As I look around the space, a sense of ease I haven’t felt in far too long sinks in. This feels right. Being here, in our home, surrounded by our friends who have become our chosen family is everything I never knew I needed.
36
Now
I’ve never had to battle stage fright, it’s just not something I’ve ever had to deal with. Being on stage has always felt like a second home to me, a place that fills my cup and soothes my soul.
Tonight that feeling of nostalgia has been robbed from me.
Nothing feels right.
Every little thing down to the last detail feels off.
For starters, I shouldn’t even be performing in front of a live audience while secretly battling cancer and going through chemotherapy.
Then there’s the fact that I’m wearing a wig that is supposed to be an exact replica of my pre-cancer hairstyle, long, inky black waves that come down to just above my waist.
But that wig won’t grow back my eyebrows. My makeup artist, Elsie, had to draw them back in, and while it might not be obvious to others, I can’t stop staring at the difference. Nor will it magically make my once-long eyelashes suddenly reappear. I’ve never had to wear fake eyelashes, but with the sparse amount I have left, Elsie suggested I add that to my makeup routine fortonight’s performance so I’ll look somewhat like my normal self. Well, she didn’t say that, Elsie would never, but I sure as hell don’t look like myself.
Throughout treatments, I’ve not only lost nearly every hair on my body and scalp, but I’ve also lost nearly twenty pounds I didn’t have to lose in the first place. I’m a shell of the woman I once was.
And what Kyle doesn’t understand, what he refused to listen to me on, was that this performance won’t curb the media’s interest, it’ll only fuel their assumptions that I was in a rehab facility.
I look like I’m clearly unwell. But it’s not like the media will assume it’s because I have cancer. No, they’re going to spin every headline to make it look like I’m an addict spiraling out of control.
And even though I know the truth, as do the people closest to me, it’s the young girls and women who look up to me that I’m most upset about. The news stories ultimately don’t affect me, but the way I’m perceived by those little girls who idolize me, girls like Cadence and Gemma, yeah, that’s the shitty part that keeps me up at night.
I stand from the chair in my dressing room and bend over the vanity table to take a closer look in the mirror. Adjusting my wig ever so slightly, I sigh in defeat at the reflection staring back at me before grabbing my signature deep berry lipstain and coating my lips with it.
My armor for the night.
If I try to look like my old self, maybe I’ll start feeling some semblance of the woman I once was before cancer robbed nearly everything from her.
There’s a quick knock before my dressing room door opens and Kyle steps inside with a far too enthusiastic smile on his face.
“There’s my superstar! God, I think this is the longest we’ve gone without seeing each other since we first met.”
That is oddly surprising, even though it shouldn’t be. I guess I hadn’t realized how deeply he’d been ingrained in my life. The past several months of distance between the two of us has been good for me. I haven’t been constantly badgered for more songs or berated for what I chose to wear. In short, I guess I hadn’t realized how badly things had spiraled between us until I got away from Kyle on a daily basis.
“Sure, come right in I guess,” I murmur under my breath, unfortunately not quiet enough for Kyle not to overhear.
“Oh, come on. It’s not like I haven’t pretty much seen it all over the years.”
Well, that’s . . . unsettling.No, he hasn’t pretty much seen it all. At least, not that I can recall.
The unsettled feeling mixes with the already churning doubt I’ve been feeling about Kyle more and more as of late.
Now that we’ve had time apart, the small things I used to think he did to be protective or were just part of him “doing his job,” I’m seeing them through a different lens. Instead of looking out for me, I’m pretty sure he was just trying to control my every move. They say hindsight is 20/20, and things are definitely coming into focus that were a blur early on in my career.
My first record deal, for one—the label had full creative control over my first three albums, and I was expected to produce and release them at an unreasonable speed. Especially considering the fact that I was touring for eleven months at a time with only two months off between, in which time I was expected to be writing, recording, and performing smaller gigs.
And behind the scenes, Kyle was my puppeteer pulling the strings and stretching me in all directions. I was a candle burning at both ends until this diagnosis forced me to slow down.
Now that I have, everything I thought about my career and aspirations has changed.
I’ve decided that if and when I win this fight, I’m going to live my life differently. My priorities have shifted, and I want nothing more than to soak in my time on this earth with those I love most.
Jackson. Ryan. My father, who I’ve thankfully reconnected with. My newfound friends. And hopefully one day, a family of our own.
