12. Chapter 12
Chapter 12
Four weeks later
S an Diego felt different. It wasn’t just that Hayley had been gone for a month. It wasn’t just the way the air smelled clean and salty, thick with sunshine, the Pacific stretching wide beyond the glass walls of the airport.
It was that she felt different.
Four weeks ago, she had left this city on fire.
A blur of heat and adrenaline and Jesse’s hands on her body, his mouth telling her everything his words couldn’t. A final night together, tangled in sheets, burning through every last second before he disappeared into the unknown.
She had told herself not to think about it.
Not to wait for him.
Not to hope.
And for a while, it had worked.
The tour had been a fucking dream.
They had opened for Linkin Park in Auckland, stepped onto the biggest stage of their careers. The stadium had been packed, thousands of voices screaming their names. The moment Hayley had hit that first note, everything else had faded into static.
Show after show, city after city, the energy built. Sydney. Melbourne. Brisbane. Soundwave was a machine, and Dead Run Riot had become a part of it—an unstoppable force riding the tidal wave of momentum.
She had been living the dream she had worked years for.
And she had felt it slipping away with every passing day.
The label was thrilled. They wanted more. More songs, bigger albums, more touring, more exposure.
Caiden had been right in her ear the whole time.
“We’re hot right now, Fox. We gotta keep pushing.”
“The label wants a full-length album. They want it yesterday.”
“We have a shot at a headline tour next year. Do you even get what that means?”
She did.
She got it more than anyone.
She had been fighting for this dream her whole fucking life.
And she should have been excited.
Instead, she was exhausted.
Her body ached. Her voice was wrecked. She had pushed herself harder than she ever had, driven by the thrill, the momentum, the pressure.
But something was off.
Something had been off for weeks.
She knew it in the way she woke up nauseous every morning.
In the way she had to force herself to eat, the way exhaustion had become bone-deep, unshakable.
The doors to the airport slid open, a gust of warm, salty air rolling over her skin.
Hayley stood still.
People moved around her, brushing past, fans staring, whispering. She was used to it now. The fast-tracked fame, the extra attention, the way her name was suddenly in headlines, in hashtags, on magazine covers.
She had everything she had ever wanted.
And she had never felt more lost.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
She glanced down. Caiden.
She let it go to voicemail.
She already knew what he wanted.
Keep going. Keep writing, keep recording, keep touring, keep pushing. Ride the high. Don’t stop. Don’t breathe.
But Hayley?
She just wanted to fucking breathe.
She gripped the strap of her backpack a little tighter, eyes flicking up to the hazy blue sky, the palm trees swaying lazily in the midday heat.
She had worked her ass off for this dream.
And now that she had it—
She wasn’t sure if she could have it all.
* * * * *
Hayley woke in her apartment in a blur of nausea and jet lag, her body aching like she’d been dragged through someone else’s life. The air in the room was still, the curtains drawn tight against the daylight—or maybe the dark. She couldn’t tell. The only illumination came from her phone face-down on the nightstand, screen flashing with a rhythmic pulse of missed notifications.
She groaned softly, rolling onto her back, limbs heavy and uncooperative. Everything in her felt out of sync. Like her body had landed hours before her soul had a chance to catch up.
Her head spun as she blinked at the ceiling.
What time was it? What day was it?
Her stomach churned in protest, that familiar rolling wave of morning sickness—or whenever-this-was sickness—rising from her gut like it had been waiting for her to stir. Sharp. Stubborn. Relentless.
She turned onto her side, breath shallow, hand reaching for the warm, half-drunk water bottle on her nightstand. She sipped carefully, swallowing past the dryness in her throat. Her other hand groped blindly for the sleeve of saltine crackers—half-crushed, half-forgotten—tucked beside her phone.
Water. Crackers. Deep breaths.
Her morning ritual. Her anytime-she-woke-up ritual, lately.
The price of her new reality.
She chewed slowly, carefully, bracing for her stomach’s verdict. It stayed down, for now. Her breath came a little easier.
Hayley glanced at the clock. 10:42. No AM or PM. Not that it mattered. Her internal clock had been annihilated by time zones and sleepless nights and a kind of soul-deep fatigue that wasn’t just physical.
Unpacking. Laundry. Empty fridge. She’d barely touched the guitar in the corner. It didn’t feel like hers right now.
Neither did this apartment.
