All Chapters of OFFSTAGE, on my Mind: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

If you ever want to watch three teenage boys attempt stealth, you should not go to a spy museum. You should come to Unit 1708 on a Saturday evening. I’d been assigned a shorter weekend shift, just a kitchen reset and a quick clean because press week was still doing what press week does best: draining people while pretending it’s “exciting.” When I let myself in, the apartment didn’t feel heavy the way it sometimes did. It felt… charged. Like something was about to happen. Rory was pacing near the window in a baseball cap and sunglasses, indoors, like he’d confused “disguise” with “witness protection.” Micah sat on the couch with his phone face down (miracle), posture calm but eyes alert. Jace stood by the kitchen island in a black hoodie, hands in his pockets, looking… nervous. Not “I’m about to perform on live TV” nervous. More like “I’m about to ask a girl something and my soul might leave my body” nervous. Which made absolutely no sense, because Jace Wilder could probably s

By Monday, the restaurant selfie had turned into exactly what I’d feared: a conversation. Not a confirmed conversation. Not a “news story.” But a conversation with teeth, little comments and zooms and “wait, who’s that in the back?” and “I swear that’s the same girl from the theatre.” The bright side was that nobody had said my name. The downside was that people didn’t need your name to decide you belonged to them. I didn’t see Sienna before first period, she was in the office, apparently, because she’d “lost her ID” and was “being persecuted.” Her words, not mine. Which meant I avoided one problem and gained another: Guilt. A tiny, sharp sentence that kept poking my ribs all morning. 'She came over with notes. I fell asleep. I didn’t even see her.' She’d been trying. She really had. And I’d missed it because my life had become a juggling act with too many knives. I made it through the school day on autopilot: turning in my revised speech draft with the calm confidence of a per

The morning after I stayed over, my mom didn’t ask questions. Which was both a blessing and a little terrifying, because my mom is the kind of woman who can ask one gentle question and dismantle your entire emotional structure with a single eyebrow. Instead, when I got home before school—hair messy, eyes puffy, hoodie borrowed and then returned, trying to look like I hadn’t slept in a luxury apartment with a boy who’d kissed me like I mattered—she just handed me a travel mug of tea and said, “Eat something at lunch.” That was it. No interrogation. No lecture. Just… care. Bright side: my mom understood more than she said. Downside: that made me feel guilty in a new, sharper way. I texted Jace under my desk during first period—because I’m a hypocrite and also because my brain needed the anchor. Me: I’m alive. School is cruel. Jace: Eat lunch. Me: Bossy. Jace: Accurate. I stared at the screen too long, smiling like an idiot, until Mr. Henley cleared his throat and my soul r

I should’ve known it wouldn’t stay quiet. Nothing ever stays quiet when the internet gets bored. By Tuesday, the interview clip where Jace admitted he was in a relationship had already been chopped into a thousand bite, sized edits, his smile slowed down, his “you won’t” turned into a sound, his new lyrics layered over dramatic music like a trailer for a movie nobody asked for. The bright side: he didn’t name me. The downside: the internet doesn’t need names. It needs 'clues'. And I, unfortunately, owned the most incriminating clue in Westbridge: A bag strap. I was at my locker when Sienna walked up and didn’t say hello. Sienna always says hello. Even if she’s mad, she says hello like a warning. This time, she just stood there with her phone in her hand and a look on her face like she’d stepped off a cliff and hadn’t hit the ground yet. My stomach dropped. “What?” I asked, already bracing. Her voice came out thin. “We need to talk.” My throat tightened. “About what.” Sienna di

For the rest of the evening, the house stayed tense in that way it does after something dangerous passes close. Dad checked the locks twice. Mom kept her phone nearby, volume on. I tried to do homework and ended up staring at the same paragraph for ten minutes without absorbing a single word. Around seven, Dad turned on the TV, not to relax, but like he was checking the perimeter of the world. The local news was on. I was halfway down the hallway when I heard my own name. “…a developing story out of Westbridge, where Westbridge High student Quinn Parker.” My feet stopped moving. My stomach dropped. Mom’s eyes snapped to the screen. Dad’s jaw tightened like he was physically restraining himself from throwing the remote. They played footage from someone’s phone, grainy but unmistakable. Me on my porch. Me facing a semicircle of microphones. Me saying, 'Yes. Jace and I are dating.' They cut it in a neat little clip. No context. No fear. No shaking hands. Just the sentence, cle