Chapter 27
Charlie
The final note hangs in the air like a held breath.
Thirty thousand people crammed into this stadium. Thirty thousand strangers who came here tonight not knowing what to expect. Not knowing if the rumors were true. Not knowing if the woman on stage would be the sweetheart they remembered or the scandal they’d just read about.
For two hours, I gave them everything I had. Every song, every dance, every ounce of energy in my body. I didn’t hold back. I didn’t perform a carefully curated version of myself. I just…was. Messy and imperfect and completely, terrifyingly passionate.
And now there’s a moment of silence. A brief clarity as I stare out into the sea of spotlights. I zero in on the magnitude of it all.
One heartbeat. Two.
Then the world explodes.
The roar hits me like a physical force—a wall of sound that vibrates through my chest and steals the breath from my lungs.
A buffalo herd of people on their feet, screaming, clapping, crying.
The noise is so loud it becomes its own kind of silence, a white-hot rush of approval that drowns out everything else.
I stand center stage, chest heaving, sweat dripping down my temples, and I let it wash over me. The lights. The sound. The overwhelming, impossible love pouring from every corner of this arena.
They showed up. Despite everything. Despite Grayson’s poison and the tabloid headlines and the internet’s cruelty. They showed up, and they stayed, and now they’re on their feet telling me it was worth it.
I wasn’t sure this would happen. In that bathtub this morning, running disaster simulations, I imagined a hundred different versions of tonight.
Hecklers drowning out my vocals. Signs with cruel messages held up in the crowd.
A cold, polite reception that would confirm every fear I’ve ever had about being unlovable once people saw the real me.
Instead, I got this.
My dancers surround me, faces split with matching grins.
Mia grabs my hand, squeezing hard, tears streaming down her cheeks.
Kenny pulls me into a sweaty side hug, laughing into my ear.
The backup vocalists are bouncing, high-fiving each other, basking in the glow of what we just accomplished together.
It was our best show yet. Not because the choreography was flawless or the vocals were pitch-perfect—though they were, they really were—but because something shifted tonight.
Some invisible barrier between me and the audience crumbled, and for the first time in my career, I wasn’t performing at them. I was sharing with them.
That’s what Taio’s note said. Today’s selection from my box of paper hearts.
You’re not performing for them. You’re sharing yourself with them. There’s a difference.
He was right. He’s always right.
I turn toward the wings, searching through the chaos of stagehands and crew members until I find him.
He’s standing just offstage, exactly where he promised he’d be, and he’s cheering harder than anyone here.
His hands are cupped around his mouth, amplifying his voice, and even though I can’t hear the specific words over the roar of the crowd, I can read his lips.
That’s my girl.
My heart splits wide open, raw and real and unstoppable.
My feet are moving before I make the conscious decision.
I’m running across the stage toward the wings, my heels abandoned somewhere near the drum kit, my bare feet slapping against the smooth surface of the stage.
The crowd’s cheers shift, confused, curious, as they watch me sprint toward the shadows.
Taio’s eyes go wide when he realizes what I’m doing. He shakes his head, holds up his hands, mouths something that looks like Charlie, don’t—but I’m already there, my fingers closing around his wrist, and I’m pulling him into the light.
He resists for exactly half a second. Then he lets me lead him, stumbling slightly, onto the stage.
The jumbotron catches us immediately. Our faces, twenty feet tall, projected onto screens throughout the arena.
Taio freezes in the spotlight, his shoulders hunched toward his ears, hands dangling awkwardly at his sides like they’ve suddenly grown too heavy for his arms—a deer caught not just in headlights but in the collective gaze of thirty thousand pairs of eyes.
But while he’s nervous, I’ve never been more sure and confident in my life.
I reach up, cup his face in my palms, and I kiss him. PG-style.
It’s not a long kiss. It’s not a passionate, movie-style declaration. It’s soft and sweet and simple—a press of lips that says everything I’ve been too scared to say out loud. I choose you. In front of everyone. No more hiding.
The crowd loses its damn mind.
The noise is somehow even louder than before—a tsunami of screams and whistles and stomping feet that shakes the stage beneath us. I pull back from the kiss and look up at Taio, and his expression has shifted from terror to wonder, like he can’t quite believe this is really happening.
“Hi,” I say, though he can’t possibly hear me over the chaos.
“Hi,” he mouths back. Then, quieter, just for me: “You’re unhinged.”
“You love it.”
“I love you.”
The words hit different when they’re said on a stage in front of thousands of witnesses. They hit like a promise. Like a vow. Like the beginning of something that can’t be taken back.
I grab his hand—properly this time, fingers interlaced, the way we hold hands behind closed doors—and I turn us both to face the crowd.
The jumbotron shows our clasped hands, zoomed in, undeniable.
There’s no spinning this. No PR strategy that could explain it away. This is exactly what it looks like.
Charlie Riley, making a choice. Me, claiming Taio publicly, permanently, in front of the whole world.
The cheers don’t stop. If anything, they intensify. I scan the audience, looking for the anger I was so afraid of, the judgment, the disappointment. But all I see are smiles. Phones held high, capturing this moment. Hands waving, tears flowing, voices screaming their approval.
They’re happy for me.
These strangers who don’t know anything about my life except what they’ve read in headlines—they’re happy for me.
I didn’t need this. That’s the thing I understand now, standing here with Taio’s hand in mine and the love of my fans washing over us.
I didn’t need their approval to make my choice.
I would have chosen him anyway even against the advice of every publicist and manager and well-meaning friend.
I would have chosen him even if the world hated me for it.
But God, it’s nice to know they don’t.
It’s nice to know that authenticity doesn’t have to mean isolation.
That being real doesn’t automatically mean being rejected.
That somewhere out there, in the masses of people who have the privilege of living simple lives with beautiful, simple things, are still those who cheer me on through my chaotic, public, messy, complicated… but beautiful life.
And at the end of the day, they’re rooting for joy. Theirs. Mine. We just need more of it, as much as we can get.
My mom would have loved this. She would have cried, probably. Squeezed my hand too hard and told me how much she loved me. Maybe…I was enough. Me and Spencer. Maybe that big, magical love I thought she missed was there all along. Through her daughters, who keep her memory alive every day.
I hope you’re watching, Mom. I love you.
Taio squeezes my hand, pulling me back to the present. The crowd is still cheering, still celebrating, but the energy is shifting—softening into something warmer, more sustained. They’re not just excited anymore. They’re witnessing something. They know it, and we know it.
I lean into Taio’s side, resting my head against his shoulder for just a moment. Tomorrow there will be headlines. Tomorrow there will be think pieces and Twitter discourse and probably a very long conversation with Sage about “re-managing the narrative.” Tomorrow, everything changes.
But tonight, I’m just a girl on a stage, holding the hand of the man she loves, finally free.
“Thank you, Atlanta!” I shout into the microphone, my voice cracking with emotion. “Thank you for being here. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for…” I look at Taio, and he’s looking back at me with so much love it makes my chest hurt. “Thank you for letting me share the best pieces of me.”
The cheers swell one final time as we walk offstage together. Hand in hand. Out of the spotlight, into the shadows, toward whatever comes next.
I spent my whole life performing. Pretending to be someone I wasn’t. Hiding the messy, complicated truth behind a practiced smile and a perfect image.
But the best performance of my career was the one where I stopped performing altogether.
The one where I just let myself be loved.