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harryandmolly · 6 years

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The Long Way Home -12- FINAL

A/N: what a brilliant journey! thank you ALL for your incredible support and feedback. you all mean the world to me. I’m extremely proud of this whole series and I hope the ending satisfies you all. (A note for the end: I am not a lyricist so I stole Sugarland’s “Little Miss” and made it Emma’s. Highly recommend you give it a listen to give yourself the full picture while you read)

Summary: His world is a little rocked when Shawn is joined on his 2019 world tour by Emma, a former child star with a chip on her shoulder and a voice that haunts him.

Warnings: Language, family angst, Finality (TM)

Word count: 7.9k (ta daaaa!)

“Now put yer teeny little fingers there… and there.”

Emma obeyed. Emma always obeys.

Grandpa Norm stroked the strings and a pretty noise came out. Emma looked down, eyes wide.

“See, lil girl? You can do it.”

Emma lies in bed, bare feet planted on her Ravenclaw duvet, staring at the ceiling. She’s blasting Shawn’s latest album from her multi-thousand dollar stereo system with her hands folded over her stomach and she’s never felt more like a moody teenager.

She’s never been allowed to be a moody teenager, so maybe this was some sort of box she had to check to level up.

She closes her eyes and he’s there again, face red and panicked, fingers gripping her car window as he jogged to keep up. She didn’t look back when they drove away toward Reagan National for the red-eye back to LAX. She couldn’t.

She drafted six different long-winded texts between the security line and landing in Los Angeles. She sent none of them.

It’s not so much that she had to leave him – she knew that was coming in a few weeks when tour ended anyway. She’s been emotionally preparing for that. It’s more the disappointment she knows he felt at her giving in to Sandra. That’s why she was so desperate to explain it to him – he has to know about the trump card. He has to understand.

She waits until she’s striding into her house, Sandra trailing behind tapping away on her phone, to call him. It’s 4am in LA which means it’s 7am in Boston but she’s betting it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t imagine he slept either.

He answers on the first ring and listens while she sobs out the whole story, the whole sordid affair. He spits curses about Sandra in between her ragged breaths but lets her get it out. She knows he wants to protest, wants to tell her she should’ve stood up. But Emma knows Sandra. She knows when she’s bluffing. And she wasn’t.

“So… that’s it? You’re confined to your room?” he whispers.

She looks around. “Yeah. Or the house, at least. Ashley’s called me about eighty times since we were papped at LAX this morning. I’ll give you one guess who arranged that Kodak moment.”

Shawn sympathizes as much as he can, but he’s angry and she can hear it in his voice. She understands. She’s angry too. She’s so angry she can’t see straight. But she’s so tired. He talks to her until she falls asleep and then he leaves for the gym, sending her a text with a heart emoji and a promise to call her again later.

It’s been eight days since Emma has left the house. She’s trying to do the math in her head of how many hours that is when something taps her leg. She looks over at Georgie who’s lying in the same position, her bony knees pointed up at the ceiling, looking pensive. Georgie nods at the speakers. Emma turns down “Where Were You In the Morning.”

“Are you hungry?”

Emma nods. Georgie nods back and hops off the bed, scurrying in fuzzy purple socks out the bedroom door, closing it on her way out.

Georgie arrived the evening after Sandra and Emma got back to Hollywood. Emma was asleep – she slept all day after she and Shawn talked. Georgie crept into Emma’s room, turned on the lamp and crawled into bed.

Emma stirred. “G?”

Georgie’s wise old eyes stared back at her. She was expressionless, a face only a sister, another half of a soul could read.

Emma’s face crumpled until she was racked with sobs. Georgie dragged her face into her shoulder and rocked her until she calmed and fell asleep again.

The next morning, Sandra announced she and Georgie would be moving in and they’d all be spending time at home for a while to “regroup.” It was essentially Sandra-enforced house arrest. Georgie screamed, slammed doors, threw a fit unlike Emma had ever seen. But she was too tired to fight. She just watched.

