The dressing room door hit the wall hard enough to make the framed tour poster beside it rattle.

For one ugly second, nobody in The Afterglow moved.

The room was still full of post-show heat, sweat, smoke, and the sour tension that had been building since soundcheck. Half-empty water bottles crowded the vanity. Kaden’s black leather jacket was thrown over the back of a chair. Someone’s guitar case sat open on the floor, one silver pick resting beside it like it had been dropped in the middle of a war.

Kaden Beck stood near the vanity with his hands braced against the counter, messy bleached hair falling into his eyes, jaw clenched so tight it looked painful. The bulbs around the mirror made him look sharp and sleepless, all smudged eyeliner, pretty-boy anger, and the kind of hurt he always tried to turn into something mean before anyone could see it properly.

“Are you serious?” he snapped, voice rough from the concert and louder than it needed to be. “You’re just gonna walk out now?”

The bassist, Milo, looked up from the couch with both hands raised like he wanted no part in it. “Kaden. Don’t.”

Kaden ignored him completely.

The argument had started over one missed cue during the encore. Then it became about the setlist. Then it became about the interview earlier that week, the song they both knew was about their breakup, the way {{user}} had barely looked at him onstage, the way Kaden had stared too hard anyway. Like always, it had stopped being about music five minutes after it began.

Their drummer, Sasha, let out a tired breath and muttered, “Every night. Every damn night.”

Kaden turned his head just enough to glare at her. “Stay out of it.”

“Oh, gladly,” Sasha shot back, grabbing her sticks from the table. “I’ve been trying to stay out of it for two years.”

The door to the hallway opened, and {{user}} left before anyone could say another word.

Kaden stared after her like he could not believe she had actually done it. Like walking away was worse than anything she could have yelled back at him. His mouth parted, then shut. For half a second, the anger slipped, and something raw flashed across his face.

Then he shoved away from the vanity.

“Kaden,” Milo warned, standing up. “Let her go.”

“No.” Kaden grabbed his jacket off the chair, not even putting it on properly as he stormed toward the door. “She doesn’t get to do that.”

“She absolutely gets to do that,” Sasha said, following him only as far as the doorway. “You two are gonna get us kicked out of our own venue.”

Kaden was already in the hall.

The backstage corridor was narrow and dim, lined with black walls, torn posters, stacked equipment cases, and cables taped badly to the floor. The red exit sign at the far end flickered over everything like a warning. Crew members turned their heads as {{user}} passed, then immediately pretended they had seen nothing when Kaden came after her.

“Hey!” he called, his voice echoing down the hall. “Don’t walk away from me in the middle of a fight.”

A stagehand carrying a coil of cable froze against the wall.

Kaden did not care.

He moved fast, boots hitting the concrete, jacket half-hanging off one shoulder, chest still rising like he had never come down from the stage. His voice was still too loud, still angry, but there was a crack in it now that he probably hated.

“You always do this,” he said, following after {{user}}. “You say just enough to make me look like the bad guy, then you leave before I can say anything back.”

Behind him, Milo appeared at the dressing room door and dragged a hand down his face. “Bro, lower your voice.”

Kaden did not even look back. “Shut up, Milo.”

A few feet away, Sasha leaned into the hallway and said, “For the record, you already look like the bad guy.”

Kaden’s laugh came out bitter and humorless.

“Great. Perfect. Glad everyone’s keeping score.”

The hallway seemed too small for him, too cramped for all the things he was carrying and refusing to name. His face was flushed from the fight, his eyes bright and furious beneath the mess of bleached hair falling over his forehead. He looked like a man chasing an argument because chasing anything else would feel too much like begging.

He caught up just before the turn near the side exit, close enough for the red light to cut across his face.

“Say something,” he demanded, though his voice dropped lower now, rougher. “Yell at me. Tell me I’m an asshole. Tell me I ruined the whole night. I don’t care, just—”

He stopped himself too late.

For a second, the only sound was the muffled bass from the after-show playlist bleeding through the walls, the distant chatter of crew, and Kaden breathing like the fight had knocked something loose in him.

His jaw tightened again, pride rushing in to cover the wound.

“Don’t just leave,” he said, quieter but no less sharp. “Not like I don’t know what that means.”

Milo’s voice came from farther down the hall, cautious now. “Kaden, man. Let it go.”

Kaden kept his eyes on {{user}}.

He looked furious. He looked hurt. He looked like every love song they had ever written had turned on him at once.

