Just What I Needed

Just What I Needed (76)

So  a warning for all of you that don't read the author notes.

NEXT CHAPTER IS THE LAST CHAPTER!

Staring down at the gossip magazine, Keely shifted in her seat, propping her elbow against the window. Strange how she had managed to avoid true notice through her weeks in Bellingham, but the moment Seth came into town, the place was swarming with paparazzi.

It either showed that he was just that much more well-known than she or people in the town just didn’t care about spreading gossip about her in the same way since she wasn’t exactly a new element there. Either way, she didn’t care. If it meant she could stay out of the pages of magazines longer, she’d quite happily do whatever she needed.

However that didn’t last. Pictures that had been snapped on the street were splayed across the long spread devoted to her and Seth, some from the school and even one of him leaving his motel room while he slipped sunglasses onto his eyes.

Was it sad that it didn’t even surprise her that they stalked him to his motel?

What she thought was worse was the fact she recognized the side of the motel he was staying at, she could even nail down exactly where his room was due to the number on the door.

In all, the entire thing was giving her a headache. Although the dull throbbing in the back of her head might be more due to the fact that as she read through the article, her dad was driving his truck without pause. Months on a bus, not once did she get car sick, no matter what she did. Two hours in her dad’s truck? She was even feeling dizzy.

Groaning, Keely tossed the magazine away from herself, letting it flop in the middle of the bench seat between them.

“Advil?” he questioned.

Rubbing her temples, she nodded slowly, murmuring, “Yeah…”

“It’s in the glove box.”

“What’s wrong?” Joseph asked from the back seat, coming blankly into the conversation as he leaned into the front part of the cab.

Before Keely even had the chance to reply, it was her father who supplied the answer. “She has a headache.”

For a moment she pursed her lips, but then just gave an unconscious shrug of the shoulders as she decided she was perfectly okay with her father answering for her. Instead of speaking, she just dug through the little drawer until she found the much anticipated bottle of pills. Popping the lid off, she quickly downed it with what was left of the lukewarm water sitting in the bottle in the cup holder.

“Are you sure it’s good to do a concert with a headache?” Joe pestered from behind her.

Sighing she shuffled back into her seat, wrapping her arms securely around herself. “I’ve performed with a headache before, Joe; I think I can handle this.”

The cab of the truck fell into silence at her words, causing Keely to stare out the window to see the city moving past them. It couldn’t be much longer to the stadium, and barely longer until her set came up, The Cavern Jets didn’t really get a long time on stage anyways, about twenty minutes.

Her stomach was jittering with nerves. Everything was bearing down upon her with a surprising ferocity that she hadn’t even thought about, for so long she’d been looking forward to this concert. But now that it was time, it seemed like complete suicide.

There was Joseph and she wasn’t sure how he would take to seeing a real concert of hers, the same could be said for her father. There was wondering if Haley would show up, she’d reserved front row tickets and backstage passes for this concert for all her friends months ago. Seeing her back up band for the first time since the fiasco, seeing The Cavern Jets – though more importantly Will, of course Colton and Marco who she missed more than she could explain. Then there was Seth of course, what was she even going to be able to say to him after their last words to one another? Or rather, his last words to her. She hadn’t really said much.