Sour Apple

PJ bit his nails as he stared out the window, tapped his foot incessantly in the passengers seat, and thought he was going to be sick.

He wasn't actually going to be sick. He just thought he was. PJ was actually just feeling too many feelings, all too strongly, all at once. Excitement. Relief. Irritation. Fear. All churned and bubbled within him, growing more potent each time his mother hit a pothole, deepening his belief that he was going to throw up.

He almost didn’t ask for the tickets. They were definitely too expensive. But the show was in the next city over, and this was the first night of the tour, and it was on the last day of school. He had to go. Over dinner, PJ pushed the meatballs around his plate, until he finally placed his fork down and asked his mom if he could start working part-time at the grocery store earlier this year - after school, rather than wait for summer vacation. She asked why, and he told the truth - that it was for the concert tickets. She got mad, and said no, said that he needed to focus on school, and that this was really irresponsible of him to even ask. PJ almost cried, and she offered a compromise instead. 

She would buy him the tickets - but he had to get A’s, and the tickets would be his Christmas and birthday gift combined this year. No moping when there were no gifts under the tree. And he had to be okay with just a cupcake on his birthday.

A bargain. Really, a steal. He was getting mostly A’s already, and he wouldn't have to chase abandoned shopping carts in the parking lot, and he was going to see FLYNN. PJ almost cried again and scarfed down his meatballs so he could go study.

He discovered FLYNN the same time everyone else did - when his most popular song, Sour Apple, went viral. It started off as a popular, 20-second audio clip on TikTok, before people discovered that the full version was also really good. PJ thought it was the best song he had ever heard. He listened to it on repeat, on his walk to school, during lunch hour, and whenever he could get his hands on an aux cord. 

The lyrics struck something within him. Not like the song was about him, but like there was a feeling in his stomach that had been there for a long time, refused to be digested, and that FLYNN felt it too. 

He asked Gary to come with him. Gary went to concerts all the time.

But Gary sucked.

Gary usually didn’t suck, but the morning of the last day of school - the morning of the concert - he flopped. He told PJ he had to help set up for the seniors’ graduation. He didn’t tell PJ that he volunteered to do this, and that if he heard that stupid indie-pop song one more time he would lose his mind. He felt bad, and gave him the extra ticket though.

So, PJ was nauseous in the car. Excited to see FLYNN. Relieved that the day had finally arrived, 9th grade was over, and it was effectively both Christmas and his birthday today. Irritated that his mom was coming with him, instead of his "best" friend, and she didn’t know the words, and concerned that she might embarrass him. 

And afraid that this wasn’t going to be worth it. No Christmas gifts, nothing special on his birthday except that red velvet cupcake, and he had really worked hard to get that A in English. A lot was riding on this to be the best night of the year. And he was so afraid that it wouldn't be.

Of course, PJ didn’t consciously process all of this.

He was just nauseous. And his mom kept hitting potholes.

Parking onsite was almost as expensive as another ticket, so his mom drove around the back and found street parking. They had to walk around the entire building to enter, and by the time they did - thankfully - the opening act was still performing. Some girl PJ thought was pretty, but he honestly couldn’t see her well from their seats. She sang a sad song, which he thought was pretty too.

They sat, and PJ was sweating from his feelings and from the steep walk up the stairs. Even in the low light his mom could tell that he had turned a bit green. She left to buy him a water bottle, was out of sight, and then, it happened. 

It got darker, and strobe lights cycled up and down and up and down, making PJ feel like he was going to tumble forwards into the crowd below him. Still, he stood, leaning forward as the familiar vocal harmony that he had heard countless times before began to play.

FLYNN walked onto the stage.

PJ didn’t even realize he was screaming. The nausea was gone, replaced by shivers and goose bumps up his arms. The drums eased in, and he stomped his foot to the familiar beat, and FLYNN picked the mic up to his mouth and - didn’t sing.

He smacked on the mic a couple times. The music faded out quickly.

“Welcome!” FLYNN said into the mic, bowing deeply towards the crowd. He held the mic with both hands, almost like he was praying. “Before we get started, I wanted to thank you all for coming out tonight. This is really so, so special. I appreciate each and every one of you. You're my family now.”

The crowd went wild. PJ felt like he was one of those birds that you drive past on the highway, that move in clumps and form shapes in the sky. A big blob of birds, and they all swooped and whooped together, moulding into whatever shape FLYNN wanted. This was unreal. He loved being a bird.

“And one more thing - you might have noticed this gap here, at the front. I don't like it." he said, before pausing dramatically. "I want you all to fill it. Everyone get up and come closer. Yeah, I know your tickets have seat numbers on them. Fuck em! Come on!”

PJ moved without thinking, and was gone by the time his mother returned with his water.

*

Flynn was supposed to be warming up. Instead, he stood inches from the wall in the green room, looking at each signature until - there. There it was. He snapped a picture, then walked back to the couch, collapsing onto it and feeling the springs dig into his back.

I’m backstage. He typed fast, and attached the photo to his text to Aunt Marie. 

