Chapter 18
Hannah
I’m drawing thick circles of black liner around my eyes, minutes away from getting onstage at the Dolby Live, when Ginny walks into my dressing room. She watches me in the mirror.
“You ready?” I smudge the liner so it’s messier. “You always wanted to do Vegas the right way, remember? Here we are.”
Ginny studies me. Her voice is uncharacteristically grave. “It’s radiating off you.”
I drop the eyeliner. “What is?”
“Rage.”
I look back at my darkened eyes in the mirror. This time, the liner looks like a warning.
“Hannah.” Ginny’s voice is quiet. “Why are you keeping me tethered here?”
My heart races. I turn around to face her. “Why would you ask that?”
“What is it that you want?”
The liner pencil rolls off the vanity and drops at my feet, but I don’t move.
There was a time when I could’ve answered Ginny’s question a million different ways.
I had so much I wanted. Ambition burned bright in me to create music that moved people, to prove I had talent.
The sheer magnitude of my wanting compelled me to write endlessly, to go on tour after tour, to practice until my calloused hands bled.
To sustain that kind of wanting requires something powerful inside you.
If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that the odds of becoming a successful musician were slim, I’d be rich.
My parents, teachers, friends. Even other musicians told me.
Getting up every day and trying anyway, against all that logic, required me to believe in my core that I was right, not them, that I did have a shot.
It required faith. Unreasonable and illogical faith.
And that faith and wanting hasn’t disappeared from my life.
It’s just refocused on my sister. How does she not understand that what I want is her?
Bowie pops his head into the dressing room, startling me. “Hannah? It’s time to go.”
I clear my throat and walk into the hall, Ginny hot on my heels.
Bowie’s hand on my elbow directs me through the maze of the Theater’s backstage, and I try not to think about the way Theo led me by the elbow out of the Caesars pool.
Ginny’s eyes burn into the back of my head, still waiting for me to answer her question.
“Crowd’s massive,” Bowie says, as we sidestep members of the crew. “There was a surge in ticket sales after the, um—” He clears his throat. “TMZ live stream. So we’re pretty close to capacity.”
I laugh, loud and wheezy. “Really? My irresponsible behavior sold tickets? You know what, can you tell one of the techs to send Roger Braverman some flowers from me? Tell them to write, You’re welcome for the ticket sales. Love, Hannah.”
Bowie lets out a nervous, high-pitched laugh I recognize from our college days, when we’d try to convince him to come skinny-dipping with us. “Whatever you say, boss.” In a lower voice, he says, “I’m just glad you didn’t get hurt.”
I sigh. “Et tu, Brute?”
“Hannah Cortland. Just the woman I wanted to see.” A tall, beefy guy with bleached blond hair and a perma-tan saunters out of an office.
As we pass it, I glance at the title etched into the glass door: “Dillon Diehard, Talent Booker.” There’s no way that’s this guy’s real name. The T-shirt he’s wearing—merch from a metal band famous for being assholes—tells me he and I are probably not going to be fast friends.
“Mr. Diehard,” Bowie says, shaking his hand. “It’s an honor. Please, walk with us.”
Diehard hustles to keep up. “I’ve listened to your back catalog, you know.”
I arch a brow. “Thanks.”
“Pretty happy-go-lucky stuff. Not really my taste, to be honest. I like it harder. But you guys are selling tickets, so I figured I should book you.”
Bowie sputters—talent bookers are usually fawners, not assholes—but I don’t take the bait.
“Look,” Diehard says, “I know you asked for barricades to help control the crowd. But do you really think you need them?” He chuckles. “You may be dipping your toe into heavier stuff lately, but you’re still an easy, breezy, chick-led rock band—”
I stop. I know his type: metal bros who think anyone who isn’t screaming into the mic isn’t making real music.
Women never seem to make the cut either.
Part of how I’ve shaped myself as a musician has been to defend against this kind of thinking.
Women don’t get far in rock without being twice as hard as every guy who wants to knock us down, every John Mayer–type virtuoso who wants to prove guys are inherently better musicians, every emo douche who insists you’re not one of them because you don’t sing about the important things, like how no girls wanted to fuck you in high school.
Diehard’s still going strong. “I mean, it’s not like you’re going to bring down the rafters. I’m more worried about you falling off the stage. It’s higher and bigger than you’re used to, and I know you don’t have the best track record staying upright. So no drama tonight, please.”
