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And now I’d known it twice.

Kristen pulled tissues from her purse and put them into my hands. “Thank you.” I sniffed, pressing the tissue under my eye. “God, I would have never left him,” I said, shouting over the music. “No matter what. I would have followed him around the world like a groupie for the rest of my life.”

Kristen paused a minute and then leaned into my ear so I could hear her. “Did you ever think maybe he wanted more for you than that?”

“I know he wanted more for me than that,” I said, too quietly for her to hear.

The song ended and I knew Jason would do what he always did after the first one. He’d thank the crowd and welcome them to the show. Say something personal about the city.

How inconsequential was this place to him now? I wondered if he even knew where he was, or if he’d had to look at his hand before he hit the stage.

He put his lips to the mic. “Thank you, thank you. It’s great to be back in LA.”

Everyone cheered and I waited for him to say something about the beach or Disneyland or traffic on the 405.

But then something weird happened. He just stopped.

It started slow. The slight downturn at the corner of his lips, the loss of humor around his eyes. And then he changed suddenly and all at once, like a mask had come loose and fallen off and underneath it he was deeply sad.

He paused. He paused so long the crowd started to murmur.

“Actually, no,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “Being back in LA has been a little rough for me. I’m sorry. It’s just…something happened today, and it’s been hard.” He glanced down at the stage and shook his head. His eyes came back up and looked over his fans. “You guys don’t know this, but I met the love of my life in Los Angeles.”

I sucked in a shock of air and my heart stopped dead in my chest.

The crowd whistled and hooted, but Jason put a hand up. “No, no. It’s not who you probably think it is. The tabloids get it wrong most of the time. Lola Simone and I are just colleagues and good friends. No, this woman…” He seemed to struggle with it. “She was incredible. She found my dog, actually. That’s how I met her. Wouldn’t give him back. Said I had to prove I loved him first.” He laughed a little and the crowd laughed too.

He went on. “We fell in love really fast. I know people say love at first sight—but it really was. Hell, I loved her before I even laid eyes on her. She came on tour with me. She’s this amazing artist, and she couldn’t paint on the road.” He clutched the microphone stand with both hands. “Being on tour isn’t easy. It’s exhausting. And she was willing to do it because she loved me, even though it meant making a lot of sacrifices. But there were some bad things going on that I couldn’t tell her about. Really scary stuff. And it got to a point where I realized that being with me wasn’t good for her. I couldn’t give her a life or protect her. So I let her believe something terrible about me so I could end it with her.”

Kristen squeezed my arm. “Are you hearing this? What is he talking about?”

I shook my head, tears starting to well in my eyes. “I don’t know,” I breathed.

He chuckled a little. “The funny thing is, I got what I wanted. I wanted her to get over me. And you know what? She did.” He dragged a hand down his mouth. “Yeah. She’s on a date tonight. I saw her. Went down to her art gallery and saw her with some guy when I was about to come out. It fucking killed me,” he whispered. “I thought breaking up with her was hard. But seeing that…”

My mouth went dry. I couldn’t even breathe. “Kristen, he was there.” I was afraid to take my eyes off him to look at her. “He was there,” I whispered. “He came.”

This time he didn’t recover as quickly. He went quiet for a long moment and the audience simmered to a hush. Cell phones hovered over heads, recording video. You could have heard a pin drop in the arena. They were hanging on his words.

Jason squeezed his eyes shut and when he opened them, his tone was sad. “You think you know what love looks like. You think the fairy tales and the romantic movies prepare you. And then you finally, really truly find it and you realize you never knew a thing about it until her.” He shook his head. “She was every love song I’ve never been good enough to write.” His voice cracked on the last word.

“Sloan,” Kristen whispered. “Everybody’s crying…” She tapped me. “Look.”

I tore my eyes from the stage to look around. The woman next to me had her hand over her mouth and tears running down her face. Everyone did.

Jason wiped at his eyes with his thumb and picked up his guitar. “I’ll never get her back. It’s too late for that. But this song is for Sloan anyway. It’s called ‘Proof.’”

My fragile heart shattered. I completely lost it. I leaned forward, hands over my mouth, and sobbed.

He sang.

It was poetry about a woman who was every season. She was the muffled moment when snow started to fall. A soft, beguiling spring fog over a glass lake. The full moon, white and unmarred in an inky-black summer sky. An autumn so vibrant you can die feeling peace because your eyes have seen it.

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever written. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard.

And it was mine.

I wasn’t surrounded by thousands of captivated Jaxon fans. Kristen wasn’t sitting next to me. Jaxon wasn’t even there. This was Jason singing. And every word was a declaration of unrivaled love, an apology, and a plea for forgiveness—to no one. Because he didn’t even know I was here. He thought it was nothing but a cry into the void to a woman who’d moved on.