The show can't go on.
Father will think he's won.
And Kjell? He'll still see me as a selfish cow.
I bite my lip, trying to hold back the tears welling up inside me.
I've lost. This new life that I could see so clearly in front of me is bursting like a soap bubble. Ultimately, after everything that has happened, I'll end up back where I started.
I leave the backstage area, not knowing where to go. Staggering, I enter the corridor, which appears strangely blurry before my eyes.
Someone bumps into me. Says something. Maybe. But I don't hear it. I'm wrapped in a fog, swaying along the wall.
"Opening in ten minutes," a man's voice bellows. "Ten minutes."
Normally, there would be a frenzy now, but even though I only perceive the world around me vaguely, I notice that it's not the case.
Why isn't anyone walking down this hallway? Why don't I hear the rustling of fabrics against each other? Why isn't there a cloud of hairspray filling the air, tickling my nose?
Blinking, I lean against the wall and look around. There are people, many of them. But they're not moving.
They're reading.
I look to the left, where a hairstylist a few yards away seems to be completely absorbed in a newspaper article. He nods absentmindedly, then raises his eyelids and gazes into nothingness for minutes. He finally closes the newspaper with a deep sigh.
It'sSanningens Ögonblick.
"Hey, you have to read this," a woman somewhere behind me says. Blissfully smiling, she hands me the newspaper a moment later. "Here."
Confused, I take the paper.
"Page three," she says.
Page three. Okay.
Inevitably, I hold my breath.
Then I open the newspaper.
