Chapter 50
The second leg of the tour didn’t feel like survival anymore. It felt like movement, forward, steady, alive. Me.
Everywhere I went, there were faces. Crowds spilling into hallways, laughter threading through the air before events even began.
People carried my book as if it were something breakable.
Dog-eared pages, underlined sentences, sticky notes flagging favourite lines.
They came to tell me about themselves, about what the story had cracked open.
In Ottawa, a woman in her sixties stood trembling as she told me she’d finally left a man who’d been dimming her light for thirty years.
In Chicago, a teenager whispered that she’d started therapy because of a line she’d highlighted in chapter nine.
In Detroit, a man came through with a copy worn so soft the cover bent backward, saying, “You helped my wife forgive herself.”
Every story left fingerprints. Each one stacked inside me until I could feel them like bricks, the foundation of something steadier than I’d ever had before.
Somewhere between Toronto and Boston, I realized I’d stopped feeling like an imposter. I wasn’t “the girl who wrote about her pain as a form of therapy” anymore. I was an author, one who’d given a voice to something people had been too afraid to name.
Marin stayed close as the venues grew, always half a step behind me, eyes sharp.
The publisher had added extra security, which I didn’t argue with.
Men in polos by the stage doors, another pacing the corridor.
It was a precaution, they said. I knew it was more than that, but it didn’t scare me the way it used to.
“This is just routine,” one handler chirped in Chicago. “Biggest crowds yet! Great problem to have, Ms. Morgan.”
I smiled, nodded, and thought: Yeah, it is.
Because this was it, I was doing it. Living my dream.
Brody texted me every morning before I was even out of bed. Proud of you. You looked amazing on that livestream. You’re doing it, Cass.
Sometimes he sent photos, our maple tree turning a candy apple red, him and his dad in a field, the sun shining on dirt-streaked brows, but genuine happiness shone through the photo. Once, a picture of Jackson holding up a construction-paper heart that said Come home soon, Aunt Cass.
He called when he could, voice warm and rough, always ending with “I love you.”
When I forgot to eat, which happened more than I wanted to admit.
.. apparently, you had to pause from girlbossing too hard to eat, Marin’s phone would buzz with a message I knew was coming from Brody, again.
Checking in. Has she eaten? Water? And within the hour, a knock would sound.
Room service, or sometimes a courier with take-out from one of my favourite spots.
In Ottawa, it was pho. In Halifax, a lobster roll from the café I’d gone to once with Clara and Mason and told him I had been craving but didn't know if I would have time to get to. He always picked right.
He didn’t hover; he anchored. He took care of me even from afar.
The messages from home poured in, too.
A selfie from Mom, surrounded by the book-club ladies at the local store, my novel in all their hands and pride in every wrinkle around their eyes.
A video from Clara’s café, she’d added a little shelf by the counter. My book lined up beside the muffins, a tiny chalkboard above it reading Local Author — We’re so proud of you!
A text from Dad that just said, Your mother has a case of your books that she keeps in her car. She has been leaving them in those little outdoor libraries, and there may be a copy in every waiting room in town.
It all felt… solid. Like I’d built something real, and it was holding me now.
The schedule was relentless, but it no longer drained me. It fueled me. The signings blurred into cities, the hotel rooms into numbers, but the people, they stayed. I listened to their stories until my throat ached, laughed until I forgot the cameras.
Marin’s voice crackled in my earpiece one night. “Hydrate, Cass,” she said, her dry humour sliding through the static. “And please remember dinner is not coffee and whatever catches your eye at the vending machine.”
I laughed, tipped my head back against the greenroom wall, and took a long drink of water. The bottle was cold against my palm. “You sound like Brody.”
“He’s rubbing off on me.”
“He’d say the same about you,” I teased.
Marin’s chuckle faded into focus as the handler appeared at the door, holding up three fingers. “You’re on in three.”
I smoothed my dress, careful not to pull at the mic clipped to my collar.
The stage lights rose like a sunrise.
It was always loud at first: applause, camera flashes, the hum of energy that used to make me want to hide. But now it felt like warmth, not threat.
I stepped up to the podium, the book heavy in my hands in a way that felt like purpose.
I read a passage about choosing yourself, the line that had become the one readers quoted back to me the most: “You don’t heal by pretending it didn’t happen. You heal by writing your truth into existence and saying it out loud until it stops hurting.”
When I looked up, people were crying. Not sad tears, recognition tears. Relief.
And for the first time, I didn’t feel exposed. I felt seen.
The “watched” feeling still followed me from venue to venue, an itch at the base of my neck, a whisper of footsteps that never quite lined up.
But instead of letting it choke me, I let it pass through.
Maybe it was nerves. Maybe it was ghosts.
Maybe it was the part of me that still didn’t believe peace could last.
Either way, I refused to flinch.
After one of the bigger events, I sat on the floor of my hotel room, hair still pinned perfectly, shoes kicked off, laptop open to an empty document.
My new tour assistant looked like she was going to fall asleep on the couch hours ago, so Marin had shuffled her out, and they went to their rooms. The world was quiet for once, and it felt nice.
I wrote for the first time in weeks.
Not for press, not for anyone else, just me.
The words poured out raw and imperfect, about second chances, about how love doesn’t erase pain but makes it livable. About how sometimes choosing yourself doesn’t mean walking away but walking toward the people who love you enough to wait while you find your footing.
It wasn’t a chapter yet. It wasn’t anything. But it felt like the start of something new.
The next morning, I woke to my phone buzzing.
Brody: Good morning, beautiful. I am so proud of you!.
Attached was a photo of my favourite breakfast sandwich, the kind from the bakery two towns over.
Five minutes later, there was a knock at the door. A delivery guy smiled and handed me a package.
I smiled widely because inside the bag was that exact sandwich.
I laughed until I cried, texting him a picture of it half-eaten.
Me: You’re ridiculous.
Brody: You love it.
Me: I do.
I ate every bite.
By the time the tour looped West again, I was no longer counting the days until I could go home. I missed Brody, yes. But for the first time, I wasn’t trying to outrun my own life.
Marin noticed.
“You seem lighter,” she said one night as we waited backstage.
“I am.” I smiled. “I think I finally believe this is mine, all of it. The words, the readers, the noise. I don’t feel like I have to apologize for it anymore.”
Marin’s answering grin was small and proud. “Took you long enough.”
Before every show, the handlers now had a ritual. They'd lead with a joke, then a quick reminder or note about something I needed to know, then the question: “You ready, Cassidy?”
And today, for the very first time, I smiled widely and answered, “I was born ready for this.”
It wasn’t arrogance. It was truth.
Someone had tried to silence me once.
Now I was louder than ever.
When I stepped onto the stage, I let myself absorb it all, the lights washing over me, the applause building, the wide eyes and tear-streaked cheeks.
I thought about the long road between who I’d been and who I was now.
The lies. The fear. The courtroom. The nights I’d curled around myself and didn't see a way out.
And now: this.
A crowd of strangers who weren’t really strangers at all.
A family back home who loved me fiercely.
A man who’d made sure I never went hungry, not for food, not for love, not for belief.
I smiled into the mic, feeling the weight of everything I’d built.
“Hi,” I said, voice steady, full. “I’m Cassidy Morgan. Thank you for being here. Tonight, we’re going to talk about what it means to choose yourself.”
The lights warmed my skin. The applause rose again, a wave I didn’t brace against this time.
I stepped into it, arms wide, ready.