Three answers at once. Raf's grin. Phoenix's nod. And my silence, which she reads as clearly as if I'd said it out loud.
She holds her hand out to me.
I take it.
CHAPTER 45
BELLS
Ican breathe.
I can fuckingbreathe.
That's the first thing my body registers when the stage lights hit and the bass drops, thousands of people screaming my name.
BELLS!
BELLS!
BELLS!
Who would've thought being outed as a girl would make everyone go fucking crazy?
My ribs expand, all the way this time. Both lungs filling completely, every square inch of capacity I've been rationing for years suddenly available, and the rush of oxygen is so intense my fingers tingle.
Fuck yeah. That's more like it.
I wrap my hand around the mic stand and my chest moves freely under the loose white t-shirt I chose for tonight. No compressionfabric grinding my ribs into dust. No underwire digging trenches into my skin. It’s just cotton and air and the wild, terrifying freedom of existing in my actual body in front of people who are looking right at me.
The prosthetic isn't there either. Just my knife, strapped to the outside of my thigh this time, right where it belongs.
And no fuckingcollar.
Tonight's my first night on stage as myself.
I'm still Bells.
But I'mme.
I open my mouth and sing.
Without my ribs being crushed by a binder, the note comes out bigger and fuller. The registers I've been compensating around for years tear open when my voice drops into my chest where there's actually room for it now and comes out rich and powerful.
This is what I sound like.
This is what I've always sounded like.
I just couldn't sing through the cage.
"Seattle!" I yell into the crowd's roar. "Did you fucking miss us?"
They scream back hard enough to shake the stage.
Four songs in, I'm drenched in sweat and grinning so wide my face hurts. I circle Raf during the bridge ofFleshand he gives me that devastating smirk, the one that makes his dark eyes harden.
I hook a finger in his leather collar and pull him down to my level.
"Hey," I say, close enough that the mic catches it.