Chapter 11
Charlie
The paper heart sits in my palm like a tiny origami grenade.
I’m sitting in front of a three-panel mirror, in my dressing room at the FTX Arena, surrounded by enough hairspray fumes to piss off environmental activists.
I’m wearing a bedazzled leotard and it’s clear the designer gave zero fucks about comfort.
My hair has been teased, sprayed, and shellacked into submission.
It might look nice but it’s crunchy to the touch.
My makeup could survive a nuclear blast. I am, by all external metrics, ready to perform.
Inside, however, I’m unraveling.
I unfold the paper heart carefully, the creases soft from years of handling. My mother’s handwriting stares back at me—loopy and feminine, the kind of penmanship they don’t teach anymore.
When you feel lost, remember: the stars shine brightest in the darkest night.
I wait for the words to land. To settle into my chest and fill the hollow space that’s been growing there for weeks. To do what they’ve always done—anchor me, guide me, remind me that someone who loved me left behind a roadmap for moments exactly like this.
Nothing.
The words sit there, inert. Pretty but meaningless. Fortune-cookie wisdom dressed up in my mother’s scrawl.
I fold the heart and reach into the box for another.
The wooden chest is smaller than I remembered—or maybe I’m just picturing a pair of child-sized hands clutching to it like a lifeline.
A talisman that holds all the answers to everything that matters.
I pull out a pink heart this time, edges worn soft.
You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.
The first time I read that one, it landed deep. Then I learned it’s literally a Winnie the Pooh quote. My mother plagiarized a cartoon bear to bestow her infinite wisdom.
Another heart. Yellow.
Dance like nobody’s watching.
Painfully cliché. A little reminiscent of Footloose. And wildly ironic, considering twenty-some thousand people are about to watch me dance like Napoleon Dynamite in a leotard.
“You’re going to wear those out.”
I look up. Taio is leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed, watching me with that quiet intensity that makes my stomach do complicated things.
He’s in all black, as usual—the bodyguard uniform that somehow looks like it was tailored specifically for his tease of a body.
What is the point of all those muscles if he insists on keeping them sheathed in clothing?
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to watch you shake that box like it owes you money.” He pushes off the frame and moves into the room, settling onto the arm of the couch a few feet away. Close enough to be present, far enough to give me space. “What’s wrong?”
“Pre-show ritual.” I hold one up. “I do it before every single performance for good luck…well, except for New York, but we know how that ended.”
“Why so many?” Taio asks, looking at the growing pile of paper beside the box. “Those aren’t working?”
I let out a laugh that sounds more like a sob. “Tonight nothing is working.” I pull another heart from the box—blue this time.
The only person you need to be better than is the person you were yesterday.
“But what if the person I was yesterday was also a disaster?” I mutter, crumpling it slightly before smoothing it back out. Old habits. I can’t bring myself to actually damage them, even when they’re failing me.
Taio watches me pull another heart, then another, my movements getting more frantic. Shaking the box. Digging to the bottom. Searching for the one piece of paper that will somehow make all of this okay.
Follow your heart. Believe in yourself. Everything happens for a reason.
“Charlie.” His voice cuts through my spiral.
I freeze, a fistful of hearts clutched against my chest like they might save me if I just hold on tight enough.
“Why are you so nervous?” He tilts his head, genuinely curious. “You’ve been doing this forever. You’ve performed hundreds of shows. What’s different about tonight?”
The question hits somewhere deep. I set the hearts down, smoothing them against my thigh.
“I can’t remember,” I say quietly.
“Your lyrics or your marks?”
I stare at my reflection in the mirror—the glitter, the rhinestones, the perfect waves.
The costume I didn’t know would become my permanent identity, like a sparkly exoskeleton I can’t shed.
“I can’t remember what I loved about this.
” The words come out hollow, echoing against the vanity lights that frame my face in surgical brightness.
“I used to love music. Like, genuinely love it. The way the bass line would climb up through the soles of my feet and settle somewhere behind my sternum. How a perfect bridge could make me weep. The electricity of an entire crowd breathing together in synchronized awe.” I shake my head and watch the light catch on my hair, creating a momentary halo that feels like false advertising.
