I don’t know how Carter balances everything we do with school and acts in a soap opera at the same time. I know his mom worked out some arrangement so he only works about ten hours a week, but still.

He flips through the pages. “You don’t even want to know what shenanigans Chase Proctor is up to now.” He laughs and messes up his overly styled blond hair.

Oddly enough, I haven’t really watched Our Lives, Our Loves since I’ve known him. Sophie was always obsessed with it, so I get updates every now and then about Carter’s character, Chase Proctor, the good guy who turned bad after his parents got a divorce when his father started cheating with his mother’s twin sister, who everybody thought was dead after she was trapped in a house that was set on fire by Chase’s estranged grandmother, who … oh, never mind.

Sophie and Amanda emerge from the audition, and Sophie heads straight for Carter. “You weren’t here to wish me luck.”

“But you don’t need luck when you have a song by Emme,” he says, grinning at me.

“Oh, hey, Emme!” Sophie gives me a big hug. “The song was great. I could tell they loved it.” Amanda hangs behind her. She won’t even talk to me. I don’t know what she has against me since we’ve only ever exchanged a handful of words in the past. She’s the only junior here, so she should show me some gratitude for being such an unreliable friend that it got her into the audition.

I debate thanking her for helping out, but then I hear our names being called. “Emme Connelly, Jack Coombs, Benjamin McWilliams, and Ethan Quinn.”

“Good luck, Emme,” Carter calls out. I turn my back on them just as I hear Sophie reply, “Sure, you wish her luck.”

Ethan can tell something’s wrong. He grabs me by the shoulder. “Please don’t do this right now.”

I look at him. “Do what?”

“Question yourself, your friendship, whether you belong here. Because you do belong here. You’re one of the best students here. I know it, the teachers know it, everybody knows it. She knows it. I wish you did.”

He walks to the center of the stage, picks up a guitar, and pulls the microphone stand up to match his height. Jack goes behind the kit while Ben grabs the bass. I stand there for a second before I instinctively pick up the other guitar and stand to Ethan’s left.

This stage, one I used to admire as a kid going to CPA productions, is so familiar to me now. But what I feel isn’t familiar. Usually I get nervous doing the walk from the hallway to the stage to audition each semester. But this time I don’t feel nerves at all. Because I’m with the guys. I don’t get nervous performing with them. Sure, I used to, but we’re a team, a musical family. We’ve grown up together.

“Hello, we’re Teenage Kicks and we’ll be performing an original song that I wrote,” Ethan says into the microphone.

I remember the first time we performed together. Ethan wouldn’t even look out into the audience, let alone speak to them. He stared down at the floor the entire time. I’m not sure he’s ever forgiven us for making him be the lead singer, but he has the most incredible voice. The second we heard him sing, we knew we had our front man.

He turns back and looks at each one of us. When he gets to me, he asks, “Ready?”

I’m not sure how prepared I am for senior year, the showcase, and college applications, but in this moment, I know that with these three guys behind me, I can do anything.

I look at him and smile. “Ready.”

We’re about to find out who made the cut. I can see the tension in all the students walking into CPA. Everybody but me. It’s not like I’m some hugely confident person, but I’ve been dealing with rejection like this for so long, it’s not even a big deal to me.

But it is to Sophie.

She squeezes my hand as we ascend the stairs.

SOPHIE: I don’t know if I can handle another year of this. I mean, I need this, you know?

She leans against the wall near the entrance. I brush a loose piece of hair from her face. Sophie’s been a nervous wreck since the auditions. I study her and wonder what happened to that super-confident girl who approached me sophomore year and straight-up asked me out. At that point, all I got was glares from the students. Half of them hated me because they thought I was a hack and would recite my infamous Kavalier Kids line, “Anytime a stranger is in need, the Kavalier Kids will be there, indeed!” as I walked down the hallways. The other half despised me for landing every lead role and getting all the press.

But Sophie was the first person to show me an ounce of kindness. She treats me like a normal guy. She’s put up with my crazy schedule, public appearances, and fans (who do not appreciate me having a girlfriend). She was also there for me when I was starting to doubt a lot of things.

It probably started the night of the Inside the Outside premiere — I wasn’t in the movie, but I was invited to decorate the occasion. Not quite Oscar night, but there’s still a red carpet and a long line of reporters to deal with before you’re allowed to take your seat and watch the movie. (Most premieres aren’t even about the movie; it’s about being seen on the red carpet or at the after-party.)

The lights were flashing so quickly, and I could barely focus with the paparazzi screaming my name over and over again. Sophie patiently waited off camera with my publicist, Sheila Marie.

Sophie and I had only been dating a couple months, but she’d been nothing but supportive of everything. In fact, she made me want to go out and do this sort of thing more. It’s a lot less lonely when you have someone to go with … who isn’t your mom.