Chapter 46
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Lucy
The crowd roars. Energy bounces off the filled stadium, from spectator to performer and back again, multiplying and repeating.
Sandro is in rare form, leaping and jumping as he sings, joining in on the choreography and doing surprisingly well.
It’s one of those golden nights. Everything’s right.
The music hits. The crowd eats it up, cheering louder and louder, singing at the top of their lungs, screaming as Sandro rips off his shirt and prances around, nearly hitting the dancer beside me as he lassos the thing over his head.
When the lights finally go down and we’re all standing around backstage, catching our breath and basking in the post-performance glow, I find myself standing apart from the group.
My chest heaves as I watch the dancers and stagehands mill around with Sandro and the band, high on adrenaline and a night we’ll remember for a long, long time.
A dancer I’ve never really talked to sweeps me into a giant hug, spinning me around before putting me down and planting a sloppy kiss on my cheek.
I smile in return, hands on hips, still working for breath, looking for someone, anyone to share my excitement with.
I’d love to call Nash. I’d love to babble to him about the show.
How good it was. How amazing it was to hear thousands of people singing at the top of their lungs as lights flashed and bass thundered.
I want to share this moment with him. Not the band.
Not the dancers. Not the stagehands. But it’s late here which means it’s even later there. He’s surely been asleep for hours.
Something about the thought turns down the colors of the world. The lights feel both too dim and too harsh at the same time. All the cheering and excitement around me, the anthill of activity, it presses against the edges of a headache I didn’t know I had.
The backstage crew is already busy with load out, breaking things down, packing them up, prepping to load everything onto the buses.
Another city tomorrow morning. Another show tomorrow night.
There’s food in the greenroom, but I’m not hungry.
Instead, I head to the dressing room, smile with bittersweet sadness at a good night text from Nash that came in hours ago, then hit the showers.
Later, on the bus, I climb into my bunk and pull out my phone but that’s as far as I get.
Everyone I want to talk to is asleep. Deeper in the bus, someone’s watching a horror movie in the lounge, the sounds of screams and chainsaws echoing against the roar of the crowds still resonating in my head.
The girl who sleeps in the bunk across from me—barely eighteen, first time out on her own, sweet and talented and totally unprepared for life without parents—limps down the hall.
Her tearstained eyes meet mine briefly before she quickly glances away and swipes at her face.
“You okay, Dani?”
“I’m fine. Just post-show letdown and this stupid knee really hurts,” she replies with a dismissive wave of her hand, then climbs into her bunk and yanks the blackout curtain closed.
“I’m here if you need to talk,” I say and smile at her muffled thank you as my overhead light flickers.
You’d think I’d be used to it by now, seeing as I reported the flicker weeks ago and no one’s had time to fix it yet.
But after the strobing, flashing, swooping lights in the stadium, it’s only adding to the chaos in my head.
I roll onto my side and scroll through photos I took to send to my parents, to Stella and Gabby, to Nash.
There’s a video of me, all smiles and excitement, giving them a tour of the stage and the stadium before dress rehearsal.
It was only a few hours ago but feels like another life. A different me.
Now, my muscles ache. My soul feels tired. My heart’s heavy and empty and for no reason at all I find myself fighting tears. I’m surrounded by people and have never felt so alone.
No.
That’s not true.
I felt this alone in Los Angeles, I just didn’t recognize it at the time.
I hadn’t had those glorious weeks in the Nash bubble yet.
I hadn’t learned what it felt like to be seen.
Wanted. Sought after. In Stillwater Bay, I was a person.
A friend. A daughter. A lover. On the Sandro René tour?
I’m a commodity. A competitor. A nameless face in a sea of nameless faces.
But this is what I wanted. This is what I fought so hard for. I’m living the dream…
Right?