Chapter 4
RAFE
The audience roars as we step into the performance space, lights swinging down to paint us in a heat I know better than my own heartbeat. There’s a countdown in my head. Eli taps his sticks. Drew nods once.
And I do what I always do. I become the version of myself that can survive this. I lift my chin, lean into the mic, and let the melody take me by the throat and drag me forward.
No thinking.
No spiraling.
Just music.
Just the line of notes I wrote when I was still young enough to believe love could be pure and uncomplicated and safe. When I was still stupid enough to fall.
The first verse comes out smooth and controlled. My voice wraps around the words and makes them sound like something meant for the crowd, something meant for the world. Not something meant for one man.
I keep my eyes forward. I keep them trained on the middle distance, on the studio lights, on the camera that swings in a slow arc like it’s hunting for emotion.
Don’t look.
Don’t look at him.
Because he’s here. I can feel him like heat against my skin even from across the studio. Like the air knows his name and keeps whispering it.
Oliver Marshall. Almost eight years, and he’s here. In the same room—breathing, watching me.
The band launches into the pre-chorus, the build that always makes the crowd lean in, makes the air feel electric.
My chest constricts, and I focus on the mechanics—breath control, diaphragm, placement, pitch.
I let the technical part of my brain take over, because if I let the human part in, I’ll shatter.
And then I hit the line I always hit—the one that always tastes like ash if I let myself think about why it exists. A flicker of something passes through me, the memory of a hallway, a laugh, a glance and a blush that rewired my gravity in one stupid heartbeat.
And my gaze slips. Just once. Not even on purpose.
It’s more of a reflex. My eyes catch on the couch.
On the space where Ollie is sitting next to Adrian, his posture too still, his face too carefully arranged into something neutral, polite, composed—like he’s attending a press conference and not a fucking cosmic collision.
His eyes are on me.
There’s no hiding it now. Not in the dark, not from behind a screen, not through years of distance. It hits like a punch. All the air in my lungs vanishes. The studio lights blur. My mouth dries so fast my next breath stutters.
For a split second, I don’t know if my voice will hold. Then Drew’s guitar fills the gap, Eli drives the rhythm forward with the drums, and my body remembers itself. The chorus hits, the crowd surges, and I claw my focus back like it’s a lifeline.
Do not fall apart. Not here. Not on camera. Not in front of him.
The chorus rises—familiar words, familiar ache.
My voice does what it’s trained to do: It carries.
It climbs. It pretends the pain is art instead of a wound, and all I can think about is the charity.
The way Ollie’s voice sounded when he talked about it.
The way his face didn’t look like he was performing. It looked like he meant it.
Immigrant families. Legal resources. Kids terrified their parents would disappear.
He said it like he’d been holding it for a while, like he’d been wanting to say it and didn’t know where to put it until now.
And I—I don’t know what to do with that, because I remember telling him those stories.
I remember being reckless with honesty, curled against him, telling him about my mamá and papá, our fear when we crossed the border. How we were legal, how we did everything “right,” and it still didn’t stop the looks, the comments, the hostility that seeped into daily life like poison.
How friends weren’t so lucky. How some family members disappeared into the system like they’d been swallowed whole. How fear makes you lie. How you learn to keep your head down. How you learn to smile even when you’re swallowing panic.
I remember Ollie’s hands on my back. The way he held me like he could keep the world off my skin. I remember thinking: He sees me. He gets it. He’s safe.
God.
My voice stays steady through the bridge because it has to. Because my career depends on it. Because my band is relying on me and the entire world thinks I’m fearless.
The crowd is clapping along, waving their hands, screaming at the right moments. They love this song. They love it like it belongs to them.
They have no idea it’s a love letter that somehow managed to tarnish and rust in the passing of time.
We hit the final chorus and the room swells—lights brighter, drums harder, my voice lifting into that last line that always feels like stepping off a ledge. And then it ends. The last chord rings out, and the audience explodes.
Applause hits like thunder. Cheers. Whistles. People on their feet. I smile automatically and nod at the crowd. I tilt the mic away like this was easy, like my hands aren’t shaking around the guitar neck.
