Chapter 24
Now—Ellery
Ellery ignores Logan’s death stares. This is her mic. Her night.
The crowd is hot tonight, rapt. She is a storyteller, a spinner of wishes.
But she knows what it’s time for.
“So, a little about the song ‘Centrifuge,’ the one people say made us who we are.”
She tenses, but the crowd unleashes a wild roar.
Normally in this part of her patter, she tells a generic story, one that skirts everything that happened directly after the America Sings!
taping. She talks about being caught up in a moment, in a relationship, and finding strength. She never talks about her family.
But not tonight.
“None of that is true. We sang this song on national television, and it did get our names out into the world. People say what they want to say about what artists put out into the world. I know that. But I am not who I am because of a song. Selene and Lorraine and Dante are more than a song.” Grief rises through her stomach, into her throat, and catches at the back of her soft palate.
Two years later, and the wounds still cut, like a fresh slap.
“We are not who we are because of what you think of us. Some of us learned that earlier than others. I won’t let others define me.
Not anymore.” A tear pools at the inner corner of her eye and she swipes it away.
Behind her, so close and yet never close enough, Dante clears his throat.
He’s cheering her on, lending her his strength.
The crowd is so quiet, the flap of a bird’s wings would reverberate through the hills of Griffith Park.
“I am who I am because of the people who loved me,” she says.
In her hands, Jasper feels like a part of her soul, an extension of her fingertips, warm and solid and real.
Like Dante. “We didn’t write ‘Centrifuge’ as a pop hit.
Dante and I—Dante is an incredible songwriter—wrote it as a way to understand what we were going through at the time.
So tonight, I’d like to play the song for you as it was intended.
” She swipes away the tears under her eyes and turns to her band.
Selene and Lorraine are there, nodding, ready.
And then there’s Dante. Dante, who’s always been the star in her orbit. She let the world break her, break them, but no more. Not tonight.
* * *
“Centrifuge”
Caught in the spin of you
Separating pieces of me
You do what you always do
So I will never be free
You think this speed is fine
I think it’s a little slow
You can’t catch up to my mind
My thoughts are centrifugal
Spin me around and around and around and around
Whirling like a hurricane
Twirl me and shake me, fool me and quake me,
But I will never break.
We will be more than the sum of this
We’ll be more than what you see
You can trap us in this vortex
But you don’t know me.
Spin me around and around and around and around
Whirling like a hurricane
Twirl me and shake me, fool me and quake me,
But I will never break.
No I will never break.