We’re close to the stage entrance now, and I can hear the crowd. They’re so loud it sends a shiver of anticipation up my spine.
“You were always at your best when it came time to fight,” Ginny says quietly.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” I tell Diehard. “I’ll be on my best behavior.”
He raises his eyebrows like he doesn’t believe me, but luckily Kenny strides up, Ripper in tow. They breeze right past Ginny, nearly ruffling her hair. “Time for our ritual.”
“Break a leg,” Diehard tells us, and saunters off.
Ripper eyes me. “What’s that guy’s deal?”
“Don’t worry about it.” I point at his bare chest. “Not even going to bother with a shirt tonight?”
He shrugs. “Figured I’d cut to the chase. Give the people what they want.”
Onstage, the lights flash, getting the audience hyped. It’s amazing the amount of noise two thousand people can make.
Kenny takes my hand and holds up his other until Ripper sighs and grabs it. The three of us stand in a quiet circle. The calm before the storm.
“I ask the rock gods to bless us tonight,” Kenny intones. “Allow us to tap into the infinite collective and draw out our best performances.” Ginny stands outside our circle, watching. She belongs in here, sandwiched between me and Ripper. Her absence is a gaping hole.
“Amen,” Ripper says.
“Amen,” I echo, dropping their hands.
“You good?” Kenny rests his hand on my shoulder. Theo, Bowie, now Kenny. All this gentle touching, these careful questions. The people around me keep treating me like I’m made of porcelain.
As if on cue, Theo rounds the corner, in conversation with Bran-son, our disaster-prone tech. By the gestures he’s making, it looks like Theo’s explaining the proper way to lift an amp without hurting yourself. He catches sight of me and stops talking mid-sentence.
Ripper gives my shoulders a gentle shove. “It’s go time.”
“Let’s do it.” I grab my guitar from where it’s been laid against the wall, slinging it over my chest, and walk onstage.
The crowd screams. The lights are blinding, the volume daunting. There are metal towers along the periphery for techs to climb for light adjustments, and they make the place look like the Thunderdome.
Ripper’s chest swells as he takes a deep breath.
Kenny rustles nervously at his kit. They’re feeling the weight of this too.
There’s only one thing to do when you’re nervous: I grab the neck of my guitar and send the opening notes of “Family Fruit” tearing into the air.
Kenny and Ripper take what I give and add to it, building layers, a note of disagreement here, a tease there, until we’ve got a song.
This is where I’ve always wanted to be—onstage with thousands of faces looking up at me, mouthing my words, moving to music I dreamed up, picturing scenes that were once in my head, lines I whispered to myself filling their mouths. I’m inside them, and that’s power.
I look to the side of the stage out of habit, seeking Ginny’s approval. But standing in her place, of course, is Theo.
Ginny will never stand there again.
In the space of a second the full crushing weight of the truth I keep at bay hits me.
Ginny is gone, and in her place is an empty void, a lesion filled with the life we lost: growing old, buying houses next door, getting married, having kids.
Everything together, the way our lives were supposed to go.
It’s not right. It’s not fair Ginny will never get to experience what she longed for.
I want to rip my heart out, turn back time, and offer myself in her place.
Take me instead. That’s my secret, that’s what I’m saying with my guitar every night that I’m performing.
With every song I’m yelling I’ll do anything.
I’m begging whoever the fuck is in charge to cut a deal with me to make this right. Do you hear me? Give her back.
Because if the universe won’t, then it’s up to me. I’ll will her back to my side. I’ll want it so badly it bends space and time and metaphysics to come true.
Here’s what’s true: I’ll never let her go.
I’m her sister. This is the promise I made the first time my mother put Ginny in my arms and told me she was mine to watch over.
The promise I failed to keep ten months ago, the day my mother called me and told me to sit down.
The day my life split in two, Before and After, and I had to stitch the pieces back together through sheer fucking will.
I will surge into heaven and drag her back if I have to.
Because the way I love my sister is bigger than God, or limits, or cruel, indifferent waves, bigger than a small, stupid mistake that caused her lungs to flood for no reason, with no warning.
I won’t let death have her. Not my Ginny.
Not my sister. I will walk through heaven and hell—
Do you hear me?
These are the only powers I possess. This guitar, this stage, this microphone, my words in people’s mouths. I swear to God I’m going to make somebody hear me. What more can I do for her? What more can a mortal fucking person do?