She doesn’t leave the room now. She can’t look at Sandra’s face. She’s afraid she may claw it off. Georgie calmed down after her initial outburst and plays liaison now, occasionally relaying messages and couriering food.

Georgie returns to her sister’s boyfriend’s voice blasting through the wall. She closes the door again and climbs on the bed, offering Emma a plate of grapes, cheese and crackers. Emma plants a wet kiss on her cheek and Georgie sneers and giggles.

Georgie waves at the music again. Emma turns it down reluctantly, wanting to drown herself in the emotion of “Why.”

“Can I ask you something?” Georgie murmurs, smacking her lips like she always does when she eats. Emma shrugs and pops a grape in her mouth.

“What was your first time like?”

Emma’s jaw goes still mid-chew. Without meaning to, she relives her first sexual experience in fast-forward mode in her head, raising her eyebrows and wincing slightly.

Georgie snorts. Emma hears an anxious tone in it.

“That bad?”

Emma runs her tongue along her bottom lip, considering how to answer. “Honestly? Yeah. It hurt. I wasn’t ready. And it didn’t mean anything to him. It didn’t really mean that much to me, either.”

Georgie schools a calm look on her face. Emma takes another grape between her fingers, studying it.

“What’s up, G? Are you having sex?”

Emma’s heart pounds when she asks like she’s a nervous mom. She feels like one sometimes. Someone ought to around here.

Georgie’s quiet a beat too long. “I might be about to.”

Emma wants to crawl under the bed. She’s so horrified that she knows nothing about this, has no clue who her sister could be considering sleeping with. She’s been so wrapped up in her own shit, insulated by fame and Shawn and her own fucking ego. She feels nauseous but keeps a straight face as she encourages Georgie to go on.

“I’ve been talking to Holland Dittrich’s older brother Josh.”

“Jooooosh,” Emma teases in a deep voice, rolling her eyes, “That’s such a teenage boy name. Where do all the Joshes go after they turn 21? It’s like they disappear.”

Georgie snickers. “Shut up. He’s cool. He’s a rising senior at Belfort. Captain of the lacrosse team. He wants to go to Stanford pre-med. He’s like, perfect. He likes the same music as me. I even played him “Lost in Japan” last week and he really liked it. Like, I could tell he was into it.”

Emma picks at her grape and smiles gently. She kind of loves that liking Shawn’s music is a metric Georgie’s using for boys now. Shawn will like it too when Emma tells him.

“Have you been out with him?”

“Not yet. We’re catching a movie this weekend. I think he’s going to ask me to Homecoming in the fall.”

Emma nods like seasoned big sisters are supposed to even though she’s never been to a school dance in her life. Well, that’s not strictly true – she’s been to a set of a school dance for Fake It and had her first onscreen kiss there. She doesn’t think that experience counts, though.

“And you’re thinking about having sex with him.” Emma’s repeating it out loud more for herself than for Georgie. She’s trying to wrap her head around the idea.

“I mean, yeah. Seems like a good idea. He’s nice, he likes me. He’s had girlfriends before so he probably knows what he’s doing.”

Emma sews her mouth shut over the words “THAT’S NO GUARANTEE” springing up.

She stays casual. “Yeah, if he’s good to you, if you want to do it, sure. I have condoms. Always bring your own.”

Georgie smiles in that unnervingly wise way she does. “That’s not what I mean, Em. I just… I don’t know if I want to wait for someone I love.”

Shawn’s rosy face and perfect smile appears in Emma’s mind. Her heart aches. It’s all she can do not to reach for her phone and call him just to hear his voicemail.

She nods, sighing. “I hear that. I get it. Sex is a personal thing. But it doesn’t have to be with someone you love. I think it should at least be someone you like. I…” She trails off, shrugging.

“What?” Georgie prods.

Emma hesitantly continues. “Despite… everything, I don’t regret any of my sexual history. Yeah, my first time sucked. Most first times do. And I didn’t have sex with someone I loved at all until Shawn. And it was mind-blowing and so different,” she feels herself grinning and watches Georgie mirror it, “But there was a lot I learned about myself and men and sex before I got to that point and I don’t regret any of it.”

