“And that’s pretty much what happened. That guy didn’t hurt me or anything, but it was terrifying and that’s why I’ve been so shut down for the last couple of months. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner, Erin.”

  We were sitting in the library, on the blue reading chairs by the card catalogs. It was near the end of the final period of the day, when Erin and I had English class together. I decided that this would be the time that I finally let her know everything that happened to me; the band, the attempted assault, and why I’ve been so withdrawn. Erin had listened with rapt attention.

  “No, Maya, I’m sorry. I had no idea that happened to you, and I wish I had known so you didn’t have to go through that alone.”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t tell anyone, except for Jake a few days ago. I was so ashamed and guilty. I know I shouldn’t have been sneaking off just to play in some band, but I just enjoyed it so much.”

  “I’m just glad that they were nice about it. Roger always seemed a bit dramatic and edgy, but I guess he’s not such a bad guy.”

  I nodded. “They may look a little sketchy, but they’re alright. I just got so excited about playing in front of an audience that I just got carried away.”

  “Oh, come here,” Erin said as she reached over to give me a hug. “I’m just glad you’re okay. I’ll always have your back.”

  I wiped my eyes a bit as I hugged her in return. “Just, you know, don’t tell my parents. They’ll be furious if they found out I had been sneaking out for this long.”

  Erin pulled away. “I know you’re not going back to that place, but are you still with the band? You could still perform, just not be so secretive about it.”

  I shook my head. “That was our regular gig. We only ever got occasional jobs outside of that, and even less now that it’s so cold out. It’s been two months since we played anywhere outside of the band room.” I glanced at the clock. “In fact, we talked about meeting up after class today. I haven’t played with them in weeks, but I told Barry yesterday that I would come.”

  “You know,” Erin smirked, “I kind of want to see you guys play. I have French club today, but maybe I could watch one of these days?”

  “Absolutely!” I replied, as the bell rang and the day ended. After putting our notebooks into our book bags we hooked arms and went to our lockers. It was affirming to clear the air with her, and I should have known that she would be nothing but supportive. We hugged one last time before I headed off to the band room where I had dropped off my guitar. Roger was already in there, plucking away at a chord progression to warm up. He probably skipped the last period, as he often did, to come in early.

  “Hey, Maya,” said Roger, not looking up from his instrument.

  “Hey, Roger,” I replied, unzipping my Fender from its case and joining him. I started strumming a counter-melody to what he was playing, and wordlessly we fell into a rhythm. Roger perked up a little bit as I kept pace with him, and not for the first time did we get in sync quite smoothly. Roger had some natural talent, and I think we both recognized we were able to match with each other. We were playing like this for a while before Barry and Carl shuffled in and started setting themselves up.

  There was a certain amount of synergy as we started to play, and it was as if we hadn’t been on break for two months. We started by tinkering with Static Kiss since I had an idea for how to stretch out the intro that Barry seemed to like. One note after another melded together, and while the music itself was frantic and edgy, the four of us were focused and harmonized. My fingers were buzzing by the time the last note hung in the air.

  I looked at Roger. Meeting our eyes, he gave me a nod and I returned it. I saw a bit of the fire that he had always had spark back into his eyes, a sheer love of the craft that transcended all of the mundane band politics. It was several beats before Barry started adjusting his bass and Carl popped open another bag of chips.

  “Let’s do Exit Strategy next. Cool?” asked Roger. I nodded curtly, and away we went.

  ***

  The rest of February was a breath of fresh air. I felt clear-headed for the first time in weeks, and I started socializing and enjoying myself again with my friends. For one thing, I was a lot more affectionate towards Jake, always hanging off of his arm and stealing kisses when I could. Jake was always shy about it, but we could always make each other smile. I think that Erin spread the word around to our girlfriends about the trauma I suffered, and I noted that a lot of the girls on the squad were extra nice to me even if they didn’t know the specifics. I felt like I had a support system in place again, especially when it came to how much Jake was helping me. If anything, holding his hand made me feel safer.

  During the first week of March, I was scheduled to visit the counselor’s office, who was a plump older woman named Mrs. Donovan. She welcomed me into her office as I sat down, smoothing my skirt under me.

  “Good morning, Miss Peterson. How are you today?” she greeted.

  “I’m good,” I answered. “Am I in trouble or something?”

  “Oh, of course not,” assured Mrs. Donovan. “We schedule meetings with all of the juniors in the spring, especially students that show a lot of promise, to discuss their upcoming last year of high school and what their future plans are. I must say, you have the most impressive grades of anyone in your year. At this rate, you could easily be valedictorian next spring.”

  I gave an awkward smile. “Thank you, Mrs. Donovan,” I replied simply. I was usually very humble about my grades, since technically I had Matthew’s memories of high school, college, and graduate school rattling around in my head. It’s easy to get A’s if it’s your second round of high school.

  “What I wanted to discuss with you today are your plans for the future. You may think that it’s too early to start thinking about college, but you know that graduation will come faster than you think.”