The camera catches my face, and I keep my expression smooth.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Inside, I’m fighting for breath.
Almost eight years. And one song—one stupid song—has cracked me open like I never healed at all.
We walk back toward the couch as the lights shift from performance intensity to talk-show warmth.
Cal is standing again, clapping like he means it. “Incredible,” he says into his mic. “Steel Saints, everybody—‘Velocity’!”
The audience roars again. We sit. My heart is still pounding too hard. My palms are damp. I keep my gaze forward and refuse to look anywhere else. Refuse to look at Ollie.
I can’t. If I do, I might lose control, and control is the only thing keeping me from coming undone in front of a live audience.
Cal makes a few wrap-up jokes, thanks Adrian, thanks Ollie, thanks us, plugs the actor’s movie, plugs our last album, throws out a final line to the camera. “Give it up one more time for our guests!”
The clapping rises again as the credits roll on the monitors, and we all stand.
The smiles stay pasted on until the moment the red light above the main camera flips off. Recording done. And everything inside me collapses an inch. Not fully. Not yet. But enough that my hands start to shake for real.
Miles is beside me immediately—too smooth for anyone else to notice. He leans in like he’s saying something casual. “Hanging in there?” he murmurs.
“No,” I say, just as quiet. Honest. It feels like ripping a bandage off. “I need to get out of here.”
Miles’s gaze flicks over my face, then past me, calculating. “Okay,” he says, like I asked him for the time. “I’ve got you.”
Drew and Eli are already being pulled into conversation with Cal—postshow small talk, handshake circles, the kind of industry politeness that never ends.
Miles makes a subtle motion, drawing their attention, and Drew immediately steps toward Cal with a smooth grin, engaging him deeper.
Eli joins in, loud enough to create a bubble of distraction.
Vinny appears at my side like he’s been summoned. He’s not just our security guy—he’s been the wall between me and the world for years. He’s seen me at my best. Seen me at my worst. One look at my face and his expression shifts from neutral to alert.
“You ready?” he asks quietly.
I nod once.
Miles steps closer. “Come on,” he says, guiding me away from the cluster of people, keeping his body between mine and the cameras even though they’re off now.
We move fast, slipping into the hallway, into the back corridors where the lights are harsher and the air smells like cables and sweat and cleaning product. My lungs pull in oxygen like I’ve been underwater.
Vinny is on my other side now, close enough that I can feel the steadiness of him. Anchoring.
We’re almost out the other side of the green room when I hear it. My name. Soft, strained, familiar enough to make my bones ache.
“Rafe—”
I freeze mid-step. Miles’s hand touches my back in warning, but it’s too late. Ollie is here, standing in the green-room doorway like he’s been waiting, like he couldn’t stop himself.
His eyes are wide. His face looks wrecked. He looks—
God.
He looks like the man who used to hold me like I was sacred.
“Please wait,” he says. “Rafe.”
Vinny turns slightly, blocking the door behind us, giving us privacy without making it a scene.
My heartbeat is so loud I swear Ollie can hear it.
He takes a half step forward and stops, like he’s afraid of crossing some invisible line, then swallows hard. His throat moves, and the sight of it does something sharp to me.
He’s close enough now that if I lifted my hand, I could touch him.
The thought makes me nauseous.
I can’t.
I can’t do this.
Not here. Not now. Not after eight years of learning how to live with the hole he left.
My mouth opens and the truth falls out, brutal and plain. “I can’t,” I say.
Ollie’s face crumples—a tiny fracture, like he tried so hard to hold himself together and the words found the crack. He nods once, like he’s forcing his body to obey. “Okay,” he says, voice rough. “I’m sorry.”
He shakes his head quickly, like he’s trying to rewind the moment.
“I didn’t know you would be here,” he adds, and I believe him because he looks like he’s been hit by a truck.
“But I understand.” His eyes flick down to my hands, then back to my face.
“I’ll let you go,” he says quietly. “Take care.”
Take care.
Like we’re strangers.
Like we didn’t share a life.
I don’t respond. I can’t trust my voice. So I do the only thing I know how to do when my heart is too exposed: I turn, and I walk away.