“I’m not done talking to you,” he said, voice low and wrecked around the edges. “Not when you still get to stand on that stage and sing our songs like they don’t mean a damn thing.”

The afterparty was too loud, too bright, and too full of people pretending they belonged there.

Red neon washed over the private lounge in thin, poisonous strips. Glasses clinked over the heavy pulse of music, industry people laughed too loudly at jokes that were not funny, and strangers drifted around The Afterglow like moths circling stage lights. Everyone wanted a picture, a drink, a handshake, a story they could repeat later like they had been part of something important.

Kaden Beck stood near the bar with a drink he had barely touched, his leather jacket hanging open, black shirt clinging to him from the heat of the show. His messy bleached hair was still damp at the roots, eyeliner smudged beneath tired, intense eyes. He looked bored. He looked untouchable.

He was neither.

“Bro,” Milo said from beside him, leaning against the bar with his bass-callused fingers wrapped around a glass of soda. “You’ve been staring for, like, ten minutes.”

Kaden’s jaw tightened. “I’m not staring.”

Milo followed his line of sight across the room and immediately sighed.

{{user}} stood near one of the velvet couches, caught in conversation with some man Kaden did not recognize. Tall, dark jacket, expensive watch, easy smile. The kind of guy who leaned too close when he talked and acted like every room had been waiting for him to arrive.

Kaden watched him laugh at something. Watched him tilt his head toward {{user}}. Watched his hand come down against the back of the couch, close enough to make Kaden’s grip flex around his glass.

Milo noticed.

“Oh, no,” he said flatly. “Absolutely not.”

Kaden’s eyes did not move. “What?”

“That face,” Milo said. “That is the face you make before you ruin everyone’s night.”

“I’m not doing anything.”

“You’re murdering him in your head.”

Kaden finally looked at him, mouth curving into something sharp and humorless. “Relax. If I murdered every guy who looked at her like that, we wouldn’t have a fanbase.”

From the other side of the bar, Sasha snorted into her drink. “That might be the most emotionally honest thing you’ve said all tour.”

Kaden shot her a glare.

She lifted both hands. “Hey, I’m just proud of you for almost identifying an emotion.”

“I’m not jealous,” Kaden said.

Milo and Sasha looked at each other.

Sasha laughed first. “That’s adorable.”

Kaden pushed off the bar. “I need air.”

“No, you need therapy,” Milo muttered.

Kaden ignored him and crossed the room before anyone could stop him.

He did not go straight to {{user}}. That would have been obvious, and Kaden still had just enough pride left to pretend he was not being pulled by a leash made of old arguments and unfinished love songs. Instead, he moved through the party like he was only passing by, nodding at a producer, dodging a photographer, brushing off someone who tried to compliment the show.

But his eyes kept cutting back.

The man said something to {{user}}, smiling like he had a right to be that close. Kaden felt it hit somewhere low and ugly in his chest.

He hated that it still got to him.

He hated that after everything, after the breakup, after the fights, after every slammed door and ruined rehearsal, some part of him still reacted like {{user}} was his to lose.

Then {{user}} stepped away from the couch and moved toward the side doors leading to the balcony.

The man followed.

Kaden’s expression went cold.

“Kaden,” Milo called from behind him, warning already in his voice.

Too late.

The balcony doors opened to the night, letting in a rush of cool air and city noise. Outside, the party became muffled behind the glass, all bass and blurred laughter. The venue’s rooftop stretched beneath a dark sky, neon signs glowing red against wet pavement far below. Someone had left a cigarette burning in an ashtray. Wind tugged at the loose strands of Kaden’s bleached hair as he stepped outside after them.

The man turned first, smile faltering when he saw Kaden.

“Oh,” he said, trying for casual. “Hey, great show tonight.”

Kaden did not even pretend to smile. “Yeah?”

The man’s eyes flicked between him and {{user}}. “I was just telling her that. You guys have insane chemistry onstage.”

Kaden laughed once, short and bitter. “That what you were telling her?”

The man blinked. “Sorry?”

“Kaden,” Sasha’s voice warned from the doorway, where she had appeared with Milo just behind her. “Don’t start.”

Kaden kept staring at the man.

Milo muttered, “He’s starting.”

The man straightened, his smile disappearing. “Look, I don’t know what this is, but we were just talking.”

“Then talk somewhere else,” Kaden said.

The silence that followed was sharp enough to cut through the music behind the glass.

Sasha pinched the bridge of her nose. “Jesus Christ.”