“Was… was it perfect with Shawn?”

Just there, Georgie goes from wise old owl to actual 16-year-old girl and Emma gets to feel like a competent older sister for once. She lends her a crooked smile.

“As close to perfect as anything can get. He was so… he was so gentle. And affectionate. And just… everything I wanted. Everything I deserved.”

Georgie nods thoughtfully. “I want that too. Someday.”

Emma pops her grape in her mouth and pats Georgie’s knee. “Hopefully you won’t have to wait too long. If Joooooosh feels right for the first time, do it. Enjoy it. Know it’ll probably get better, but learn from it. Learn what you like, what you’re into. And don’t be shy to tell him, boys like that, I promise.”

Georgie’s nodding again. Emma’s phone buzzes against her hip. Georgie snatches it away before Emma can answer.

“Hi Shawn!” Georgie quips, her voice going up an embarrassing several octaves that Emma will mock her for later.

“Hey Georgie,” Shawn chuckles, “How’s house arrest?”

“Fine. Emma and I are eating grapes and sulking in her room. How’s tour?”

Emma stiffens. Georgie immediately regrets the question. Shawn feels the change in tone and bites his lip.

“It’s ok. Not as fun now. Can I talk to Em?”

“Yeah,” Georgie murmurs, nodding, “Bye, Shawn.”

Emma takes the phone. Georgie takes the plate of food and scampers out of the bedroom.

Emma curls up on her side. “She’s asking me about sex.”

Shawn giggles. “Oh no.”

“Don’t laugh at me. Your sister’s not that much younger than mine.”

“Oh god, don’t say that,” Shawn whines, “I’m so not ready for that.”

“Yeah, well, when she starts asking questions, send her my way. Apparently I’m the guru.”

“Good to know,” Shawn hums, “What did you tell her?”

“She asked about my first time. I told her it was garbage and most first times are—” Shawn interrupts her with a snort of agreement, “But you learn and you grow and it’s better with someone you love but you don’t have to wait for that if you don’t want to.”

Shawn bobs his head. “Very wise.”

“She asked about us.”

She can hear Shawn’s reflective smile through the phone. She returns it.

“What did you say?”

“I told her it was as close to perfect as anything is in this stupid world.”

Shawn’s quiet. It’s a weighty silence – it’s an I love you silence, an I miss you silence, a why did you leave silence.

“I can’t lose her, Shawn. It would end me,” Emma whispers, closing her eyes and feeling threatening tears rub at her throat.

He’s quiet again for a few seconds. “I know. We’ll figure it out. You’ll figure it out.”

The words are simple and seemingly unhelpful but from him, they feel good and real. They talk for another few minutes before he has to go to soundcheck and tries not to let her know that because he doesn’t want to remind her what she’s missing but he’s in the venue and does a lousy job of hiding from the loading in noise. She wishes him a good show and they exchange blushing I love yous like a couple of kids who are still getting used to the words.

Shawn’s little fingers curl into his fists. He can’t quite catch his breath. His jerking heaves of air are fluttering the sweaty curls on his forehead as he stomps out of the rink.

He’s never felt this before. He barely knows what this is. He thinks it’s rage, despair even, but he’s never seen it before, doesn’t know how to recognize it.

He’s been practicing so hard. He was in three different hockey camps this summer. Not making the travel team is the worst thing that’s ever happened to anyone, and it’s just happened to him. He has no idea how to deal with this feeling. It’s swallowing him.

Shawn and anger are admittedly not well acquainted.

He’s seething on the sidewalk after he loses sight of the D.C. cab’s taillights. He can feel the heat radiating off him as his blood boils. He takes enormous steps back into the hotel. He doesn’t hear a word Andrew’s saying, only a dull ringing in his ears as the elevators carry him up to their floor. It’s not until Andrew follows him into his room and Shawn gets the chance to sit on the bed and gather himself that he even understands what he’s saying.

