The first thing Callista did when she saw Raven was forget how to walk.
She had spent three years imagining this moment in increasingly ridiculous detail. In one version, she would sprint across the parking lot and they would collide like sisters separated at birth. In another, she would say something witty and unforgettable, and Raven would laugh so hard she would snort. There had even been a dream involving slow motion, a field of wildflowers, and a soundtrack by Wild Rebel.
None of those plans included Callista tripping over the curb with a paper cup of gas-station coffee in her hand.
“Callista?” Raven shouted.
Callista caught herself against the hood of a silver sedan. The coffee jumped, splashed over her fingers, and burned just enough to make her yelp.
Raven came running anyway.
She was shorter than Callista had expected, though not by much, with dark curls escaping from beneath a black Wild Rebel cap. Her eyeliner was smudged at the corners, probably from the six-hour drive from Kentucky, and she wore a faded tour shirt that said WILD HEARTS DON’T BREAK in red letters across the front.
Callista knew that shirt. She had watched Raven unbox it on video while they were both seventeen and supposed to be studying for finals.
“You’re real,” Raven said, skidding to a stop.
Callista looked at her burned fingers. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
Raven’s face crumpled for half a second before she threw her arms around Callista.
The hug was awkward at first. Their shoulders bumped. Callista’s coffee-slick hand hovered uselessly in the air until Raven squeezed tighter, and then something inside Callista unlocked. She hugged back, burying her face in Raven’s hair, which smelled like vanilla shampoo and the peppermint gum she was always chewing during late-night calls.
“You’re taller than your pictures,” Raven mumbled.
“You’re shorter.”
“I knew you were going to say that.”
“I’ve been waiting three years.”
Raven pulled back, grinning. “I hate you already.”
Callista looked at the woman who had stayed up with her through two breakups, one panic attack, a disastrous attempt at bangs, and the week Callista’s mother had been in the hospital. Raven had known every version of her except this one—the flesh-and-blood version standing in a crowded Atlanta parking garage with coffee on her hand and concert tickets tucked safely inside her bra.
“I love you already,” Callista said.
Raven’s smile softened. “Yeah. Me too.”
The arena rose behind them in a wall of glass and steel, pulsing with noise. Fans poured toward the entrances in black shirts and leather jackets, their voices gathering into one restless, excited roar. Somewhere inside, Wild Rebel was about to take the stage for the last night of the Atlanta run, and Callista’s heart had been beating too fast since sunrise.
She worked from home in a quiet town where the loudest thing most afternoons was the church bell across the street. Her days usually consisted of spreadsheets, instant coffee, and the occasional argument with her cat over whether the keyboard was a suitable place to sleep. Atlanta smelled like hot pavement, fried food, and car exhaust. Horns blared. Motorcycle engines snarled. People bumped into her without apologizing.
It was perfect.
Raven linked their arms as they joined the line. “Tell me again you brought the friendship bracelets.”
“Tell me again you brought the emergency glitter.”
Raven patted the tiny black purse at her hip. “I brought enough glitter to ruin a marriage.”
“That’s my girl.”
They had made the bracelets during a video call two nights before, each one threaded with black, silver, and red beads. Raven’s said NICK IS GOD. Callista’s said NICK NEEDS THERAPY.
“He’s going to see ours,” Raven said.
“He’s going to see thousands of hands.”
“He’ll see ours.”
Callista glanced toward the arena doors. “You’ve been saying that for six months.”
“And have I ever been wrong?”
“Yes.”
“Not about important things.”
Callista wanted to argue, but the line moved, and Raven grabbed her wrist. They passed through security with their tickets clutched between them, laughing too loudly at nothing. By the time they reached the floor, the crowd had become a living animal, pressing and swaying beneath the blue-white lights.
Their places were exactly where they had hoped they would be: front row, a little left of center, close enough to see the scuffed black boots of the opening band and the strips of tape marking the edge of the stage.
Raven stared up at it. “We’re going to die here.”
“Probably from dehydration.”
“Worth it.”
The opening acts came and went. Callista lost track of time beneath the heat of the crowd and the thunder of the speakers. Every song seemed to vibrate through her bones. Raven screamed until her voice cracked, then leaned close to shout commentary into Callista’s ear.
“That drummer is either six feet tall or deeply committed to platform boots!”
“Both can be true!”
When the lights finally went dark, the arena erupted.
A single guitar note rang through the blackness.
Callista’s skin prickled.
The stage exploded in red light. Smoke rolled across the floor, and Nick stepped through it with a microphone in one hand and a black leather jacket hanging open over his bare chest. The crowd screamed his name so loudly that Callista felt the sound in her teeth.
Wild Rebel was a larger-than-life figure online: sharp cheekbones, messy dark hair, silver rings, a voice rough enough to scrape paint from a door. In person, he looked less like a photograph and more like trouble given human form.
He lifted the microphone.
“Atlanta,” he said, his voice low and wicked through the speakers. “You ready to get wild?”
The answer nearly lifted the roof.
Raven grabbed Callista’s hand. “He’s looking at us.”
“He is not.”
“He is absolutely looking at us.”