I read the letter again, and then again, before finally meeting Spencer’s watering eyes through my own veil of tears.
“He wanted me?” I croak, my knees beginning to wobble as the letter crumples in my shaking hands.
My dad loved me. He wanted me.
And she kept him from me.
chapter 1
Charlie
Three Months Later - New York
The ringing is faint, coming in and out of focus. I tug on my earlobe aggressively, our signal, praying stage production sees my plea.Something is wrong.When no one responds, I pull the mic from my lips for two seconds, just enough to mouth,sound check, feedback…feedback. I missed a line, but the crowd roars in support when I give them confirmation I’m not lip-synching. It’s energizing to hear the praise…for a millisecond. But the moment the mic is near my lips again, the ringing comes through once more,louderand even more distracting this time.
I fucking knew it.A cold dread floods my stomach, a repeat of the feeling I had mere hours ago when I realized Mom’s box of handwritten notes was sitting in a hotel dressing room three states away…or maybe crushed at the bottom of a dumpster by now.
My throat tightens, but not just from the loss. It’s more complicated than that now. Three months ago, I would have given anything to have that box in my hands—my mother’svoice, her love, her little paper promises that I was enough. But three months ago, I didn’t know she was a liar. I didn’t know that every “I love you” was written by the same hand that kept my father from me. That every heart-shaped scrap of encouragement came from a woman who died letting me believe I was unwanted.
I still need those paper hearts. That’s the sick part. Even knowing what I know, I’m desperate for them. I want to reach into that box and pull out her sacred words of wisdom and pretend none of it matters—that love can exist alongside betrayal, that comfort can come from someone who stole your whole identity before you were even born. But I can’t unknow what I know. And now, I’m standing on a stage in front of forty thousand people, reaching for a mother who maybe never existed at all.
Now, I’m cursed. How could I forget to pack the single most important item in the world to me? The universe is making me pay for my epic carelessness, and no doubt an equipment malfunction at the beginning of the biggest show I’ve ever done is just the beginning of my punishment.
Or maybe this has nothing to do with the box. Maybe I’ve been cursed since before I took my first breath—the product of an affair, wanted by a father I never knew existed, raised on an origin story that was pure fiction. My whole life I thought I was the girl nobody chose. Turns out I was the girl someone fought for, and my mother said no. What kind of karma does that create? What kind of cosmic debt do you carry when your entire identity was built on a lie someone else told?
Or maybe I should focus on this goddamn concert I’m performing that has earned in the eight digits.Maybe I should stop ruminating on what could’ve been and do my fucking job.
Stupid faulty earpiece, a flesh-colored nub of plastic and wires that’s supposed to be my salvation. My fingers twitch withthe urge to yank it from my canal, to feel that satisfyingpopas suction breaks. But it’s my last thread to sanity in this chaos—the only way I can hear the music beneath the wall of noise. Without it, my own thoughts would drown in the tsunami of screams, a hundred thousand voices crashing against me from every corner of the stadium, bouncing off steel beams and concrete, until there’s nothing left but vibration.
The lights are blinding, the massive white-hot spotlight circling overhead like a SWAT team. Sweat pours into my eyes, glazing over my thick eyeliner, threatening to make a mockery out of the infallible waterproof makeup that’s caked on my face like a double coat of paint. The sting is unbearable; I can only find relief when I clamp my eyes shut to jump an octave and hit the money notes that gave my career a fighting chance against the endless sea of competition. I’m only twenty-three and yet there are about five hundred viable candidates begging my label to replace me, daily—all younger, prettier, blonder, thinner. The only thing I have going for me is my four-octave range, nearly flawless pitch, and a relentless work ethic.
I could do this performance in my sleep. Actually, I have. My home security cameras have caught me during more than one insomnia-induced episode of sleep dancing—a product of being so nervous about first rehearsals with the professional dancers pledging a year of their lives to my tour. They believed in me, but all I saw was my awkward, uncoordinated movement that madeSesame Streetlook like a Broadway production. So I practiced relentlessly. Morning, noon, and night—and apparently also while I slept. After nearly four months of hellish dance training, at minimum six hours a day, I’d say I’m moderately better. Enough to scrape by. Enough to make this world tour happen which is all I’ve been dreaming about since I could understand what a dream was.
