After the lights faded, and the applause lost its shape,
I didn't feel victorious.
I felt exposed.
Like I had handed the world a piece of my soul,
only to watch it be weighed, judged,
and possibly discarded.
But he was there.
Waiting in the shadow of the curtain,
as he always did —
not to steal the light,
but to remind me who I was when it faded.
He didn't speak at first.
He didn't need to.
His presence was the only sound that made sense.
I walked to him, slowly, unsure if I wanted comfort or confrontation.
Maybe both.
---
We sat on the edge of the empty stage.
My voice was still trembling from the last song.
His hands, clasped between his knees, looked as if they were holding something invisible —
maybe all the words he was too afraid to say.
"I'm proud of you," he finally said.
Not loud, not dramatic.
Just true.
I didn't respond.
Not because I didn't believe him.
But because I did.
And that scared me more than anything.
---
In the days that followed, everything blurred.
Rumors started.
Whispers that I didn't earn this.
That I was just a scandal waiting to happen.
That my voice was loud only because of him.
I tried to hold my ground.
To sing louder.
Stand straighter.
But every note I sang felt like I was shouting underwater.
When I turned to him for support,
he flinched.
Not in body — but in spirit.
Like he didn't know how to hold something that burned this bright.
---
Then came the interview.
The one that broke us.
They asked him about me.
About us.
And he said:
"She's talented. Independent. Her success has nothing to do with me."
And somehow,
in trying to defend me,
he made me invisible.
---
We argued in a dark hallway,
far from the echo of fans or flashing cameras.
I asked him why.
Why he couldn't just say it —
say he believed in me,
say he was with me.
He looked tired.
> "This world eats people like us," he said.
"Sometimes surviving means pretending we don't care."
I stared at him.
At the man who once stood behind me like a mountain.
Now… he felt like fog.
> "You don't have to survive for me," I whispered.
"You just had to stand with me."
---
I walked away.
Not because I wanted to.
Because I had to.
And for a while,
I sang alone.
Not on stage — but in my heart.
---
But love isn't so easily dismissed.
In quiet corners,
in unfinished songs,
in the way the wind hit my neck the way his breath once did…
he was still there.
Even in his absence,
he was the loudest silence I ever carried.