Click.

Delete.

Click.

Delete.

Growling in frustration, I hit the select all button and deleted every photo.

All my photos were awful. Everything I'd shot since…

I swallowed hard, a lump forming in my stomach.

…everything I'd shot since August left had been terrible. It was like my foul mood seeped into my camera, spoiling every photo.

A part of me knew I was being too hard on myself. My photos weren't terrible. They were fine.

Fine isn't good enough.

August's words echoed in my head.

That was the real reason I was mass deleting my pictures. Every time I looked at a photo I'd taken, August's voice rang in my ear, telling me I could do better, telling me that I had the potential for greatness if only I reached out and grabbed it.

But it was just my imagination. August wasn't here anymore to tell me those things.

And it was all my fault.

August hadn't come back to the hotel that night, or the next morning. He hadn't shown up by the time we had to leave for the next city. The band's manager Naomi called to tell us August had already booked a flight back home.

With grim expressions and our hearts in our throats, we had piled onto the tour bus and pulled out of the city without a chance to say goodbye.

It had been a week now. A week without the drummer of Darkest Days. The swirling pit of guilt and despair in my gut hadn't lessened. If anything, it had grown, like a black hole threatening to consume me from the inside.

"Excuse me?"

A young girl with wide brown eyes held her camera up in her hands, pointed at me.

"Sorry, am I in your way?" I asked.

She shook her head.

"No. I wanted to ask if I can take a picture of you."

I blinked.

"Me? Why?"

"I'm the social media intern for this concert venue," she explained. "I'm supposed to get interesting behind the scenes photos of people working to share online."

I didn't know why a photo of me frowning into my camera would be considered interesting. I nodded anyway.

"Just keep playing with your camera like you were before," she said. "I'll be quick."

I went back to my camera. With all my photos deleted, I had to pretend I was doing something.

True to her word, by the time I looked back up, the girl was off to the side, speaking to a roadie who had a skeptical look on his face.

Taking photos of crew members probably wasn't the kind of thing the poor girl thought she signed up for as an intern for a concert venue. I hoped her boss at least let her meet the bands and take photos of them. It was probably the only perk of an internship with what I assumed had to be low pay, or even no pay.

With no photos to speak of, I left the backstage and headed back to the tour bus. If I wasn't going to get any good shots, I might as well work on editing the ones I'd already taken.

I stepped onto the bus and paused.

Cameron sat on the sofa closest to the doors, face buried in his phone's screen. He must have been taking the time to rest and text his girlfriend before the show.

He flicked his gaze up when I appeared on the top of the stairs. He stared me down, his lips twitching into a frown. His gaze flicked back to the phone without a word of greeting.

If I'd thought Cameron had been giving me the cold shoulder before, it was nothing compared to the icy reception that greeted me every time the band got together in one room.

Disheartened, I made my way to the small office at the back. Turning on my laptop and opening my photo editing software, I clicked through the photos, trying to decide which ones to work on.

Hushed voices from the bedroom at the back caught my attention. Two identical voices. I couldn't hear what the twins were talking about. Or, more accurately, furiously hissing to each other.

The door opened. Ian stalked off. I kept my eyes trained on my laptop.

Damon came out. His hand was buried in the hair at the back of his neck. Frustration lined his face. He saw me.

"Hey," he said half-heartedly.

"Hey," I said carefully. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah. Just—" he let out a slow breath. "The usual shit."

The usual shit, in this case, had come to mean arguing about August.

"Ian still upset?"

"He's turning this into a me-and-him thing." Damon glanced out the bus windows, watching his brother stomp off toward the venue. "He's saying I shouldn't have made him choose between me and August. Says it's just like me making him choose between me and Hope."

"That's not a fair comparison."

"Doesn't stop him from making it." Damon leaned against the office desk, shoulders slumping. "I know we did the right thing. If August kept playing while taking drugs, eventually something bad would have happened. Again. It was for his own good. Ian knows that." Damon pressed his lips together. "He just didn't have the guts to back me up on it."

"I don't think it's about guts." I looked down at my lap, hair falling to cover my face. "It's about friendship. And loyalty. And love."

Damon snorted.

"Should we start fighting over who cares about August more?"

"You all care about him. That was never in doubt."

"And you?"

I shot my head up, panicked.

"What do you mean, me?"

Damon cocked his head.

"You care about August."

A statement, not a question.

Heart thumping madly in my chest, I thought quickly.

"Of course. He's been a good mentor. A good friend. I didn't want to see him get hurt, either."

