Usually, we formed a circle, placed our hands in the center, and shouted something increasingly ridiculous. The phrasechanged every month and currently involved a private joke about a malfunctioning smoke machine.
Tonight, everyone looked at me.
Max, our drummer, broke first.
“Are we required to have a meaningful moment?”
“No.”
“Excellent.”
He put his hand into the center.
The others followed.
Rachel joined from the edge.
Sophie did not, although she looked briefly tempted.
“What are we shouting?” someone asked.
“Diversified retirement planning,” I said.
Nobody understood.
That made it better.
We shouted it anyway.
Then the stage went dark.
The opening music began.
When I walked into the light, the sound hit with enough force to vibrate through my entire body.
Signs lifted across the arena.
Album titles.
Song names.
Messages I could not read from the stage.
Near the front, someone held a simple piece of poster board.
WE HEARD YOU. WE’RE STILL HERE.
I looked away before it could become the entire night.
The first song began.
Savannah arrived at full volume, not as a shield and not as the person responsible for everything Annie had been afraid to confront. She was the part of me that knew how to stand beneath the lights, hear thousands of voices rise, and love every second of it.
I sang for two hours.
I spoke less than usual because every sentence would be recorded and examined, but I did not become careful enough to vanish. I thanked the band, the crew, and the audience. I told them the tour had been exhausting, ridiculous, and better than I had known how to expect.
BeforeHard Winter, I stood alone at the front of the stage with my guitar.