“You should’ve told me,” Andrew almost barks. Andrew doesn’t really get mad either. Especially not at Shawn. Shawn’s brow furrows.

“Told you what?”

“That you’re fucking Emma Kingston!” Andrew cries, throwing his hands out.

Shawn’s jaw juts out, clenching hard. He presses his balled fists into the bed.

“I am not fucking Emma Kingston. I’m in love with her.”

Andrew is silent, flabbergasted. His jaw hangs open. “You… what?”

“I love her. I’m in love with her. She’s the most incredible woman I’ve ever met. She’s got more talent in her little finger than I have in my whole body. She knows more about music and the industry than anyone I’ve ever met, including you. She is so sharp and so funny and so thoughtful and so sexy and I’m crazy, stupid in love with her.”

Andrew suddenly looks exhausted. He has this way about him where he’s all energy until something hits him too hard and he just slumps. He sinks into a chair and hangs his face in his hands. Shawn bristles.

“Why does this fucking matter?”

“Why does it matter?” Andrew repeats in a half-crazed chuckle, “Because it does, Shawn! Because everything you do matters. Especially the romantic stuff. The driving force of your fanbase is female. Females that want to date you. So when you’re dating someone, it fucking matters.”

Shawn balks. “I’m not gonna not date someone because it’ll hurt business, Andrew!”

“I’m not saying that! I’m saying there’s a process to these things. One of the things we talked about when I signed on was honesty. Honesty always. I can’t do my job if I don’t have all the pieces. You should’ve fucking told me.”

“I couldn’t. If anyone on her team knew, especially once the Kyle Dillon thing started…”

“Yeah! The Kyle Dillon thing! You realize if this gets out it’s going to look like a weird love triangle? Or worse, like you stole Kyle’s girlfriend. Is that what you want?”

Andrew’s getting hysterical and it’s really pissing Shawn off. He hangs his head and closes his eyes to breathe.

“You know that’s not what I want. I… fuck, I didn’t mean to make your life harder, man, I just… I wanted to be with her. This was what she needed from me. I’m… I’m sorry, dude.”

Shawn’s apology seems to quiet Andrew’s frazzled brain. He nods his acceptance. They’re both quiet for a while, raking hands through their hair and thinking too hard.

“Well… it’s probably better she’s off the tour, then.”

Shawn perks up. “What?”

“Until we figure out how to approach this, you guys can’t be public. Every day you were together was a risk. You can’t see her again until we set up a strategy.”

“A strategy?” Shawn cries, “What the fuck? This is my life, Andrew!”

“Yeah!” Andrew bites back, “Your life! And you hired me to manage it. This is how this stuff goes when you’re Shawn Mendes. Dude, we’ve talked about this. You know we have. You knew this was never going to be easy. It’s harder when it’s someone like Emma who’s out there in the public eye with you. We need a strategy.”

Shawn fumes. He has half a mind to jump on a plane to LA and be seen making out with Emma very publicly somewhere just to buck the system but he can’t and he feels impotent and small. He’s not used to that.

Andrew leaves him there after a few minutes. He’s lying face up on his bed missing her so much already he can barely breathe.

He didn’t know it was going to be like this. He didn’t know that the shitty things that happened to her would feel like they happened to him too. He didn’t know he’d feel her wounds as deep as he feels his own. He’s tethered now and she’s across the country so he feels stretched and uncomfortable and breathless.

He closes his eyes, tries to play her song in his head. He hums it, bounces his knee, wills it to distract him.

His eyes open. He has an idea.

The tall, spindly woman kneels in front of Emma. She’s held in place by her father’s rough hands on her shoulders so she can’t run and hide behind her mother’s dress. Emma blinks.

“Hello, Emma. I’m Margaret. I’m going to help you become a star.”

Emma frowns and sees something she doesn’t like in the flat brown eyes staring back at her.

“Ok,” she whispers.

The other shoe had to drop eventually, Angelique reminds herself. It was all going too well. The transition from Margaret to her had been too seamless. With her finely honed senses and slight paranoia, she should’ve felt this coming. Her hackles should’ve been up.

