CHAPTER FOUR

CATCH FIRE — 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER
'Cause the ghost of survivor's guilt can be so unkind

"HEY, BABY."

Olivia looked up from her book and saw Jason leaning against the locker next to hers. The hallway around them was busy, full of life as people buzzed about the upcoming lacrosse match, but Jason was only looking at her. He smiled softly and crossed his arms, looking down at her. There was a glint in his eyes that only seemed to be present when they were alone.

"Hey," she greeted happily, closing her book and placing it on her shelf.

"You're still coming to the show tomorrow night, right?"

"Yeah," she nodded. He had been talking about the gig nonstop since they booked it two weeks ago and they had barely hung out because of all the practices he had leading up to it. "It's at Mill's Warehouse, right?"

A group of cheerleaders walked by and waved at him. He smiled and nodded with a smirk before turning back to her. "Yes, at 8."

Olivia's eyes met those of the cheerleaders watching them and she sent them a meek wave, only for them to roll their eyes at her. Feeling slightly dejected by her boyfriend's elevated popularity, she sighed, "I'll be there."

"Sweet." He grinned as she grabbed her books for her next class. After shutting her locker for her, he took her hand, and together, they started walking down the hall towards her chemistry class. "You wanna go to Sonny's with me and the band after the game later?"

Olivia almost agreed, but just as the words fell out of her mouth, she remembered that she had her own band practice with Luke, Alex, Reggie, and Bobby. "I can't."

Jason stopped walking and let go of her hand. He groaned and looked up at the ceiling in annoyance. "Oh my god," he started, "what's the reason this time?"

Her brows furrowed. He was acting like she was the reason they never saw each other outside of school and not him with his lacrosse and band meetings. "I have—" She cut herself off. She couldn't tell him she was in a band with his ex-best friend, he'd freak out. "Uh, I have detention again."

"Again?" He questioned with heavy suspicion. Olivia had only gotten detention once in her entire academic career and it was weird that she had gotten another one in close proximity to the last one. He stepped closer to her. "What did you do?"

"Oh, I..." She struggled to find a reason that sounded believable. "I reached the max amount of lates in my fifth period class."

He started walking down the hall, not bothering to wait for her. "Can't you just ditch it?"

Olivia scoffed and followed after him. "And get even more detention? I don't think so."

"Come on," he pressed, glancing down at her when she reached his side. "You're the golden girl, all the teachers love you, just skip it."

She rolled her eyes and caught sight of Christa White and her best friend, Megan Hardy, walking towards them at the end of the hall. "I'm not skipping just so I can hang out with you and Christa."

"Christa's not bad," Jason defended, shaking his head. "You'd know that if you actually made an effort to know her."

"I have made an effort," Olivia said. Her arms crossed over her chest. "She's the one who hates me. I don't even know why, like what did I ever do to her?"

"You're overexaggerating," he dismissed.

"I'm really not. The other day she said she liked my hair only to compare it to a birds nest immediately after."

"Maybe it was messier than usual."

Her head snapped over to look up at him. "My hair is not usually messy." Her hands flew to her hair and she ran her fingers through it. Maybe it was more unkept than she thought it was. She shook the thought from her mind. "I'm not ditching detention. I can call you afterwards though."

"You can try, but I might be out still." He shrugged, smiling at Christa and Megan as they got closer. "I've been really busy lately with lacrosse and the band, I might not answer."

Olivia's eyes flickered between the pair. "Okay," she said bitterly. "Just call me whenever, I guess."

She gave Christa and Megan a tight lipped smile as they stopped in front of her and pushed past them.

"DUDE, HOW ARE you not getting this? It's like you're not even trying," Luke said, looking over at Bobby in distress. His fingers met the guitar strings again and he played the chords. "Look, look, look. It's G to C, then back to G."

Olivia stood in the middle of their makeshift stage and rested her chin on top of the microphone that sat on the stand in front of her. Miss Taylor was elated to hear that they were giving the band a try and offered the music room as a place for them to practice. For the past thirty minutes, they had been trying to play a song Luke wrote, but for some reason they weren't getting it.

She sighed and pushed off of the stand. Her finger swirled in the air. "Let's go again."

The boys nodded and Luke started to play the opening riff. A few moments later, Alex came in with the drums. This was the farthest they've gotten without something going wrong and everything was going well until Reggie and Bobby joined in.

The timing got messed up just as Olivia's cue to enter came. She struggled with the phrasing and stumbled over the lyrics. They fell out of synch and in all honesty, it sounded like a train wreck.

Alex stopped playing and the volume in the room decreased significantly. "Okay, this isn't working."

Luke shook his head, refusing to take the loss. "We'll get it."

Olivia nodded, turning to face the boys. "We just need to practice."

"It's no use," Bobby snapped, his frustration coming to light. He took the guitar off his shoulder and placed it on a nearby rack.

"Maybe whatever happened the other day was just a fluke," Alex said. He stood up from the drum kit and put away the sticks he was using. "Maybe we weren't meant to play together."

"Oh, don't say that." Olivia had to admit that while she wasn't a fan of the idea at first, she did enjoy the company of the four boys even if they weren't close friends. The truth is that she didn't have any friends outside of her relationship with Jason and it was nice to know people he didn't. In addition to that, she couldn't deny that there was a special type of magic that happened when they played together two days ago. She wanted this to work almost as much as Luke did.

