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The studio still hums behind us.

But I swear the loudest sound in the room is her heartbeat against mine.

The room goes still when the final note fades into the hush of playback.

No one speaks.

Not Benji, who’s usually the first to toss out a “hell yeah” before the last chord even rings out. Not Thorin, who fiddles when he’s nervous. Not Carson, who normally scrubs his fingers through his hair like a man possessed while muttering about layering and tempo like he’s exorcising a demon.

Everyone’s just… silent.

The kind of silence that doesn’t feel empty.

It feels like a reckoning.

Like something sacred just happened, and we’re all too afraid to break it.

Mya’s back on the couch, one hand over her heart like it’s trying not to jump out of her chest. Her eyes are glassy, like maybe she cried a little while the track played—but she’s holding her composure now like it’s a thin glass plate and she knows the slightest crack will shatter it completely.

The song echoes faintly in the monitors as the last bit of reverb fades.

Then Carson, seated behind the soundboard, exhales a stunned, “Jesus.”

“Not even being dramatic,” Benji says, sitting forward with elbows on his knees, “but that might be the best thing we’ve ever fucking done.”

Thorin nods slowly, like he’s still processing. “There’s something in it, man. Something real.”

Carson turns to me, hands hovering over the console. “You meant every word of that, didn’t you?”

I meet his eyes. My voice comes out low. Honest. “Yeah.”

A beat.

“You didn’t just write a song,” Benji says. “You carved out a piece of your soul and handed it to the world in three minutes and forty-two seconds.”

“And we felt it,” Thorin adds, his voice hoarse. “Fuck, Fletch. You wrecked me.”

I laugh, shaky, rubbing the back of my neck. “I didn’t think it would sound like that.”

“Like what?” Carson asks.

“Like… I meant it.” My voice cracks halfway through.

No one laughs. No one smirks. These are the guys who’ve seen me drunk on tour buses and passed out in the back of vans. Who’ve watched me spiral and shut down and pretend I didn’t care when I cared too damn much.

They know me.

And for the first time, I let them know all of me.

“That second verse,” Benji says, glancing over at Mya. “That line—what was it again? ‘You forgave me in whispers / Held me in pieces.’”

My throat tightens.

Carson pushes a button, rewinding. “Let’s hear it again.”

You forgave me in whispers

Held me in pieces