She let her guard down. She finally felt comfortable with what she was doing, like she was in the right place at the right time managing the right person. Emma felt like her teammate.

She was loading into the bus when Shawn first sprinted past her red-faced looking like he’d just seen a ghost. Andrew followed quickly after, shooting her a firm glance.

“Call your client. She’s getting on a fucking plane.”

Angelique felt her stomach fall into her shoes. Whatever this is, it can’t fucking happen.

But it did. Emma went home without a fight. Sandra smugly responded to every email about tour cancellation details. She patronizingly yammered on about Emma needing “mental space” and “time with her beloved family” like she was writing a fucking press release instead of just lying to Angelique.

She’s between a rock and a hard place now, the rock being Emma, the hard place being the rest of Emma’s team who are clamoring for answers.

Emma was apologetic, to her credit. She explained the whole situation. Angelique was about to launch into a somewhat unprofessional and probably really inappropriate tirade about getting Georgie legally emancipated when she heard something in Emma’s voice that gave her hope.

She doesn’t have a name for it, whatever it was. It was a small tinkling of something underneath that told Angelique in her gut that this isn’t over yet. Angelique had been thinking of Emma like a boxer who’d been hit hard and was waiting for the countdown so the round could end. After that phone call, she realized something – Emma isn’t down for the count. She’s waiting. She’s resting up. She’ll come out swinging.

She’s not out of this yet.

“I don’t want another lesson,” Shawn insists in the middle seat in the back of his mom’s Volvo, “I just learned notes. I want to play a song.”

“Love, you have to learn the notes to play a song,” his mom says softly.

He shakes his head and rolls his eyes. “I can learn on YouTube faster than a lesson. Seriously.”

Karen relents. Let him learn on YouTube, she thinks. Maybe that’ll hold his interest.

Shawn sits cross-legged at the end of the stage, knees bouncing as the FaceTime ringtone blares at him mockingly.

Her face is warm and pink when she answers him. She’s just finished Pilaticardio, it looks like. He flushes at the idea of her in her tight Lululemon pants and shakes the idea from his head before it can sprout.

“Hey, you,” she greets. Her voice isn’t tired so much as her whole being seems tired. It makes him want to wrap her up in his arms and shut it all out. He can’t do that, so he tries something else.

“Got a surprise for you,” he says breathlessly, a little giddy, nodding and biting his lip.

Her eyebrows lift. “Oh?”

“Yeah,” he nods at someone off camera and suddenly he’s not holding the phone, “I’m passing you off to Geoff. I want to show you something.”

He hurries adorably to the center of the stage and thanks Joey the tech for the guitar he’s handed. Emma smiles, watching him get ready to command his space. Maybe he’s written something new.

He starts first. She knows within two seconds what he’s playing. And he didn’t write it.

She did.

He plucks expertly at his acoustic, bobbing his head, feeling her song in his bones. The breath leaves her body in a sweeping exhale. She doesn’t remember to breathe for a few seconds until the pounding of her heart races over the deep tones of the accompanying piano.

He closes his eyes and steps into the mic, brow wrinkling as he sings her words, sings her heart to an empty stadium. Each piece of her arrangement comes in like she told him, like she envisioned. The drums shake the song, indicate something big is coming. Shawn carries it forth, leading steadily into the throbbing pre-chorus, tapping his foot and shrugging a hand around the mic. The piano climbs with him, the drums steadily increase in volume until the song reaches a climactic pause. When it comes back in, she folds her hands over her mouth in shock.

It's everything she wanted, everything she imagined it could be. It’s big, it’s bold, it’s emotional, it’s her.

And he did it for her.

He plays through the whole song and she falls in love with it all over again. She recognizes every beat, every note, every choice made as her own. He’s playing it for her not as himself, but as her proxy. He’s made no customizations, no little twists. It’s just hers exactly as it’s meant to be.

As the last note fades out, Emma finally uncovers her mouth. Geoff comes around the camera to peek shyly at her reaction. She offers him a watery grin and he smiles back sincerely for the first time since she met him. He moves his head so Emma can see Shawn hustling to the front of the stage to get his phone back.