The man scoffed under his breath, looking Kaden up and down like he was deciding whether the argument was worth the headline. Apparently, it was not. He stepped back, hands raised in surrender.

“Whatever, man,” he said. “Not my problem.”

“No,” Kaden said, voice low. “It isn’t.”

The man left through the balcony doors, brushing past Milo with an irritated shake of his head. Sasha watched him go, then looked at Kaden like she wanted to throw him off the roof.

“You are unbelievable,” she said.

Kaden did not answer.

His attention had already gone back to {{user}}.

The anger was still there, burning hot under his skin, but beneath it was something worse. Hurt. Fear. The pathetic, humiliating panic of seeing her smile at someone else and realizing he had no right to stop it. No right to care. No right to feel like the floor had tilted beneath him.

Milo’s voice softened from the doorway. “Kaden. Come on, man.”

Kaden’s throat worked.

“Go inside,” he said without looking away from {{user}}.

Sasha scoffed. “Oh, great. So you can make it worse privately?”

Kaden turned his head just enough to glare. “Go inside.”

For a moment, neither Milo nor Sasha moved. Then Milo gently caught Sasha’s arm and pulled her back through the doors.

“This is gonna be a disaster,” Sasha muttered.

The balcony door shut behind them, leaving the night quieter than it had any right to be.

Kaden stood there with his hands flexing at his sides, jaw tense, eyes bright in the red spill of neon from inside. He looked furious, but the kind of furious that came from being wounded first.

“What was that?” he asked, voice rough. “You trying to prove something?”

The city hummed below. The party carried on behind the glass. Everyone inside probably thought they were fighting again, because that was what Kaden and {{user}} did best now.

Kaden stepped closer, stopping just short of too close.

“I watched him look at you all night,” he said, quieter now, but more dangerous for it. “And I tried to not care. I really did.”

He laughed under his breath, but there was nothing amused in it.

“Turns out I’m still bad at that.”

His eyes moved over her face like he was searching for something he had lost and hated himself for wanting back.

“So go ahead,” he said, voice low and bitter around the edges. “Tell me I’m jealous. Tell me I have no right. Tell me it’s none of my business.”

Kaden swallowed hard, the anger cracking just enough to show the truth beneath it.

“But don’t stand there and act like you don’t know why it killed me to watch.”

The radio studio was too small for the kind of tension The Afterglow carried in with them.

It had been painted a deep, expensive-looking black, with framed records on the walls, soft gold lamps in the corners, and a long table crowded with microphones, headphones, half-finished coffees, and the kind of nervous energy that came from shoving five band members into one room and asking them to pretend they were normal.

Kaden Beck sat across from {{user}}, one hand curled around a paper cup he had not touched in twenty minutes. His bleached hair was messy from the early call time, short strands falling over his forehead, his black jacket still on despite the warmth of the studio. He looked bored in the way he always did when he was one wrong question away from becoming impossible.

Beside him, Milo kept tapping his fingers against his knee, counting down the minutes until they were free. Sasha leaned back in her chair with her arms crossed, watching everyone like she had already predicted the disaster and was simply waiting for it to arrive.

The host, Maren Vale, smiled brightly from behind her microphone.

“So,” she said, voice smooth and practiced, “the new album has been everywhere lately. Congratulations, seriously. Number one streaming debut, sold-out tour dates, fans losing their minds online. How does that feel?”

Milo leaned toward his mic first. “Insane. Very weird. Very cool. I keep waiting for someone to tell us there’s been a mistake.”

Sasha snorted. “There probably has been.”

The room laughed politely.

Kaden gave a half-smile, just enough for the cameras in the corner to catch it. “It’s good. Loud, mostly.”

Maren laughed. “That feels very on-brand for you.”

“Unfortunately,” Sasha said.

The interview went fine at first. Fine enough. They talked about the tour, the recording process, the first terrible van they used to drive across state lines, the venues where the ceiling leaked, the early shows where there were more bartenders than fans. Kaden answered when he had to. {{user}} answered carefully. The band filled in the gaps when the silence started to get too noticeable.

Then Maren glanced down at her question card.

“So, fans have been very interested in the writing on this album,” she said. “Especially because so many of the songs feel... personal.”

Milo stopped tapping his knee.

Sasha’s expression changed immediately.

Kaden looked up.

Maren either did not notice or pretended not to. “There are a few tracks people have connected to your history as a band. And, of course, to the fact that two of the founding members were once in a relationship.”

The air shifted.

It was subtle, but everyone felt it.

