Dancing Queen (Julie and The Phantoms)

7. Shining Bright

I contained myself from bursting out giggling by bringing my palm towards my mouth. "I gotta get back to class," our friend.

"Later Julie." she walked towards the back side of the hallway. "Oh, tell those cheerleaders I'm single."

"Oh, and that he's dead!" Alex added. Then he winked at me. Um, what does that mean?

"No, no, no, no. Leave that part out." He comically turned around. "Leave that... she's gone."

Luke hollered a victory noise, kind of scaring me in the process. I shifted my weight from the left to the right side. "We should dip, too. I'm getting flashbacks of Mrs. Crawford's history assignments and I do not want to think about that."

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Back at the studio, we were relaxing and talking. I was so chill, that I even took off my backpack. Although, one particular band member was not chillin'. "I think he's practicing his model strut," Reggie whispered.

Alex had been pacing back and forth in front of us for a while now. When he gets stressed or confused, he goes full-on spiral. Who knew that not even death would calm him down?

The other guys were sitting on the edge of the couch, but I was slouched back in the middle of them. "If he is, then being a musician was not the career for him. Look at him go," I joked.

Our eyeballs meticiously followed his repeated walking. I could feel our slowly racing hearts leaping off our ribcage any second. "He's so nervous he's almost making me nervous."

Alex flipped a strand of his hair behind. "Okay, look, you guys know I don't handle change well, all right. Death? That was a change. Okay. Then we became ghosts, all right? Another change. And, and now... we can be seen whenever we play with Julie... Big freaking change!"

"Yeah, but, bro, it was a good change. With Julie, we can play on stage again and be the band we never got to be. Come, on, you gotta be down for that."

"Yeah, I mean, who wouldn't be? I just... I wanna figure out why," he stuttered.

I clasped my hands together. "We'll find a why. Don't w—"

"Forget why." I kicked the guitarist's calf. He's so inconsiderate. "Ow", he huffed as he stood up. Completely changing the topic, he announced his train of thought. "I say we invite Julie to join Sunset Curve."

"Yeah, totally. I mean, like, think about it. With a new lead band singer, this band would be legendary," as Reggie said that, he offered me his hand to unstick myself from the couch. I took it, and I was grateful for the gesture, but why did we stand up? We could discuss whatever they wanted to while sitting. I was very comfortable.

"Hey! I'm our lead singer," Luke grumpily defended.

I placed my palm on my chest and scoffed, even taking a step back. "Okay, tough guy, we all know it's actually me... but that girl has the voice of an angel."

"And she can make us visible! Without her, we're just, like, elevator music," Reggie helped.

"Well, you don't gotta be so mean about it," his eyebrows knitted themselves. When he saw Alex proceed with the pacing, his arm shot upwards. "And we're on the runway again."

"Okay, I'm sorry, all right? I just... I gotta go clear my head."

I wanted to say something, that we're all in this together. That we are all here supporting him— well, maybe me more than the others. Apparently, I'm the only one who cares if people storm out of the room. The other part of me, the rational, Alex's sister and best girl friend one, told me he just needed alone time. Some people don't require chasing.

So I just observed how his hand went through the door handle. Every time it passed, you could see him getting more and more frustrated. "Dude, you're a ghost. Just poof out," Reggie recommended.

"Don't tell me how to ghost!" My brother exhaled before whoosing away.

"Have fun." I waved at the space where he once was. The other two to glimpsed around the room to slide off the moment. To break the tension, I hopped over the other side of the coffee table. We were sort of cramped in the other side. "Okay, people, what is the plan?"

Luke crossed his arms, intrigued at my sudden response. "What do you mean?"

"I'm not following. I'm kind of lost," the bassist admitted as he scratched his neck.

I moved my arms enough, placing together the correct words to pitch my idea. "Well, you said you... want to invite Julie to the band, right?"

"Yeah," the guys responses sounded more like a question than an answer.

"Well, then we're gonna need a good way to convince her. She's going through a lot right now, and joining Sunset Curve is probably the least of her worries." Hopefully that made sense, I thought to myself.

"That makes sense. Good thinking, Lizzy." With his fist, Reggue bumped my shoulder in a friendly way.

I warmly smiled. "Thanks, Reg."

Like if a lightbulb had just turned on and a jolt of energy rushed inside his skull, Luke exclaimed, "I'm gonna go to her room and see if I can find anything."

"No, don't d— And he's already gone." I let my head drop to my chest, defeated by his spontaneous attitude. "He needs to stop doing that! I have only so much patience left."

Reggie quickly scrambled to the couch and fetched my backpack. He was dragging his feet and had his lips on an awkward smile when he returned. "...We're about to get in trouble, aren't we?"

"Like you have no idea," I answered while nodding. He handed me the backpack after I observed the plant wall next to us. "Thanks... Gotta admit, it was fun living in the garage."

"We're gonna be fine. Trust me," the guy rubbed my shoulder. It's nice too know at least one band member worries about me.

"Okay, I can do that." I let a breath I didn't know I was holding. When we poofed inside Julie's room, Luke was bouncing on her bed and looking at the wall. "Lucas Patterson, I swear to god, if you touched Julie's dream box or moved any of her stuff, I will make sure to punch you back in your gravestone," I threatened

"Calm down, Mercer number two. I was just looking around." He pushed himself up and turned on his heels. "What I did notice is all the accesories in her closet. Why do girls have that much jewelry?"

I was taken aback by that question. Stammering, I responded, "Because we want to look pretty. It's like you and your collection of sleeveless shirts... or beanies, for example."

"Very funny." He mockingly laughed. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear you insult the raddest, best thing you've experience in your whole life: getting a free VIP ticket to this gun show." He made poses as he cockily flexed his muscles. 

"Okay, our little charms don't work on me. Save it for our now fourty-year old fans." I stuck my tongue out.

Luke adjusted his beanie. "But seriously, I-I think we can just write her a song to tell her how sorry we are. That usually does the trick."

"Then let's head back to the garage before Liz breaks you in half," Reggie commented. To speed things up, I pulled Luke's right arm to go back to our designated room of the house, but I noticed a sketchy, folded paper was hanging from his pocket.

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Author's note:

I wanted to have more chapters written by now, but I had an assignment that took me the whole week. And now I'm in starting online school again. Yay.

Anyways, leaving the sad stuff behind, I don't think I've promoted my other story here...? If you guys like Marvel, I recommend reading my Peter Parker x Reader fanfic called Shutdown. The first couple of chapters have errors here and there, but I'm still proud of it (is it weird to be proud of a fanfiction? Probably).

~ Winter ❅