by Keary Taylor
Tony’s grip tightens on me. Somehow, I can feel anger in his grasp. “That boy was an idiot. You don’t push people away when you need to be loved the most. He’s going to regret it for the rest of his life.”
I cry harder. Tony’s words were meant to be comforting, but they just rub salt in the wound.
I wipe the tears from my face, still clinging to Tony. “I thought you were supposed to stop loving the people who broke up with you after time. It’s almost been a year, Tony. In four weeks, it will have been a year since he let me go. When is it going to stop hurting?”
He rubs a hand up and down my back. “I don’t know,” he says after a long moment. “But when it hurts this long, this hard, I think that just means it was real and big. That doesn’t go away fast.”
“No,” I say, as a fresh round of tears rolls down my face. “It doesn’t.”
“Oh hell,” the Powers That Be say when I walk into my prep room.
I’m a mess. A wet, swollen, barely under control mess. One glance in the mirror reveals tangled hair from my savage hands. Swollen eyes. Red, splotchy face. Lips that threaten to quiver.
I look anything but like the person who’s supposed to go up on stage in two hours.
“What happened?” Hadley says, taking my hands in hers and looking me square in the eye. “Did the crazies get to you?”
I shake my head. I must be out of tears, otherwise they’d be rolling down my face again. Get me emotional, show me someone who’s showing concern for me, and it’s a dead guarantee I’ll cry. But I’m out of them now. The well is dry.
“I don’t know if I can do it tonight,” I say to her as I shake my head and my lip quivers. “I don’t know if I can pretend tonight.”
“Oh shit,” Hadley says as she guides me to a couch. We sit, and she doesn’t let my hands go. “Kale. I always wondered when the break would happen. Didn’t figure it would take eleven months to surface.”
My chin sinks to my chest, and I shake my head. My shoulders shake.
“I’m sorry,” Hadley says as she wraps her arms around me. “That was super jackass insensitive of me to say. Of course it was going to happen sometime. I just thought you were being crazy wonder-woman strong.”
“I just can’t tonight,” I sob into her shoulder.
But even as I say it, I know I’ll have to. Cause there is that thing inside of me, the thing that whispers in a melody of three different octaves that says everything’s going to be alright. That I can go up on that stage and put on a smile. I can open my mouth, close off the world, close off the gate in me that lets loose the emotions and the hurt, and just be one with the music.
And there are twenty thousand people out there tonight that are counting on it.
I sang, but that’s about all I did. The reviews will say that London was the least stellar performance of my career, that the crowds never connected with me. They’ll speculate if I have lost my magic touch and that I don’t really have what everyone thought I had.
But as I went up on that stage, my fingers closed around the locket that has never left my neck. Just before I walked out in front of everyone, I opened it. I saw our faces there, so happy and in love. I saw our hands clasped together, a promise to never let go.
And I just couldn’t do anything but sing. My voice came out strong and clear. But I didn’t banter with the crowd. I didn’t talk to them. I didn’t make an awkward joke when I tripped over a cord and nearly went down to my knees.
When the set was over, I walked off the stage, right past everyone, and went to my dressing room.
I didn’t cry. I braced my hands on the table and stared at myself in the mirror.
Just let him go, I tried to tell myself. He let you go, so you let him go. You don’t have to keep that promise anymore. Move on. Let it go and be a person again.
But my eyes drifted down to the locket swinging from my neck again, and that was it. I ripped it from my neck, breaking the clasp. With a scream and a sob, I flung it across the room and into a corner. I grabbed the corner of the table and upended it. I swung the curling iron at the mirror and shattered it.
Tony erupted into the room then, grabbing me before I hurt myself or something. I was just in a red rage. Hadley was in my face, trying to talk me down. The PR people were strategizing how to keep this quiet so my mess didn’t end up on the news tonight.
And finally, I put back on the numb façade. They started leading me out of the room. Just before we stepped out, I darted back to the corner, picked up the locket, and slipped it into my pocket.
We leave that night. Our show in New York is in two days, and we don’t have time to spend the night here in London. So a car drives us to the airport, where our private jet is waiting.
Tony dozes, his head leaned back against the seat. Hadley and everyone else are in the car behind us. The divider between me and the driver is up. So I have a few quiet minutes to myself.
My phone dings, a message from Ming. Can we talk when you’re done with the tour?
We’ve slowly been working our way up to this. There was the fight and then life was so busy, and everyone and everything from my old life just kind of got forgotten about.
Of course, I text back.
Tony shifts, bumping my shoulder, and I accidently send our text string shooting back. And there’s that picture she sent me of Kale and I, back when this all began.
I look so shocked, holding that stupid plate of pancakes. Kale looks ticked. And mostly naked. And I remember how much he wanted to protect and help me in those first days. How we ran away together to a little island, and how we went to the beach and everything that followed after that.
I go to my photo album and start scrolling through other pictures of us that I couldn’t bring myself to delete.
Emotion bites at the back of my eyes. I bite my thumb as I scroll through them.
We look happy. We look in love. We were happy and we were in love.
