Chapter Text
Hannah
Five Years after Graduation
I like watching shows from backstage.
It sounds worse back here, disjointed and muffled. But there’s something addictive about watching the crowd from behind the performer. Especially when I’m the one who wrote the song.
Andy Allen is almost at the end of a three hour set. Her dark blonde hair has doubled in size since she started. Her voice is raspy - she’s nearing the end of a three month North American tour - but the crowd doesn’t care.
As she reaches the last verse of the final song of the night, Andy unclips her guitar, tossing it to a tech in the wing without looking. She gestures at her band and the music cuts out, replaced by the screams of the crowd. They’ve watched enough videos of her tour to know exactly what’s coming next.
Andy grabs the mic in both hands and walks to the edge of the stage. And the whole stadium takes the melody.
‘’You deserve the world, and I’m just holding you back.’
You said it like a favor, but it was an attack.
Standing on your pedestal, you looked so fucking small.
Goodbye, Mr. Perfect, you could have had it all.’
I sing along too. It’s weird, hearing one hundred thousand strangers scream one of the worst nights of my life back at me. Even after a year, the only way I can get through this song is to belt the lyrics right along with the crowd.
Everyone is still humming the final riff as the lights go dark for the encore. I’m trying to swallow the lump in my throat when a voice cuts in my ear.
‘I wondered what it would sound like.’
I freeze.
‘Live, I mean. It plays everywhere.’ He pauses for a beat. ‘It’s hard to avoid, actually.’
I can’t bring myself to turn around just yet. What the fuck is he doing here?
‘Wellsy.’
I turn around and see Garrett Graham’s huge, dark eyes are fixed on me. He looks tired, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his charcoal grey suit pants.
‘Have you been here the whole set?’ I sound sharper than I want to.
‘I’ve been here the last few songs. I got caught up in traffic after I left the game.’
Of course. I don’t follow hockey any more - I’d scrubbed it from my Instagram feed - but I saw some LA Kings fans walking around downtown in their jerseys earlier that day. I just hadn’t realised that they were playing Winnipeg tonight.
He looks towards the stage, where Andy has brought all the dancers back for a final bow. ‘I came to hear the song,’ he adds, quietly.
‘Why?’ I ask, my voice dropping.
‘I don’t know Hannah. I wanted to hear it.’ He looks cramped in the wings of the arena. ‘I didn’t know you were here. I thought songwriters just… stayed in studios or whatever.’
‘I live in LA, Garrett. The label invited me out for the final night.’
He stares at me for a second, his expression unreadable, before exhaling a short breath. ‘Right. Well. Clearly I didn't think this through.’
The house lights come up and flood us in a harsh fluorescence. Security guards are already moving down the path, clearing the way for Andy’s exit. We’re completely in the way.
‘Look, I have to go,’ I say, checking my phone as it buzzes with a text from the label reps. ‘The vans are waiting downstairs to take everyone to the wrap party.’
Garrett looks at the security guards, and then back at me. His jaw tightens, but he steps back, giving me space to pass. ‘Of course. Bye, Hannah.’
I take a few steps past him before my brain catches up with my feet. We’ve barely spoken in a year. He’s skipped events we were both invited to. Now he's standing a few feet away, looking lost, and if I just get into that van, I’m going to spend the next six months losing my mind wondering what he could have said.
So I stop, and turn back around.
‘It’s at Delilah if you want to come. The party, that is.’
Garrett blinks, looking thrown, and I feel surprisingly nervous. Then he nods. ‘I’ll find you there.’
***
It’s my first time at Delilah. Normally I’d be soaking in the red velvet lined walls and the amber light glistening from the crystal chandeliers. But tonight I’m paralysed by the six foot four hockey player sitting next to me in a dark corner of the room.
He has placed himself at a careful distance so that our bodies don’t brush against each other in the tight space. It hadn’t mattered that he wasn’t on the guest list; the bouncer was a huge hockey fan.
‘You did it, Wellsy,’ he says, gesturing at the room around us. The main floor is packed with dancers, and VIP guests drinking delicate cocktails as the DJ blasts the screeching violin hook of Britney Spears’ Toxic.
‘What, I finally got invited to a party? Am I cool now?’ My voice sounds higher than I mean it to, undercutting my attempt to sound unbothered.
Garrett rolls his eyes, his mouth settling into a familiar smirk.
‘You were always cool. Why do you think I asked you out in the first place?’
‘Temporary insanity,’ I reply, drily.
Garrett lets out a surprised bark of laughter before catching himself, his expression softening.
‘I mean it, Wellsy, you’ve made it happen. You’re a songwriter now.’
