46. Chapter 46
Chapter forty-six
JUDE GRAVES
The sound of the ocean doesn’t fully reach us back here behind the stage. Cables and black curtains separate us from the thousands of people waiting out there. Our first show since I reconnected with Emma.
I roll my shoulders once, then again, like I can physically loosen something that has nothing to do with muscle and everything to do with memory.
But it doesn’t matter how many times I try because my body still remembers how to brace for impact even when there’s no one here trying to hurt me anymore.
I don’t know if that will ever fully leave me.
Back when I announced this show, I was happy to see how many supporters we still had out there.
Finnick is across from me, tightening his guitar strap, and Kami is pacing in a small loop near the equipment cases, bouncing lightly on her toes with excitement like she always does before a show. Micah stands just behind me.
He taps my shoulder once. “You good?” he asks.
The question has a different meaning than it used to, because “good” used to mean something I could fake with a smile and whatever substance I could get my hands on. But now it means something I don’t yet have words for. So I nod.
“Yeah, man,” I answer quietly, and after a pause. “I think so.”
Micah studies me for a second, and then he exhales. “Good enough,” he says simply, patting me on the shoulder. “Our girls are out there. It will be Heather’s first time really seeing me in action. So I have to impress her.” He expertly twirls a drumstick between his fingers, and I roll my eyes.
I then realize that it will be Emma’s first time seeing me perform as a free man.
Kami steps in suddenly, wrapping her arms around me in a tight hold that surprises me. “You’re gonna be amazing,” she whispers. When I look down at her, I see tears forming in her bright blue eyes. Sharp black wings outline them, and her blood-red hair is tied in a thick, high ponytail.
I let out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. “We’ll see.”
Finnick snorts from the side without looking up, throwing his ever-growing dirty blonde hair into a small bun. “That is the least reassuring thing you could’ve possibly said before a show, dude.”
And for a second, the ball of anxiety in my chest loosens.
It suddenly feels like old times, with my band surrounding me.
My best friends for the last few years. I look down at my hands, and the glint of several of my silver rings on my fingers grounds me for a moment. And then I glance out past the curtain.
I see Emma before she sees me, just a glimpse at first, standing in the front row already with Heather.
Rafe and Adela are positioned beside them as well.
My girl looks different now, her dark hair falling loose against her shoulders, and when her eyes find mine across the chaos of the crowd and stage lights, it feels like everything else falls away.
She smiles, and it tightens my chest so sharply I have to look away just to keep fucking breathing.
Micah nudges my elbow. “Time,” he says softly.
“Ready, boys?” Kami asks, slinging her bass guitar over her shoulder.
I nod, adjusting my own. And then we’re moving.
The moment I step out, the world breaks open into sound. It’s a living, roaring wave of noise that hits us hard. For a second, I’m suspended between who I was and who I’m trying to be.
Lights explode over thousands of faces, and somewhere in that overwhelming expanse, I hear my name being called. Finnick starts the opening beat, Kami follows, Micah locks in behind us as our steady heartbeat.
We’re Dissonance again.
We are who we were always meant to be at this moment. Though a horrible person might have brought us together, our bond will forever live on, even after his death. I glance at them all, offering the purest smile I can before finally turning away.
The first song hits, and the crowd responds immediately, voices rising in waves, and I can see them already singing back parts they know.
Emma, Heather, and Adela are all singing along with their entire chests.
I don’t look at my girl too long. If I do, I’ll fall apart.
But I see her anyway. I always do. Between verses, I catch fragments of her.
We move through songs like memory stitched into sound, older tracks that once felt like escape and now feel like reclamation, songs rebuilt from something that was once broken, and with each one, the crowd becomes less like an audience and more like a shared pulse.
It’s like everyone here has decided to feel everything at once instead of holding anything back.
True fans who have loved us from the beginning, who have sung our lyrics through all the ups and downs of their lives.
What a beautiful, humbling thing.
Then everything shifts after our fourth song when I point to the right side of the stage.
