Chapter 26 The Stage
Summer
Autumn arrives on Friday at seven PM with a suitcase, a bottle of tequila, and the energy of a woman who has been physically vibrating for the entire flight.
"Let me look at you." She holds me at arm's length. Scans me. The full Autumn assessment. "You're different."
"Good different?"
"You're bigger. Not like you gained weight.
Like you are taking up more space. Taking what you want and making sure people know what that is.
Like you decided the world owes you something and you came to collect.
" She tilts her head and that smile flashes across her face, the one that has been getting her into and out of trouble for fifteen years. "It looks good on you, babe. Own it."
I laugh. She hears it and something in her face cracks open with relief.
I take her to Vibes. Sam is behind the bar when we walk in.
He looks up. He sees Autumn next to me and his eyes widen by maybe a millimeter and his head tilts to the side and then he shakes his head once like a man clearing static off a radio, and he resets his face and reaches for a glass.
Autumn, beside me, has gone very quiet. She is staring at him with the same wide-eyed expression I haven't seen on her face since she was sixteen and a lacrosse player named Marcus walked into the diner and ordered a milkshake.
She doesn't blink for what feels like four seconds.
Then she comes back to earth, presses a hand flat against the bar, and accepts the mezcal Sam has already set down in front of her without her ordering it.
I watch them like I am watching a tennis match. Eyes left, eyes right. I take my own shot and I don't say anything, but I do smirk into the rim of the glass on the way down.
Seed planted. Not by me.
After the show, in a booth. I tell Autumn about Colt. The coffee meetings. The therapy. Colt's plan to win me back by showing up and doing the work.
"He was drugged, Summer." Autumn's voice is careful. "That was assault. I am not saying forgive him for any of the shitty choices he made with Cheyenne before that moment. But what happened in that hotel room. That wasn't him."
"I have read the report four times. I could recite the page numbers."
"So what are you going to do?"
"I think I already know. That's the part that scares me.
" I drag my finger through the condensation on the table.
"He is different, Autumn. He is taking full accountability with no excuses.
He is here. He is sitting with me when we are out getting coffee and he isn't asking me for anything.
He sat at Sam's bar last week and he didn't try to dominate the room. "
"People change."
"People say they've changed. Actually changing is different."
"And you think he actually has?"
"I think he's trying. I think the trying is real."
***
Saturday I'm backstage and my hands are shaking. Not a little. A lot. The kind that makes eyeliner impossible.
Marisol is doing my makeup while Lucia offers commentary from the counter.
"Pretty," Lucia says, pointing at my face.
"Thank you, Lucia."
"Wucy wants glitter."
"Lucia isn't performing tonight."
"Wucy is NOT quiet."
"We're all aware."
Sam appears in the doorway. Black shirt. He looks at me, half-ready, shaking, surrounded by sequins and Marisol's steady hands.
He crosses the room. Kisses my forehead. "You don't have to do this."
"I know. That's why I want to."
***
The lights dim. The music starts. Bex's choreography. My song.
I walk out.
Three minutes. One song. A woman's voice, low and building.
The first thirty seconds are stillness. Just me. Center stage. Single spotlight. I don't move. I just stand there and let the audience adjust to my presence.
I stand. Breathe. The audience is quiet. Two hundred people. Their attention is a physical force.
Then I move. No mirrors, no thinking, just me and this music.
The choreography builds. Each movement deliberate. Earned. My hips. My shoulders. My hands tracing lines down my body that aren't sexual but possessive. Claiming myself inch by inch. This is mine. This body. This skin. This space.
The second movement is faster. Music building. I roll, I arch, I turn. My body knows this. Weeks of practice and the muscle memory of a woman who spent months learning to live inside her own skin again.
I'm terrified and I'm powerful and the intersection is the most electrifying thing I've ever felt.
The third movement. Climax. Music peaks. Bass and voice and something that sounds like a heartbeat. I move with everything I have. Not for the audience. Not for Sam. Not for Colt. For me.
The music ends. Breathing hard. Spotlight. Silence.
Then the applause.
Autumn is on her feet. Screaming. Lucia is screaming too, for reasons possibly unrelated. The audience rises. The visceral kind.
I'm shaking. Smiling. The real smile. Crooked. Squinting.
I look into the crowd. Find him.
Colt is standing. Not clapping. Hands at his sides. Tears streaming down his face. Not the discreet kind. Real tears. Messy. The kind that happen when something inside him breaks open and he can't stop it.
He's not looking at me with jealousy. Not with possession.
Awe.
I hold his gaze. One second. Two.
Then I walk offstage and collapse into Sam's arms, laughing and crying, and he holds me and says nothing.
Lucia presents me with a crayon drawing. "Because you were pretty."
I hold it against my chest.