Strings of Fate: The First Loop

CHAPTER 34

Just him.

He stepped forward, eyes scanning the crowd like he was searching for something, then he found me.

“I’ve been called a lot of names,” James said into the mic, his voice low, rough. “Infamous. Bad boy. Maybe even the worst.”

A few students chuckled from the bleachers. He didn’t flinch.

“I never really cared about all that… not until I met her.”
His eyes locked on mine.
“Betty. This one’s for you.”

And then he strummed his guitar.

---

SOMEONE TO YOU by BANNERS

" I don’t wanna die or fade away… I just wanna be someone… I just wanna be someone…"

His voice cracked slightly at first, soft, uncertain, but it only made it feel more real. He wasn't performing a song. He was telling the truth out loud in front of everyone who’d ever judged him, whispered about him, called him trouble.

The bleachers went silent.

Phones that had risen slowly lowered. Everyone watched.

Even the air seemed to still.

---

"Dive and disappear without a trace… I just wanna be someone… well, doesn’t everyone?"

His voice grew stronger, and the guitar followed---steady, urgent.

I could feel people shifting. Something was happening.

Even the kids who’d only come for the Halloween costumes and cheap thrills had stopped talking.

James wasn’t flashy. He didn’t have lights or a background track. Just a voice, a guitar, and the kind of honesty that demanded stillness.

---

"And if you feel the great dividing… I wanna be the one you’re guiding… ’Cause I believe that you could lead the way…"

Inez leaned into Tim, eyes wet. Tim wiped at his cheek quickly, like he didn’t want anyone to notice.

And then I realized…
James wasn’t just singing to me.
He was singing to everyone who’d ever felt invisible. Everyone who was tired of pretending they didn’t care.

---

"I just wanna be somebody to someone, oh… I wanna be somebody to someone…"

I looked over at Mr. and Mrs. Gray. His dad, always unreadable, had his arm around his wife. She was crying openly now, hand to her chest. Mr. Gray just watched James---not blinking, not moving. I couldn’t tell if it was regret or awe, but something in his eyes had cracked.

---

"I never had nobody and no road home… I wanna be somebody to someone…"

That line hit like a punch.

James looked straight into the crowd when he sang it, not smiling, not posing, just pleading. For them to see him. For someone, anyone, to say he mattered.

Corey wiped his eyes. Drake pulled him into a side hug. They stayed like that.

Even the teachers, Mrs. Pamela, Mr. Oxford, even Mr. Hsu who rarely smiled---looked broken open. Like they were remembering the students they forgot to notice.

---

"And if the sun starts setting, the sky goes cold… Then if the clouds get heavy and start to fall… I really need somebody to call my own…"

The gym was utterly still.

I was crying now. Harder than I expected.

Because James wasn’t just some boy who’d messed up.

He was this boy, on a stage, in a Dracula cape, singing like it was the only way he knew how to survive.

---

"I don’t even need to change the world… I’ll make the moon shine just for your view…"

I imagined my dad again, at home, probably nervous, trying too hard to impress Claire, laughing too loud. But maybe… maybe happy.

Maybe trying again, like James was trying now.

---

"I’ll make the starlight circle the room… And if you feel like night is falling… I wanna be the one you’re calling…"

The lights on stage dimmed gently, moonlight soft. Like even the room itself was listening.

---

"I just wanna be somebody to someone…"

James’s voice cracked again---this time on purpose.

---

"Someone to you… Someone to you…"

His eyes closed.

---

"The kingdom come, the rise, the fall… The setting sun above it all… I just wanna be somebody to you…"

And the final note held---just for a moment, just long enough to make the crowd hold its breath with him.

---

Silence.

Not awkward. Not uncertain.

Sacred.

And then---

Applause.
Not polite. Not scattered.

Thunderous.

Cheering, screaming, sobbing. Students stood up. Some cried. Others just looked stunned.

Mr. Oxford wiped his eyes. Mrs. Pamela clutched her heart.

Tim clapped so hard his hands turned red. Inez looked like she’d been holding her breath the entire song.

And me?

I couldn’t feel my legs.

I just ran.

Down the bleachers. Onto the stage.

James barely had time to blink before I threw my arms around him, the mic clattering to the floor, my lips on his.

The crowd screamed louder, but all I could feel was him---his arms around me, shaky but real, and the sound of his heart racing under my hands.

When we finally pulled away, breathless, he stared at me with wide eyes.

“Betty---”

“I know,” I whispered. “I saw you. Tonight, everyone did.”

He looked away for a second. “I thought I was gonna pass out.”

“You didn’t,” I said, brushing his hair back. “You stood up there and you told the truth.”

The lights above us shimmered gold, the fog machine still hissing faintly in the background.

But nothing else mattered.

He was no longer just the campus bad boy.

He was James.

And finally---finally, he belonged.

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Here is James' full performance....