It was hers, technically. But walking through it after tour, after everything, felt like revisiting an old life. Like slipping into a costume that didn’t quite fit anymore. A version of herself she was supposed to return to, but didn’t know how.
And underneath all that?
The pressure.
An album. A new direction. Something timeless, they said. Something raw. The label wanted to send them into the desert, cut off from the world, to find “the sound.” Like isolation was some kind of cure.
All Hayley wanted was to breathe.
She flipped her phone over, and it buzzed instantly—more notifications, a flood of texts and emails and group threads and calls.
The world hadn’t paused for her.
She scrolled. Half-reading. Mostly ignoring.
Until her heart caught.
She blinked and scrolled back up, eyes scanning the names. Looking for one in particular.
Jesse.
Her chest tightened.
Nothing.
She told herself not to expect it. Not to wait. Not to hope.
He was deployed. He couldn’t just pick up a phone and call. She knew that.
But it had been over a month.
She opened her thread with Heath instead. Their messages stared back at her—short, functional, emotionless.
Her: Hey, any word?
Heath: He’s good. No return date yet.
Her: Hey, just checking in.
Heath: Can confirm he’s alive. That’s about it. Sorry, Hayley.
She hesitated, thumb hovering over the keyboard.
Then she typed:
Hey. It’s been a month. Is this normal?
She sent it. Regretted it. Waited anyway.
One minute passed.
Then another.
Then her phone buzzed.
Heath: Good timing. Just talked to him. He wants me to say—
The dots blinked.
Her heart caught.
“Keep going, Fox. See you soon.”
Hayley let out a slow, shaky breath.
She read it again.
And again.
Jesse’s words. Not a call. Not a voice. Not even from him directly.
But still him.
Still his voice in her head, low and steady.
Keep going, Fox.
Her throat tightened. Her hand curled around the phone like it could somehow hold more than pixels.
It wasn’t enough.
But it was something.
And for now… that had to be everything.
So, she got up and went to the bathroom. The mirror caught her off guard.
Hayley stood there, sleep shorts low on her hips. She lifted her tank top, turning to the side. The curve of her belly just barely beginning to show—four weeks in, and already her body was shifting. Subtle. Soft. But real.
She pressed a palm to it. Not dramatic. Not obvious. But undeniable.
Her breath caught. Just for a second.
Then—she inhaled deep.
Time to shower. Tea. Breathe.
The hot water helped, steam curling around her limbs as she leaned into the tile, letting it all rinse off—the nausea, the fatigue, the constant hum of pressure. After, wrapped in one of Jesse’s old flannels and thick socks, she padded barefoot into the kitchen, made chamomile tea the way her mom always had—three drops of honey, not stirred—and carried it into the living room.
The piano waited there like a promise.
Old, patent black, still pristine despite its years. A low-profile Steinway upright with a single scuff at the left foot from when she’d tried to rollerblade in the house as a kid. Her mom had nearly cried when she left it to Hayley. She used to practice for hours on it. Back when her world had been simpler. Smaller.
She sank onto the bench, the mug warm between her hands, and let her fingers trail over the ivory keys.
At first, she tried.
A few chords from the latest Dead Run Riot setlist. Some guttural drop D grunge progression they’d been kicking around in rehearsals before the tour fell apart. She played it twice, maybe three times, trying to feel something.
But it didn’t land.
Not in her chest. Not in her hands.
She wasn’t there anymore.
The road had taken too much from her. The sleepless nights. The screaming crowds. The forced smiles. The headlines about her and Caiden. The hollow, echoing feeling of Jesse not being there.
It was gone. All of it. The rage. The noise.
All she had now was this—quiet. Stillness. Her heartbeat. The low, anchoring flutter of something new growing inside her.
She touched her belly again.
What is this going to be?
Hayley turned back to the keys. Let her fingers fall into a softer shape. Something sweet. A lullaby, almost—minor chords shifting to major, melancholy into hope. She hummed, barely above a whisper, letting melody take shape. No distortion pedals. No screaming harmonies. Just her and the keys and this ache inside her chest.
She played “Lullaby” by Sia, then slipped into an acoustic reinterpretation of “The Only Exception.” Her voice cracked once, but she didn’t stop.
She wasn’t writing for the label anymore.
She was writing for someone sweet and innocent. Someone who didn’t care about stadiums or charts or soundchecks. Someone who just needed her voice to be real.
Hayley smiled softly, letting the music carry her.
She could build something new.
Something beautiful.
Something honest.