“And if I’m not okay, you’ll just…play a recording of me being okay?”
I try to catch his gaze, so he has to look me in the eye when he tells me he doesn’t think I can do this. Instead, Marcus hangs his head. “Essentially, yes.”
“Sage?” I ask, helplessly. “Sage, look at me, please?”
She won’t. Not for a long moment.
Then reluctantly, she turns her head, watching my lips slacken into a heartbroken frown.
“I think,” she answers carefully, “that we should do whatever gives you the best chance of getting through tonight. And if that means having a safety net?—”
“A safety net. Right.” I stand abruptly, my shins knocking into the coffee table in front of me. I rub the pain away until it’s a distant memory.
“Charlie—” Marcus starts.
“No, I get it. I really do.” I’m pacing now, my heels clicking against the floor like a metronome counting down to disaster. “I’m a liability. I’m a ticking time bomb. Better to just mute me.Put me on autopilot. Let the machine do its thing while I smile and wave like a trained monkey.”
Sage scoffs heavily. “That’s not what we’re saying?—”
“That’s exactly what you’re saying.” The words explode out of me louder than I intended. They both flinch. “You’re saying you don’t trust me. You’re saying I can’t be trusted to do the one thing I’ve been doing since I was sixteen years old. The one thing I’m supposedly good at.”
Marcus stands, hands raised like he’s approaching a spooked horse. “We trust you, we do. But we also have a responsibility to protect you?—”
“From myself?”
“From the pressure. From the expectations. From the sold-out arena who paid good money to see you at your best.” He pauses. “And from the millions more who are waiting for you to fail so they can tear you apart.”
The fight drains out of me. Because he’s not wrong, is he? They’re all waiting. The hashtags are still trending. #CheaterCharlie. #FakeBarbie. The internet has decided I’m a fraud, and now my own team wants me to prove them right.
“Fine,” I hear myself say. The word tastes like ash. “Whatever it takes. Mute my mic.”
Marcus sits back down, sagging with relief. “Thank you, Charlie. This is the right call. You’ll see. Just go out there tonight and try to have fun.”
I don’t respond. I just turn to stare at my reflection in the mirror—the glittering, perfect, hollow shell of a pop star who’s starting to make lying her coveted brand.
Taio’s words echo in my head:You belong to yourself more than you belong to them.
But right now, I don’t feel like I belong to anyone. Not even myself.
The smoke is thick enough to choke on.
I stand on the platform beneath the stage, waiting for my cue, surrounded by fog and darkness and the muffled roar of the crowd above me. The bass thrums through the floor, vibrating up through my heels, into my bones. Thousands of people are already screaming my name in anticipation.
The jitters are crawling up my spine, making me want to stop, drop, and roll. But I stay frozen, ignoring the pinpricks of nervous energy stabbing me everywhere at once.
The platform begins to rise. Slowly at first, then faster. The smoke parts around me like curtains opening on a show I’m no longer starring in.
Light explodes.
The crowd erupts in cheers.
And a polished Charlie Riley takes the stage like it belongs to her.
The next ninety minutes pass in a blur.
I hit my marks. I move my mouth. I execute the choreography with mechanical precision, my body doing what it’s been trained to do while my mind floats somewhere above it all, watching from a safe distance.
“Summer Nights”—bounce, smile, shimmy, pretend this song about teenage crushes isn’t mortifying to perform at twenty-three.
