CHAPTER 5 RED CARPET ILLUSIONS NORA #2
Wes squeezes my hand as his name is announced, pride radiating off him. I stand when he does. I clap when everyone else claps.
Onstage, he thanks everyone he's supposed to. The studio. The investors. The team.
Then he turns toward me.
"And of course," he says, smiling wide, "none of this would mean as much without the woman I love."
The room shifts. Cameras pivot. A murmur ripples through the audience.
"And I'm proud to say," he continues, "that she's agreed to spend her life with me."
Applause erupts.
I don't remember standing. I don't remember moving.
The heat of the lights. The sound crashing over me. My smile locks into place automatically.
I didn't say yes.
But I'm not stopping it either.
The moment carries me whether I want it to or not. Momentum is a powerful thing. It sweeps you along, convinces you that resistance is futile, that silence is the same as consent.
I keep smiling. My face is starting to ache from it.
By the time it's over, my head is pounding.
The room feels too small, the air too thick. Wes is basking, still shaking hands, already moving on to the next conversation, the next opportunity.
The reporter from before finds him and the two of them start chatting.
She's pretty in that effortless, expensive way—blonde hair that looks sun-kissed but probably cost a fortune, legs that go on forever in a dress that fits like it was sewn onto her body.
She has the kind of smile designed to disarm. The kind Wes responds to. I watch them for a moment, then realize I don't have it in me anymore.
Bone-deep, soul-tired exhaustion takes over.
The performance is done. My feet are actively plotting my murder in these heels.
My face hurts from smiling—I've basically been a human emoji for three hours straight.
And I've said "thank you" and "so surreal" and "I'm so grateful" so many times I'm starting to sound like a malfunctioning chatbot.
I need to leave.
Now.
Before I do something stupid like cry or scream or tell the truth.
So I do it without telling him.
I know he'll be furious just like I know I'll pay for it later.
But right now, staying feels impossible.
I try to make my exit as swift as possible, hauling a cab like I’ve done this escape multiple times. I press my forehead to the window, city lights streaking past. Tears burn behind my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall.
Mostly because I don't know why I want to cry right now.
"You okay, Miss?" the driver asks, glancing at me in the mirror.
"Debatable," I laugh.
The radio crackles, then voices fill the car—two hosts mid-conversation, that easy banter that comes from years of working together.
"—I'm telling you, Caleb, this guy is the real deal. Nate Sullivan. The industry's most sought-after producer right now and he's working with these young guns from The Row."
"You're not wrong, Jamie. The man's got an ear like nobody else. He finds talent, polishes it, makes magic happen. And he's not even thirty yet."
"Twenty-nine, I think? And get this—he doesn't do interviews. Like, ever. The guy's practically a ghost. But Rolling Stone finally got him to sit down, and let me tell you man, it's worth the read."
"Oh, I saw that. They asked him about his inspiration, didn't they?"
"Yeah, and instead of giving the usual answer, he goes quiet for a moment—apparently the interviewer said it was like watching him decide whether to open a door he'd kept locked for years. Then he says, 'There's someone. There's always been someone.'"
"That's it? That's all he said?"
"No, he kept going. Here, I’ve got it in front of me.
He said ‘some people exist like constants—like the way certain light only happens at certain times of day, or how some songs only make sense when you're driving with the windows down at midnight. She was like that. A frequency I couldn't tune out even if he wanted to.’”
My breath catches. My whole body goes cold.
"Damn. That's—"
"Poetic as hell, right? And when they pushed him—asked who she was, if she knew—he just smiled and said, 'She's the reason I understand what people mean when they talk about home.
' Wouldn't say her name. Wouldn't say if she even knows these songs are about her.
Just said that some loves don't need permission to exist. They just do. "
"Man, whoever she is, she's got no idea what she's missing."
"Or maybe she does. Maybe that's the tragedy."