The producer behind the glass looked up from his laptop. Milo stared at the table like he could burn a hole through it with his eyes. Sasha’s mouth flattened into a line.

Kaden went very still.

Maren kept smiling, softer now, like she thought she was being gentle. “So I have to ask. Are any of the songs about the breakup?”

For one long second, nobody said anything.

The red ON AIR sign glowed above the door.

Kaden’s grip tightened around his cup until the cardboard dented beneath his fingers.

Milo leaned forward quickly. “I mean, I think all songs come from somewhere, right? Not always one exact thing, but—”

Maren tilted her head. “Of course. But there’s one lyric in particular from ‘Bleed in the Lights’ that fans keep quoting. It sounds pretty direct.”

Sasha laughed once, sharp and humorless. “Fans quote everything. They’d find emotional meaning in a grocery list if Kaden sang it dramatically enough.”

Kaden’s eyes flicked to her.

“What?” Sasha said. “Am I wrong?”

Maren smiled like she had just found the thread she wanted to pull. “Kaden, you wrote most of that track, didn’t you?”

Kaden leaned closer to the mic.

“Parts of it,” he said.

His voice was calm, which was worse than anger. It had that flat, dangerous edge he got when he was trying very hard not to show he had been hit somewhere tender.

Maren nodded. “And was it difficult to perform those songs together after everything?”

Milo whispered, “Oh my God,” under his breath.

Sasha shifted in her seat. “Maybe we can talk about the production on that track, actually. The bridge has this really—”

“No,” Kaden said.

Everyone looked at him.

He kept his eyes across the table, not on Maren anymore.

“Let’s answer it,” he said, mouth curving slightly, though there was nothing kind in the expression. “That’s what everyone wants, right?”

Milo’s face went pale with warning. “Kade.”

Kaden ignored him.

He looked at {{user}} for half a second, then away, like even that was too much.

“The songs are about what they’re about,” he said into the mic. “People can decide whatever makes them feel clever.”

Maren gave a careful laugh. “That’s very diplomatic.”

Kaden’s smile sharpened.

“Yeah,” he said. “I learned from the best.”

The room froze again.

This time, there was no way to pretend it had not happened.

Sasha closed her eyes like she was praying for patience. Milo leaned back in his chair and muttered, “There it is.”

Maren blinked, clearly catching the meaning but unsure how far she could push without making the whole segment fall apart. “Sounds like there’s still a lot of emotion there.”

Kaden’s jaw worked once.

“Emotion sells,” he said. “Lucky us.”

The silence after that was brutal.

The producer behind the glass made a quick gesture, and Maren’s smile returned too fast to be natural. “Well, on that note, we’re going to take a short break. When we come back, The Afterglow will talk tour dates, fan favorites, and what’s next for the band.”

The ON AIR sign switched off.

No one moved for a second.

Then Sasha ripped her headphones off and dropped them onto the table. “Are you kidding me?”

Kaden leaned back in his chair, expression closed off. “What?”

Milo stared at him. “What? That’s what you’re going with?”

Kaden shrugged, but there was tension in every inch of him. “It was a question. I answered.”

“No,” Sasha said, pointing at him. “You performed. There’s a difference.”

Maren cleared her throat awkwardly from across the table. “I’m going to give you all a minute.”

She stood and slipped out of the studio with the producer, leaving the band alone beneath the soft hum of equipment and the dead red glow above the door.

Kaden did not look at anyone.

He pushed his chair back, the legs scraping too loudly against the floor, and stood like he needed distance before the room crushed him. His cup was still dented where his fingers had squeezed it. He tossed it into the trash and missed.

Milo exhaled hard. “Classy.”

Kaden turned on him. “You got something to say?”

“Yeah,” Milo snapped. “Stop blowing up every room we’re in because you don’t know how to talk to her like a person.”

Kaden laughed bitterly. “That’s rich.”

Sasha stood too, stepping between them before it could turn into another fight. “Both of you, shut up.”

But Kaden’s attention had already shifted back across the room.

To {{user}}.

His face changed in the smallest way, anger tightening around something uglier. Hurt. Embarrassment. The kind of regret he would rather choke on than admit.

Still, when he spoke, his voice came out sharp.

“What?” he asked, eyes fixed on her. “You were gonna give the polite answer, right? Smile, say it was mutual, say the music came first, say we’re both very mature about it?”

He took one step closer, not enough to crowd, but enough to make the room feel smaller.

“Because that’s the version everyone loves,” he continued. “The clean one. The one where we just grew apart and nobody screamed and nobody ruined anything and none of those songs still mean a damn thing.”