I’m still in love.
The phone is pressed to my ear and I’m hearing a dial tone before I can think about this logically.
Four times it rings. And then a voice recording comes on.
“Hey, you’ve reached Kale. If you’re calling for an interview, I have nothing to say. If you’re calling about my application, please leave a message. And if this is Whit, I screwed it up, but I’m keeping those two promises I made.”
I stare down at my phone, forgetting to end the call.
Was that real? Did I really just hear Kale say my name?
I’m keeping those two promises I made.
My mind reels. What promises did Kale make me?
But they hit me, clear as day.
Just before my first real show, the private launch one: I promise. I’m going to be right here the entire time.
And one more. In a makeup trailer. As we talked about me going on tour and how hard it was going to be to be apart.
I’ll be right here when you get back, that’s a promise.
What does this mean?
I’ll be here the entire time?
I’ll be here when you get back?
When did he record this? I’ve been on tour for eighteen weeks and played thirty-six shows so far. Was he at one of the shows? When? Where?
My heart breaks out into a sprint, hard and wild.
“Kale,” I whisper.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
“I don’t know, I just need to find him,” I yell at Hadley as we walk down the hall of the hotel.
I’m on my phone, scrolling through contacts. Sage didn’t answer, neither did Kaylee.
“Be very, very careful, Whitney,” Hadley says as she jogs to keep up with me. I have long legs. “Yeah, you called him last night and heard what he said, but there’s this thing called caller ID. He will have seen that you called. And he hasn’t called you back.”
My step falters for just a moment. I hadn’t thought about that.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say, as I continue down the hall.
“I just need some answers.”
Finally, I find Lake’s number. I press call.
“Hello?” he answers.
“Lake!” I say, surprised when someone finally answers. “Hi, how are you?”
“I’m good,” he says, confusion in his voice. “I’m sorry, who is this?”
“Oh, sorry, this is Whitney.”
“Oh, hi,” he says and it’s pretty obvious that I am the last person he expected. “Are you back in the States yet?”
“Yeah,” I say. My voice is picking up in excitement. Hadley looks at me with worry in her eyes. “I just got in a few hours ago. Tonight’s the last show of the tour.”
“Congratulations,” he says. I hear Callie start crying in the background. Then there’s Riley’s voice, soft and gentle. “It’s awesome to see you doing so great.”
“Thanks,” I say, meaning it. Lake saying this really counts for something. “Hey, the reason I’m calling is going to seem kind of random and out of the blue but…”
“What is it?” he encourages when I stall.
“I feel weird asking, since it’s been all this time,” I stutter. “But, has Kale been around lately?”
It takes Lake half a beat to answer. This wasn’t what he was expecting. “Uh, no, not for a while.”
“Can you please clarify?” I ask, feeling super awkward. But my heart is beating faster and faster.
“Well, he was in New York for a long time,” he says, and I hear a little grunting and a sigh, like Callie was just laid in his arms. “But then he sold his apartment there and never came home, despite what the media has been saying. I haven’t seen him in probably…five months.”
Holy crap.
Do I dare speculate?
I’ve been on tour for nearly five months.
Could he…? Possibly…?
“You still there, Whitney?” Lake asks.
“Yeah, sorry,” I snap back to the conversation. “Thank you. I just…yeah. How is Callie doing?” Change of conversation. Cause I don’t know what else to say.
“She’s great.” The pride is instantly in his voice. “Riley just got back from a ride with her. They go out almost every day. I think Riley already has her in love with horses.”
“That’s adorable,” I say, feeling a fuzzy feeling in my heart. “I wish I could see her. I bet she’s grown so much since I saw her last.”
“Stop by any time when you make it back this way.” And his tone, I can tell he really means it.
“I’d love that,” I say. “Plan on it.”
“Looking forward to it,” he says with a chuckle. “I’ve got to go now, but it was great talking to you.”
“You, too,” I say, surprised how much I mean it. “Tell the rest of the family hi for me, okay?”
“Will do. Bye, Whitney.”
“Bye.”
I hang up and slide my phone into my back pocket. Hadley looks at me, complete uncertainty on her face.
“I’ll see you at the show tonight,” I say to her as I step past her and head into my room.
Feeling scared as all can be. Because right now, I’m remembering that promise I made to Robert. That Kale would eventually come out of the dark and that I would be here waiting for him. But I’m also super pissed, because Kale dropped me like a brick of ice into the frigid ocean.
And I have no idea how I’m going to react if I see him again.
My hands shake, and I pace back and forth as everything gets finished with the set up. I can hear the hum of thousands of people out there, just waiting for me. My hands sweat and slip on the microphone I’m gripping tightly. I catch it just before it hits the ground.
Five minutes until I go on.
There are twenty-five thousand people out there, just waiting for me to come sing for them.
But there’s only one person that I’m thinking about.
Is Kale out there?
My heart races, faster and faster. I swear I’m not actually even seeing anything. I’m all up in my head, thinking things way overboard. I rub my free hand on my skirt. Sniff, tempted to rub at my nose, because it itches, but knowing the makeup crew will kill me if I do.
