“Felicityyyyyy!”
“We love you!”
“Great show tonight!”
I should probably stop and sign impromptu autographs, but I can hardly rally enough energy to wave. All these lights, this noise. All this yelling. Fake laughs at strangers’ jokes and big smiles despite aching cheeks… I feel utterly drained, my soul-batteries depleted to the dregs. My introverted self is screaming for a reprieve, if only to recharge with a good book, a cup of tea, and somequiet.
I see the light at the end of the tunnel: two black sleeper coaches that say WILDWOOD on the side in the same brush-script font that decorates our album covers and guitar picks, website headers and merch-store items. There’s one bus for the road crew and equipment, the other reserved for the band.
Home sweet home, for the foreseeable future.
We’re nearly to the coach doors when a woman breaks free of the crowd. Before the security detail can react, she’s around the metal barricades and stepping directly into my path. I go still, the world crashing to a sudden halt as I stare at her, hardly recognizing the frail creature before me. She stares back, her feverish gaze roaming my face, my dress, my bare legs. The hair, the heels, the red lips.
“You grew up,” she whispers. Her smile is as wobbly as her footing. “You’re so beautiful.”
And you’re so changed.
I’m vaguely aware I’ve stopped breathing, but I can’t seem to remember how to start again. Smiling lopsidedly, the woman lurches forward, as if to embrace me…
And all hell promptly breaks loose.
Two members of my security team close in, grabbing her before she makes it another inch. She doesn’t fight them as they haul her back toward the metal barriers like a limp sack of flour.
“Stop!” I cry out, barely recognizing my own voice. “Please,stop. Don’t hurt her.”
York and Linden pause to look at me, their beefy muscles on full display as they hold her in place.
“Do you know this woman?” York uses his sternest voice, his eyes ping-ponging back and forth between me and the woman in his grip.
I feel Carly and Linc pressing close at my back, concern ebbing off them in waves. In the distance, I hear a growing chorus of curious murmurs from the crowd on all sides, as well as the ceaseless sound of camera shutters clicking down, immortalizing this moment for all eternity.
“She’s… she’s my mother.”
I hear a soft gasp from Carly. A low curse from Lincoln. The guards drop their hold but don’t step away, their eyes locked on the woman who raised me — her bloodshot eyes, the too-thin arms sticking out of a sweater that’s seen better days.
Dread churns inside me, potent as whatever drug is flowing through her veins.
“Sweetie, I knew you’d be happy to see me if I came!” She smiles, a jittery flash of crooked teeth. “Can we go somewhere and talk? I need to… You should… We’ve got some things to discuss with you.”
We?
I feel suddenly faint. Disembodied, as though I’ve shifted into slow motion while the world around me carries on at regular speed. I can’t keep up. Can’t respond. Can’t move. Can’t breathe.
Paralyzed, my mind spins with just one question.
Is he here, too?
Before I can move, she reaches forward and clamps her hand around my bicep with surprising strength, considering how she’s wasted away since I last saw her. She’s a shadow of her former self — her curves replaced by gaunt angles, her once-lustrous chestnut locks hanging dull and limp around her drawn face.
I try to pull out of her hold, but she clutches me with the tenacity of a barnacle.
“Come on, sweetheart, I just want to talk.” Her eyes shift restlessly across my features. “You want to talk to your Momma, don’t you?”
Linden and York look conflicted about whether they should intervene. Carly murmurs my name, her voice saturated by apprehension. Francesca is chewing her lip, worried about the spectacle we’re creating as more and more press snap photos of our strange huddle.
My mother starts tugging at my arm, trying to pull me away from the group. To get me alone.
I want to stop her. I want to scream at the top of my lungs.