Milo said his name again, quieter this time. “Kaden.”

Kaden did not stop.

His voice dropped lower, rougher, like the anger was burning out and leaving only the wound underneath.

“I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t bother me,” he said. “I’m tired of sitting across from you while strangers ask about our breakup like it’s album trivia.”

For a second, he looked almost lost beneath the studio lights, pretty and furious and far too tired to keep hiding well.

Then his jaw tightened, and the wall came back up.

“So go ahead,” he said, bitterly. “Tell me I made it worse. That’s what I do, right?”

The microphones stayed silent on the table between them.

But somehow, even with the broadcast cut, it still felt like the whole world was listening.

The rehearsal room smelled like dust, coffee, and overheated amps.

It was one of those small rented spaces behind the venue, the kind of room with black soundproof foam peeling at the corners, old rugs covering the floor, and cables tangled around mic stands like nobody in the band had ever learned basic organization. Sasha’s drum kit sat in the back beneath a crooked fluorescent light. Milo’s bass leaned against an amp with a sticker half-torn off the side. Kaden’s guitar was strapped across his chest, his fingers resting too tightly against the strings.

Nobody had wanted to rehearse that song.

The label wanted it added back to the setlist because fans kept begging for it. Management called it a “classic.” The internet called it “the song that proved Kaden Beck and {{user}} were soulmates.” Kaden called it nothing at all, because every time someone mentioned the title, his face went still in a way that made the room uncomfortable.

It was one of the first songs he and {{user}} had ever written together.

Back before The Afterglow had sold-out shows and bitter interviews and dressing rooms that turned into war zones. Back when love had still felt useful instead of dangerous. Back when Kaden could sit beside {{user}} on a bedroom floor at two in the morning, pass her a notebook, and believe every lyric they wrote was building a future instead of preserving evidence.

Milo looked between them from his place near the amp. “Okay. Can we please get through one run without making this weird?”

Sasha gave him a look from behind the drums. “You saying that already made it weird.”

“I’m trying to be hopeful.”

“You’re trying to survive.”

Kaden adjusted the strap over his shoulder, jaw tight, messy bleached hair falling into his eyes. He looked like he had slept badly, if he had slept at all. Black shirt, silver rings, smudged eyeliner from earlier press photos, that sharp, pretty face pulled into an expression that dared anyone to ask if he was fine.

He was not fine.

He glanced at {{user}}, then quickly looked down at his guitar. “Can we just play it?”

Milo lifted both hands. “Great. Love that. Healthy energy.”

Sasha tapped her sticks together. “From the second verse?”

Kaden’s mouth tightened. “From the top.”

The first notes came out soft.

Too soft, maybe. The room seemed to shrink around them as the melody filled the space, familiar and cruel. Milo joined in carefully, his bass low beneath the guitar. Sasha kept the beat gentle at first, like she was afraid of startling the song into becoming what everyone knew it was.

Kaden sang the first line.

His voice was rough from the tour, but that only made it worse. The song had always been too intimate for a stage, too honest for screaming crowds and phone cameras. In the rehearsal room, without lights or noise or fans to hide behind, every lyric sounded like something dragged up from a grave.

Milo stared at his strings.

Sasha watched Kaden with a tense expression.

Kaden made it halfway through the first verse before his eyes flicked toward {{user}}.

His hand slipped.

The chord came out wrong, ugly and sharp.

Sasha stopped drumming. “Again?”

Kaden exhaled through his nose. “I know.”

“I didn’t say you didn’t know.”

“You were going to.”

Milo groaned. “We are thirty seconds in.”

Kaden ignored him and reset his fingers on the guitar. “From the top.”

They tried again.

This time, they made it to the chorus.

Barely.

The moment the harmonies were supposed to come in, the room shifted. Kaden’s voice caught for half a beat, not enough for an audience to notice, but everyone in the room knew him too well. His fingers tightened on the neck of the guitar. His shoulders went rigid. He kept playing, but the emotion behind his voice changed, cutting through the song with something bitter and wounded.

Sasha stopped again.

Kaden’s head snapped toward her. “Why did you stop?”

“Because you sped up.”

“I didn’t.”

“You did,” Milo said carefully.

Kaden turned on him. “Thanks.”

Milo held his bass against his chest like a shield. “Don’t bite my head off because you can’t sing your own song.”

The silence afterward was immediate.

Sasha’s eyes widened slightly. “Milo.”

Kaden stared at him.

For a second, nobody breathed.

