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She came down hard on the final notes, her voice cracking slightly on the high note, letting the acoustic guitar ring out into the massive room. She closed her eyes, ready to let the last chord die so she could thank them and get off the stage before the crowd turned on her.

Then, a strange shift happened in the crowd, starting from the middle. It wasn’t the usual bouncing or swaying. It was more of a… surge.

Ashley squinted into the blinding blue glare of the follow-spots, her brow furrowing as the security guards at the front barrier suddenly uncrossed their arms and reached for their earpieces.

Thirty-Six

Molly stood behind a massive concrete pillar near the fire exit. This seemed more and more like an extraordinarily stupid idea by the moment. She was a grown woman, trying to get to a pop star on stage to profess her feelings. She was probably ten a penny in this crowd.

Then the girl in front of her turned, saw her, blinked three times, and went completely pale.

‘Oh my god,’ the girl whispered, her elbow instantly digging into her mate’s ribs. ‘It’s her. It’s Molly Sullivan.’

The shift was instantaneous. Within three seconds, the five rows of people around her weren’t looking at the stage anymore. They were looking at Molly. Because of Simon’s relentless press campaign, every teenager in the Midlands knew her face now. An excited buzz went up around her, a dozen phone screens pivoting away from Ashley to point directly at Molly’s face.

‘Why are you back here?’ a girl with a septum ring yelled over the noise. ‘Did she bin you off?’ she asked hopefully.

Before Molly could articulate a single swear word to get them to back off, Ashley struck a heavy, flat D-minor chord on stage. The venue went dead quiet. Then she started to sing. There was no fast rhythm. It was acoustic, melancholy, and completely out of place in her set.

Molly froze. She’d never heard this song before, and she’d heard them all. And at first, it was like ‘Half Light’. She wasn’t sure. She wanted to hope… Was it?

And then Ashley sang:

You said, ‘Go to Japan. Go to fucking Mars.’

You cut the line, left me with my guitars

And I hit the carpet, I hit the floor

Calling a number that exists no more

The words were right there, hovering on my lips

So why did I let them be eclipsed?

Why couldn’t I force my lungs to breathe?

Why didn’t I fight when you tried to leave?

I loved you then, Molly. I love you now.

I was just a coward who couldn’t spit it out.

Molly’s own name hit her like a shove in the chest.

Molly could just about see Ashley. This was no performance. She was standing up there in front of three thousand people, looking entirely miserable and terrified, singing about how much of a coward she’d been.

She was saying that she loved Molly. She’d always loved her.

‘I need to get there,’ Molly said, her voice frantic as she pushed against the shoulder of a large lad in a denim jacket and heavy eyeliner. ‘Excuse me. Let me pass, I need to get to the front.’

‘You’ll never make it, mate,’ the lad said, looking at the solid wall between them and the stage. ‘It’s packed solid.’

‘I don’t care! Move!’ Molly shoved forward, but it was like trying to walk through wet cement. She managed about three inches before she was stopped. It was too slow. And she could hear the final chords building up.

But Molly was stuck in the middle of the crowd.

‘Go on then!’ the lad suddenly shouted. ‘We’ll get you there!’