“Don’t I know it,” she whispers.
And I understand, with sudden awful clarity, that she’s not just talking about us. She’s thinking about her mom and eighteen years of believing in a story that turned out to be fiction.
Lies upon lies.
Her whole life has been built on them.
“Charlie.” I reach for her, guilt clawing at my chest. “I didn’t mean?—”
But the corridor door bangs open, and Sage and Marcus come barreling through like a two-person hurricane.
“Charlie!” Sage’s yell echoes off the industrial walls. She’s practically running, tablet abandoned somewhere, her carefully composed expression completely shattered. “Charlie, oh my God, actual tears. I had actual tears running down my face. I wasstanding there sobbing like a baby. I couldn’t—when you started singing, I just?—”
She reaches Charlie and pulls her into a fierce hug, squeezing like she’s trying to physically transfer pride through osmosis. Over Sage’s shoulder, I see Charlie’s face—confused, guarded, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Marcus hangs back for a moment, and when Sage finally releases her grip, he steps forward. His expression is strange. Soft in a way I haven’t seen from him before.
“Charlie.” He takes her by the arms, gentle but firm. “I’m an idiot.”
She blinks. “What?”
“I’m an idiot,” he repeats. “I was wrong. I was so focused on protecting the investment that I forgot what I should’ve actually been protecting.” He shakes his head. “When it comes to following my dumb business advice or following your heart? Always trust your heart. Always. I should have trusted it from the beginning.”
Charlie looks like she doesn’t know what to do with this information. Like she’s been bracing for a fight and instead walked into a surrender.
“Marcus—”
“No, let me finish.” His grip tightens on her arms. “From here on out, we’re building your vision. Not the other way around. You want to sit at a piano and sing covers for twenty minutes? We’ll restructure the whole show. You want to write new music that sounds nothing like the old stuff? We’ll figure out how to market it. It’s time for you to take back what’s yours. Your voice. Your career. Your life.” He pauses. “I’m sorry it took me this long to see it.”
Charlie’s lip trembles. For a moment I think she might cry again but instead she throws her arms around Marcus, hugginghim with the kind of desperate gratitude that makes my chest ache.
“Thank you,” she whispers. “Thank you.”
Marcus hugs her back, one hand patting her shoulder awkwardly. Sage is beaming, already tapping at her phone, probably drafting press releases about Charlie’s triumphant return.
It’s a victory. A real one. The kind of moment that changes trajectories.
But over Marcus’s shoulder, Charlie’s eyes find mine.
She doesn’t look triumphant.
She looks broken.
A single tear slides down her cheek—silent, almost invisible in the harsh fluorescent light. She doesn’t wipe it away. She just holds my gaze while Marcus murmurs reassurances into her hair, and I watch that tear trace a path down her face like an accusation.
You did this, her eyes say.You kissed me like you wanted me and then you pulled away. You told me our foundation was cracked with lies. You reminded me that nothing in my life is solid. That I will always be a girl caged by others’ criticisms and expectations.
My feet ache to move toward her, to brush away that tear with my thumb, to whisper something comforting against her ear. I want to be honest that when she’s close, everything else falls away and I feel something I thought I’d forgotten how to feel. And when we kissed, I was reminded what it was to ache for someone.
But I don’t. I remain rooted in place.
I’m just the hired muscle. The human shield collecting six figures to blend into the wallpaper and never, ever touch the merchandise.
Seems I’ve failed spectacularly at the one job I was actually supposed to do.
Charlie finally looks away, burying her face in Marcus’s shoulder, and I stand there in that bland corridor feeling the weight of every bad decision I’ve ever made pressing down on my chest.
I watch silently as our first kiss dissolves into a distant memory far too fast. Like it didn’t even happen.
