Chapter 7
JULIAN
By the second night in Las Vegas, I already know I won’t survive this.
The realization comes to me quietly, it eases inside slowly with the calm certainty of something unavoidable.
A bad diagnosis comes to mind or a weather warning, promising a storm no structure can withstand.
The knowledge settles in my bones like an ache, inevitable and profound.
It hasn’t even been a week. We’ve only made it to the second city on this tour.
Two nights of standing onstage, hands steady over ivory keys while everything inside me fractures a little more each time I feel him there.
Each note feels like another small crack in the carefully constructed wall I’ve built around myself, threatening to bring the whole thing crumbling down.
Because he is there. No matter how much avoidance and skirting around the venue we’re in. He is fucking there, surrounded by his minions who are constantly running around like chickens scrambling for feed. His presence is suffocating, a constant reminder of everything I’ve tried to forget.
Malik Carter does not retreat. He does not withdraw.
He does not know how to do absence with grace.
If he has decided something matters, he shows up and fills the space until it bends around him.
He always has. Devotion is his love language, and like a fool, I used to admire him for it.
Used to find comfort in his persistence, in the way he would never let anything he cared about slip away without a fight.
Now it feels like a siege. A relentless, calculated attack on the defenses I’ve spent years fortifying.
I sit alone in my dressing room, jacket draped neatly over the chair, shirt cuffs fastened just so.
I don’t have a lot of pre-show rituals but don’t like to be disturbed once I’m dressed and ready.
I need the quiet, especially now, when everything around me feels out of my control.
Taking a breath, my hands don’t shake. I do not allow my anger to get the best of me.
I’ve perfected this control, this mastery over my external self, even as the internal chaos threatens to overtake me.
It’s the only thing keeping my sanity at this point.
The only thing keeping me from wrecking the place and walking out of this tour, damn the consequences.
Tonight, my jaw aches from how tightly it’s been set since yesterday morning. The muscles protest with each slight movement, a physical manifestation of everything I’m holding back.
The interview still burns beneath my skin, replaying itself with merciless clarity.
The elevator. The question. The way he said, ‘your boyfriend’, as if he had any right to that part of my life.
As if intimacy is something he gets to interrogate now that he’s decided to feel guilty.
The words linger in the air between us still, charged and dangerous.
The audacity of it makes my stomach twist, acid rising in my throat.
Portia is not my boyfriend, but that’s none of his business.
Malik’s not blind and I’m sure he knows that.
He knows exactly how my life works, how carefully it has always been arranged, how narrow the margins have been since we were boys.
He knows what I lost before I ever had the chance to choose.
He knows what it cost me to survive intact.
Portia is an arrangement, a safety net, a controlled environment where I can be partly myself without risking everything else.
Still, he asked, like some jealous-ass lover. What bullshit. The question hangs between us like an accusation, a reminder of everything we once were and everything we’ve become.
Then he has the nerve to mention my parents, intentionally reaching for them like a blade, knowing exactly where to cut deepest. ‘Do your parents know?’ The question wasn’t curiosity.
It was meant to hurt, because he knew it would.
He remembers the silent dinners, the averted gazes, the weight of expectations so heavy I could barely breathe beneath them.
He was there when my father caught us too close that summer night, when the temperature in the room dropped so suddenly it felt like winter had descended in July.
He has spent the better part of a decade living openly, loudly, beautifully. He has kissed men on red carpets, sung about love without apology, built an empire on truth he was allowed to claim. He wears his freedom like a second skin, comfortable and unquestioned.
I was not afforded that luxury and Malik knows that, too.
Knows how different our paths were, how divergent our options.
He knows what it meant to grow up in a house where silence was survival.
He knows what it meant to carry faith and fear in equal measure, to learn restraint before desire, obedience before selfhood.
He knows how many versions of myself I had to kill just to keep playing.
Just to remain in the orbit of my parents’ love, which always felt conditional, fragile as spun glass.
Still, he punched me below the belt and then tried to apologize.
The damage yet again was already done. Fuck him.
Don’t try to worry about the destruction you wrought now, is what I wanted to yell and scream at him.
As if he hadn’t been the one who walked away when I needed him most. As if he hadn’t chosen himself and left me to manage the wreckage alone.
The anger sits heavy in my chest as I stand, smoothing my cuffs, grounding myself in ritual.
The muffled sound of the crowd echoes through the walls, the low hum of anticipation, the electric murmur of bodies gathering for something they believe will move them.
The sounds are familiar, comforting in their predictability.
They are right. It always does. My music never fails to reach them, even when I myself feel unreachable.
Tracy knocks, soft and respectful. “Five minutes, Julian.”
I nod to myself and call out, “Thank you.” My voice doesn’t betray me. It never does.
When the door closes, I exhale slowly, deliberately. I do not give myself permission to spiral. That will come later, when the lights are off and I am alone with the consequences of proximity. For now, I package everything away, fold it neatly like the handkerchief in my breast pocket.
