“Maybe once or twice,” Emily said to him smiling, “but I never get tired of hearing it.”
68
When Emily got to the green room, Ari and Jack were there, sitting with Priya and Neel, their VIP passes letting them in early. Ezra’s parents were on their way.
“I’m so happy for you, Em!” Ari said, when Emily sat down next to her. “I spoke to Dad before. He said to tell you to break a leg. I promised I’d send him a video.”
Emily felt her eyes moisten with tears. “Thanks for doing that,” she said. She hoped maybe next time she played, he’d come. Maybe before that she’d go out to see him and they could talk, the way she had with Ezra. Maybe their relationship could be repaired, changed, strengthened. In the meantime she had her sister, she had her husband, she had her friends, who loved her. That was more than enough.
Emily took a breath and tried to focus on the moment, to get herself in the right headspace to go on stage. This was it. She was reclaiming herself, taking back a part of her that she’d given up, hopefully starting a brand-new career—one she knew she was meant to pursue. She’d treated music like an addiction, avoided places that would trigger her desire to play, to be on stage. But now she realized that what she’d thought was bad for her was actually something that nourished her soul. Like being addicted to water or air.
Tony walked into the green room—he had a VIP pass from Rob but had told Emily he’d visit her, too. “No crown?” he asked Emily, touching his own bald scalp.
She shook her head, feeling her waves brush her shoulders. “I grew up,” she said. “Thought it was time for my hair to acknowledge that.”
Tony laughed. “I guess we all did, huh?” he asked.
“Places in five,” a man with a headset said, opening the door.
“Thank you, five,” Emily responded.
Ezra’s parents slipped in the door, and they, along with Ari, Priya, and Ezra, all gave Emily a hug.
“Go knock ’em dead,” Ari whispered. Jack flipped on the big-screen TV in the green room so they could all watch her from there.
Emily smiled, took a deep breath, and walked out on stage, Ezra following her and then waiting in the wings so he could see her perform in person—and so she could see him, too. The audience was dark, but she could feel all thousand of them—quiet, tense, electric. The stage was dark, too, except for a spot focused on a grand piano, set up just for her. Emily felt the adrenaline race through her as she took her first steps out into the darkness. She was where she was meant to be.
She sat down on the piano bench and adjusted the mic. And she began to play. She shared her story through words, through music. And she felt transformed. She felt filled with light and energy and love. She’d written these songs to make sense of her life, to make sense of her feelings. And now she was sharing them with the world. Her heart was open, like Rob’s. Like Ezra’s.
When she finished her second-to-last song, the one she’d written for Ezra in Mexico, there was a rush of applause. Emily felt it wash over her, wash through her.
“Thank you for being such a great audience,” she said into the mic. “I know you’re all excited to see Austin Roberts tonight, but I’ve got one more song before you do. It’s called ‘Dark Night of the Soul,’ and it’s a song that I wrote about something my love and I went through together.” The song was powerful as a duet, but here, now, it had to be a solo.
Emily started playing, imagining that the music in this song wasn’t for the crowd but for the cells that might be dividing inside her. For Ezra, who was singing along in the wings.
As Emily played, as she sang, as the audience focused their attention on the stage, she remembered how it felt when Ezra’s voice had twined with hers. She remembered how they’d forgiven each other’s mistakes and let their love grow stronger.
When she got to the final line of the song, she sang the lyrics they used together when the song was a duet—she sang “our” instead of “mine.” And when she looked into the wings, Ezra touched his hand to his heart. He’d noticed. After the song ended, Emily echoed the last line of the melody on the piano and then held the damper pedal so that the notes resonated for a moment after she stopped playing.
The audience burst into applause, but instead of looking at them, she looked back at Ezra. A piece of his hair had flopped in front of his glasses, and he was grinning more than she’d seen him in a long time.
Then Rob was standing in the wings, too, his guitar at his side, giving her a V for victory. And she felt it—that victory, the audience’s applause and cheers filling her. She’d opened her heart to them, and they’d reflected that love right back at her.