The arena in Seattle was packed—twenty thousand people, all chanting her name. From the wings, Maya could see the glow of thousands of phone screens, the crowd's roar vibrating through the floor. It should have been electric. Instead, it felt suffocating.
Backstage, Evan paced, barking last-minute instructions. "Big energy tonight. We need a moment they'll talk about tomorrow."
Maya forced a smile, adjusted her in-ear monitors, and walked out under the blinding lights. The opening chords of Fire in the Sky boomed through the speakers. She started to sing, hitting every note the way she'd practiced a hundred times.
But halfway through the second song, her voice caught—not from strain, but from the sudden weight of it all. The fake smiles, the gossip headlines, the songs that didn't belong to her. She saw her face projected on the giant screen above, perfectly lit, perfectly posed, and she didn't recognize the girl looking back.
The crowd kept cheering, oblivious to the panic building in her chest.
She stopped singing.
The band kept playing for a few seconds before fading out, confusion rippling across the stage. A hush spread through the arena.
"I'm sorry," she said into the mic, her voice shaking. "I can't do this right now."
She set her guitar down, walked offstage, and didn't look back.
In the dressing room, she ripped out her earpieces and sat on the floor, breathing hard. Evan burst in, furious. "Do you have any idea what you've just done? The headlines—"
"I don't care about the headlines," she said. And she meant it.
By midnight, she was on a flight back to Sonora Valley. She didn't pack much—just her guitar, a notebook full of songs, and the Polaroids Leo had given her.
Somewhere over the desert, she pressed her forehead to the window, watching the stars scattered across the dark. For the first time in months, she felt like she could breathe.