  “I’ve actually thought a lot about it,” I confirmed. “I really want to study business and investments, and I’ve wanted to live in Chicago for the longest time.” I cleared my throat, thinking about Matthew’s life working in an office in the Loop and missing it terribly. “I…have a friend who lives in Chicago and it’s sort of my dream to move back. I mean move there.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful goal, Maya,” said Mrs. Donovan cheerfully. “There are many excellent schools in Chicago. There’s Roosevelt, De Paul, Loyola…”

  “I want to apply to the economics program at the University of Chicago.”

  Mrs. Donovan exhaled sharply. “That’s quite a difficult school to apply to. You certainly have the grades for it, but you’d be competing against many other students who have straight A’s from across the country.” She opened up the folder on her desk with my name on it, and briefly scanned it. “I know you’ve been class treasurer since freshman year, and you’ve been on the JV cheer squad for the last two years.”

  “I’m going to be on the varsity squad next year.”

  Mrs. Donovan nodded absently. “That’s very good, but it doesn’t scream ‘academics’ unfortunately. If the University of Chicago is your goal, you’ll need to demonstrate that your activities are on par with your academic standing. Something that makes you stand out.”

  I spoke cautiously. “What if I was a successful investor, with a portfolio worth millions of dollars?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Mrs. Donovan laughed quietly. “Even if that was the case, you couldn’t put something like that on your transcripts. While I think that the University of Chicago could be a very good ‘reach’ school for a student like you, I think it would be prudent to perhaps consider other schools. You would do very well at any school in the Chicago area.”

  When I left Mrs. Donovan’s office, I couldn’t help but see her point. While I would eventually be able to write a check for my tuition, it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t have much in the way of academic clubs on my resume. I doubted that the University of Chicago cared much that I was a cheerleader or a guitarist. But the truth was that there weren’t that many academic clubs I was interested in, certainly none that would align with economics or business.

  That’s when it hit me. I could just start a club, I thought to myself. Nothing grandiose, I could just call it the Investment and Economics Club and make myself the president. I certainly had the time; cheerleading was on hiatus for the next few months and the student government didn’t require that much of my time. Plus, it would be a good opportunity to discuss positions and investment strategies, since at the moment my investments were quietly ballooning and didn’t require much input from me.

  That afternoon I visited my former Economics teacher, Mr. Thompson. He remembered me fondly from Fall term, since I always peppered him with questions about market positions and derivatives. I asked if he would be willing to be the faculty advisor to the club, and he immediately accepted. Apparently he had had this idea for years and was just waiting for the right student to come along. We had a first draft of our proposal for the front office before I left.

  It all moved very quickly. We got approval a few days later, and then it was a matter of recruiting. There were a few of the girls on the squad who were studious, including Erin, and I convinced them to drag their boyfriends along. Sarah and a few other members of the student council were also interested, and Mr. Thompson talked to a few of the students in his classes about it. I also made up a few posters which might have suggested that joining the Investment Club could potentially make you rich. It worked for me, after all.

  On the day of our first meeting we had a decent turnout of about eighteen students who met in the library. I was surprised that Carl from Tempest showed up; apparently he was into math as much as he was into drumming. Everyone was milling about, and Mr. Thompson gave me the nod to get the meeting started.

  I cleared my throat. “Hey everyone, we’re going to get started if everyone wants to take a seat. Make sure you’ve signed your name on the clipboard.

  “Thank you all for coming to our first meeting of the Investment Club. The goal here is to learn how money works. Not like what the textbooks say, but how Wall Street actually runs. Hopefully we can learn about how investing works, and maybe even take this knowledge someday to invest ourselves and make money when we’re adults. Or at least prepare for college-level business courses.”

  I flipped through the packet that Mr. Thompson had prepared for me and started distributing the papers to the group. “What we’ll be doing for the rest of the school year is working on a hypothetical portfolio challenge. It’s a project where we will be managing a $100,000 portfolio. The first step, after we’ve nominated some officers, is that you’ll go home and target a single stock that you want to follow. Next week you’ll make a case as for why we should invest ten thousand dollars into it. You’ll have to do some research, and the meetings will be mandatory. The goal is to see how we can increase our positions by the end of the year. Any questions?”

  The first meeting went well, and Mr. Thompson explained many of the core principles behind the project. The following week everyone brought in their own proposals for stock purchases; at least a third had chosen Nike as their pick and another third wanted to invest in Gap. I was the only one who suggested Cisco systems, and only Mr. Thompson had any idea what it was. I had purchased some positions about a year ago, though I didn’t tell anyone that, and I wanted to follow them a bit closer. Sadly, the students preferred to follow Coca-Cola and Disney.

  The next few months were actually fun; it was the first time I actively discussed investing with anyone, even if it was just role-playing. A lot of my knowledge bled through our discussions, and even Mr. Thompson was impressed by some of my insights. He probably would have had a heart attack if he saw my actual portfolio. Carl in particular was very astute in his research, and there were even moments when he was able to show up Sarah who also brought her A-game. While it was enjoyable, I probably never would have joined a club like this since it was all a little easy for me, but it was a kick running it.