Come by early and I can show you around! Remember when we saw The Wiggles perform here, like 12 years ago? This is their signature - I think I’m going to sign right under theirs. BTW, Isabelle booked the entire front section for you guys, right up at the front. Let me know when you’re here.

He hesitated before hitting send. She had not replied to the long message Flynn sent to the family group chat, that he had fought with his label to have his first show here, so they could hear his new album before anyone else. He booked out the entire VIP section for them at the front.

No one had actually replied to his message. Two of his cousins reacted with with cold, yellow thumbs ups.

This year had, without doubt, been the most successful of his life. He had money, money that he earned , from his music and his merchandise and now his ticket sales. A huge turnaround from the years prior, that he spent in his childhood bedroom in his Aunt's house, staying up late, writing, producing, and singing in his closet that his Uncle had helped him retrofit into a sound booth. This wasn't just supposed to be his success. It was theirs too. But, quite understandably, they didn't want to be a part of it.

 Sour Apple was written, recorded and produced in one night. He was drunk - his aunt and uncle at their friend's cottage for the weekend, and his cousins all away at college. He was alone, and drank their rum, and was staring at the number 105 on his screen. 105 streams. No - 106. Then it stayed at 106 for another next 5 minutes. Flynn had probably spent more hours working on that song than streams.

So, he decided to try something different. A bit more drama. Something that people would want to hear, that would play to their hurts and heaviness, even if he didn't really resonate with it himself. He wrote it in 10 minutes, in his scrapbook, and laced it with shallow metaphor and a catchy tune. He created drama within himself, his childhood, his home - their home - that was much more entertaining than reality. The hook was about how he wasn't really theirs, he wasn't really one of them. Even though they had taken him in like their own son, treated them like their own child for as long as he could remember. The bridge, about how lonely it was, being an outsider. Even though he never once thought of them as his cousins, but as his little sisters. And the chorus - the one that the TikTok algorithm decided to bless - was about how he knew, deep down, that he could never shake the flaws, the rottenness that was inside of him, from the real "tree" he came from. The "real" deadbeat parents that he never knew, and honestly, never really cared to know, because Aunt Marie and Uncle Joe were the best parents he could ever ask for.

Isabelle banged on the door to the green room, and swung the door open before Flynn could react.

"You're on in 5. Get off the couch! Go go go, come on!"

"Are they here yet?"

"I do not have time to play hostess. Go check yourself."

He didn't get his hopes up.

Flynn stood off to the side of the stage, where Bella was still performing her single, Lullaby. It really was a beautiful song, about how she used to sing to her boyfriend when he was in the hospital with cancer. Flynn knew her story was real, but suspected how real.

He peeked out at the hall. It wasn't packed, but more full than he expected it to be. He couldn't see all of the seats from this angle - he knew, from when he had come here to see The Wiggles, and a few other shows - that it was quite massive. It was really amazing, that this many people would come out to watch him sing. Would pay for this.

Except the VIP section, which was completely empty.

*

When FLYNN told him to come closer, he listened. He weaved through groups of people, ran down the steep steps, wiggled his way to the very front of the VIP section, and stood right up against the base of the stage.

He was so alive. He had never been this alive before. He danced, and sang all of the lyrics to the songs he knew, and was in awe at the new songs, which PJ loved even more than his old stuff. At one point, FLYNN locked eyes with him, and PJ was prepared to faint.

Only in hindsight, when he had gotten over the initial shock and awe and excitement that FLYNN had looked at him, did he realize that FLYNN's eyes looked a little bit like his own when he felt too many feelings.

PJ concluded that FLYNN was likely just feeling a bit sick on stage. 

*

Kendra sat in her assigned seat, and enjoyed the music from afar. She took a sip from the $6 water bottle, and saved the rest for PJ. He was going to need it later.

She panicked at first, before noticing that everyone had moved towards the stage. Like this lanky, leathered-up singer had come out, and like a magnet, pulled everyone closer towards him. She spotted her son way up at the front, pressed up against the stage, jumping and dancing like he did as a child.

So, Kendra stayed in the seat she had paid for.

She was so tired.

She wrapped her red scarf around her neck, and leaned against the concrete, rested her eyes, and smiled. Proud, that she could give this night to her boy. And that he got his As.

*

Flynn closed out the set, and exited out the back of the venue.

The show went well. They liked his songs. Isabelle was pissed that he let people fill the VIP section without paying for it, but also happy that he had. The photos were incredible.

He breathed in the cool air, fresh and crisp, before making his way to the car where Isabelle was waiting, but froze. She was there.

During his performance, he noticed her. Sitting way at the back, up in the nosebleeds, while everyone else was pushing their way to the front. She had a red scarf, like the one Aunt Marie liked to wear when they went skiing. Not that he could really see her in detail. She was more of a woman shaped blob, with red. He kept singing, dancing, being a performer without missing a beat, but he kept glancing at her through the entire set. She stayed for the whole thing. Was it her?

No.

She was holding hands with the kid that was absolutely losing it in the front row, and they were walking away from him.

It wasn't her.

He walked to the car, alone.