Even exhausted, at least my voice didn’t betray me.
It soared into the night and as the song hit its quiet end, I slid into “Exile.”
The end of the relationship that “Golden” had been. All the trust and faith that I’d hoped for. Julian Tennant had been tall and blond, and we looked amazing side by side. Too bad that had been the reason he’d pursued me. Because I looked good on his arm and my clout had been undeniable.
But clout only held his attention for so long.
Then came the backhanded compliments, the negging, and the microaggressions.
Dating me wasn’t easy on anyone, but Julian needed the spotlight all the time. I craved connection, he craved attention. In the end his version of attention included another woman.
Leaving me in exile with my massive empty house in Santa Barbara he’d convinced me to buy. With a view that would make a castle proud, but even from the start, I’d known it wasn’t for me.
It was for him.
For the status.
For the parties.
For the dreams of what could have been.
All the emotions that lived in me rolled out in an aching version of the song that left the crowd dead silent as they were drawn into my song.
And for a moment the spins and exhaustion backed off and I connected to my fans.
“Tower” was a battle cry of hope. That my foundations had been rocked, but I came back stronger. I rebuilt myself into the Ambrose I was now. Tired and broken, but still fighting.
I knew I should have tried harder with “Christmas Fire” but I allowed the crowd to sing most of it back to me. My smiles were huge and the screens were full of Christmas lights and the fireplace I spoke of in the lyrics.
I pulled it out for the end of the song and the silence went to thunder.
The couch was pushed out to the front of the stage as I leaned over, pulling the last vestiges of my energy to give them an amazing finish.
Even as the stage darkened and the lights went out for the last time, I distantly heard my manager’s voice.
Then nothing.
3
ambrose
I stared out the window.I’d been hooked up to an IV backstage, but even the vitamin infused saline couldn’t combat the state I’d been in.
But Ambrose couldn’t just go to a hospital.No, that was a media circus and a half.
Instead, I’d been planted here in a private clinic with hushed hallways and quiet nurses treating me like I was a second away from rehab. Part of me wished it was rehab. At least that was a twelve-step program I was familiar with.
Been there, done that, wrote a song about it.
This was more insidious.
I was soul tired. Wrung out beyond a limit I didn’t think was possible.
“Amber?”
My head swiveled at the name.
Very few people called me Amber.