Vinny gets me into the car like he’s done it a thousand times. Door open. Head down. Seat belt clicked. Windows tinted. Miles stays back with the guys.
The world outside becomes a blur of studio lights and parking lot asphalt and LA night settling in like a sigh.
I stare straight ahead while Vinny slides into the driver’s seat.
He doesn’t speak immediately. He never does when I’m like this.
He understands my silence. Understands that if he says the wrong thing too early, I might crack.
The engine turns over, and we pull out. The city unfolds around us—neon, traffic, palm trees, the familiar LA glow that always looks like a filter even in real life.
A few minutes pass before Vinny speaks. “You okay?”
I let out a breath that feels like it’s been trapped in my chest since Ollie said my name. “I’m not sure,” I admit.
Vinny nods, like that’s an answer he respects. “All right.”
Silence fills the car again, but it isn’t empty. It’s heavy with everything I’m trying not to feel. I close my eyes for a second, and all I see is Ollie’s face when I said “I can’t.” I see the way he swallowed hard like he was choking on regret. I hear his voice: “Please wait, Rafe.”
And then I remember the other voice I’ve heard in my head for eight years—my own, on repeat, asking questions that never had answers.
Why wasn’t I enough?
Why didn’t you choose me?
Why did you leave and never come back?
The charity keeps circling back. The way he spoke about immigrant kids like it mattered enough to risk controversy. Like it mattered enough to tie his name to it. He’s investing in something that protects the exact people I’ve spent my whole life worrying about.
It should make me grateful.
It does.
It also makes me want to scream.
Because why now? Why is he showing up with tenderness and purpose when I’ve spent all these years building armor thick enough to survive him?
My phone is in my pocket. I pull it out and stare at the screen like it might explain reality. No new messages, because the world hasn’t actually changed. It’s just… collided.
My thumb hovers over Notes. And then I open it.
I haven’t written about him. Not really. Not the real thing. I’ve written around it. Built metaphors. Hidden behind storms and city lights and unnamed ghosts. But I never touched the moment he left. Never wrote about the break. Never wrote the aftermath.
Because to write it would mean admitting how much it destroyed me. To write it would mean giving it shape. And if it had shape, it would be real.
My fingers hover over the blank screen. Then I type.
Not a full verse. Not a song yet. Just fragments.
You said my name like it wasn’t a weapon.
Eight years and it still fits in my mouth.
Your eyes looked like apologies.
I learned to stop waiting.
I swallow hard, stare at the words, and keep going.
Third headline, I didn’t even check.
First one—I waited.
Second one—I stared at my phone.
Third one—I told myself you were gone and meant it.
It’s true.
When the first League player came out, I waited for a call that never came. When the second story hit, I waited again, like an idiot. By the third time, I didn’t even pick up my phone. I didn’t want hope anymore. Hope was a blade.
I write another line, and my throat clogs.
Broken promises come dressed as silence.
My hands start shaking. I pause, forcing myself to breathe. Vinny glances at me in the mirror. Not intrusive, just there. I look back down at the notes and type the words I don’t want to type.
If you wanted me, you would’ve come.
If you loved me, you would’ve chosen me.
Don’t offer me a second chance like it’s mercy.
My vision blurs. I blink hard and add one more fragment, quieter.
Hope is a door I nailed shut.
I stare at it. At all of it. At the proof that even now—after eight years—I can still be gutted by his existence.
The car hums under us. LA stretches out like a glittering trap. And somewhere behind us, in a studio I can’t stop seeing in my mind, Ollie Marshall is still breathing the same air as me.
Vinny turns down a street, and the headlights sweep across a line of palm trees. My phone screen glows in the dark. I stare at the words and feel something settle in my chest, heavy and final.
It can’t happen.
It can’t.
Because nothing has changed.
There are more out players now. More stories. More proof the world didn’t end. And still—he didn’t call. He didn’t choose me. He didn’t come back until the universe shoved us into the same room and forced us to look at each other.
That isn’t a second chance. That’s coincidence, and coincidence isn’t enough to rebuild what he broke.
I lock my phone, lean my head against the window, and close my eyes. I let the last thought settle like a verdict: It can never happen.