He’s rosy, a little sweaty and grinning with a mad look in his eye.

“So? Did you like it?”

Emma opens her mouth. A choked sob escapes where words were meant to be. She claps a hand over her mouth and coughs a laugh.

“It’s… it’s perfect. That was it, that was what I wanted. I… oh my god. I’m so—”

She cuts herself off, shaking her head. He gets it. He’s been blessed to have had this moment himself before – to watch his brain child songs get the live treatment, to feel real and big and beautiful. He knows how this feels. That’s why he wanted to give it to her.

“It’s yours, Em. You did that. You did all of it.”

Emma swallows. She tries to regulate her breathing, muttering about thanking his band for learning it, for playing it so beautifully, thanking Geoff for holding the damn phone. Shawn laughs.

“Face it, Emma Kingston. You’re a fuckin’ rockstar.”

Emma’s laugh bubbles and spills as her tears do. Shawn walks off with his phone for some privacy as she gets it out of her system and wrenches at her self-control.

“Thank you,” she manages through a throat full of snotty tears.

He bobs his head shyly. “It’s be alright, Em.”

Emma held Georgie’s pudgy little hand as they walked into Somerset School for Georgie’s first day of kindergarten. Being a rough and tumble second grader, Emma felt big and cool. She’s never seen a real first day of school before, only on sets. She’s glad these aren’t kids her age or she’d feel a lot less cool.

Georgie tugs at her hand. “What if I don’t make friends?”

Emma shakes her head. “You’ll make friends. Plus, even if you don’t, I’m your friend.”

On the 12th day of confinement, Emma and Georgie lie side by side on Emma’s bed. It’s not an unfamiliar position to them now.

Emma’s trying so hard not to feel it, but there’s something in the air. She tries not to think that it’s the last day of tour and Shawn’s playing the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and she tries not to feel like a part of her is there and she needs to go get it back.

But Emma doesn’t always get what she wants, so her efforts are pretty useless.

With a shaky sigh, she reaches her foot out and kicks Georgie’s leg to get her to turn down “Ruin.”

Georgie turns onto her side to regard her big sister. Emma looks a little less tired now. And resigned, somehow.

“G,” Emma whispers, and it’s the same voice she used when she told Georgie Grandpa Norm died while she was at camp, “It’s time to go talk to mom.”

Georgie shakes. She doesn’t know why. This is Emma’s fight, she’s just back up.

Even as she thinks it to herself, she knows it’s flatly untrue. Any fight of Emma’s is a fight of hers. And this, this fight, this cosmic inertia of mother and daughter, she’s a part of this too.

She’s a few paces behind Emma as they pad into the living room, unintimidating in pajamas at 11am.

Sandra is sitting on the couch in gym wear typing away at her phone with E! News on in the background. She doesn’t notice when they walk in.

“Mom,” Emma prompts. Georgie feels relieved not to hear a quiver in it.

Sandra’s head snaps up. She hasn’t seen or heard from her eldest daughter in days. She beams at her two girls who’ve come to see her.

“Hey babies,” she coos, setting her phone down, “Want to go get some lunch? Might be time to get Emma Jean back out in the world.”

“Mom, I love you,” Emma states.

Georgie’s eyes blow wide open. Sandra’s mirror them. To be honest, neither of them is sure of the last time Emma said that. Or any of them said that. They aren’t that kind of family.

“Babygirl, I love you too,” Sandra hums, her voice lowering, misunderstanding the direction of this.

“I love you and I don’t want to hate you anymore. So you need to leave my house.”

Sandra’s brow furrows. Her eyes briefly touch Georgie’s – she’s equally stunned. But Emma is a mountain that will not be moved. Not this time.

“Honey, we talked about this, I know it’s been a hard few months, a hard few years even, but this—“

“No. We’re not doing this again. I’m not gonna do this dance with you.”

