chapter thirteen
Willa
Burlington, Vermont was the kind of place Willa usually loved.
It had a vibe and rhythm she understood.
It was slower, and quieter, and felt more—thoughtful.
It was comforting. Coffee shops nestled inside converted row houses.
Mismatched windows filled with pressed flowers and handmade pottery.
A bookstore that doubled as a wine bar where the books were alphabetized by mood instead of title.
And the pride flags—weathered, faded, still flying like they’d always belonged there.
Not performative, just present. It should have calmed her.
Normally it would have. But she didn’t feel steady.
Not in a way she usually did in a place like this.
It was a cold day; she loved the cold. She sat by the window in her hotel room—legs curled beneath her, the view outside like a winter postcard as a light snow fell.
Her coffee sat cooling on the side table, untouched.
Her notebook was open in her lap, but the page was mostly untouched.
Just a few loops of handwriting, hesitant and trailing off.
A few lines crossed-out, a few words circled like maybe if she kept going back to them, they’d open into meaning.
She hadn’t worked on the article in a few days.
She was avoiding it. Instead, her pen moved in slow, looping cursive across the page, not chasing a thought so much as circling around one she didn’t want to name.
But it didn’t work. Because she was unsettled.
Everything was too loud inside. Because all she could think about was Frankie. Again.
Not the glitter and lipstick and stage-lights version—not the cheeky comments or the chaotic social-media presence.
The other Frankie. The one from dinner, when it was just the two of them.
The girl she’d sat with in that green room two nights ago, talking about her Mimi with a voice that had gone small, cracked at the edges.
Then she’d fallen quiet halfway through her sentence and hadn’t tried to fill the silence.
She didn’t have to. She trusted Willa to understand without asking again.
That version of Frankie had hit her somewhere soft. Somewhere Willa hadn’t let anyone close to in a very long time. And she hated that.
Hated how she’d felt it in her chest for hours after. Hated how she still heard Frankie’s voice every time she closed her eyes. Hated that she’d woken up this morning and immediately thought, I wonder if she slept.
She flipped to a fresh page in her journal and wrote the words before she had a chance to overthink them.
She’s softer than I thought she’d be. Rough around the edges, sure. But beneath the noise, there’s something else. And I keep finding myself wanting to look for it.
She tapped the pen against the paper, staring at the sentence like it betrayed her.
Then, in the margin, she scribbled one of Frankie’s lyrics from the night before. It hadn’t even been in the official set list. A surprise addition. Frankie had played it stripped down—just her and her guitar, no backup vocals, no layered production. It had landed like a gut punch.
“I wasn’t born soft, but you sang me into silk.”
Willa exhaled hard, dropping her pen, closing her eyes for a second. She wasn’t sure what was more dangerous, the fact that Frankie had written a line like that—or the fact that it made her feel seen in a way she hadn’t expected and definitely didn’t ask for.
Her phone buzzed.
Kara: We’re grabbing drinks at a local queer bar after the show. Just darts and cocktails. You’re welcome to come—no press stuff, just chill.
Willa stared at the message for a long moment.
Just chill. Like it was something she knew how to do.
Like it wasn’t a trap. Like it didn’t come wrapped in risk and implication.
She could already picture the group crowded around a bar table—Frankie laughing too loudly, probably leaning in too close, smelling like stage sweat and vanilla and chaos.
Looking at her like she’d caught her off guard. Again.
Willa hovered her thumb over the keyboard, then typed.
Willa: Thanks. I’ll think about it.
She didn’t press send right away, but she didn’t delete it either.
Instead, she set her phone down, leaned her forehead against the window glass, and watched the snow fall.
Everything about Frankie Monroe was unexpected.
And Willa was starting to realize—she wasn’t just covering this story. She was in it.
* * *
Frankie
Frankie stared into the mirror, eyeliner pencil hovering midair like her hand had forgotten what to do with it. The light was soft, golden, the kind she usually loved for pre-show glam. But tonight, it felt harsh. Exposing. She wasn’t even sure why she was bothering.
Her outfit was solid—black jeans, a sports bra, denim jacket with rainbow fringe on the arms—she always got compliments on it.
Her hair had cooperated, her curls in all the right places without the usual battle.
