“…about Lila,” he says.
My heartbeat stutters.
“My wife.”
The crowd explodes.
He’s choosing my world and me at the same time.
Sound crashes over the stadium like a wave. Screams. Shouts. Names being chanted. People losing their minds because this is better than any song, any encore, any planned moment with confetti.
It’s real.
It’s public.
It’s irreversible.
The stage wings suddenly feel too small, like my life is happening ten feet away under lights while I’m still in the dark.
The crowd is roaring. Recording. Feeding on this.
Cam looks back at me, fully now.
Just asking—
Are you with me?
Chapter thirty-six
Cam
The stadium hushes in a way that doesn’t make sense.
Forty thousand people don’t hush. They surge. They chant. They keep moving because silence is uncomfortable and humans hate being uncomfortable.
But it happens anyway.
Like the lights dimmed inside their throats.
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny. Because my body doesn’t know what to do with this much feeling and no pads to hide behind.
I should be terrified.
Tens of thousands of faces. Cameras with lenses big enough to see pores. Screens showing my expression in real time.
But all I see is her.
Lila is in the wings by the backstage tunnel, half in shadow, half caught in spill light. One hand is pressed over her mouth like she’s holding herself together. Her eyes shine like she’s standing too close to the sun.
My chest goes tight, and I take one breath the way I do before a snap. In through the nose. Slow out.
The mic is warm in my hand.
My voice comes out steady anyway. Raw, but steady.
“I’ve spent months letting other people tell my story,” I say.
The words bounce back at me through the speakers, bigger than my body. I don’t look up at the screens. I don’t need to see my face to know what it’s doing.
