Page 188 of The Song We Lost

The stage manager appears a few minutes later.

“Opening performance in five.”

The countdown begins and you can hear the crowd getting excited. This is the first year that they needed an arena because the demand for public seats at an award show has never been this big. My pulse starts pounding harder with every passing second, suddenly all my anger is mixing with my grief and it’s too close to the surface.

The songs I wrote after Sadie died sit inside me like open wounds and part of me wants to bleed all over this stage. Part of me wants every executive and label head and reporter in this building to hurt. To feel even a fraction of what they took from me.

Luke catches my wrist gently before I can walk toward the stage, his thumb brushes once against my pulse point.

“Whatever you do… whatever happens. I am here. No matter what,” he says quietly.

My throat burns instantly, before I can respond, they call my name and suddenly there’s no more time. The arena is completely dark when I am guided out onto the stage. I don’thave a giant production planned. Just me, my guitar and a spotlight on my rage.

The crowd screams when they see movement on the dark stage. They turned the arena floor into the seating area for the performers, nominees and executives. Everyone deemed important tonight. But the sound is coming from the thousands of people in the seats surrounding me.

I stop at the mic stand, reaching for my guitar and grip it so tightly my fingers ache.

The opening chord waits in my chest, the pain is sharp and it’s meant to burn everything down.

The spotlight hits me and the crowd goes quiet in anticipation. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. The silence stretches and the crowd shifts uneasily somewhere beyond the lights.

I try again, still nothing. Because suddenly all I can think is:

Sadie should be here.

Sadie wanted me to live…

She wouldn’t want this…

I can’t breathe.

I hear murmurs in the crowd.

Then…

A guitar strums softly through the arena. They are the wrong chords for what I planned. But I know them by heart. My head jerks upward.

And then I hear it.

Sadie.

Her voice fills the arena soft and raw. Laughing slightly through the first lyric like she did whenever we recorded late at night and she forgot cameras were rolling.

My entire body locks and all around me massive screens flicker to life. Video fills them instantly.

Sadie sitting cross-legged beside a bonfire singing next to Jackson.

Sadie laughing so hard with Rhett in the studio.

Sadie dancing barefoot through the studio with Iris still in her belly.

The audience goes completely silent. I don’t know if I am holding my breath or if I can’t physically breathe anymore.

Jackson steps into a spotlight first, then Rhett and Noah.

The music builds softly around Sadie’s recorded voice while more clips fill the screens behind us. Her singing in the kitchen, teasing me in the studio and curled beside Cole smiling into the fire. She is everywhere.

Everywhere.