34. Emerson
EMERSON
The next two months pass in a blur.
After New York City, we met back up with Crew in New Jersey just in time for a special Valentine's Day show. The Cross My Heart guys dressed in red, and Theo and Silas even let me draw little hearts on their cheeks.
Meanwhile, my Valentine’s Day included a four-year-old, entirely too much candy, and matching pajama pants covered in crooked little witch hats. By the end of the night, Crew had fallen asleep halfway across the bed with chocolate smudged on his cheek and one arm thrown over my stomach.
It had been one of my favorite Valentine's Days.
Then March arrived and disappeared just as quickly.
Show after show.
City after city.
Hotel rooms blurring together.
Our routine stayed the same—morning breakfasts before soundcheck.
Crew's endless questions whenever we traveled between cities. Way too many games of Go Fish squeezed into travel days on the tour bus, as well as some Kindergarten prep sprinkled in. Mateo pressing a kiss to Crew’s sleeping head when he comes home.
Mateo.
Somewhere along the way, the line between us got harder to define.
We spent the days trading jabs and the nights finding excuses to linger a few minutes longer before going our separate ways.
Him stealing bites from my dinner just to annoy me; me taking sips of his coffee—even though an iced americano is ten times better than a hot one—just to make him roll his eyes.
And somehow every argument ended with both of us smiling, and Crew left laughing at our interaction.
I started looking forward to the moments that felt too intimate to be accidental but too innocent to call anything else—the way he would brush past me in the narrow hallway of the bus, his hand settling at my waist to steady me, or the way I would fix his hair before a show and wish him good luck, my fingers lingering a little longer than they needed to.
We never acknowledged it.
Never called attention to the way his eyes would linger or the way my breath would catch.
But we both noticed.
It was never enough to call it anything.
But it was always enough to notice.
We hadn't crossed the line—not like the night he took my underwear or the naughty video I sent him—but we were getting closer in smaller, much more dangerous ways.
It was easier to pretend the big moments didn’t matter. They were reckless, unexpected, and over almost as quickly as they started. We could blame them on curiosity or a lapse in judgment or the fact that neither of us had thought through the consequences.
But the small moments scared me the most.
The kind that happened after Crew was asleep.
The kind that came from late-night conversations in doorways, from him knocking on my room just to ask a question he could have texted, from the way we'd say goodnight and neither of us would immediately walk away.
Because the dangerous part isn’t that we might cross a line.
It’s what happens when we finally admit the line is so blurred, we can’t even see it anymore.
And then, suddenly, it was April.
And our week-long break back in Milwaukee came and went without me even fully registering the days. Between Ava and Anderson’s re-proposal and Jack and Rumi’s courthouse wedding, it felt like my time wasn’t even my own.
It wasn’t until I was back on the bus that I realized I missed the therapy session with Dr. Hannah I had agreed to do while I was home. I’ve had maybe three sessions in just as many months. But with how fast life has been moving, I haven’t really had time to notice.
May was practically nonexistent. Crew and I spent our days exploring whatever city we woke up in before heading back to find Mateo, eager and waiting to hear every detail of our day.
He always wanted to know what we’d done that day—where we’d gone, what we’d eaten, what the silliest question Crew had asked was.
And then the three of us would head to whatever venue the show was at that night.
Crew and I had developed our own little routine. We’d find our spot in the wings, usually close enough to see everything but tucked away enough to have our own little world, and the second the music started, we’d turn it into our personal concert.
It became one of my favorite parts of those nights—the part no one else really saw. Just Crew and me, completely lost in the music, while Mateo was only a few feet away, sneaking glances our way. Every so often, I’d catch his eye, like he was making sure I was still there.
Eventually, the set would reach the song that Crew and I always left after. It had become our cue, the unofficial end of our night at the venue. Without fail, Mateo would find us from the stage and sneak us a wave just as he finished singing the final note.
May disappeared in those little moments—one city bleeding into the next, one show blending into another, and every night ending with Mateo lingering by my bedroom door under the guise of “wanting to say goodnight”.
It was chaotic and exhausting and somehow completely ordinary at the same time. And now it’s June, and we’re three shows away from the final show of this farewell tour.
And I’m afraid of what will happen when this all slows down.
“We can’t forget to pack Pepper 2.0,” I tell Crew as I help him clean up the hotel room, just like we do whenever it’s time to hit the road.
Tonight’s show is in St. Paul, then we finish up by stopping back in Chicago, and then Cross My Heart’s last official show will be in Milwaukee—where it all started.
It’s hard to believe not only this farewell tour but Cross My Heart as a whole is coming to an end. Mateo has put so much of himself into this band over the years, and it’s obvious that it isn’t easy for him to say goodbye.
“I can’t wait to see the real Pepper,” Crew announces, taking his favorite black cat stuffed animal from me and carefully putting her into his little backpack with the rest of his toys. “I miss her.”
