“Electric Heart”—strobe lights, hair flip, the complicated footwork sequence I’ve practiced but certainly not perfected. My lips move. The recording fills in the rest.
“Dancing in the Dark”—this one has a key change that I always loved hitting live. Now I just watch my pre-recorded voice nail it while I stand here, powerless, voiceless, fake.
The crowd doesn’t know. That’s the worst part. They’re singing along, holding up their phone flashlights, screaming my name like I’m giving them something real. And I’m up here committing fraud, every smile a lie, every gesture a performance of a performance.
Between songs, I do the banter. The mic works for talking, just not for singing. So I tell them I love Miami. I tell them they’re the best crowd on the whole tour. I ask if they’re ready to party, and they roar back at me, and I feel nothing.Nothing at all.
“Midnight Confessions” comes and goes. No vocal runs. No octave showcase. Just me, mouthing words a different version of myself is singing, dancing steps someone else choreographed, being a person someone else invented.
The fish on the dock. The trained monkey. The perfect little pop star in her perfect little box.
By the time we hit the final number—“Unbreakable,” the power ballad that’s supposed to be my triumphant closer—I’m running on fumes. My face hurts from smiling. My feet are screaming in these heels. And deep in my chest, in the place where music used to live, there’s nothing but static.
The last note rings out. The lights go down. The crowd erupts.
I stand in the darkness, breathing hard, waiting for the relief that’s supposed to come when a show ends.
It doesn’t come.
Instead, there’s just emptiness. A show completed. A fraud perpetuated. Another night of being everything everyone else needs me to be.
The crowd is still screaming.Encore, encore!They want more. Of course they do—they always want more. More songs, more spectacle, more pieces of me ready for the snatching.
Usually this is where I wave, blow kisses, and exit stage left while the house lights come up.
But tonight, something snaps.
Maybe it’s the paper hearts that failed me. Maybe it’s the lip sync that stripped away my last shred of authenticity. Maybe it’s the thought of going back to that dressing room and facing Marcus and Sage with their relieved smiles, their “see, that wasn’t so bad” platitudes.
Or maybe it’s Taio’s voice in my head:You belong to yourself more than you belong to them. Give yourself permission to perform for yourself.
I turn and walk toward the grand piano, which is really just a performance prop. My band plays on the keyboard; this piano is purely for aesthetics…until tonight.
The crowd goes quiet. Confused. This isn’t in the script.
I settle onto the bench. The leather is cool against my bare thighs. My fingers find the keys automatically, muscle memory taking over.
“Charlie.” Omar’s voice crackles in my earpiece. “Charlie, what are you doing? The show’s over. You did it. Now exit stage left.”
I ignore him.
Instead, I look toward stage right, where the sound director is standing with his headset and his mixing board. I catch his eye and beckon him closer.
He approaches cautiously, like I might bite.
“I need a working mic,” I say.
“A—what?”
“A mic that’s not muted.” I hold out my hand. “Turn it on.”
“I can’t just—Marcus said?—”
“Keep your eyes on me.” My voice is steady. Certain. I don’t know where this calm is coming from, but I’m not questioning it. “I’m calling the shots right now. Not Marcus. Not Sage. Me. Turn the mic on.”
He hesitates. The internal battle shows in his eyes—the fear of disobeying Marcus versus the fear of disobeying me, right here, right now, in front of all these witnesses.
“Turn. It. On.”