"Heavy stuff. Anyway, here's The Row with 'Ghosts in the Rearview,' produced by the man himself—Nate Sullivan."
The song starts—raw, melodic, familiar in a way that makes my chest ache.
His name hits me like a bruise I forgot I had.
My hands are shaking. My vision blurs.
I just left my fiancé at an awards show. Walked out mid-ceremony because I couldn't breathe in that room anymore, couldn't pretend for one more second that my life feels anything close to real.
And now I'm in the back of a cab, listening to two strangers talk about Nate Sullivan like he's untouchable.
There's someone. There's always been someone.
A frequency he couldn't tune out.
The reason I understand what people mean when they talk about home.
The irony isn't lost on me—leaving one man only to be haunted by another. The one I thought I'd moved past. The one I told myself I was over.
Seven years.
Seven years since Málaga. Since I thought we were inevitable and then convinced myself we were impossible.
I lean forward, press my forehead against the cool glass of the window, and let the city lights blur into streaks of gold and red.
The driver glances at me in the rearview mirror.
"You sure you’re okay back there?"
I nod, even though I'm not because right now I'm fucking spiraling.
The song plays on, and I close my eyes.
And all I can think is: What have I done?
Sadness floods me first. Sharp and immediate, spreading through my ribs like something cracking open.
Then, unexpectedly, pride. Happiness. A strange, aching warmth that makes my throat tighten.
Because he did it.
He chased the thing he loved and made something real out of it. He didn't compromise. He didn't settle. He became exactly who he was supposed to be, and I can hear it in the music—his fingerprints all over it, the way he hears sound, the way he shapes it into something that feels alive.
Two truths coexist inside me, tangled and unresolved. Neither cancels the other out.
They just are.
"These kids are good," the driver says.
"They are," I agree softly.
When I get home, I kick off my heels and stand there for a moment, swallowed by the sheer size of the house and the emptiness that accompanies it.
My phone buzzes. Multiple missed calls from Wes. Three texts asking where I am. One telling me we'll "discuss this later."
I silence it and wander into the kitchen.
I open the pantry, fingers brushing past neatly labeled containers until I find the box Rosa, who keeps the house running, hid for me.
Coco Puffs.
I pour milk into a mug, cereal clinking loudly in the quiet room, and climb onto the counter, dress pooling around me.
I eat slowly, deliberately, remembering being small. Sitting in a kitchen at two in the morning with my dad, laughing about nothing while trying to stay quiet so Mom wouldn't wake up and catch us.
I shouldn't, but I pull out my phone and google Nate Sullivan, trying to find the rest of the Rolling stone article.
The results flood the screen and I start to go down a rabbit hole.
Billboard profiles. Variety calling him "the producer redefining modern sound."
There are photos of him in studios, headphones slung around his neck, that familiar concentrated look on his face—the one he'd get when he was working on something and the rest of the world disappeared.
Articles about the artists he's worked with, the records he's produced, the Grammy nominations.
And then, buried a few scrolls down, the piece about the studio he built in Eden.
Meridian Studios.
State-of-the-art equipment. Floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake. A space he designed himself.
Right after he came back from rehab. Ollie mentioned it casually, the way you mention something you assume the other person already knows.
"Did you hear Nate opened that studio? The one he always talked about building."
And I'd nodded, said something vague, then gone home and typed his name into the search bar just once.
I'd looked at the photos of the studio—the exposed beams, the vintage equipment, the vinyl collection lining the walls—and felt the same sharp, contradictory ache I'm feeling now.
Pride and loss. Happiness and anger.
I'd closed the browser and promised myself I wouldn't do it again.
Not since that one time three years ago.
Until tonight.
The familiar ache returns—anger and joy wrapped together, inseparable.
I take another bite, staring out into the empty kitchen, and let myself sit in the truth of it.
I have everything I thought I wanted.
And somehow, it feels like I'm living someone else's life—a version of me that learned to stop asking for what she actually needs.