“I know you do. But don’t worry, Georgie is taking really good care of her,” I tell Crew just before he starts asking questions about why some cats have black fur, and others don’t.
We get deep into a conversation about the different types of fur we’ve seen on cats as we pack up his clothes into his suitcase before we head over to tonight’s venue.
“Ems,” Crew says softly after a moment of silence. I thought he was trying to think about another color of fur we didn’t mention yet, but he surprises me with the way he avoids my eyes.
“What is it, champ?”
“Am I—” he pauses, looking up at me for a second before looking back down at his hands in his lap. He’s sitting on his knees on the hotel bed, only a few more pieces of clothing left to fold and pile into his luggage. “Am I going to see you once Daddy is done singing?”
His question catches me off guard, my heart clenching at how sad he sounds, like he’s preparing himself for an answer he doesn’t want to hear.
I want to tell him that of course he’ll see me—as much as he wants.
But I can’t.
Because I don’t know what happens when we take off the rose-colored glasses. When we’re off the road and back to our real lives—where I’m just a freelance artist and a part-time barista, where Mateo is trying to find where he fits in a world without Cross My Heart.
I don’t know how to answer his question because I don’t know where any of this leaves us.
So I settle on the only truth I know. “I hope so.”
“Part of me still thinks you’re actually messing up my hair when you do this every night,” Mateo says, his mouth just inches from mine from where we’re hidden in the stage wing.
“Ems wouldn’t do that,” Crew says from just below us, holding his oversized headphones in his hand while Cross My Heart waits for their cue, the backstage buzzing with everyone preparing for tonight’s concert.
“Oh, I think she would,” Mateo laughs, bending down to pick up Crew, balancing him on his arms as the two of them peek out into the crowd.
Someone from the stage crew announces the five-minute warning, so Mateo sets Crew down, tapping on the headphones in his hands. Crew smiles and puts them on, knowing the show is about to start.
Crew grabs my hand, ready to lead us to our spot closer to the front of the stage, just off the wing, and I turn over my shoulder, whispering a quick good luck to Mateo rather than telling him “don’t mess up” like I usually do—but for some reason, tonight, I can’t look him in the eye when I do.
“Hey,” Mateo says, catching my arm as Crew’s hand leaves mine to try and reach Theo and Silas’ high-fives, so I turn to face Mateo.
“What’s wrong?” Mateo asks.
I shake my head, pasting on a smile. “Nothing. I’m just tired.”
“Don’t do that,” he whispers. “You can tease me; you can tell me to fuck off. Hell, you can do your whole “don’t be so dramatic, rockstar,” he says, trying—and failing—to imitate my voice, “but don’t lie to me.”
I look over my shoulder to make sure Crew is still with Theo and Silas just before I feel a hand below my chin, urging me to turn back.
“Look at me,” Mateo offers, and the steadiness in his voice is refreshing. It’s like he’s allowing me a minute to not be the one holding it all together.
“Just feeling a little blue tonight,” I answer, deciding to go with a half-truth.
“Why?” He drops his hand to his side, and I immediately miss the warmth of his touch.
I try to find the words to explain how I feel without confessing something I don’t think I’m ready to even admit to myself.
Am I going to see you once Daddy is done singing?
I wrap my arms around myself. My skin feels prickly with vulnerability, like you can see right through me.
“It’s all almost over.” There’s a crack in my voice, and I don’t even know what the it I’m referring to is, but with the way Mateo is looking at me, it’s like he understands without me having to say.
There’s a soft smile on his face as he leans in a little closer. “I’d argue it’s only just begun.”
The stage lights go down, and Theo, Silas, and Eddie make their way on stage, and I reach my hand out instinctively, feeling Crew’s fingers in mine—finding each other in the darkness.
The three start a rendition of Cross My Heart’s opening song, and the crowd is going absolutely wild.
The closer this farewell tour gets to the end, the crazier the crowds get—like a growing crescendo to the bittersweet end.
I hear the beats leading up to Mateo’s cue as he tears his gaze from mine, turning to face the stage, his shoulders rising high with a deep breath before he exhales.
The music builds slowly, signaling Mateo's entrance.
He marches straight to the microphone stand set out just for him, the crowd somehow getting even louder as they make out his silhouette. The screams echo through the arena, thousands of voices rising to meet him before he's even sung a single word.
And then he does.
His voice pours through the speakers, wrapping around me from every direction.
Beside me, Crew immediately starts bouncing to the beat of Eddie's drums, his head tipping back as he sings along to lyrics he's heard a hundred times before—finally being able to sing all the words. I laugh despite myself, reaching out to steady him when his dancing gets a little too enthusiastic.
For the first time all day, the pressure in my chest eases.
The questions about what comes next. About Mateo.
About what he meant by it’s only just begun.
They don't disappear, but the music quiets them.
And standing here with Crew tucked against my side and Mateo's voice carrying through the arena, I let myself disappear into it.
Just for a little while.