Tuesday Evening: Part Two

The others confronted Sami about ten minutes later. They must have started for her house as soon as their performance ended.

"Why did you do that, Sami?" Duder demanded as he entered the house, Jim and Toby following him inside.

"Sami, is everything okay?" Toby's voice was gentle, a mask of worry across his face. "What's wrong? Did something happen while you were singing?"

Sami just looked at them, unable to form the words. The telephone rang before she had to try. She was grateful for the distraction as she answered it, but the voice on the other end instantly killed her relief.

"Sami, what were you thinking? You ruined your first show! Why did you leave in the middle of the song?" It was Nigel.

A surge of confidence suddenly struck her. She knew what she had to do, and she knew that she finally had the strength to do it. "The band is over. Little White Lie is done." She slammed the phone down.

They all stared at her as though she had horns growing out of her head.

Duder gaped at her, shaking his head with disbelief. "Have you gone crazy?"

"I don't understand, Sami." Toby's features tightened with bewilderment. His eyebrows mashed into each other, and his eyes were clear and vulnerable. "Why?"

And the moment arrived, at long last. The heavy words were spilling out of her for the first time, words she'd struggled to hold down for so long—words she had bore on her shoulders by herself for far too much time. She couldn't keep them inside anymore. "Because Kevin was the one supposed to be up on that stage, not me. Because I'm done with taking Kevin's dream for my own. I'm done stealing from him."

She could see on Duder's face that he realized what she was about to do. He made a low sound in his throat—a mix between a moan and a whimper—and buried his head in his hands.

Jim just appeared to be confused. But Toby looked from Sami to Duder slowly, his expression frozen. He seemed to detect the hazard behind Sami's words. There was an edge to his features, something hard and dangerous underneath them, like the glint of a dagger on the inside of someone's coat. His eyes were blazing. "What are you saying? What does this have to do with that Bushwald guy?"

She took a deep breath and let out the words that had been eating away at her insides for weeks. "I didn't write any of the songs you saw on my desk, not even It's Over Now. Kevin did. I—I took it from his house a while ago."

That was it. They were finally out.

Yet she felt no sense of relief, no release from her burden with her confession. The guilt still gripped her, in a grasp just as tight and suffocating as ever. Saying her deed aloud only seemed to make it more real, and more horrible. It was so much worse to hear it out loud, and it was so painful to admit it.

She was afraid to set her eyes on Toby. Sami was terrified of his reaction. But she made herself raise them to his face.

He was staring at her, just staring. Utter shock glazed over his face, trapping his expression still. It was a while before he could move, before he could snap out of the astonishment. Slowly, he shook his head. "Why?" His voice was treacherously quiet, soft enough to cut her ears. Sami wished he'd yell and curse at her instead. This cold disappointment was ten times worse. It slashed through her, cut her to the core.

She wasn't aware of how Jim was reacting. She had eyes only for Toby.

"Why would you do that, Sami?" His tone was an icy knife, a knife that pierced Sami's chest. His beautiful eyes were two flickering flames, flames that burned with fury. Hurt and something close to disgust shadowed his face, and it broke Sami in half.

"I—" She tried to start explaining, but her voice faltered when she realized that she couldn't. She had nothing to say. There were no words that could justify what she had done.

Toby just stood there for a while. Finally, he let out a low, frigid murmur. "You lied to me. To everyone. I thought …" His voice cracked. "I thought you were different." He opened his mouth, but he had no other words to form.

Toby left. He picked up his guitar case and walked out of the door. Sami wanted to call after him, but she didn't. She let him go because she knew he was right, and she knew she deserved it.

Duder was a mess. His hair was sticking up from where he'd torn his hands through it. A combination of shame and horror was spread across his face.

Jim was frowning at Sami. "Are you sorry for taking Kevin's music?"

"Yeah, I am." But why did it matter that she was sorry if she didn't stop using it, even when she regretted stealing it?

He shrugged. "Well, then I don't see why it's a problem, if you wish you hadn't. I'll stay in the band. You're still an awesome singer."

She barely even registered Jim's words. The look on Toby's face was trapped in her mind, and his jabbing words reverberated through her head.

Sami turned and raced to her room, fighting back tears, feeling the regret for everything pulse through her body. She'd finally confessed her crime, but it had only made her feel worse. And she had thought that when she finally told the others what she'd done, she would stop feeling so guilty. Was she ever going to escape these horrible feelings?