My intro music kicks up. My heart sprints now.
“Sixty seconds,” one of the stage hands says. They literally count down.
So before I can go into hyperventilation, I close my eyes. I take two deep breaths. My hand involuntarily rises up to my locket and closes around it.
I don’t know if Kale is out in that crowd tonight, but maybe he is.
Once upon a time, he said that I could just go up on stage because I already knew the person I was most scared of knew I was amazing. I don’t know that anymore. I don’t know what Kale thinks of me.
So tonight, I will go out on that stage, and regardless of what Kale might think of me now, I’m going to prove to me that I love myself. I will be me. I’ll enjoy this amazing life I’ve been given. I’m going to be happy.
“Three, two, one.”
“Hello, New York!” I yell as I run onto the stage and wave. The spotlight feels like an old friend and the crowd that goes completely crazy is a mother welcoming me home after a long day at school.
The music to “Just a Girl Named Whitney” starts up, the trumpets blaring from the live band behind me. I sing the opening verse, and when it gets to the chorus, the part with the clapping, the crowd claps along and goes crazy. They sing back at me at the top of their lungs.
And I feel good. I feel like I’m doing what I should. I dance awkwardly around the stage, weaving in between my back up dancers and doing my thing.
“Glow.” “Red Eyes.” “Distance.” “This Is The Edge.” I sing them all their favorites.
Cameras float in and out of my view, capturing every angle. The band blares from behind me during the live songs. The speakers beat through each of our bodies. Sweat builds up on my body. This is a moment. This is me and the crowd and this infinite moment where we are one and the same with music.
Eighteen songs for eighteen weeks. That’s how many songs we buzz through. When we’re supposed to stop for a short intermission, I hold up my microphone to my lips. “Come on everybody, let’s keep this rolling. Play on!”
The crowd went insane, and everyone kept going with twice the energy.
“Kisses On The Concrete” is gaining popularity, and it’s the second to last song. The girls in the crowd go crazy, and by the end of the last verse, I’m hearing “Whale” shouted out above all the noise.
And then we’re at the last song. “Angel On Your Shoulder” is supposed to be what’s next. I step up to the microphone, my guitar hanging off of my shoulder. The crowd settles down, holding their breath, waiting for me to let mine out.
I look out over them. It’s impossible to make out individual faces, the lights are too bright for that.
A soft beat picks up with the drums, slow and steady.
“This may sound different tonight,” I say to the crowd. “We recorded “Angel” to make you get up and dance and fall in love under the lights at prom. But that’s not the way I originally wrote it.”
I pluck at the strings, going into the introduction, slow and gentle. “I wrote this song on the spot for someone who asked me to sing for them. You see, music is a hard thing for me to explain. Because the words that come out of my mouth when I’m just talking and the words that come out when I’m singing, they’re like to completely different languages, and I feel like I’m better understood when I’m singing.
“So that night, I couldn’t really explain how I was feeling with just plain, simple words. So I sang. I opened my mouth and this is what just came out. It’s a love song, you all know that,” I say. My heart starts beating faster. I’m so nervous to say what I want to say, and I kind of just want to rewind it and just sing the damn song, but this is the most honest I’ve been in nearly a year, and I really don’t want to stop now.
“You all know that my heart has kind of taken a pounding the last while. And you’d th
ink that I’d either be really bitter now or that I’d have just moved on.” I swallow hard, my fingers still plucking out the long, looping version of the intro. Because holy shit, this is the honest damn truth, even if I don’t want it to be. But it is and that’s just the way it is. “But it’s still a love song. And it’s still meant for the same person.”
The audience is dead silent, holding onto my every word.
And I start to sing.
Slow and gentle. Intimate. From the soul.
This is the way I sang “Angel” to Kale that first night. Late at night, at a cabin on a small, remote island. When I tried to express how I felt for him, how I was falling for him. How I knew I was going to love him for forever. It had been only a few days then, when I wrote the first shaky words. But they’re as true today as they were then.
It’s after only the first verse that I see someone out in the crowd walking toward the stage. They come from the middle seats, dead center in the closer section.
I squint through the bright lights, my voice never faltering on the verse. The figure makes it half way up the aisle when security rushes them. I make out Tony’s shaven head jogging toward them all.
And my heart goes insane as I start the chorus.
My eyes don’t leave the small crowd that is gaining a lot of attention. The security people flake off, watching closely. But that solitary figure starts back toward the stage.
And my eyes sting as I start the last verse.
There’s the broad, strong shoulders. The muscled arms. The chiseled jawline. The perfect hair. The scar rising from the collar of his shirt up to his cheek.
Kale.
The words to the song come out shaky and unstable as he keeps walking toward the stage.
His eyes are intense. They’re unsure and scared. But they burn with intensity.
He stops in front of the stage, and I can sense the thousands of eyes that are locked on him.
My eyes water and well as I near the end of the chorus. My fingers slip on a string, sounding out incorrect and loud. But no one boos. Everyone is dead silent, watching the two of us.