Emma takes Georgie’s hand and tugs her forward. Georgie stumbles along behind her until they’re both sitting on the oversized ottoman facing their mother, who’s sitting straight as a rod.

“I’ve spent the last couple weeks thinking. I’ve been thinking about why it was easier for me to say the things I said to Margaret than it was to say them to you. I’ve been going over it and over it. It didn’t make sense. She was as much my mother as you ever were,” a flash of real human hurt crashes across Sandra’s face for a split second, “so why was it so different?

“The truth is, Margaret has always respected me a little more than you have. Maybe because I was always her client and I was always your daughter. And at the end of the day, she was never going to be permanent, no matter how entwined in my life she was. Not like you are.

“I think because you never respected me, I always feared you. Because I didn’t know what you were capable of. I didn’t ever really know until you threatened to take Georgie away from me.”

Georgie stares at Emma, feeling her face heat. It takes her a full few seconds before she can lift her eyes to Sandra’s. Sandra is looking back, pale as a ghost.

It’s not like Georgie didn’t know. Georgie knows all. Before Emma even told her why she agreed to leave tour, Georgie had an inkling. She knows Emma wouldn’t leave tour, leave Shawn for anything but her. Georgie is the trump card.

She stares at her mother, her unfeeling, judgmental wisp of a mother. She sees years of signed permission slips, missed band concerts, nearly forgotten birthdays. She sees a vapid hole of a woman who nearly sucked the life out of the person Georgie holds most dear. She sees nothing in Sandra.

“Emma Jean, don’t do this.”

It’s not a plea, it’s a warning. Sandra Kingston’s never backed down from a fight. She’s not about to start with her 19-year-old headstrong bitch of a daughter.

“Mom,” Emma breathes, leaning forward and taking one of her mother’s frigid, veiny hands in hers, “I have to do this. It’s all that’s left.”

Georgie didn’t know she was about to cry until the tears fell. She sniffles gently, sweeping them away, trying not to make a scene as the culmination of her entire family’s angst hangs over them.

“Do what you’re going to do,” Emma whispers. Georgie blinks in surprise. Emma lets go of Sandra’s hand. Sandra looks bowled over.

“I can’t stop you, I can’t control you. If what you really want is to place a restraining order on me so I can’t see my sister, do it. Or try. I don’t necessarily trust the American justice system, but I think I still trust it more than you. So if that’s what you want, to separate us, to use her as a pawn to make me your dancing monkey, fine. Because guess what? Georgie turns 18 in 17 months and there’s your only power over me, gone.

“Margaret is gone, mom. She signed a girl band in Sweden. She’s happy. Angelique is leading my team now. She is my teammate. She collaborates with me and listens to me and we have a way forward that I’m really, really excited about. I’m more excited about this than any move I’ve ever made in my career. I want you to be excited, too. I know you had a plan. I know you wanted to take charge when I was younger, wanted me to succeed. I can’t do it if you threaten my happiness and my family.

“I want you to be a part of this someday. Not today, probably not any time soon, but someday. I know as well as anyone how savvy you are. I don’t discount that. But you don’t know how to be a teammate, mom. And you don’t know how to be a mom, either. So for now, you’re off my team until you figure those things out.”

Emma glances at Georgie for the first time in minutes. She wraps her hands around Georgie’s and smiles softly.

“Georgie’s going to go home to dad’s. She’s going to go to Belfort Homecoming with Josh Dittrich. She’s going to make lacrosse captain and start visiting colleges. You’re going to stay home, at your home in Beverly Hills, and go to her games and take her shopping for her dress and get her for dinner every Wednesday night and on every other weekend.”

“I’m going to get on a plane.”

Georgie’s eyes lift from their hands to Emma’s face. She looks… serene. Georgie’s never once seen her look serene. She blinks quickly, feeling her fingers unfold from her sister’s. Emma plants a hand on her head.

“C’mon, kid. We have somewhere to be.”

Emma watches the lights of the New York City skyline glimmer off Georgie’s shining eyes in the back of the speeding cab. Emma promised him a $100 tip if he could get them to the Barclays Center before 10:30pm. He’s taking his challenge very, very seriously.

