The late afternoon sun bathed Highland Park in a hazy gold, that peculiar Californian glow that made everything look like it belonged in a movie. The air was thick with heat and possibility. It was one of those Tuesdays that felt like time had hit pause—school felt like a fading memory, responsibilities just out of reach. The only thing that mattered was the now.
Alex sat in the passenger seat of Leo's car—The Blue Ghost, as it had been christened long ago with a mix of irony and affection. It was a battered '98 Civic that rattled with every pothole and smelled like a teenage life lived in fast food wrappers and febrile ambition. Its upholstery was frayed and sun-bleached, and its dashboard bore the faded scars of duct-tape repairs and half-finished dreams. The windows were down, and the breeze carried with it the low din of the city—snippets of conversation, the distant thrum of helicopters, and the occasional bark of a dog echoing down a side street.
Leo drove with his usual blend of recklessness and charm—one hand on the wheel, the other rapidly hopping across the radio dial like he was conducting a séance.
"Static... static… why is there always someone yelling in Spanish?" he muttered, brow furrowed. "I swear, the moment I give up is the moment it happens."
Alex smirked, his temple resting against the vibrating glass of the window. "You know if you keep spinning that dial any faster, we're going to accidentally invent time travel. Or summon a demon."
"Worth it if he plays Youth."
"You're delusional."
Leo didn't miss a beat. "I'm a visionary. There's a difference."
Since "Youth" had dropped online the previous week, Leo had treated every drive like a mission from the music gods—desperately trying to will the universe into aligning. He didn't care about playlist placements, didn't track follower counts or Spotify algorithm boosts. Leo's goal was simple: the radio. Old-school, analog validation.
Alex had humored it, the way you humor someone who's both ridiculous and right. Because even if it was a long shot, even if no one played new songs this fast, there was something poetic about chasing that moment. About hearing yourself on the same static-ridden machine that had once played your heroes.
"You just want to call the DJ and pretend to cry, don't you?"
Leo grinned, eyes still on the road. "Bro, I have an entire acceptance speech. It ends with a slow fade into acoustic guitar and a shoutout to my third-grade music teacher."
Alex chuckled, but he was touched. Leo's optimism—blinding, unreasonable, bulletproof—had always been a shield against Alex's own doubts. Finneas crunched numbers. Billie cut through ego with quiet, precise insight. But Leo… Leo just believed. With a child's heart and a showman's soul.
"Wait," Alex said suddenly, his hand shooting out to stop Leo from changing the station. "Leave it. This is KROQ."
Leo obeyed, pulling his hand back like a soldier responding to a command. The car filled with the end of a song—something dreamy and synth-heavy. The DJ's voice followed, dry and cool as the inside of a record sleeve.
"Alright, that was the latest from The 1975," she said, the name landing with a thud in their shared memory. "Now, we've been getting hit up about this next one all week. A local artist out of LA. You might've heard his breakout track last year, but this one's different. This one's something special. This is Alex Vance. This is Youth."
The universe paused.
Alex's breath caught. The air thickened. He blinked, unsure if he'd misheard. But Leo wasn't moving either. They just… sat there.
The words hung suspended in the heat: Alex Vance. Local artist. This is "Youth."
Then, like a dream remembered all at once, the music kicked in.
The familiar, cascading synth line—the one Finneas had tortured for hours—poured through the cheap car speakers, grainy but unmistakable. The beat dropped, tight and clean, and for a moment it wasn't just music. It was proof.
Alex's voice came in seconds later—raw, vulnerable, bold. But it wasn't coming from his laptop, or Billie's headphones, or the studio monitors. It was on the radio. Blasting across Los Angeles. Real.
"OH MY GOD," Leo shouted, slamming his hand on the steering wheel. "OH MY ACTUAL GOD. IT'S HAPPENING!"
He leaned on the horn in triumph, letting it wail like a victory trumpet. A pedestrian across the street jumped, flipping them off without much heat. Alex couldn't stop laughing. It was loud, startled laughter—the kind that tumbles out when disbelief and joy collide.
"I TOLD YOU!" Leo screamed. "I TOLD YOU IT WAS TODAY!"
The volume dial didn't stand a chance. Leo cranked it all the way to the right until the speakers protested with distortion. It didn't matter. It was perfect.
They sang—yelled, really—along with every word, their voices out of sync and gloriously wrong. It didn't matter that Alex's voice cracked or that Leo botched the chorus. They screamed the lyrics they'd written on Billie's floor. They sang with the reckless abandon of two kids who had dreamed this into being.
Alex leaned halfway out the window, wind roaring in his ears, and let the city take the song. People on the sidewalks turned. A man in a taco truck looked up. Somewhere, someone else might be hearing it for the first time, wondering who this kid was. And Alex? He felt like he'd left gravity behind.
No ghost clinging to his shoulder. No timelines colliding. No pressure. Just sunlight and music and Leo, beating the steering wheel like a mad conductor.
This wasn't streaming. This wasn't code or charts or likes. This was legacy. This was radio.
They didn't speak for the entire song. They howled. They hit the dashboard like it was a drum kit. When the outro faded—when the DJ returned to tease the next track and casually toss out Alex's name one more time—Leo pulled over. Not dramatically. Just slowly. Carefully.
They sat there, both staring forward.
"Dude," Leo said at last, his voice uncharacteristically small. "That was real, right?"
Alex nodded slowly, the corners of his mouth lifting again. "Yeah. That just happened."
A beat passed. Then they broke—laughing, whooping, hitting each other on the arms like kids who couldn't hold the joy inside.
They didn't have anywhere to go, but they drove anyway. Windows down, speakers humming, chasing the echo of that perfect, impossible moment through the golden streets of Los Angeles.
They had arrived.
And the city was listening.