Center Stage
Copyright© 2025 by Lumpy
Chapter 19
Thursday, I got home from school and realized that I didn’t have to get on a plane and go anywhere. I finally had a weekend where I could play at the Blue Ridge and just relax for a little while. The house was quiet even though Mrs. Philips’ car was in the driveway. She wasn’t downstairs, so I assumed she was in her room. I had homework, but I was catching up and, since I didn’t have to go on tour, I’d actually be able to spread it out over the weekend, which meant I could take an hour or so break before going to band practice, and then maybe do some homework afterward.
A very rare break.
I headed to the kitchen to grab a snack and noticed a stack of letters on the counter. Maybe twenty in total, which is why they caught my eye. Weirder, the top ones were addressed to me. Flipping through them, I actually found that all of the letters were addressed to me, all from colleges, by the looks of it.
I tore open the first one, the letter from UNC was on top, and pulled out the contents, which turned out to be an acceptance letter. The next one was from USC, which I’d also applied to since it had a really strong contemporary music and composition program. Another acceptance letter.
Weirdly, the third one was from Juilliard, a school I didn’t apply to, since it wasn’t the kind of music program I was looking for, only to find that they’d also sent an acceptance letter.
Could schools do that? Accept you even though you didn’t apply?
As I dug through the letters, I found they were all acceptance letters, with about two-thirds of them from schools I didn’t apply to. Some of them, like Berklee College of Music, were very prestigious. There was even one from Yale, of all places.
“Mrs. Phillips!” I yelled out, hoping she was home and hadn’t gone somewhere else with a friend or something.
Thankfully, a moment later, the door to her room opened and she came out, “What’s wrong, Charlie?”
“Did you see these?”
“Yes, I put them there for you. Sorry, I didn’t go to the box for a few days. Did you enter some kind of program or something?”
“No. These are acceptance letters for next year.”
“Did you apply to that many?” she asked, now as confused as I was.
She’d helped me send out my applications and knew how many schools I’d applied to, so her confusion was warranted.
“No. I didn’t. But they all accepted me. Look,” I said, handing the stack to her.
She flipped through several, her eyes widening as she took in some of the names. “This is incredible!”
“I know. I was pretty sure I knew which school I was going to accept, but now ... there are too many options.”
“That’s better than no options. Just think about it. You don’t have to accept right away.”
“I’m going to call Kat.”
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said, patting my arm. “Still, I’m very proud of you. This is a big deal.”
“Yeah,” I kind of mumbled offhandedly, still a little shocked.
I grabbed my phone and dialed Kat’s number. She had practice at the moment, but sometimes, she’d be on a break and would be near her phone.
“Hey, Charlie! What’s up?” she said, answering almost right away, which meant she was on a break.
“You won’t believe this. I just got home and found a stack of college acceptance letters waiting for me.”
“That’s amazing! Which schools?”
“All of the ones I applied to, and like fifteen I didn’t.”
“Really? That’s weird. What schools?”
“Good ones. Yale, Juilliard, Berklee. I can’t figure out what happened.”
“What happened is you’ve started to make a real name for yourself. You’re selling out stadiums and you’re at the top of the indie streaming chart for what, two weeks now. Schools are always looking for hooks, and having a celebrity, even a minor one, at their school helps bring in other students. We had this physics guy transfer over this semester and he won a big award in his field. The school can’t stop bragging about it all over the place. You’re in those ranks now.”
“I guess.”
“So, what do you want to do? Juilliard is famous for its music, Berklee has a great program, and you applied to USC because of its program. Do you have an idea of where you’d like to go?”
“Man, I don’t know. Not Juilliard, I don’t think. Their program is wrong for me. But Berklee? Maybe. And USC was kind of a stretch when I applied for it, so the idea I could go there ... just ... I don’t know.”
“What are your top two?”
“Probably USC and UNC.”
“UNC? Not Berklee? I know you applied to UNC because it was in state, but you have all these options now and the money should be less of an issue. You don’t need to settle for staying here when you have all of these other options.”
“Yeah, but you’re at UNC.”
“That’s sweet, Charlie, but you shouldn’t base your future on where I am. We both know UNC’s program isn’t nearly as good as either of the other two. I can’t help but feel the only reason you want to come here is me, and that can’t work.”
“Their program isn’t that bad.”
“Be serious, Charlie. You always talk about people being honest; you can’t turn around and lie to me and yourself. You just said you wanted to go to UNC ‘cause I’m here, and I won’t allow you to base your choices on just being near me. It’s not fair to you and it’s certainly not fair to me. Do you think I want to feel like some kind of weight around your neck? To feel like I’m holding you back?”
“Of course you don’t, but that’s not what you’re doing. I’m not even sure it matters where I go. My career is already doing well, and soon, I’ll have the contract from ARC. I’m mostly doing this because I promised Mom I would.”
“Bullshit. One, you’re too smart to think you have nothing to learn or can’t get better. At least, I hope you haven’t suddenly developed some kind of massive ego. And you, of all people, should know better than to just count on the deal you have right now to be forever. Not even considering how some of your past deals have gone, your dad had a deal too, and banked his entire life on it. How did that turn out for him?”
“Yeah, but...”
“No buts. I love you, Charlie, but I swear to God, if you start making your life choices solely because of me, I’ll break up with you. I love you too much to hold you back.”
“Kat, that’s not fair.”
