“What happened on the yacht?” I ask quietly.

He turns, giving me a view of his tattoo. “It was stupid.”

“You can talk to me.”

He stares up at the sky, his back still turned toward me. “You know Wannabe Rocker?”

Just thinking of the show and what The Fringe could have been—and won’t be—makes my heart start racing so hard it hurts. I sweep my bleached hair behind my ears. “Of course,” I say, calmly as I can. “That’s how you got your start.”

“Mark wanted me to become a judge for the show next season. You know, to improve my reputation?”

“What’s wrong with your rep? I mean, besides the whole falling off the yacht thing.”

“Ha ha,” he says sarcastically, giving me a look. “I wanted to be seen as an adult artist, so I said I didn’t wanna do any more photo shoots for those tween bop magazines. And Mark got scared I’d lose my fan base if I gave them up.”

“Was this before you decided to retire?”

“Yeah.” He musses his wet hair.

I stretch out on the banks to warm myself in the sun. “What does this have to do with falling off a boat?”

Jesse gives me an amused shake of the head. “You are obsessed with me.”

“I know…and with the pending shortage of tween magazines featuring your face, I have no idea what I’m gonna do with my spare time. Can we get back to the boat already?”

“Last June, Mark invited me and all these Hollywood types to a party on his yacht so we could seal the deal for me to become a judge on the show. So we’re on the yacht with all these people I don’t know, and all I can think about is this field trip I took in fourth grade. My class went on a riverboat cruise on the Cumberland.”

“Oh yeah! We did that too. There was even a swing band. It was fun. We’re having our graduation cruise in June on a riverboat too.”

“Well, during my field trip, I loved hearing that band. I thought it would be cool to sing on the Belle Carol one day.”

I smile. I can’t believe Jesse Scott got his inspiration from the Belle Carol Riverboat.

He goes on, “So after the field trip, I told my pa, and he signed me up for singing lessons. After the first session, Holly said I was a prodigy and should be singing professionally. She encouraged me to try out for Wannabe Rocker, so Pa helped me make an audition video, and a few weeks later, I was accepted onto the show. That’s how it all started. Life hasn’t slowed down since.”

“Being on the yacht made you think about all this?” He nods, so I add, “And this isn’t what you wanted out of life?”

He shakes his head. This must be what he was talking about earlier, how you can end up leading a whole life you were never meant to lead. For me, it was letting Nate take over my band that landed me on the wrong path. But I don’t buy that Jesse wasn’t born to showcase his talent.

“Jess, you were meant to perform. Other people would kill to have your voice—”

He interrupts, “I’m about to turn nineteen. I can’t go to the grocery store without getting mauled—Grace has to do everything for me, or I have to have stuff delivered. You saw what happened earlier—I couldn’t even go to lunch without being interrupted for an autograph. My manager basically raised me. I have no friends—”

Suddenly he picks up a rock from the shore and hurls it into the water. He watches the surface ripple and wave until it smoothes. Then he sits down next to me on the grass. “I just sat there on the yacht that night, thinking all I wanted was to perform on the Belle Carol Riverboat. Now no one I used to know from school will talk to me anymore, ’cause I won’t give them money and record deals…not that I wanna talk to them anyway. And my parents were still angry with me because my girlfriend blabbed about our sex life.”

“So you were lonely?” He nods, and I swallow hard and ask with a shaky voice, “You weren’t trying to die or anything, right?”

“Of course not.” Jesse bends over and drops his forehead onto his crossed arms. “I drank, like, half a fifth of Jack Daniel’s and slipped and fell off the boat.”

“Half a fifth?” I exclaim.

“I’d never actually drank before—or after—that night.”

“Wait—why did you ask if I wanted to get drunk earlier today?”

He tousles his wet hair, peeking up at me. “Maybe I was testing you a bit.”

I stick my tongue out at him. “You sure know how to do things up the first time. You practically get a record deal during your first singing lesson, and then you totally wipe out during your first alcoholic experience.”