Damon seemed to accept the answer. Maybe he didn't suspect anything.

"Have you spoken with him?" Damon asked.

"No. He won't answer my calls. Or return my texts."

"The others haven't heard from him either. The only reason we know he got home safe is because our manager called us. We had to tell her everything over the phone. She nearly had an aneurism."

"Is she nice? Your manager? Will she look after him? Make sure he's taking care of himself?"

"She'll try. Don't know if he'll let her."

We both went silent, thinking about how stubborn August was.

"I should show you something." Damon took my laptop and typed quickly in the search bar, clicking the first link. He tilted the screen to show me. "It's the article that journalist wrote about you. The interview where you nearly threw up."

"I didn't almost throw up."

But as soon as I saw the photo accompanying the article, bile rose in my throat.

A picture of Darkest Days, with me in the center, wide-eyed in terror, clutching my camera in a white-knuckled grip.

"Don't really like my hair in that picture." Damon flashed me a grin. "But you look cute."

"Right, that deer-in-the-headlights look sure is appealing."

"Some guys go for the doe-eyed Bambi thing." Damon's phone beeped. "Ian says the guitar tech wants to see us. At least he's still talking to me."

"I'm sure he'll come around. Him and Cameron."

Damon craned his head to the front of the bus.

"Yeah, Cam's been kind of an ass. He's really giving Noah some competition these days." Damon gave me a rueful look. "It's only a few more weeks, right? Then we're back home and we can see how August is doing and figure things out from there."

"Only a few more weeks," I agreed.

But if this week was any indication, those few would feel like years.

Damon left. I turned back to my laptop. After examining the picture, chagrinned, I began reading the article.

It was good. I was a photographer, not a writer, but the piece sounded solid. Nothing exploitative like a trash mag would write. There was a bit of background about the band, the awards they had received, their reputation in the industry, their critical reception. The band's answers to her questions were printed verbatim, albeit cleaned up a little.

And then, at the end, was a special section devoted to me. I hadn't remembered half the things I'd told the woman. Seeing my words out there for all to read sent a pang of anxiety running through me.

I didn't sound bad, though. Or at least, I didn't sound like an idiot. She'd kept the questions short, and I'd done the same with my answers.

I'm very grateful for this opportunity. I know how lucky I am to be working with such a prestigious band.

Yes, this is my first real job out of school.

No, I have no connections in the music industry.

Yes, I've had my work shown in a few gallery exhibits for students.

No, I haven't really thought about what I'm going to do after this.

But there had also been personal questions.

Yes, August has been a very good mentor.

No, I didn't know who he was when he first approached me.

Yes. It would be wonderful if we could continue working together in the future. I've learned a lot from him. I'd like to continue learning more.

August had taught me so much. Opened my eyes to so many things. He had changed me.

I guess that makes me a liar after all.

A pang of hurt hit my chest.

Every time I remembered his last words, my stomach churned. My heart ached.

I didn't want to believe everything between us had been a lie.

But August Summers demanded perfection. He wanted his tour photographer to be the best.

Is that what he had been doing? Had he been building my confidence, helping me come to terms with myself, only so that I'd perform at the level he expected? Had it all been a lie?

If so, that was sick. Beyond sick. It was monstrous. No normal person would go that far, pretend that much. I couldn't believe August would do something like that.

Then again, I wouldn't have believed August would lie to his closest friends for a year or more about something so serious.

Feeling dejected, I turned off my laptop. Instead of working, I spun around in my chair, using my toe to push off the floor. The dizziness and nausea in my stomach helped mask some of the heartsick feelings roiling around in there.

On my fifth spin I stopped. My gaze landed on the side table. On a book. August's book. The one I'd seen him reading several times.

I picked it up. The pages were yellow and dogged-eared. It looked well read and well used. I turned to see the cover. The Giver, by Lois Lowry. August's favorite book. I only knew a bit about it. A young adult novel with critical acclaim. It was on the reading list at some schools. I'd never read it myself.

It had been left behind when we took off without him.

He'd had his suitcase in the hotel room with him, but he hadn't packed everything. Looking around the bus, I noticed a few other things that belonged to him. A spare shirt. His wireless earphones. The pair of comfy sneakers he'd worn the night we climbed up those rickety fire escape stairs to the roof.

Carefully, I gathered up all his forgotten items. I scrounged around and found a canvas bag to keep them in.

I placed the bag on my desk. I stared at it. This was all that was left of August.

Pinpricks of tears threatened to gather at the back of my eyes. I blinked rapidly, keeping them at bay.

This was going to be a long three weeks.