Bobby scoffed at her words and walked over to the desk where his water bottle sat. "You didn't even want to be in this band, I don't know why you're talking." He uncapped his water and took a quick sip. "Just be glad you don't have to sing anymore."

Reggie and Luke shared a look, slightly taken back by his attitude towards the girl. Luke glanced over at Olivia and saw that she wasn't affected in the slightest. "Hey, man..."

Alex got off the small platform where the drums were and grabbed his backpack from the ground. "Luke, we tried it, it didn't work. So I'm out."

Bobby nodded, getting ready to leave. "Yeah me too."

"Wait guys—" Reggie's eyes flickered between them as they turned to leave. He moved to stand beside Olivia. He wanted this to work out, he needed this to work out. If he spent anymore time in his house, he might explode and this band was the perfect distraction. "Don't go."

Olivia fiddled with the microphone cord. "Yeah, maybe if we take it from the top one more time—"

"Olivia!" Bobby shouted. "Give it up! It's not going to work!"

Olivia didn't know why the idea of them walking out bothered her so much, perhaps it reminded her of her own family drama. Whatever it was, it blended with the preexisting aggravation she held towards Jason and Christa from earlier and she lost her temper, snapping at Bobby.

"You can't just leave when things gets hard," she spat, matching his ferocity and moving to stand in front of him. "So what, we had one bad practice. It's not going to be all rainbows and butterflies our first try, we're still figuring it out!"

"Whoa," Reggie breathed out. He was so shocked that he didn't even flinch like he usually did when someone started shouting. His eyes locked with Alex and Luke's. None of them thought they'd ever see the day that Olivia Montez lost her temper. Perhaps they didn't know her well enough yet.

"You can figure it out without me," Bobby grumbled. He looked at the other boys. "Good luck with whatever this is."

Alex sent Olivia an expression laced with apology before glancing at the boys behind her. "I'm sorry, guys."

Olivia leaned against a nearby desk and crossed her arms over her chest. She was so tired of people bailing on her—her father, her boyfriend, and now Alex and Bobby. She was sick of it. But maybe it was no one's fault but hers. Maybe there was something wrong with her and she was incapable of making people stay. So she stood by quietly and let the two teens go.

Luke looked at her with a frown before he shouted after the two boys who were making their way to the door. "Guys!"

From his spot beside Olivia, Reggie began to play the bass line for the song they were trying to practice. He didn't want them to fight and the only way he could think of getting them to stop was through music.

Alex and Bobby stopped in their tracks and turned around.

Luke looked at the blond and nodded towards the drum kit. "Alex, get on the drums."

"I—"

Luke joined Reggie in playing the chord progression he had perfected ages ago. "Alex," he said softly, "trust me."

There was a brief moment of contemplation before Alex nodded and made his way over to the percussion section. Once he got into the swing of things, Luke stopped playing and grabbed the guitar Bobby had put down.

He made his way across the room, careful not to trip over any wires or accidentally unplug his guitar. His voice rang through the air as he approached the other guitarist. "Oh, say, can you hear me? This is not who I'm supposed to be." Luke was quite dramatic about it, putting on a show any theatre kid would be proud of. He held the guitar out for Bobby to take. "Without you, I'm nobody killing time. Bobby, take the guitar."

"No."

Luke shoved it in to his hands. "Take. It." He left before he could object and bounced over to where Olivia stood. As he went, he swiped his journal from the stool it was on and took the microphone from her. He sang into it, looking at her with pleading eyes. "I tried to deceive, tried to win you desperately."

Olivia shook her head at him when he tried to give her his book and held the mic out for her. She looked around the room and saw that everyone was looking at her, urging her to join.

"Just do it," Bobby told her, strumming the chords he struggled to remember half an hour ago. "If I have to do this, so do you."

Luke nodded, holding his open journal for her. He hoped she could read his chicken scratch of handwriting. "Now I'm lost in this swirling sea of your sorry eyes." He held the mic out for her again, a playful and encouraging glint in his eyes. "C'mon, trouble," he prompted. "Show us whatcha got."

Olivia looked up at him, noticing for the first time how close he was standing to her. Their eyes locked and she couldn't help but crack a smile. Luke really knew how to get what he wanted. She leaned closer to him so she could read the lyrics he had written. "All my life," she sang, laughing as the boys cheered for her, "I've been waiting for moments to come."

"Yes!" Reggie shouted happily, jumping up and down.

Luke bopped his head and smiled. He gave her the notebook and rejoined the song on his guitar, walking over to his own mic stand. "When I catch fire and wash over you like the sun."

"I will fight to fix up and get things right." Olivia cringed, thinking that she had messed up the melody, but when she turned to Luke, he gave her an encouraging nod.

"No, that's good," he assured. "You take the high harmony, ready?"

Olivia nodded and her eyes fell back to the book in her hands. Her gaze flickered between the lyrics and her bandmates. The pure happiness on their faces filled her with energy and in that moment she had never believed in anything more than their ragtag band of five.

Her eyes met Luke's and she made her way over to him. She held the mic between them and together they sang the last line of the chorus, "I can't change the world but maybe I'll change your mind."

When they stopped playing and the cymbals rang out, Luke tore his eyes away from Olivia and spoke up. "Come on, guys. This will work."

Alex moved his hair out of his face "Okay, maybe we are good."

"No," Bobby said, shaking his head. "We're great."

Reggie looked very pleased with himself as he grinned at his bandmates.

"We are so gonna rock that dance!"