two
All good things must come to an end.
Yes, even crouching in front of thousand people on a wet, empty stage, being slashed by rain and feelings. So, I drag my soaked, aching body to an upright position and signal to Jude that I’m ready to stop wallowing.
“I’m sorry,” I say into the mic. “I want to apologize to all of you amazing people for keeping you waiting. It’s just… There is a person here, and I don’t want her to leave. I wanted to ask her to stay, but she…”
They wait.
“I need her to stay. I want to make sure she hears the next bit. I don’t want her to be anywhere else… I—” I am interrupted by noise.
Noise that’s coming from the fans.
They start chanting ‘stay’.
Thousands of voices yelling STAY STAY STAY in sync. The rhythm gets really going, and Miki picks it up on the drums and starts banging on them until the beat crawls under my feet, into my veins.
The crowds keep shouting “Stay stay stay”.
For me.
I can’t believe it.
I’m fighting tears.
“Thank you, guys,”
And just for that, I play for one more hour even though I had only songs left to complete the set. I don’t care. The fireworks go off for the end of the show, showering the stadium in purple, white and pink drops of fire, the rain making the colors shine brighter as they fall. But nobody leaves. They don’t even have to ask for encores, I just go straight into more songs.
I can see that nobody is in the mood to leave.
Myself included. I don’t care how soaked, tired, spent and sweaty I am. I just keep singing. For these people who have seen me here today.
They have seen beyond Issy Woo, to Isaiah.
And, suddenly, I want to be Isaiah so badly, I never want to stop.
So I sing. As Isaiah. The musicians don’t mind playing, and Jude has a huge smile on his face .
For the final song, I sing a reprise of Saint Hope . The final note rips out of my throat in a primal, animalistic sound that is half agonized cry, half war cry. My soul is weeping. The force of the effort makes me fold to my knees as I let the sound take over. The musicians stop, as I have never made this sound before—and they don’t know what to do. But I keep going, lungs burning. Ten seconds, fifteen, twenty. Then Jude follows me in a riff on his guitar, and I feel the veins in my throat swell into ropes as I hold the note, my voice turning into a shattered sob, a broken battle cry.
I didn’t even know I could make a sound like that, reach that high. Endure that long.
It just comes out of me, leaving me spent, empty.
I finally stop, and the sound of my heart being ripped open echoes around a whole stadium. The stands explode with applause. I gasp for breath, my chest rising and falling as if I’ve just run a sprint, and then I realize someone is talking to me in my earpiece. I blink and try to concentrate. It’s Skye:
“Guess what, sad-face? She is staying.”
I jump to my feet, not letting my face betray my emotions. And there are a lot of them. She what?
“She is here, she’s stayed,” Skye repeats, as if he can hear the question inside my brain. “She is staying. Now try to stay alive on that stage, so I can kill you personally when you’re done.”
Everyone clamors for just one more song, so, for the final encore after all the encores, I sing Little Bird . I just have to.
And then, just as the rain starts to finally slow down, the concert is over.
“Athens, you’ve been the greatest audience in the world!” I scream at them, my voice hoarse. More fireworks go off. “I gotta tell you, not many audiences in the world would stand in the pouring rain and sing and dance with us, like you have done. It was a unique experience for me. It would not happen anywhere else in the world. I want to thank you for being here tonight, we all want to thank you. Each and every one of you means so much to us, to me.”
They quiet down, listening. I stare straight into their eyes.
“You have a piece of my soul. I left a piece of me tonight on this stage, and you were here to witness it. You own me, Athens. After tonight, you can get whatever you want out of me.”
Everyone in the audience screams back at me in response. I thought they would be exhausted, but, if possible, their screams are even louder than before .
“You are amazing,” I continue. “What happens in Athens stays in Athens, right?” They roar with laughter and delight. I have them. Then again, they have me too. “You got my back, Athens, and for that I am grateful. No other audience in the world can claim a night such as this.”
I wait for them to quiet down. It takes a good four minutes.
“Now,” I say, “who is coming back to do this all over again tomorrow?”
The screams are deafening.
I smile at them and raise a hand in greeting, but I am no longer listening.
I don’t remember screaming good night to them, even though I must have.
I don’t remember the roars reeling the stadium in a mini earthquake.
I don’t remember bowing as I always do at the end, and blowing kisses to them, smiling as they scream as one person. I don’t remember hearing them begin to sing the chorus of Heartbreaker , thousands of voices united as one, as they wait their turn to file out.
I am no longer here.