Page 5 of The Song We Lost

This wasn’t just a show, this wasproof. Proof that I could still get there on my own.

Across the room, Noah had gone still, guitar case half-zipped at his feet.

“You’re kidding, right?” he said. “You know what tonight is.”

“I know,” I snapped, then softened. “I know.”

Noah shook his head. “You can’t bail on Bailey again, man.”

Again.

“I’ll talk to her,” I’d said. “After soundcheck. I’ll explain.”

Noah studied me, eyes sharp and disappointed. “You always say that.”

Between songs now, I glance at my phone sitting face-down on the amp. I haven’t turned it on since soundcheck. I already know what’s there. I could already hear it, not yelling, not even anger. Bailey would go quiet first. Ask questions she already knew the answers to. Try to understand me. She’d say things likeI get itandit’s okay, and somehow that always felt worse than if she’d screamed.

Last time I’d done this, I missed something important, told her it was temporary, necessary, and she hadn’t cried. She’d just looked at me like she was recalibrating, like she was learning how to stand without leaning on me anymore.

I told myself I was avoiding a fight. What I was really avoiding was seeing that look again, hearing her voice when she realized….

I didn’t tell her because part of me hoped I could outrun the guilt.

Bailey will understand. She always does.

That’s been the rule for a long time.

The band kicks into the next song, Noah’s guitar slicing clean through the noise. He doesn’t look at me, but I feel his presence anyway, steady, disapproving, but still loyal in a way I don’t deserve. I give the crowd everything. Grit. Fire. The version of me that looks hungry instead of hollow. I move like I belong here, like this is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

Because if it isn’t, then what the hell am I doing?

The set ends in a wall of sound. Applause crashes over us. Someone shoves a beer into one hand, and a shot appears in the other. Someone slaps my back hard enough to sting, saying, “Hell of a show, man.”

I grin and nod. Let the lie live.

Backstage smells like metal, sweat, and spilled beer. Noah drops onto a road case beside me, guitar resting against his knee.

“You good?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say too fast.

He watches me for a beat. “Have you checked your phone yet?”

I don’t answer, and that’s enough of an answer. I take the shot and turn my phone on to three missed calls, one voicemail and a string of unread text messages.

My chest tightens, so I close my eyes, take a deep breath, crack my beer open and chug half.

Instead of reading any of the messages, I tap the livestream I already had queued up. Because I am a fucking coward.

The screen buffers, and then there she is. Bailey stands on stage, lights catching in her hair, turning her into something unreal. She is standing tall, looking like a perfect country music superstar, with an award in hand and a smile perfectly in place.

But I knew the tells.

The way she squared her shoulders too hard, like she was bracing against something. The way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes when she laughed. Bailey only did that when she was holding herself together for other people.

She was doing it for them now.

For the crowd. For the cameras. For me.