Prologue
On nights like this, sheloses herself in feeling adored.
Ramona Wilder twirls around the stage, platform heels threatening her life with every step. Long dark hair streams behind her, miraculously untangled even after ninety minutes of performing. She’s feverish and sweatier than usual and might be catching a cold, but these 21,000 people waited for hours in sleet and slush to get inside the arena—they deserve a show that doesn’t look like she’s sleepwalking through it.
As usual, the lights are too bright for her to see past the first few rows. The audience is a blur of pale yellow to match her latest album cover, the one with her sprawled in the wreckage of a giant cake. There are fishnets and tulle, plaid miniskirts and corset tops. An almost irresponsible amount of glitter. Her fans always dress up for her, and she loves their confident expressions of girlhood even more than she hated scraping buttercream out of her lashes.
Tomorrow, though—tomorrow she’s going to break their hearts.
“Milwaukee!”she yells into the mic, and they cheer like it’s the title of their favorite song. She arranges her doe eyes and cherry-stained lips into an expression of dramatic concern. “Milwaukee, I need your help.”
At this, she waits a beat while the crowd quiets down. Scatteredwhoops. Hundreds of phones pointed at her face.
“I’m a little nervous,” she continues, her voice grave, “because it’s been a while since this next song came out, and I’m not sure I remember how it goes. I think it’s something like—” She hums the chorus, brow furrowing. “Sort of like that, right?”
Laughter rolls through the arena, even though most of them have seen her do this bit online. A girl in the third row who can’t be older than seven perches on the shoulders of a mother or sister. She’s been singing at the top of her lungs all night. Ramona makes eye contact. Gives her a wave.
She’s still humming, purposefully off-key as she searches for the tune. “God, this is embarrassing for me.” Her bottom lip snagged between her teeth, and then: “Does anyone here know the words?”
Their screams are a hit of dopamine straight to her veins, such pure joy that she can almost ignore the itch in her throat and the fear that her voice will crack. Thank god for the backup singers.
Her guitarist hits that familiar crunchy chord, and then Ramona launches into the song that made her famous.
It’s the last stop on her Wasted Potential World Tour that kicked off in Los Angeles five months ago, winding its way across the country and up into Canada before a string of dates in the UK and Europe, then back to the Midwest for a few final shows that no one knows yet are herfinalshows. Not her parents or her producers or Len at the record label. And certainly not Thaniel,the lead singer of her opening act, who she’s been hooking up with for much longer than she planned, and who insists on going by that name despite how awkward it is to pronounce and the sheer number of better nickname options there are for Nathaniel.
She wanted tonight to be a true grand finale. The best show of her life, the one that will define her career even as she ends it.
Instead, she tweaks her ankle during the first chorus and spends the rest of the song focused on keeping the pain off her face. It’s more of a whimper than a crescendo, but none of the fans seem to care. Heart-shaped confetti rains down from the ceiling while she blows kisses to the audience, hugs her dancers and her band, thanks everyone for being there. For supporting her on this tour. For being the reason she’s able to do this.
She wishes it were enough, their adoration, and a ribbon of guilt wraps tight around the parts of her midsection that aren’t squeezed by her high-waisted leather shorts. Maybe it would be, if this were only about the music.
But that’s the thing—it’s never been only about the music.
Then she’s backstage and someone is pushing a bottle of sparkling water into her hands, someone has an ice pack for her ankle, someone is helping her unbuckle these godforsaken shoes. She pushes hair and confetti out of her face andbreathes.
It should feel like a bigger relief.
“You were incredible, baby,” Thaniel says as he swoops in for a kiss, though she’s too exhausted to give him anything but her forehead. “So fucking hot.”
She reaches up to pat his cheek. “Thanks, Thaniel.” Just because she hates that pretentious nickname, she makes a point to use it as much as possible. “I think I’m ten seconds away from passing out.”
“You gotta let me take you out to celebrate.” The suggestion comes with a hand on her ass, because what he really means bycelebrateis her blowing him in his hotel room before faking an orgasm that’s more of a performance than anything she’s ever done onstage. And as appealing as that is—
“I really just want to sleep. For two weeks straight.” She coughs into her elbow, but it does nothing to ease the pressure in her chest. “And I might be getting sick.”
“We could sleep afterward,” he offers with a flutter of one eyebrow, and she wonders how she ever fell for this.
Soon,she reminds herself.It’ll all be over soon.
Her parents descend, her mother giving Thaniel a tight smile and a dismissive wave. DeeAnn Wilder, who handles her promotion and merchandising, and Beck Wilder, who handles her music, have been jointly managing her since her children’s television days, her role onGreta Life!that made her a tween idol before her debut album broke all those records.
“They could see your underboob for the last three songs,” DeeAnn says, passing Ramona a towel so she can dab the sweat on her face. In an instant, the relief is replaced by a too-familiar emotion: shame. “I knew that leather bra was a disaster waiting to happen. One more spin, and you would have been flashing your nipples.”
“A hell of a way to end the tour,” Ramona deadpans, but DeeAnn is unamused. She glances down at the bra and the apparently offensive part of her body that’s on display. Adjusts it, though it doesn’t matter now.
This is the line Ramona has never been able to walk without stumbling, the careful balance between sexy and slutty.
Men should want to fuck you,an exec told her once,but they shouldn’t feel dirty about it.