Right now, I have a job to do. The performance waits for no one, certainly not for broken men with unresolved histories.
The piano waits for me like an old friend, its presence familiar and steady beneath my fingers.
I walk out into the wings and feel it immediately, the shift in the air, the subtle change in pressure that tells me he is nearby.
It’s like a sixth sense I’ve never been able to deactivate, a heightened awareness that belongs only to him.
Malik has a gravity that announces itself whether I acknowledge it or not. His focus is like heat against my skin, he occupies space with the confidence of someone who believes he belongs wherever he stands. His presence has always been undeniable, commanding attention without effort.
It infuriates me. That even now, even here, in the space I’ve carved out for myself, he can affect me so profoundly.
I take my seat and let the lights wash over me, let the applause crest and fall like a tide I’ve learned to ride without resistance.
My hands settle on the keys, and for a moment, just a moment, everything else recedes.
The world narrows to this interaction, this communion between fingers and ivory.
This is mine. The music does not lie. It does not posture. It does not demand forgiveness or absolution. It exists, pure and exacting, requiring only honesty in execution. In this space, I am untouchable, even with him watching.
I smile and I play. The expression doesn’t reach my eyes, but no one is close enough to notice or dare mention it.
The notes unfold with precision and intent, each phrase shaped by years of discipline and restraint. I speak to the audience between pieces, my voice calm, measured, offering them insight without confession. I give them beauty without exposure. They receive what I permit them to see, nothing more.
Then, inevitably, I look up and my eyes find his.
Malik is there. Standing just beyond the lights, half in shadow, watching me like this is something he’s entitled to witness.
His expression is intent, focused, as if he’s trying to read a language he once knew but has forgotten.
My presence is not an invitation to lurk.
My survival is not a performance he helped curate.
He doesn’t get to look at me with shining eyes of pride, as if any part of what I’ve become belongs to him.
The fury surges then, sharp and hot, threatening to splinter the careful structure I’ve built around myself. It rises like a tide, threatening to overtake the music, to alter the cadence of my playing.
What right does he have? To stand there night after night, silent and steadfast, as if endurance is penance. As if proximity is proof of growth. As if showing up now erases the years he left me to carry on alone. As if observation is the same as understanding.
He does not get to reclaim me through observation. He does not get to insert himself back into my narrative without permission. He does not get to watch me bleed and call it reconciliation. As if bearing witness somehow absolves him of his role in my fracturing.
I turn my attention back to the keys, but the damage is done.
His presence lodges itself beneath my ribs, a constant reminder that avoidance is no longer a viable strategy.
That we are bound by contract and circumstance to navigate this proximity, this forced confrontation with everything we’ve left unsaid.
This is only the second city. I want to scream at my irrational thoughts, at my out-of-control rage growing steadily within me, threatening to consume everything in its path.
Two nights. Two performances. Two times I’ve had to swallow the past and pretend it tastes like progress.
Two evenings of exquisite, professional torture.
There are weeks ahead of us. Weeks of shared hallways and mirrored stages and unspoken history vibrating between us like a fault line under pressure.
Weeks of maintaining composure while everything within me trembles with the effort of containment.
I can already feel the fracture spreading.
Malik thinks this will force me to face it.
If he stands close enough, long enough, the truth will surface on its own.
I think he believes I will eventually turn to him and grant him the confrontation he wants, the absolution he’s chasing.
That this prison he’s created for the two of us will wear down my defenses until I have no choice but to engage.
He is wrong. I’ve mastered the art of silence, of distance even in closeness. I’ve built my life on it.
What he is doing is cornering an animal that has learned to survive by staying still. When that animal finally moves, it will not be gentle. It will be desperate, defensive, driven by years of practiced restraint suddenly abandoned.
As the final notes fade and the applause rises, I bow with practiced grace, my expression serene, my pulse anything but. The contradiction between my outer calm and inner turbulence is familiar territory, a dissonance I’ve perfected.
I don’t glance toward the wings as I rise and turn on my heels. I can’t leave the stage fast enough as the crew hurries on to change the set. I need distance, need to put as much space as possible between myself and his watchful gaze.
“Excellent show, Julian,” someone shouts.
I don’t know if I have a smile on my face or not as a camera flashes from somewhere off to my right.
The light is blinding, disorienting. I spot Eli and without saying a word he makes his way to my side, reading my distress with the familiarity of twelve years together.
“You alright?” he asks, his voice low, concerned.
“Get me out of here,” I reply. I need to be anywhere but here. Somewhere I can breathe, can drop this mask of composure before it suffocates me.
I already know this ends badly. I didn’t sign my name on the dotted line of my contract with this conclusion in mind.
No, this is all on Malik, who has never understood the cost of forcing someone to remember what they had to bury to stay alive.
Who has never accepted that some silences exist for a reason, that some walls are built for protection rather than isolation.
I am not built to endure this for much longer. Something will give. The pressure is too intense, the containment too fragile.
It is no longer a question of if. It is only a matter of when and what remains after the inevitable collapse.