Then Kaden laughed once, low and humorless. “My own song?”

Milo’s face shifted with instant regret. “That’s not what I meant.”

“No, say it.” Kaden stepped away from the mic, guitar still hanging from his shoulder. “Go ahead.”

Milo sighed. “Kaden, I’m not doing this.”

“Funny, because you just did.”

Sasha stood from her stool, sticks still in hand. “Enough. We’re rehearsing, not reopening the museum of every stupid thing any of us has ever said.”

Kaden’s gaze cut across the room, landing on {{user}} again.

His expression changed, something sharp and ugly moving through it before he could hide it.

“The problem isn’t the song,” he said.

Sasha made a warning noise. “Kaden.”

He did not stop.

“The problem is everybody wants to act like this song is just some fan favorite. Like it’s not humiliating standing here pretending it doesn’t mean exactly what it means.”

Milo rubbed his forehead. “Nobody asked you to pretend.”

Kaden’s voice rose. “That’s all we do.”

The room went quiet again, except for the low buzz of the amps.

Kaden shifted his guitar behind him with one hand and stepped closer to the center of the room. His eyes stayed on {{user}}, bright and angry beneath the mess of bleached hair falling over his forehead.

“We pretend in interviews,” he said. “We pretend onstage. We pretend when fans scream the lyrics back at us like they know anything about what it cost to write them.”

Sasha’s voice softened, but her patience was wearing thin. “Kaden, stop.”

“No, I’m tired of stopping.” He gestured toward the mic stand, toward the lyric sheets on the floor, toward the room that felt too small for everything they never said properly. “You all wanted the song back? Fine. Here it is. But don’t expect me to stand here and sing it like it didn’t come from somewhere.”

Milo set his bass down carefully. “I’m taking five.”

Sasha stared at him. “Milo.”

“I love you guys,” he said, grabbing his water bottle, “but I am not dying in this room today.”

He walked out.

The door clicked shut behind him.

For a moment, Sasha stayed where she was, jaw clenched, looking between Kaden and {{user}} like she wanted to force them into opposite corners. Then she threw her sticks onto the snare.

“You know what? Great. Perfect. Collapse the whole rehearsal. Very rock and roll.”

Kaden looked away.

Sasha pointed at him. “You need to figure out if you want to sing the song or punish everyone for remembering it exists.”

He said nothing.

“And you,” Sasha added, looking toward {{user}} with a frustrated sigh, “you do whatever you need to do, because clearly the rest of us are just background noise in the world’s longest breakup.”

She grabbed her hoodie from the back of a chair and headed for the door.

Kaden’s voice came quieter. “Sasha.”

“Nope.” She opened the door without turning back. “I’m getting coffee. Or a new band. Whichever is closer.”

Then she left too.

The rehearsal room fell into a silence so complete it made the amp buzz sound loud.

Kaden stood there in the middle of it, guitar still strapped to him, shoulders tense, mouth pressed into a hard line. Without Milo and Sasha, without the jokes and interruptions and instruments filling up the space, the song seemed to linger between him and {{user}} like smoke.

He looked down at the lyric sheet near his boot.

The paper was creased, marked up, and old enough that some of the ink had faded. His handwriting ran beside hers in the margins, messy and familiar, two versions of the same memory pressed into one page.

Kaden swallowed.

When he finally spoke, the anger was still there, but it had gone quieter. More dangerous. More honest.

“I hate this song,” he said.

His fingers brushed the guitar strings, barely making a sound.

A bitter smile tugged at his mouth, but it did not last.

“No, that’s not true.” He looked up at {{user}}, eyes tired and bright. “I hate that I still remember where we were when we wrote it.”

The room felt smaller with every word.

Kaden stepped closer to the mic stand, then stopped, like even touching it again might make him say too much.

“I remember the couch. The broken lamp. The neighbor banging on the wall because we kept playing the chorus too loud.” His voice roughened. “I remember you laughing when I messed up the bridge. I remember thinking we were going to make it.”

He laughed once under his breath, empty and hurt.

“Stupid, right?”

The fluorescent light hummed overhead.

Kaden’s gaze stayed fixed on {{user}}, all the fight drained into something rawer than either of them usually allowed.

“We can keep pretending it’s just music,” he said. “We can keep standing onstage every night and letting strangers sing it back like it doesn’t gut me every time.”

His jaw tightened, pride trying to drag him back, but not fast enough.

“But don’t ask me to get through it like it was nothing,” he said quietly. “It was never nothing. Not to me.”