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“Yeah, keep this up and I might add a third night.” They scream ‘yes yes yes’ and I can’t help but laugh. Someone lifts a sign that says ‘Athens loves you, Issy Woo’. I point to the person holding it and wink. Everyone goes wild. The cameramen zoom in on a drawing of the flag of Greece next to the Heartbreaker logo on another hand-made sign.
“Problem is,” I continue, “now that I’m here, I want to stay. I don’t know how I am going to bring myself to leave this place. It’s grabbed my soul. Spencer, what have you done to me? Greece has ruined me for the rest of the world.”
Cheers fill the air and I wait for them to quiet down.
“The thing is… When you love something, it might break your heart. And I have written this song, you might know it…” My voice is drowned by their screams. They know what’s about to happen. “This is what happens when you love something too much. It breaks you.”
Seamlessly, the band starts playing the intro toHeartbreaker.
I let them go on until the minute I have to start singing the first verse. And then I turn and motion to them to stop.
They look at me confused; they all know it’s time to singHeartbreaker.
The most important part of the show.
This is what everyone is here for tonight.
I fought with Skye about removing it from the set list altogether, but, of course, it was impossible. This is theHeartbreakertour, after all. At first I thought I would try to detach myself from the feeling of helplessness that this song now evokes: I can do that. I’ve performed it more times than I can count.
I can perform it. But, here’s the thing: I don’t want to.
I don’t want to sing it the same way I’ve sung it for years. So, without telling anyone, I made a change.
“Wait,” I say into the mic. The crowd freezes. The screams stop and there’s dead silence. “Stop,” I tell the band. We haven’t rehearsed this part. I’ve only told Jude and Miki I’ll do it. There was no time to prepare the rest of the musicians. They look like they’re about to have heart-attacks.
“It’s fine,” I tell them, my back to the crowd. They stop playing, one by one. “It’s ok, I just want to say a few words before I start this song.”
I turn to the sea of faces. They’re waiting, their eyes focused on me. This is it. The definitive moment. The moment I asked all these prayers for. It’s happening.
My legs start shaking, but there’s no time to panic. A strange, otherworldly peace floods me. I’ve never experienced a feeling like this before: it’s the feeling of being completely powerless, but not in a desperate, scared way. It’s out of my control now. I’ve made a decision and I’ve set the wheels in motion. Whatever happens, happens.
It’s freeing in a way I never knew anything could be.
“Before I sing this next song that I wrote, I need to make something clear,” I say. “There is no person behind the song, there is no real heartbreaker. I thought there was, but I was wrong. No one is at fault here. I don’t know if you heard what happened at a club in Italy recently, but… attacking someone who is important to me is not a way to show me you care.”
I look at Eden directly.
This time she meets my eyes bravely; she does not falter. Neither do I.
“Hurting someone who is close to me is not the way to help me or show me your appreciation for my music.” My voice goes deep and serious. “I am here tonight to tell you: Don’t be like me. Don’t hold on to bitterness and anger. Don’t be your own heartbreaker. Because I gotta tell you right now: no one broke my heart but me. I am the cause of all my unhappiness.”
They are listening.
I keep talking.
“When you listen to this song, you and me together,” I say, “well, I’m going to be singing it too, just saying…” I pause, expecting them to laugh or shout or applaud, but nothing. Absolute silence. Every single person is listening to me. “So when we listen to this next song, I don’t want any of us to keep thinking about the people who have hurt us or have done us wrong. Instead, what if we made it a point to let go of all the bitterness? To forgive? To unbreak our own hearts? To take back the power, to think only of the good things? To recognize that no one can break a heart that knows how to love?”
I’ve finally understood it myself. It took me four years, but here it is:
“If your heart hurts because you have loved before, or because you still love, then you are the winner. No heartbreaker can take the love you once felt from you. But in my case, someone did. Someone stole every good thing this love had brought to me. And that someone was me. I did it to myself. Think of that when you hear the next song. And forgive me, if you can, because I can’t forgive myself.”
I motion to the band with a flourish of my hand, and the song starts.
But I don’t look away from Eden.
My eyes are on hers, hungrily searching them through the distance that separates us, looking for signs of recognition, of forgiveness. I’ve wasted all these years wondering if I could ever forgive her for what she did. Now there’s no question of meforgiving her. But willsheforgiveme?
I don’t think I deserve it.