‘I wrote a single song.’ I try to brush aside the complement, focusing on the circle that has formed in the centre of the dance floor, where Andy’s bass guitarist is doing the worm. He's surprisingly athletic for a weedy music nerd.
‘Come on. You wrote the song of the fucking year.’
I roll my eyes.
‘No, really, where did Rolling Stone put it on its list? Third?’
‘Fifth,’ I reply.
We’re silent for a while. I've spent the last year imagining what I might say if I saw Garrett, but my mind has gone blank. I'm relieved when a guy in an oversized jacket and chunky designer glasses flops down right next to Garrett.
‘Hannah,’ Leo says, entirely ignoring Garrett as he clinks his martini glass against my mostly untouched pina colada.
‘Leo’, I reply. ‘I didn’t know you were coming tonight?’
‘Oh honey. Mr Perfect wouldn’t have hit without your lyrics and my mix. Even though we weren’t on the tour, we still deserve to party.’
He blinks, squinting at Garrett and entirely failing to recognise him. ‘Who’s your friend?’
Garrett extends a hand and is about to introduce himself when Leo interrupts.
‘Good grip. What are you, a footballer?’
Before Garrett can correct him, Leo turns back to me.
‘I just spoke to Matt from A&R, by the way. They released a live version of Mr. Perfect today to celebrate the end of the tour and it’s already hit twenty million streams. I was telling him at the bar - none of this would have happened without you.’
‘No seriously.’ He turns to Garrett. 'We should probably thank her ex as well. If he wasn’t such a psycho, we could never have made that song together.’
Garrett doesn't say anything.
Leo clocks the stony expression on his face and claps a hand over his mouth. ‘Oh no. You're the ex-boyfriend'. Garrett nods grimly.
'Right. Well....I can tell that you two probably have a lot of, um, catching up to do,’ he says and he gets up, rushing to excuse himself from the mess he’s made.
Garrett sits frozen, a blank expression on his face. I hurry to fill the silence Leo has left behind.
‘So that’s, um, Leo. He’s quite - blunt.’
‘Yeah, he is.' Garrett says without looking at me. 'It’s always nice to meet a fan,’ he adds, sarcastically.
‘He’s actually a really good producer.' I defend weakly. 'And a nice person. When he’s not, you know, accidentally slandering you to your face.’
‘Hey, I’ve just heard thousands of people come together to sing a song about how much of an asshole I am. What’s one more guy.’ Garrett is trying to sound light, but there’s an edge in his voice.
I stay quiet for a moment, surveying the room. The crew have arrived now and trays of shots are circulating on the dancefloor. One of Andy's highest profile dancers has her arm draped around the bass guitarist, who is laughing, flushed and looking so proud of himself. Two of the backup singers have popped up behind the DJ and are screaming into the same microphone.
This night was supposed to be a celebration of the craziest, hardest, most successful year of my professional life. I should get up and dance, but I don’t want to let Garrett’s comment go.
'That's not what the song is about' I reply. 'It isn't saying that you are an asshole. It's saying that you acted like an asshole. Because you did.'
He flexes his hand against the velvet of the couch. He takes a deep breath and starts to speak.
'You wrote an amazing song, Hannah. I mean that. But it's a pretty unfair way to describe me and what happened between us.'
'I wrote about exactly what happened!’
'Bullshit. You took my comments completely out of context, got Leo over there-' he gestures to my producer on the dancefloor, but didn't break eye contact '-to add literal violins, and shared our worst, most private moments with the world.'
He sighs as he leans his head back on the velvet cushion.
'You're being unfair. I didn't share it with the world. No one cares about the songwriter. People have no idea who the song is about.'
'Our friends know. My colleagues know. My coach knows.'
'That’s all that you care about, isn’t it. I'm sorry that my heartbreak hurt your work,' I snap back, my heart pounding in my chest.
'It's not about my work, Hannah. It's me. You hurt me.' His voice breaks as he looks into my eyes.
The air drains from my lungs. 'Oh'.
‘I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I know that I hurt you too. But you asked why I went to the show? I went because I saw a fucking therapist, Hannah, and she suggested that seeing it might help me move on.’
He shakes his head, looking exhausted.
‘But then you were there, and you invited me here, and I couldn’t say no, and now I’m looking at you again, and all I can think about is how much I miss you. Fuck!’
He cuts himself off abruptly.
‘I’m sorry, Hannah. This was a bad idea. This is your night, and I’m making a mess of it.’
He stands up and starts weaving through the tables. People instinctively move aside to let him through.
‘Garrett, wait!’ I call out after him, but my voice disappears into the room.