Page 56 of The Song We Lost

August presses down on everything, with heat that doesn’t let go after the sun sets. It clings to my skin, follows me backstage and onto the bus and into hotel rooms that smell faintly of detergent and air conditioning working too hard.

Sweat drips down my spine as I step offstage in Phoenix, lungs burning, voice raw in the good way. The crowd is still screaming, the sound vibrating through the concrete beneath my feet. A towel gets pressed into my hands, and someone else hands me water. Rachel’s voice cuts through the noise, already talking about tomorrow’s call time, my next interview, an artist who would like to collaborate, a brand who wants me to be the face of their next campaign, a band who wants me to join them on their tour...

I nod, I smile, and I keep moving. Movement is everything right now.

The days blur together. I measure my life in cities played, set lists completed, how my voice feels when I wake up and whether my fingers cramp during the encore. I don’t linger anywhere long enough for silence to settle in. Silence is dangerous.

My notebook is always open. In the bus or propped on my knees in hotel beds while my hair dries in damp curls against my shoulders. Lyrics come fast now, loud and insistent, like they’ve been waiting for permission.

I don’t edit much.

I don’t soften anything.

I don’t ask if a line is too much.

I write what shows up.

Some of it scares me. Not because it’s sad, but because it’s honest in a way I haven’t let myself be before. There are songs in here I never would have written while I was still trying to be careful. Still trying to make sure someone else didn’t feel threatened by how loud I could get.

I think of that only briefly, then I turn the page and keep going.

Jackson and I text almost every day.

Jackson

What if the chorus drops instead of lifts?

voice note sent

This one needs grit.

How about like this?

Attached audio file

I hear this as stripped first, then full band.

Send me that melody again... the second one.

Sometimes a voice note comes through late at night, him humming something half-formed, laughing when he messes it up. Sometimes I send one back, raw and unpolished, recorded in a dressing room while people knock on the door asking if I’m ready.

We talk about September, how he will join my bus so we can write when we don’t have time to stop in a city, if we want any additional writers and how we'd manage that. Oddly thereis no pressure with him. Just work. The love of music and song writing. It’s the cleanest creative space I’ve ever been in.

My new phone stays quiet most of the time, very few people have the number. Rachel. My team. My family. Jackson. That’s it.

There’s no social media on it, no news apps or alerts. The only thing that buzzes regularly is the pregnancy tracker Sadie shared with me. A little notification every few days. Some of my happiest moments come when I get the baby size updates, when I get a bump picture from Cole.

I read those updates slowly, sometimes twice.

Noah is back home now. I offered him a job on my tour when I heard what happened with Luke and the band. But he told me he needed to be there. With his parents. On the property. Doing things that don’t involve stages or schedules or the toxic energy of being under a microscope.

I didn’t push, I understood.

Some days I picture him out there, fixing fences or hauling lumber, the quiet settling back into his soul. It helps more than I expected it to.

The tour keeps selling out. Cities that weren’t supposed to sell out do. Fans start bringing signs with their version of'no place I'd rather be than here with you Bailey'and lyrics from songs I haven’t released yet, lines I sang once, off-the-cuff, that Rachel posted online. She now has someone managing my social media full time. She says that with the brand deals coming in and the collaborations, it makes sense that we take my marketing more seriously.

I don’t look, I trust Rachel and she trusts Brandy so they share what is important, and I focus on the music.