She had her set list, her vocal warm-ups were done, and Kara had just confirmed they were sold out.
She had everything she needed. So why did she feel like she was coming apart at the seams?
She drew a shaky line under one eye, smudged it with her thumb, and immediately regretted it. Wiped it off. Tried again. Her reflection blinked back at her—tired, restless, wide-eyed in a way that didn’t feel performative. It felt… personal. Exposed.
It wasn’t the show. It was her. It was Willa.
Frankie dropped her hand, eyeliner clattering to the counter.
She gripped the edge of the vanity, breathing slow, trying not to spiral.
She’d done a thousand interviews before.
Some bad, some boring, some way too weird.
She’d talked to journalists who treated her like a product and others who wanted to dissect her like a poem they didn’t quite get.
She’d played the game, turned on the charm, made herself easy to quote. But none of them stuck like this one.
None of them made her feel so…cracked open.
And maybe it wasn’t even what Willa had asked—it was what she hadn’t.
It was the silence, the restraint. The way she had reached across the table, hand warm on hers and simply said, It’s okay, like she wasn’t trying to pull something out of her.
Like she was just offering space. Permission.
Frankie wasn’t used to that. She was used to fighting to be understood. Used to being too loud, too much, or too easy to flatten into a headline.
Willa hadn’t tried to define her. She just—saw her. And that rattled her.
“She respected it,” Frankie said quietly, almost without realizing. Across the dressing room, Kara looked up from her laptop. “What’s that?”
Frankie blinked. “The interview, Willa, she didn’t push. She said it was off the record.”
Kara tilted her head, “And that’s… still what you’re thinking about?”
Frankie turned sharply, “I am not.”
“You are,” Kara said, smirking as she stood to grab a bottle of water. “So, clearly, you don’t care at all.”
Frankie narrowed her eyes and chucked a towel at her, which Kara caught one-handed without flinching.
“Okay, fine,” Frankie muttered, turning back to the mirror. “She’s in my head a little.”
“A little?”
Frankie didn’t answer.
She reapplied the eyeliner, slowly this time. More careful. And when she met her reflection again, she saw it—the truth in her own face. She didn’t just want to feel seen. She wanted to be. And that realization scared her more than anything.
* * *
Willa
The show that night was transcendent.
Willa stood in front of the barricade—her usual spot—camera slung around her neck more as a formality than anything else.
She had to remind herself to actually use it.
To take the damn photos. To do her job. But it was hard, because every time she saw Frankie perform, she got pulled under like the tide.
Show Four.
And it was different. Again.
Different from P-town, Portland and Boston.
Different from soundcheck. Different from the night before.
Frankie didn’t repeat herself. She reinvented.
Rewired. Made something new every time she stepped up to the mic, and Willa found herself cataloging not just the notes and lyrics, but the shifts—the way Frankie lingered on certain phrases, the new edges in her tone, the smirk that had curled her mouth tonight when she’d caught a fan singing along loud and off-key. It was all part of it. All part of her.
And damn it—Willa actually liked the songs. Not just liked. Loved. She didn’t want to, not really, but the lyrics were good. The kind that crawled under your skin and stayed there. The kind that said more in one verse than most people said in a paragraph.
Frankie Monroe was good.
The lighting bathed the stage in pink and purple, and Willa adjusted her lens, snapping a few wide shots—Frankie in the middle, Malik backlit in motion, Juno leaning low over the synths.
She took a close-up as Frankie leaned into the mic, curls sticking to her neck with sweat, mouth open mid-lyric, eyes shut.
There was something so raw about it. So unguarded.
And Willa felt it—that little internal flinch. That pull.
She lowered the camera.
Just watched.
Frankie’s shirt clung to her chest, that vintage graphic worn to softness, the leather jacket long gone.
Her jeans were ripped, one knee poking through, and she moved with this magnetic recklessness, like the music came from inside her bones.
She shouted, “thank you, Burlington!” between songs and grinned crookedly when the crowd screamed her name.
Then—midway through the second-to-last song—Frankie’s gaze flicked downward. Met Willa’s.
And held.
The second stretched.
Willa’s chest fluttered. She didn’t move. Didn’t blink. She felt suddenly visible in a way she didn’t expect.
Then Frankie smiled. Small. Crooked. The kind of smile that said I see you.