“Well, rocker boy.” She glances up at me through her long lashes. “It’ll take a bit more than death threats from a bunch of obsessed teenagers to break through my skin. I live with one, remember?”

“But this isn’t just a bunch. This is . . . a ton. They trended it, baby. They’re fucking crazy. They don’t know when enough is enough. And it ain’t gonna go away. They’ll do this every day until you break. I saw it with Sofie and Ella. When this ends, they’ll probably do it more. You’ll still be a slut and a whore and whatever else they call you.”

She sits up, pulling her legs to her chest. “Why don’t you ever speak up?” She rests her cheek on her knees and looks at me. Her eyes are so bright right now, with the lights from the fair glinting off their bright color, and it’s so easy to meet her gaze. “Why don’t you, as a team, ever come together and say, ‘Hey, this isn’t okay?’ Why is that so hard for you to do? Like, you say you care, but you let them do it. It’s like walking past the kid getting bullied in the playground and ignoring it because it’s easy to do. You’re the guys they look up to. Every time they do this and you stay quiet, you’re telling them it’s okay. And it isn’t. It’s not fucking okay to send someone death threats just because they’re with someone you like. If you wouldn’t do it to a friend in high school, you sure as hell shouldn’t be doing it over the Internet. But maybe that’s the problem. The Internet. Everyone is a fucking keyboard warrior.”

Her words make my lips pull up. Jesus—she’s so fucking right. She’s just nailed it, completely. We don’t speak up. We don’t say anything. “It just ain’t that easy,” I reply quietly. “These people—we need ’em. Those crazy-ass fangirls are what keep our careers alive, and we’re thankful for them far more than we’re annoyed with them.”

“Thankful enough that their support means more than making sure the people you care about aren’t hurt by their actions?”

“Sometimes. Yeah. It’s a fine line. We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t. Because without them, we can’t look after the people we care about.”

I sit up when she shakes her head. “Are you seriously telling me that between the four of you, you don’t have enough money to live? That you can’t live off your Platinum album, sponsorships, deals, tour revenue? You can’t step back from the crazy?”

“Sure we can. But why would we? You didn’t see it, but while you were busting your ass in school for your diploma, we were practicing instead of studying.” I run my fingers through my hair and turn my face toward hers, our eyes colliding in the darkness. “Every time you checked out a library book, we learned a new rhythm. Every time you stayed up until two a.m. writing that essay, we were writing lyrics. It sounds simple, but it ain’t. This ain’t a fluke, sunshine. What happened to us was nothing but years of dreaming and hard work. We didn’t randomly try out for American Idol and get picked. We worked our asses to the bone, and it finally paid off. It’s hard to explain, but when you have this dream that seems so big and unattainable and you achieve it, there’s nothing in this world that could ever make you want to step back from it.”

“I know,” Jessie replies softly, dropping her eyes once again. “You think no one noticed, but we did, Ads. I did. You were always humming something. Even in class, one look at you, and you were drumming your fingers against the table, mouthing lyrics only you could hear. I’m just saying that you have responsibilities outside of your dream, and those are reality, too. The responsibilities y’all have are the ones that will outlast your careers. Love doesn’t have a boundary. The people that love you will be there long after the dimming of the bright lights and the record album sales. They’re the people that will still smile at you and hold your hand when darkness falls.”

I scoot across to her until my side is against hers and wrap my arm around her waist. “You want me to do the boyfriend thing and stand up for you? Because if it bothers you that much, I’ll do it.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“But you did, baby. I may not have gone to college, but I can read between the lines. And if you want me to tell them that the shit they’re pulling isn’t okay, then I will.” I rest my chin on her shoulder and her hair brushes my nose. “I’ll just tell them to give you a break because you’re awesome and don’t deserve those messages.”

She takes a deep breath, and her face turns toward mine the tiniest amount. “No,” she says softly. “I don’t need you to stand up for me. I need y’all to stand up for everyone who’s taken this shit and who will take this shit, including whoever you decide will be your real girlfriend.”

“Fake only stays fake for so long.”

“Don’t pretend that this could ever be more, Ads. We’re too . . . opposite. If you’re the north pole, I’m the south pole, except once in a while, we both become the equator and line up perfectly.” Jessie tucks her hair behind her ear, turning to me a little more.

“I like it when we’re the equator.”

“Of course you do. That’s when you get laid.”

I laugh, moving my whole body so my leg is wrapped around her body the way my arm already is and my chest is against her side. “Well, sure. But when we line up, Jessie, we line up. We give meaning to the phrase polar opposites, then we redefine what it is to be exactly the same. And there’s no saying that it couldn’t be that more often than not.”

“Are you telling me you want me to be your real girlfriend?”

“I meant to say fuck buddy.”

“You’re a dick.”

“I know.” I drop us both backward, and she screams, grabbing my arm, which is tight around her waist. I laugh as I move us so her head is on my shoulder and she’s tucked into my side, but she simply smacks me and tries to move away. I refuse, holding her against me until she relaxes and melds into me. My fingers trail across her upper arm, across the intricate inking on her skin, and I force myself to focus on the lines. “You never did tell me what they mean.”

“My flowers?” she tilts her head back until our mouths are level. “You want to know?”

“Sure. You told me they all have a meaning. I want to know what they are.”

She raises her eyebrows. “Okay. You have all night, right?”

“For you? I have tomorrow night, too.”

Her lips curve against my jaw. “Sweet-talker.”

“It was pretty smooth.”

“Very,” she admits, stretching her arm out across me. “See the daisy? That was my first. It symbolizes innocence. It was my way of drawing a line between my childhood and adulthood. And the lily?”

“The pink one?”

“Yeah. It means ‘purity.’ I had to be careful with the colors, because they mean different things, but that was my second. I was still a virgin and wanted something to represent that.”

“You were still a virgin at eighteen?”

“Some of us were, yes,” she replies dryly. “The sunflower? It means ‘dedication.’ That was dedication to my first dream—get an art degree. I did it, but it still holds, because I want to become a tattoo artist like Jay. It reminds me that my dream is bigger than I thought.”

Wow.

“My red rose is for my family—for love. No matter what happens, I’ll always love them. They’re also my mom’s favorite flower, so the tattoo was a birthday present to her, too.”

“Nice.”

“And my snapdragon.” She twists so I can see her elbow and bends her arm, then straightens it. She does it again and again. “Strength,” she explains. “My latest. I got it right after I found Dax with another girl. It reminds me that strength is always there, even when you’re at your weakest. My snapdragon reminds me that even something beautifully weak can be strong.”

I brush my finger across the curve of her elbow, along the exact line of her snapdragon. “You’re a walking fucking Tumblr meme, aren’t you?”