People cheer. Lily claps like she’s trying to break her own hands with enthusiasm.
I laugh into the mic. Actually laugh.
And it doesn’t feel foreign.
When I reach the last song—a stripped-down version of something I wrote two nights ago while Ethan slept beside me—I close my eyes.
It’s my truth in a melody. My heart without armor. My want without fear.
When the final chord dissolves into air, the room doesn’t erupt so much asrise—like they’ve been waiting to breathe until I finished.
Warmth climbs up my throat. My chest tightens, but not with panic. With something else. Something brighter.
I step away from the mic, set my guitar gently on its stand, and take in the room one more time.
Ethan stands up. No theatrics. Just rising to his feet, hands in his pockets, chest lifted in a way I’ve never seen before.
Pride.
Real and unguarded.
Lily jumps up beside him, clapping and cheering, “LUCKY! LUCKY! LUCKY!” Banks joins in, then Charlotte, then the whole damn room.
And I— I feel alive.
I slip offstage, adrenaline humming through my blood. The backstage hallway smells like warm cables and old carpet, but I swear it’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever smelled.
Ethan finds me first.
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he cups my face, tilts my head up, and kisses me—slow and deep, like the world’s finally quiet enough for him to say what he hasn’t said yet.
When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine.
“You were extraordinary.” His voice is barely a whisper.
My breath shivers out. “I thought I’d faint.”
“You didn’t.” He brushes his thumb across my jaw. “You shone.”
I swallow. “You really think so?”
“I know so.”
“My heart’s racing,” I whisper.
He raises a brow. “Stage nerves?”
I shake my head. “You.”
A slow, devastating smile curves his mouth. The kind he rarely lets out. The type that undoes me completely.
He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear like I’m something precious. “You were brilliant.”
“I didn’t fall apart,” I murmur.
“You didn’t just stand up there,” he says. “You took it back.”
Something inside me cracks in the softest, sweetest way.
