke falling gently like rain. “It was a long time ago. High school.”
Vix smiled at her, some of her hair hanging in her face. Vix never wore makeup on stage other than mascara—she said she sweated it off—and there were black smudges beneath her eyes. Sawyer would look like a raccoon, but Vix . . . Vix looked cool, as always. She snapped her fingers and started laughing. “Orchestra girl? With the retro glasses? That was you! Oh my God, Sawyer. Wow, did you ever grow up.” She leered.
“I got contacts.” Sawyer smiled in pleasure that Vix remembered her. “But yeah.”
“Man, I can’t believe I didn’t put that together.” Vix shook her head. “You grew up into a looker, but for the record, I totally thought you were cute back then.”
Sawyer’s face heated, and she tilted her chin down, hiding behind her hair the same way she probably had back in high school. “Thanks. I wasn’t sure if you would remember. It was only the one time.”
“I blocked out most of high school because it was boring.” Vix eyed Sawyer suspiciously. “Why didn’t you say anything before now? ’Cause, girl, if you were waiting for me to remember . . . I have, like, a terrible memory. I can’t remember where we stopped for lunch yesterday.”
“Arby’s,” Sawyer supplied, because that was totally a cool thing to say, wow.
“Right! But yeah, you’re not mad or anything, are you?” Vix asked, studying her. “I’m sorry if I was a dick or anything back then.”
“You—you weren’t,” Sawyer assured her. She had to bite her lip to keep from blurting, I had a crush on you and realized I liked women, but I didn’t admit it until a few days ago. Instead, she heard herself say, “I thought you were cool and wanted to be friends with you.”
Yeah, that wasn’t equally as pitiful as supplying their fast-food lunch location or anything.
“Aw. That’s cute.” Vix batted her mascara-clumpy eyelashes. Sawyer wondered if Vix ever took the mascara off or kept layering it on her lashes, over and over again, city after city. “Jeff was seriously my only friend, though. I was a snot in high school who thought I was too good for everyone.”
“Maybe you were.” Sawyer leaned on the wall next to Vix. She felt good at having told Vix that, she realized. Lighter, somehow. “Remember how I told you I wasn’t with an ensemble this summer because I got sick and couldn’t audition?”
Vix nodded. “I remember.” She got a cigarette out of her pack but didn’t offer Sawyer one, having learned that Sawyer would turn down one if offered.
“I— It wasn’t, like, a real sickness. Or I guess it was, but . . .” Sawyer’s fingers tightened on the handle of her violin case, shoulders tensing up immediately at the thought of school. “I had a panic attack when I got there. I made it through the front door, but that was it. I ended up running out before I signed in for my audition time.”
Vix didn’t say anything, so Sawyer said in a rush, “I hate it there. It’s stressful and it—it’s not the good kind of stress. It’s the kind that makes me feel like a failure who doesn’t work hard enough every second of every day.”
“I kind of felt that way about high school,” said Vix. Her voice was sympathetic, and her hand came to rest gently on Sawyer’s shoulder. “So I can’t imagine what a place like Juilliard is like.”
“I auditioned, but I never thought I’d get in, you know?” Sawyer turned. It felt like all the words were tumbling free right there in the alley, the lid tossed far away and the glass shattered on the ground, fireflies lighting up the night. “I got a scholarship, so I thought . . . well, this is going to be everything I wanted. And then it wasn’t, and I spent a long time refusing to admit that.”
“You like playing, though.” Vix put an arm around her. “Is it that, or the competition?”
“It’s all of it,” Sawyer said, swallowing hard. She forced her hand to relax, forced her shoulders down so she wasn’t tensing up so much. “I love playing the violin—or I did. I’d forgotten, really, until that first show in Chicago.” She tried for a smile. “I’m glad that I remembered I loved it. But I don’t think it’s enough to make me want to go back.”
Vix took a drag off her cigarette, turning her head to blow smoke away from Sawyer. It caught the wind and drifted back, but Sawyer didn’t mind. “You’re almost done, right?”
“Almost. But it’s . . . it’s miserable. I’m miserable. I hate it, and I wish I’d never gone. What a strange thing, right? To wish you’d never gotten in to your dream school?”
“I don’t think it’s that strange,” Vix reassured her. “If you’re not happy, you’re not happy. You can love music without being in a super competitive program. You can love it and not do it all your life too, you know?” Vix smiled wryly. “Or so they tell me.”
I don’t know how to do anything else. I don’t know who I am. Sawyer felt tired, the euphoria of the show slowly fading. “Anyway, I wanted to tell you. And to thank you, because I thought maybe the violin was the problem. But it isn’t.”
“Well,” said Vix. “Maybe it is. Maybe the violin’s a problem, but the fiddle isn’t.”
Sawyer smiled. “Maybe so. Thanks for bringing me on the tour, Vix. It’s helping a lot. I still don’t really know what to do, but at least I know I still love playing and performing.”
“Well, I hate to say that I’m glad you had a panic attack, because I don’t mean that. But I’m glad you’re here. It’s been awesome having you on tour, Sawyer. And thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome.” Sawyer pushed away from the wall. She sighed. “When I met you, back in high school? I remembered envying how confident you are. I still envy that.”
“Oh, ha ha, that’s funny.” Vix pulled her notebook out of the back of her jeans, where she’d stashed it to light her cigarette. “I was fronting in high school, Sawyer, and I’m probably still doing it. ‘Fake it till you make it,’ that’s my motto.”
“I thought ‘I’m only going to play my own music’ was your motto,” Sawyer teased.
To her surprise, Vix’s face went red. “God, I was so pretentious. Ugh. I really said that, didn’t I?”
“Yup.” Sawyer giggled. “But you’re doing it, so.”
“Well, you said you were gonna audition for Juilliard and you did.” At Sawyer’s surprised glance, Vix shrugged. “I remember now. You were sad because some orchestra girls were making fun of you, and I gave you a cigarette that you totally wasted by pretending to smoke. Talk about pretentious.”
“That’s not pretentious, that’s high school,” Sawyer said pertly.
“Well, speaking of playing my own music, I am having a bitch of a time coming up with music for this song.” Vix stomped out her cigarette again and flipped the pad open to show Sawyer. “I’ve actually been working on some version of it since high school, funnily enough. No melody I ever come up with sounds quite right.”
Sawyer looked down at the lyrics, but they were hard to read in Vix’s scrawl—the ink was smeared on the page and some of the words were scratched out. “You’ll find it when it’s right.”
“Now who’s being pretentious?” Vix teased, closing the notebook and sticking it back in her jeans. She hooked her arm through Sawyer’s. “Let’s go take that to the van and find a place to get some food. I’m starving, and that menu at MilkBoy . . . you want to talk about pretentious, find the guy who wrote that.”
Sawyer let Vix lead her toward the van. Behind them, smoke lingered in the alley.