Free Forsaken by Dean Murray Page A

about them, not really. I'm
going to keep telling myself that this school is just a tiny little
pond and that once I graduate I'm never going to see any of these
people again. And then I'm going to go to a concert."
    **
    I
went to the rock show figuring I'd blow off some steam at the very
least, but secretly hoping I'd get a chance to see Albert. I had no
idea whether or not I'd even like the music that his band played, but
I was ready to brave the crowds in the hope that I'd get to spend a
little bit of time with him and get another taste of home.
    The
venue wasn't huge, but it was bigger than I'd been expecting. There
were at least a thousand people there and Fatal Angst put on quite a
show. They ranged from lyrical, haunting stuff that leaned heavily on
Albert, to aggressive, high-energy, electronic sounds that got the
whole crowd jumping up and down. The band was good, but the thing
that kept blowing my mind was how different Albert looked.
    The
geeky math tutor who had been working the tutor lab with me a few
months before had been replaced by a confident rock star, complete
with a tattoo and a couple of piercings. Albert had always had a
slender build, but sometime since I'd seen him last it had morphed
into the kind of too-skinny frame that some performing artists
seemed to get while on the road because they weren't taking good
enough care of themselves.
    I
let Isaac convince me to stay in the back of the crowd where he could
keep an eye on me for the first hour or so in
return for him promising to get me right up to the stage by the end
of the show.
    He
hadn't liked it, but he lived up to his part of the bargain and I was
center stage, almost close enough to reach out and touch Albert, as
he started into the last song, another of the aggressive numbers that
had people crowd surfing and generally rocking out.
    Isaac
was obviously uncomfortable, but I let the music take me over and
joined in the fun with everyone else. I looked up at one point about
halfway through and saw Albert looking at me. I smiled and thought
that I got a bit of a smile in return, and then almost before I knew
it, the band was taking their bows and filing off the back of the
stage.
    I
followed Isaac over to one of the walls as the lights came up and the
rest of the crowd started breaking up.
    "Sorry,
Isaac. I know you've probably got a ton of other things you'd rather
be doing, but can we wait for a little while and see if Albert comes
back out?"
    "Yeah,
no problem. I wouldn't mind seeing him myself. I noticed he wasn't in
school anymore a few weeks ago, but I didn't realize that this was
where he'd gone."
    We
sat for several seconds in companionable silence, both playing on our
phones. About twenty minutes after the show had ended I heard someone
walking in our direction and looked up to find Albert standing in
front of us with a big smile on his face.
    I
threw my arms around him so fast that I nearly knocked him over.
    "You
have no idea how good it is to see you. New York sucks."
    Albert
gave Isaac a nod as he wrapped an arm around me. "I thought
about you when we booked the tour dates out here, but I figured there
was zero chance we'd actually run into each other, and I had no way
to get ahold of you after you left."
    I blushed. I'd never been real big into the social media
scene, but I'd cut even my limited interactions down to nothing after
I left Sanctuary. It hadn't seemed fair to Alec to leave but then
keep up contact with everyone else in Sanctuary other than him.
    "Yeah,
things kind of happened fast. I left without really having a chance
to say goodbye to anyone."
    Albert
gave me a considering look, one that said he'd heard all of the
rumors that had probably circulated after I'd left and that he was
pretty sure I wasn't telling him the full truth. I did my best to
move the conversation along so that he wouldn't get a chance to grill
me.
    "Your
show was really, really good. When did you guys become famous?"
    His
chuckle was just as