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“We love you!”

“You’ve got this!”

The whole damn crowd is with him now, screaming over the silence like they can carry him through it. Thousands of strangers holding him up without touching a single thing. It’s not a pity chant. It’s a rally cry.

Thorin lifts his head, eyes glossy under the lights.

And he keeps going.

The note is broken. Cracked wide open. But he finishes the song. Every last word. And when he steps back, his hands are shaking, chest heaving like he ran through fire to get there.

Benji and Carson flank him, no hesitation. They don’t even look at each other, just move as one—instinct, not strategy. I keep the rhythm like it’s the only thing holding any of us together, every beat a promise: We’ve got you. We’re not letting go.

We finish the set to a roar that rattles the steel bones of the arena.

Backstage, no one speaks.

Not at first.

Thorin sits on the floor, back against a black road case, like he physically can’t go another step. His head drops into his hands, and everything he held back on stage comes crashing down in the quiet.

Carson crouches in front of him. Benji’s hand settles on his shoulder, thumb brushing slow circles like he’s grounding lightning.

I drop beside them, legs stretched out, palms braced on the floor like I can steady the world from the ground up.

No one says you were amazing. No one says you killed it or I’m proud of you or we’ll get through this.

We don’t have to.

Sometimes grief doesn’t want words.

It wants witnesses.

And tonight?

We’re not walking away from each other. We’re staying in the fire. Shoulder to shoulder. Hands to hearts.

Because the only way out of this is through it.

And we’re not going alone.

But once the stage fades and the gear’s packed, once the lights die down and the crew scatters, we’re left with the weight again.

Only now it’s heavier.

Back at the hotel, the band moves like a storm that’s lost its thunder. No one’s talking loud. Carson hasn’t touched the minibar. Benji passed on a post-show beer for the first time since we started touring. And Thorin?

Thorin’s sitting on the edge of the bed in our suite, still in his stage clothes, scrolling through his phone like the screen’s got answers it hasn’t figured out how to give him yet.

I peel off my hoodie, toss it over the back of a chair, and flop down onto the couch. My bones ache in that good, earned way—but my chest?

That’s a whole different ache.

Alex left his laptop open on the desk, Twitter up like a ticker tape parade of raw emotion. The hashtag’s already trending. #ThorinStrong. #EighteendustMSG. #SanctuaryLive.

“Madison Square Garden got a front-row seat to heartbreak tonight. Thorin Decker—we see you, man. We hear you.”

“Cried through the entire second verse. He almost broke. And then WE lifted him. That’s what live music is. That’s what this band is.”