We settle into opposite ends. I tuck my legs beneath me, clutching what’s left of my sandwich. Ash leans back, head tipped against the cushions, eyes fixed on the ceiling like he’s not quite ready to come back down from wherever his mind went.
“I used to get them all the time,” he says quietly. “But they’ve been coming back lately. Louder.”
I nod, chewing slower. “What kind of dream was it?”
He swallows. Then shifts forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling between them.
“It was two years ago. Dublin. Sold-out show, high security. Everything felt normal.” His voice is too steady. Like it’s been sanded down.
“I’d just finished the set. I was in the green room alone. Changing my shirt. One minute I was pulling it over my head, the next—he was there.”
He glances at me. His knuckles are white against his knees.
“Some guy. Massive. Early twenties. Said he bribed a crew member to get in. Called himself my number one fan.”
A chill races down my spine.
“I tried to play it cool. Said we couldn’t hang, offered him a signed poster just to get him out. But he didn’t want that. He wanted… something else.”
“What did he do?” I ask, barely breathing.
Ash swallows. “He started ranting. Said I’d ‘abandoned him.’ That my music saved his life, so Iowedhim. Screamed that I wasn’t who I used to be, that I was fake now. When I told him to leave, he snapped.”
Ash’s voice drops to a whisper.
“He grabbed me by the throat.”
My whole body goes rigid.
“Slammed me back into the wall. I hit my head. Everything rang. He had a bottle—shattered it against the counter. Held the neck like a knife.”
I cover my mouth.
“Security burst in maybe twenty seconds later. Tackled him hard. I was bleeding. Not badly, but enough to scare the label. They cleaned it up. Buried it. Told me never to mention it again.”
He shakes his head. “You should’ve seen the statement they wrote. ‘An overenthusiastic fan breached backstage protocol.’Like it was a scheduling error. Not a guy who tried to carve my face for being ‘too commercial.’”
I don’t realize I’m crying until a tear lands on my hand.
“Ash…”
“I still feel it,” he says quietly. “His hand on my throat. The sound of the glass. That split-second where I thought—this is it. This is how I die.”
I set my sandwich down and shift closer.
He doesn’t say anything for a beat.
Then, quietly, “I hate that it still messes with my head.”
“It doesn’t make you broken,” I whisper. “It makes you human.”
He finally looks at me, and it hits me like a wave—how tired he is. Not just physically, butunderneath.Like he’s been carrying this for too long, too quietly.
I reach out and rest my hand over his.
He flinches at first—just a breath—but then his fingers settle under mine.
He turns to me then. His eyes look different now. Raw. Wide open.