Alexandra Norton, the ethereal vocalist behind Echos, steps into place beside me, her presence immediately changing the atmosphere. Her black hair cascades over her shoulders, her bright blue eyes reflecting the lights above.
My heart swells the moment the first notes of “Shadow of the Day” drift out across the coastline, because suddenly the concert no longer feels like a concert at all. It feels like grief unfolding publicly beneath the stars. Just how I wanted it to be.
I stand there for a second with my hand wrapped tightly around the microphone, sweat cooling against the back of my neck while ocean wind moves through my hair and carries salt air across the stage, and all at once, I’m hit with the overwhelming realization that so many people here understand exactly why this song matters to me.
“Echos will join me in singing her cover of ‘Shadow of the Day’ by Linkin Park, honoring the late Chester Bennington and the beautiful souls who…who’ve left us far too soon.”
Alexandra smiles sweetly at me, and Kami goes to stand beside her.
“As well as our final song of the evening. It is one that I wrote.” I pause, swallowing past the lump in my throat. “You all know what I’ve been through,” I say, my voice rougher now.
The venue falls completely silent.
“This industry can be amazing,” I continue carefully. “But sometimes people take advantage of dreamers. Artists. Those who just wanted to create something beautiful.” I swallow once.
My lungs suddenly refuse to fully expand.
“But tonight isn’t about what happened to me.” I glance back briefly toward my band. Toward my family. “It’s about the people who stayed.”
Emotion flashes across Micah’s face instantly.
I force myself to continue. “And the people who didn’t.”
The silence that follows feels enormous. And somewhere beyond the stage lights and stars and endless ocean dark, I swear it feels like every lost soul is listening too.
And then the music begins. And everything after that becomes something larger than any of us alone.
Echos steps closer beside me then, and when she begins singing with that hauntingly intimate voice of hers, something inside my chest opens.
Kami joins quietly into her harmony while Finnick’s guitar vibrates through the speakers.
And behind me, Micah taps the drums in a slow, steady rhythm.
The crowd starts singing before we even reach the chorus.
Not loudly at first, and not in the chaotic way crowds usually scream lyrics at concerts, but softly.
Thousands of voices blend together beneath the stars as more and more lights rise into the air, until the entire amphitheater begins glowing against the darkness, stretching all the way to the cliffs overlooking the ocean.
And standing there in the middle of it, I suddenly remember being twenty-one years old and listening to this song alone in dark hotel rooms while high enough not to feel myself falling apart.
Back then, people already thought I had everything.
Fame. Money. Fans screaming my name every night.
But I remember staring at ceilings while the world slept around me and feeling this terrible hollow ache inside my chest. Because no matter how successful I became, I couldn’t stop the feeling that something inside me was slowly dying anyway.
The chorus tears from our lungs in an epic symphony of love and loss.
There were nights I genuinely believed I wouldn’t survive long enough to fix things with my parents and sister. Or ever see Emma again. Nights where heroin felt easier than memory. Where the music was the only thing that kept me alive long enough to make it to morning.
And now somehow I’m standing here sober with the people I love still while thousands of strangers sing beside us like they understand exactly what that shit feels like. The realization nearly brings me to my knees.
Emma is crying while Heather clings tightly to her side, tears running down her face, too. And behind them, Rafe’s arms are wrapped around Adela from behind, his chin resting near her temple while she watches us.
I close my eyes for a moment while singing, and instantly, faces begin moving through my mind like ghosts.
Those I’ve hurt. Those I’ve killed. Those who have taken pieces of my godforsaken soul that I will never get back.
Every exhausted artist I’ve ever met trying desperately to survive an industry that fed on vulnerability and turned their pain into profit.
Kids who arrived with dreams bright enough to light entire rooms before someone crueler came along and convinced them they were only valuable if they bled beautifully for other people.
Some of them survived. Some didn’t.
Emotion climbs so fast through my chest that I physically have to pull slightly away from the microphone just to steady my breathing. But before the silence can settle, the crowd carries the next lines for us gently while Echos’s harmony wraps around the song.
Maybe they realize I need help holding it.