“Now all I can think about is what could go wrong. What has already gone wrong. How, no matter what I do, or how hard I try, somebody is leaving disappointed. Someone hates me for existing. I can’t win them all, Taio… ”
“Of course not,” he says.
I lift my gaze, his eyes are deadlocked on me, a look of anticipation on his face, like he’s waiting for me to get to the punchline.
The ugly honesty takes over like it tends to do around Taio.
“But I still want to. I want to be the girl that everyone likes. That everyone approves of. I want other people to treat me the way I’d treat them—with respect and grace, not like a glittery, soulless mascot, stuffed to the brim with confetti and bullshit. Is that really too much to ask?”
“If you only live to ensure everyone likes you, you’ll never find the people who love you. But people have to know you to love you, Charlie.”
He renders me speechless, his advice seeping into my bones like they are the last, secret commandment. That’s the key? Let people in? See who stays?
Taio is quiet for a moment. Then he moves closer, settling onto the couch across from me.
He pats the cushion next to him, inviting me closer.
I sit and his hand finds the small of my back.
The warmth of his palm seeps through the thin fabric of my costume, grounding me in a way the paper hearts couldn’t tonight.
“You know what I think?” His voice is low, meant only for me. “I think you’ve spent so long performing for everyone else that you forgot the performance is for you too.”
“For me?”
“Yeah.” His hand moves in slow circles against my spine, soothing the tension I didn’t realize I was carrying.
“Twenty thousand people in the crowd tonight, and you belong to yourself more than you belong to them. More than you belong to the label, or the brand, or the internet, or any of it.” He tugs gently on a tendril of my hair.
“Give yourself permission to perform for yourself. Not just for the crowd. Find one moment up there that’s just yours, just a baby step toward remembering why you love this again. ”
Tears prickle at the corners of my eyes, threatening to ruin two hours of professional makeup work. “How?” I whisper. “How am I supposed to—”
The door bursts open.
Sage strides in first, tablet clutched to her chest, her expression carefully neutral. I know that look—it means she’s about to deliver bad news. Marcus follows closely behind wearing his default expression of “calculating profit margins.”
“Charlie.” Marcus’s eyes flick to Taio, then back to me. “Can we talk? Privately.”
Taio’s hand stills on my back. I feel him tense, protective instincts kicking in, but he doesn’t argue. He just squeezes my shoulder once and rises.
“I’ll be right outside,” he says quietly, like a promise.
The door clicks shut behind him.
Marcus pulls up a chair across from me, close enough that our knees almost touch. Sage hovers behind him like an impeccably dressed shadow.
“What’s going on?” I ask, even though I can already feel it. That sick twist in my gut that means something bad is coming.
Marcus takes a breath. The kind of breath people take before they say something they know you won’t want to hear.
“We’ve been talking—me, Sage, the label, the tour producers—and we think it’s best if tonight’s performance is…modified. To make it easier on you and on everyone.”
My voice is calm over the thunderous beating in my chest. “Modified how?”
“We want you to lip-sync tonight.”
The suggestion doesn’t compute at first, just floats there, nonsensical, like he’s speaking a language I don’t understand.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Your mic will be off. We’ll have the usual back tracks, and the main vocals will be piped in from the studio recordings. All you have to do is move your mouth and hit your marks. The audience won’t know the difference.”
I look at Sage. She won’t meet my gaze.
“You’re joking.”
“You’ve missed four shows, Charlie. You collapsed on stage in New York.
The label is terrified of another incident, and frankly, so am I.
” Marcus leans forward, his tone softening into something that’s probably supposed to be paternal.
“This is to protect you. If something happens up there…if you freeze, if you panic, if your voice gives out—no one will know. You can just get through it. Fake it until it’s over. ”
“Fake it,” I echo robotically.
“Yes.”
“You want me to fake my own concert.”
“I want you to survive your concert.” His jaw tightens.
“Charlie, do you understand what’s at stake here?
The tour insurance alone is not enough. If you have another public breakdown, we’re looking at lawsuits, canceled dates, sponsors pulling out.
Your career can’t take another hit right now.
Not with the scandal, not with the press circling like sharks.
We need tonight to go smoothly. We need you to be okay. ”
“And if I’m not okay, you’ll just…play a recording of me being okay?”