Her words saved Teddy.
All my words have done is hurt her.
I swallow down the panic, turn around and face the crowd.
“So I wrote a song,” I say into the mic.
The crowds start screaming even before I say the word ‘song’. Teddy lets go of Eden, but he keeps an arm around her shoulders. He stands next to her and looks directly at me. He’s not going back to his seat. He’s staying there, with her, for the rest of the show. Also, he’s wiping his eyes.
Teddy was crying. What the hell did he say to Eden to make himself cry?
“I’m telling you right now,” I yell over the screams, “I wouldn’t dare to play it like that, only a few hours after writing it, with virtually no rehearsal, on any other stage in the world. But you guys… You might just be the best audience I have ever played for. I have laid my soul bare to you today. And you held it. You didn’t let me down.”
They scream and scream my name. I just stand there, in the rain, and smile at them while I cry. They can’t tell I’m crying with all the rain pouring down my face. But I am.
“The song is for her. But please, will you listen too?”
The roar comes to me in waves, first from the lower seats, then from all the way to the top. From all sides of the stadium. It takes a minute to reach me. I just soak it all in, letting it give me the strength I need.
“I mean, it might not end up being very good,” I add. “My manager is freaking out right now. I just finished writing it literal hours ago… Man, this is too crazy, even for me.”
“Issy Woo, Issy Woo, Issy Woo,” they sing as one. It turns into a chorus of vowels.
EE-EE-OO-EE-EE-OO-EE-EE-OO
“Lower your phones, would you?” I ask them and they do it. “This is between us, you and me.”
I have them. I have them in the palm of my hand. I just hope I don’t blow this.
I turn my back to the audience, looking for Eden. Our eyes meet as I reach out a hand for my violin. Someone puts it in my palm, but I don’t see who it is. I’m looking at Eden. And, under Teddy’s arm, she’s looking at me.
I reach out my other hand and point straight to her.
This song is for you, I say to her silently and walk back out under my spotlight.
I can’t see her clearly, because the stage lights don’t reach back there, but I thought I saw tears glistening in her eyes.
I look at Jude; Jude looks at me.
Miki nods, once. He’s ready—as ready as he can be.
Dimitris is led back on stage, ready with his guitar.
Help, I mouth to him.
He gives me the thumbs up. He looks so relaxed, as if he does this once a week. I, on the other hand, must look completely freaked out—and I am. The crowd catches his tiny gesture, goes wild.
I turn my back on them, fix my eyes on Eden’s dark silhouette, and start playing the first notes of my new song on the violin. The lyrics I only wrote last night (or early this morning), and the music I’ve been writing my whole life. There’s a sort of muscle memory of the tongue when I sing a song, especially on stage. My mouth needs to know what it’s going to say and how, or I will freeze and won’t know how to continue. I don’t have that muscle memory with this song, I’ve only sung it three or four times.\
It’s that new.
It’s the song I wrote after I watched the video about ‘Edie, the stolen girl’ that Spencer sent me. I had already composed the music the night I spent in Eden’s room, but the lyrics are brand-new. I played it three times with Jude, Miki and Dimitris, and that’s it.
The car was there to take us to the stadium.
There wasn’t time for anything more.
The piece didn’t even have a title a few hours ago—Jude and I just called it ‘the new song’. Internally, I’m sure he called it‘The Titanic’, but he’s too worried about me to tell me he’s afraid this performance might sink us.