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Chapter 1
Chapter One: The Last Gig
The night before everything changed, Eliza Moore sang to twelve people and a bartender who gave last call mid-chorus. The bar smelled like spilled beer and lemon cleaner, and the Christmas lights on the stage blinked at odd intervals. She stood with her old guitar, the one her mother bought from a pawn shop when Eliza was sixteen, and let her voice fill the quiet.
She sang the song Ryan liked, the one about leaving home but leaving the porch light on. He stood at the back near the dartboard in his grease-stained jacket, hands in his pockets, nodding along as if the room were full. After the set, he helped her coil cables, his breath fogging in the cold as they loaded the trunk of her dented sedan.
“You were good,” he said.
“You always say that.”
“Because it’s always true.”
She laughed and leaned her head against his shoulder. “There were twelve people.”
“Thirteen,” he said. “But only two mattered.”
They drove out of town, past the dark auto shop where he worked and the church that still posted messages on a plastic sign. They reached their small apartment with thin walls and a heater that rattled like an old drum kit. She set the guitar down in the corner. He kissed her forehead.
“Tomorrow I’ll send the new demos,” she said. “Again.”
“And tomorrow I’ll make coffee,” he said. “Again.”
She stared at the ceiling from their mattress on the floor. “What if this is it?”
Ryan laced his fingers through hers. “Then this is it. And I’m still here.”
She fell asleep with that thought, heavy and soft. She did not know that a kid at the bar had filmed her closing song. She did not know the video would hit a million views before dawn.
