Page 3 of Catch
“Give me five more minutes,” I begged, my voice hoarse from the hours of singing and the pressure to be ‘on’ for the crowd. “Just… let me breathe.”
“You’ve got two.” Sam’s voice was clipped. He was trying to make it sound like he was doing me a favor. But I knew better.
Tears pricked my eyes, but I blinked them away fiercely. I didn’t have time for tears. Not now. Not here. According to Sam, I was supposed to be happy, grateful even. He and the label had put this tour together, had set the whole damn thing in motion—three months across the country, playing in small-town venues where I could share my songs with people who thought I was some kind of country music princess. It was supposed to be the dream every small-town girl in Nashville wanted to chase.
Except no one had told me how heavy that dream would be.
They never warned me that somewhere along the way, I’d lose my own voice. Or that the exhaustion would start eating away at me, piece by piece. They didn’t tell me that the more I gave, the more they’d take.
Nor did they care.
“You’re gonna be the next Dolly Parton,”Sam had said back then, all fire and optimism, painting a picture of success so bright that I could barely look at it.
It sounded good at the time. It always did.
But now, as I stood there with nothing left in me but the desire to collapse into oblivion, I wondered if I had traded my soul for someone else’s dream.
I needed a break. A real one. Not just a few minutes after which Sam would come back to tug at me like a puppet on a string, forcing me to smile for the cameras.
Dammit, I just wanted a nap.
“Alrighty,” Sam sighed, his tone a mixture of impatience and forced cheer. “Let’s get back in there. You have a ton of fans that paid extra to meet you tonight.”
The weight of his words felt like a punch to the gut. They hadpaidfor me. Like a fish caught in a net, I had no way out.
“Now!” he yelled, grabbing a wrist and squeezing, forcing me to stand.
“Okay,” I cried, trying to pull away. Sam hadn’t always been so aggressive, but he’d been getting worse as the tour went on–proof that I wasn’t the only one tired and irritable.
Not that it was an excuse to touch me.
My head felt fuzzy, but I wiped my face quickly, making sure the smile was back in place before I stepped forward. Even though it felt like a lie, I had to give them what they came for.
I could feel the tears still lurking beneath the surface, but I held them back with everything I had left. I didn’t have the luxury to fall apart, not here, not now.
For the next hour, I forced myself to smile, posing for picture after picture. Despite the ache in my wrist where Sam had grabbed me, and the exhaustion I felt from being on tour, I basked in the moment of being around people who cared,who wanted to meetme, who believed in this dream I was still chasing.
But that feeling faded faster than I wanted it to.
When it was finally over, I felt the weight of it all hit me at once. My shoulders slumped, the invisible walls I had built crumbling around me. My voice was gone—nothing but a hoarse rasp that could barely be heard above the clatter of the venue.
Sam didn’t seem to notice, or maybe he just didn’t care. He was back in my ear, pushing, directing, as though there was no space for me to breathe or simplyexistoutside of the next thing on his list.
“Tomorrow, we’ve got a radio interview at 9 a.m.,” he rattled off, his voice as mechanical as always. “Then a photoshoot, and after that?—”
I couldn’t even focus on the words. It didn’t matter what came next. I had already shut off. The exhaustion had numbed my senses, and all I could do was nod, pretending I was still listening, pretending I could still care.
“So you’ve been to forty towns across the southern states in the last sixty days. You have fifteen more in the next thirty days. Howdoyou do it?”
The radio host interviewing me smiled, but her eyes were wide with disbelief as she read the details of my tour from a printed piece of paper.
“It's been a wild ride,” I smiled, using a twang in my voice as I repeated the words Sam and I had practiced all morning. “The band and the crew are there with me, and the fans make it worth it.”
“This tour has been simple in terms of theatrics and venues. Just you, a band, and a guitar.”
“It keeps it affordable,” I laughed, not really joking but hoping it sounded a little in jest. “We just wanted to bring our music to the heart of America.”
As the interview droned on, I recited the answers they expected from me, my voice polite and rehearsed. Every question was predictable, every response a well-worn line.