But when I fantasized about my name in lights and the roar of cheers from the crowd, I never imagined this tug-of-war inside me—one moment riding high on the validation I’ve craved as far back as I can remember, the next drowning in painful fatigue that makes me question if I even want this anymore. I survived the first week of my world tour in Las Vegas, performing at Dad’s hotel where his proud smile from the front row both steadied and suffocated me. Those shows felt manageable, almost safe—my family cushioning the feeling of failure.
This week feels different, though. It’s only the third show. I have thirty-eight more to go this year, and I’m already losing momentum. Am I too hyper-aware that I’m still singing the same damn songs I wrote when I was seventeen, or doeseveryoneimagine how embarrassing this is? The world grew up but I stayed stuck. I haven’t written a damn thing worth humming along to in years.
When I’m too tired to form a cognitive thought, muscle memory carries my legs to my marks. Step, step, crossover, step. Pop out my nonexistent ass. God, I hate this move, but the fans go nuts every time. Slow squat, then a sensual lean on my most sturdy backup dancer’s shoulder. Eye contact with camera two, the one that feeds the jumbotron. Pause for dramatic effect while my mind screams to just keep moving. Another ass-pop that makes me feel like a trained monkey. Two steps back, away from the crowd I both need and resent.
I’ve rehearsed this so many times. It should be easy.This is my job.
It’s only the third song in a two-hour set, and my body is already betraying me, muscles screaming like they’ve been wrung through a meat grinder. Everything inside me has collapsed—my stomach a barren crater, my thoughts ricocheting off the walls of my skull like stray bullets. The stage beneathme could dissolve into nothing and I’d float away, untethered, into the black rafters. The crowd’s screams drill into my brain, each one a physical assault, while the feedback from this broken earpiece feels like someone’s jamming an ice pick directly into my eardrum.
I drop the mic again, my fingers trembling as they release the cold metal. “Sound check,” I scream this time, my throat burning raw with desperation. But no one reacts—not the sound engineers hidden in shadows, not the dancers gliding around me in perfect formation. The reedy whine drowns everything, even my own voice, until all I can hear is that piercing electronic shriek boring into my skull. Ah, fuck it. I dig my fingernail under the flesh-colored plastic, feeling the suction break with a painfulpopas I yank out the damn thing. The earpiece flies from my sweaty palm across the polished black stage, skittering under the feet of my backup dancers like a wounded insect. I break free of their synchronized circle, my costume sequins catching harsh light as I rotate my pointer finger in frantic circles, the universal signal to keep going. Their eyes widen but they never miss a beat. We’re improvising now.
I take three deep breaths as I catwalk to the edge of the stage.
“How’s everybody doing tonight?” I yell into the mic over the band. “New York City! Look at this turnout. Thank you! I love you guys. Best city in the whole dang country.”
The words taste like cardboard in my mouth. I just said that in Vegas. I’ll say it in LA, Atlanta, Houston, and Orlando too. Part of me hates this script, this pretending that tonight is special when it’s all a transient routine—but God, when they scream back, when their faces light up believing I mean it just for them, I need that rush more than my next breath. This industry isn’t about making great music like I once thought. It’s about being liked and adored while balancing on a pedestal that feels like home one minute and a guillotine the next.
I try to focus on the crowd to stabilize my sensory overload. The front-row audience members are close enough I can sort of make out their faces. They all paid half a year’s rent to be eye level with my bedazzled boots marching up and down the stage designed in the shape of a stiletto.At all costs.I can’t let them down.
It’s frigid cold tonight in the outdoor arena. My nude tights are paper-thin even in the twenty-degree weather because we couldn’t add any extra inches to my thighs. I have about sixty production cameras on me…how many pounds does that add?My leotard, skintight, strapless, with half my ass exposed is doing nothing to keep me warm, the leather fringe feeling like little whips against my near-frozen skin every time I spin around.
I wipe the dripping-cold sweat from under my eyes and take a deep breath to find the music again. It’s like untangling Christmas lights, trying to separate the blaring cheers from the melody.Focus, focus, focus.But I can’t find it.
Fuck,fuck. Now I’m panicking.
