Now Nate shares the title “Dad” with a man named Liam who begged my mother to let him be part of my life. And she refused.
I think about the contents of that box. All those little love notes, all that encouragement and warmth. Written by a woman who looked me in the eyes my entire childhood and lied about where I came from.
“Charlie? You still there?”
“Yeah.” I wipe my face, pulling myself together. “Sorry. I’m just…thank you, Dad. Thank you so much.”
“I’m having it couriered, should arrive in a few hours. I wanted to check on you and bring it myself, but I’m still in Singapore with your grandfather—this development deal is taking longer than expected.”
“It’s okay. I understand.”
“I’ll be back by next week. Maybe in time for your next show? Do you want me there?”
“Of course I do,” I breathe out. “Right by me in the tents.”
“You got it, sweetheart. I’ll be there.”
We talk for a few more minutes—about the deal, about the boys, about Spencer’s new obsession with some true-crime show, and our shared annoyance that Claire made us wait so long to find out the gender of the baby. By the time we hang up, I feel almost human again.Almost.
I call down to the front desk.
“Hi, this is Charlie Riley in the penthouse. I’m expecting a messenger tonight with a package for me. It’s extremely important. Can you please send them straight up when they arrive? I don’t want it sitting at the desk or getting misplaced.”
“Of course, Ms. Riley. My shift is over in an hour but I’ll leave a note for my team. We’ll send them right up. Can we send up any refreshments or perhaps dinner for you? The steakhouse has a lovely filet on special tonight.”
“No, thank you. But I appreciate it.”
“Okay, well, please let us know if you change your mind. If there’s nothing here you’d like to eat, we’ll send someone out to retrieve whatever you please.”
After thanking her once more, I hang up and take a breath.
The box is coming. Mom’s voice is coming. And maybe—just maybe—I can figure out how to hold both truths at once. The love and the lie. The comfort and the betrayal.
Maybe I don’t have to choose.
Needing to stretch my legs, I venture to the living room. The grand piano sits in the corner, gleaming black beneath the soft overhead lights. It’s a Steinway—of course it is; Dad’s hotels don’t do anything halfway—and I’ve been staring at it for weeks now, working up the courage to sit down.
I haven’t played since before the collapse. Haven’t sung, either, except in my head, where the lyrics loop endlessly like a song stuck on repeat.
But my fingers are itching. And the silence in this room is becoming an unbearable weight on my chest.
So I walk over. I sit down. I lift the fallboard and rest my hands on the keys, feeling the cool ivory beneath my fingertips.
And I play.
I don’t feel like playing one of my songs. Instead, I sing a cover I’ve loved for years. “Stay,” performed by Rihanna and Mikky Ekko. I can’t tell if this is a happy or sad song. All Iknow is there’s something raw and aching, about holding on and needing someone and wanting to be saved by something bigger than yourself. This is the kind of song that makes you feel like the artist reached into your chest and pulled out something you didn’t know was there.
My voice comes out husky and rough, wrecked from rehearsals, performances, crying, and dehydration. But my fingers don’t falter. They know this song by heart. They move across the keys with a fluency that feels almost separate from me, like my body remembers how to do this even when my mind has forgotten why.
The tears return somewhere around the second verse. They slide down my cheeks and drip onto my hands, onto the keys, and I don’t stop. I keep playing, keep singing, keep pouring out someone else’s heartbreak because I don’t know how to access my own.
That’s the thing, isn’t it? This song was written from something real. Raw emotion, lived experience, the kind of pain that leaves scars. The artist who wrote it knew what it felt like to need someone so badly it hollowed you out. To be the broken one. To need rescuing.
I’ve never felt that.
I’ve been sheltered my whole life—first by my mother’s illness, then by Spencer’s fierce protection, Dad’s money, then the bubble of pop stardom that keeps me safe and suffocated in equal measure. I’ve never been in love. Never had my heart broken. Never experienced the kind of devastating, soul-deep emotion that births songs like this one.
I’m a doll. Perfect on the outside, hollow on the inside. I can perform other people’s feelings flawlessly, but I’ve never really been alive.