  As I was being kept busy managing my new club, as well as acing the Varsity cheerleading tryouts that finished in April, I hadn’t even noticed that our band practices were becoming more and more sporadic. While I saw Carl regularly at the Investment Club, I rarely ran into Barry or Roger, and I assumed it was because with graduation approaching they were busy preparing for it. Or maybe they were skipping class a lot, since Senior-Syndrome was contagious and they weren’t exactly model students.

  After one of our Investment Club meetings, I noticed Carl was carrying some of the gear he had stored from his drum kit to bring home with him. The school had given notice that we had to clear out all of our stored equipment today, since school was ending in a little less than a month. I offered to help transport the rest of his stuff to his car, so we headed into the band room with a cart.

  Barry was already in there, wrapping up cords from his amplifier. “Hey Maya, Carl. I guess you’ve been putting off hauling our stuff out of here until the last possible minute too, eh?”

  I shrugged. “No, my guitar’s been at home for weeks.”

  “Figures you’d be the responsible one,” Barry laughed. “Might as well start packing it all up. Bring the cart over.”

  Carl quietly started dismantling his kit, while Barry attempted to joke his way through the silence. We smiled politely, but I think it hit us all at once that this would be the last time Tempest would be in the same room together. It was even sadder than we wouldn’t even be able to have one last jam session. We had loaded everything onto the cart when Roger finally entered the room.

  “Sup, everybody,” he muttered. We could tell he was pretty low energy as he ran his fingers through his tousled hair absently.

  “Hey, man,” answered Barry, still trying to be upbeat. “I put your cords on your amp over there. Didn’t know if you’d be here or not.”

  Roger nodded absently. “I guess this is it, gentlemen. And lady. It was a good run.”

  It was a few quiet beats before Carl finally spoke up, and for once wasn’t talking through food in his mouth. “You guys have any plans for after graduation?”

  “You know me,” I said, “I’m just a lowly junior. Plus I’m a goody-two-shoes, so I’ve still got a year of school left.”

  “Hey, you were always cool to me, Maya,” assured Roger. “Never seen a girl play the way you do. Or a guy for that matter.”

  “Gee, thanks!” joked Barry. “And as for my plans, I’m probably just going to work for my dad this summer. He wants me to take some classes in the fall, but I think I’m done with school. What about you, Carl?”

  “Oh, I got accepted into the math program at Augsburg,” Carl casually stated. “I got the letter weeks ago.”

  I was surprised. “I didn’t know you were a math guy, Carl.”

  “Oh yeah. Always have been. That’s why I really liked your club. Might even go into investments myself, since it’s booming right now.”

  “Well, the market fundamentals are showing an unhealthy divergence from growth projections, and that kind of speculation—" I stopped, catching myself going into business mode and sensing Barry and Roger zoning out. “But, um, you know, keep in touch. You’ll do well, I think.”

  Carl smiled tightly. “What about you, Roger?”

  Roger crossed his arms, leaning back against a nearby pillar. “After graduation, I’m heading west. I got a cousin in LA that is gonna let me crash with him. All I need are a few lucky breaks and I can do something with music.”

  All four of us nodded knowingly to each other. There were a few beats where we said nothing, and I couldn’t resist breaking the silence. It was that, or else I’d start tearing up.

  “I just want to say guys, thanks for letting me play with you. For letting me be a rock star, at least for a little while. For thinking I’m cool.”

  “Maya, you were always super cool,” assured Roger. “And hey, if you ever find yourself in LA, look me up when I’m rich and famous.”

  I saluted, sarcastically. “Roger, Roger!”

  With a final exhale, Barry and Carl started pushing the cart out the door, while Roger grabbed his equipment and slung his guitar over his shoulder. He gave a dramatic wave, and soon I was alone in the band room. I took a moment, taking a seat with my knees together and crossing my arms under my breasts. I took a moment to reflect on all of our practices and jam sessions, and how good it felt to let go and not be Maya Peterson: Model Student every once in a while.

  From Matthew’s memories I recalled how he felt just before graduation, and how lost he was. I knew exactly how the guys felt as they went off into three different directions. I suppose I was fortunate in that I wasn’t in their place, but in less than a year I would be. Not exactly like them; I was already setting myself up for post-graduation and had been for years. And Maya had a lot more prospects than Matthew ever had, and it was because I was aggressively planning it out. Not something the average high school student does seriously.

  The millions I had acquired were inconsequential for now, as I wistfully remembered being the Masked Maiden and the electricity of the stage. Time to let go, I told myself. I’d still have a lot of things I needed to do, and an entire summer of the fun things that seventeen year-old girls get to do before they needed to worry about being an adult. With that, I jumped to my feet, and walked to the door, turning off the lights behind me.