“Yes, it is. You have a chance to go to some of the best music schools in the country, and you’re thinking about throwing that away because of me. What’s not fair is expecting me to live with that. We’ve made long-distance work so far, we can make this work too.”
I flopped on the couch. All the joy of the acceptance was gone in a heartbeat. I didn’t want to keep being long-distance, and I didn’t really need a degree now, but she wasn’t wrong. Dad had a deal and it didn’t last. I had the MAC deal and it didn’t last.
It was just that by the time we got together, she was already off at UNC. We’d never been able to date while living in the same place. Long distance was working, but it sucked.
But if she thought it was unfair to her, I couldn’t do that to her.
“Okay. I’ll think about it.”
“No, don’t just think about it, do it. Commit to USC. Or Berklee. I don’t care which, as long as you don’t settle for UNC just because it’s convenient.”
“Alright,” I said quietly.
“Good. I love you and I know this makes you sad, and I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re right. I just ... you know.”
“I do. If making the right choice was easy, everyone would do it. Or something like that.”
Friday after school, I headed to the Blue Ridge. Sadly, we only had two nights this weekend because Chef had already booked someone for Sunday. We weren’t even supposed to have Saturday, but the band that he’d booked to play had to drop out after their lead singer was in some kind of accident. They said it wasn’t serious, and rescheduled for a few weeks later, which let us slide into that spot.
I was happy he was doing well booking performers, mostly from Asheville, to play on weekends. The Blue Ridge was too important to just hold a spot open for me in case I was available, and I was thrilled he was starting to become known as a quality venue for local music. He’d even gotten more people driving up from Asheville and some of the neighboring smaller towns on Saturday nights to hear music, and he was booked all the time.
Vinney told me they’d had to hire more people for Saturday nights, and Chef was looking at buying some adjacent land to expand the parking lot. I was actually thrilled for Chef, who deserved every bit of success he could get, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss playing there. I still thought of the Blue Ridge as home, both musically and literally.
I was just pulling into the parking lot when my phone buzzed, rattling against the cupholder. Pulling into a spot, I checked and saw it was Hanna.
“Hey, Han...”
She was sobbing almost uncontrollably.
“Hanna? What’s wrong?”
She tried to say something, but the words were completely muffled, mixed with deep, wracking breaths, making them unintelligible.
“Okay, it’s okay. Just slow down. Take a deep breath. I can’t understand what you’re saying.”
I heard her inhale shakily, then exhale. Another sniffle. “Ch-Charlie...”
“I’m here. What’s going on?”
“It’s ... it’s Horace. Professor Cross. He ... oh God...” She broke down again.
“It’s okay, Hanna. What happened? What did he do?” I asked as gently as I could.
“He’s ... he’s seeing someone else,” Hanna managed between sniffles. “Another student.”
This was not a shock. In fact, I’d been expecting it, considering his pattern. Hell, Hanna already said she thought he was seeing another girl and they’d had a fight over it, but apparently, she’d suppressed it, not wanting to think about it. Everyone around her had told her this fling was going to end exactly this way, but she’d refused to listen. Not that I was going to say any of that, since I knew it would just throw her into a rage and make her hang up, and she needed someone to comfort her at the moment.
“He never wants to see me anymore and he always has excuses for why we can’t go out. And I’ve seen him with her around campus, standing right next to him, barely an inch between them.”
“There could be explanations for all of that,” I offered; although I thought she was right, he’d probably found his new conquest.
“No, Charlie, you don’t understand! I saw them together less than thirty minutes ago. Kissing. In his office. I went by to surprise him, maybe take him to lunch before my afternoon class. The door was open a crack. I peeked in and ... and...”
She dissolved into sobs again.
“I’m so sorry, Hanna.”
I was sorry that she was hurting so bad. She might have set herself up for this and ignored every person who told her this was exactly how it was going to end, but that didn’t mean I wanted her to be in pain.
“Her name’s Tiffany. Some freshman bimbo.”
“Well, now that you know...”
“I’m going to make him get rid of her,” she said, taking my sentence in a completely different direction. “I’m going to tell him if he doesn’t, I’ll go to his wife and tell her everything. He’s always so concerned about how she’ll deal with it in her state, and I know she’s sick and all, but I don’t care. He can choose between her knowing what he’s been doing or...”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. She had to know that she was doing the exact thing to his wife that she felt this Tiffany girl was doing to her, which is maybe why she couldn’t say it out loud. I’d even bet the wife wasn’t sick, and it was just a line he fed the girls to make it easier to lie to themselves.
“Hanna, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why? He’s cheating on me!”
“I know, but there is a big difference in your position and he has a lot to lose, which means he will do a lot to protect himself. You threaten him like that, he could retaliate. Guys like him, with a small amount of power, don’t take well to being told what to do and especially not to be forced to do something.”
“So what, I just let him get away with it? Let that little slut steal him from me?”
I sighed. “Hanna, I know it hurts, but the best thing you can do is walk away. He was never going to leave his wife for you. You’re fighting for nothing. For a guy who’ll always make you second. And if you force his hand, he’ll just make your life miserable. You said it yourself, he has a history of doing this. Dating a freshman or sophomore, then moving on to the next one after a year or so.”
“But ... but I love him, Charlie. I can’t just let him go.”
“I know it feels that way, but trust me, it’s not love. Not on his end. We warned you this would happen. He doesn’t care about you, not really. You’re just another conquest to him.”
“He does love me!” Hanna snapped. “And I love him. It’s this ... this slut. She’s messing it all up.”
“Hanna...”