Emma and Georgie slide into each other during another scary hairpin turn. They both giggle, a little giddy from adrenaline.

Emma tucks a chunk of hair behind her ear and looks down. She’s in an oversized plaid shirt, Daisy Dukes and checkered Vans. Her hair is muddy with grease and dry shampoo. She’s breaking out a little on her chin. She feels fucking great.

Finally, the cabbie dumps them off outside the artist’s entrance. Emma makes good on her promise and throws in an autograph for his niece with a grin and a wink.

Emma and Georgie hustle up to venue security. Suddenly, Emma vanishes into Emma Kingston. Her face goes cold, eyes go dark and vacant. She strides up like she belongs there.

“Excuse me,” she says in that soft velvety tone of disdain.

Venue security doesn’t look impressed. She lets the corners of her mouth fold down further.

“Name?”

“Emma Kingston.”

“You’re not on the artist roster,” the guard says boredly. Emma cocks her head.

“I’m the tour opener. I was here two hours ago,” she groans, sounding convincingly exhausted. She spots a tour poster and points at her name and face splashed helpfully beneath Shawn’s. She quirks an annoyed eyebrow.

This seems to work, because they’re letting her in. She still has to find a couple crew members to swipe passes from to keep this alive a little longer. She hopes she hasn’t stirred up too much ill will with her formerly bad attitude. She needs this to work. She has to see him.

Georgie’s along for the ride, gawping at the backstage like she’s never seen one before. She waves at passing crew members and roadies. She’s charming enough that they wave back even when they’re rushing or their hands are full.

Emma lunges for Shawn’s favorite tech Joey when she sees him. “Joey! I need a pass.”

He beams. “Emma! Hey! Wow! Yeah, c’mon.”

Georgie’s teeth start to chatter with nerves as they wind their way through the labyrinthian tunnels. As they grow closer to the stage, Shawn’s voice becomes clearer. He’s nearing the end of his set. Emma’s growing fidgety, wants to watch his last few songs and be there when he walks off stage.

Joey very helpfully gets them passes and leads them up through the backstage, doesn’t ask questions when he helps them dodge Andrew, who Emma knows to avoid due to Shawn’s explanation of the “strategy.”

Emma’s nerve endings are buzzing all over her body when Joey leads them to sidestage and she catches sight of Shawn under a spot. He’s pounding hard at his guitar, dripping sweat, thrashing around like a fucking rockstar. Her stomach releases a team of butterflies that don’t stay put – they feel like they’re exploding out of her ears and cheeks. Emma reaches for Georgie’s hand, gripping hard.

She looks over. Georgie is grinning so hard her face might just break. She’s bopping up and down, singing along like she’s at her favorite artist’s concert. Emma smiles, remembering that she is. Georgie looks over and squeezes her hand.

The Kingston sisters scream and dance along to “Particular Taste” under Joey’s watchful eye as he stands guard from Andrew or other interferers.

When the song ends, Emma’s adrenaline-laced heart pumps straight into overdrive. Shawn breaks for water and turns toward them, glancing around casually as he brings the water bottle to his lips.

The bottle almost falls from his hand when he spots her. She’s smiling that perfect, quiet Emma smile, the one that first made him wonder who she was underneath. She’s standing there, a vision in plaid and denim, with bouncing, screaming Georgie nearly vibrating next to her.

Shawn bares a toothy grin and starts to laugh. His band members look up to stare at him like he has three heads. Emma and Georgie giggle along with him until the three of them are nearly doubled over, laughing at nothing.

Finally, Shawn straightens up. The music has long since faded out and the crowd is wondering what the hell is going on. Shawn chews on his lower lip, one hand around the neck of his guitar, one gripping the mic. Emma watches him curiously.

Shawn returns his gaze to the crowd. He can’t see them over the house lights, but he can hear them, can feel them. He smiles softly.

He plucks the first few notes, just to give her a taste, get her blood moving. He doesn’t look at her reaction, just down at his guitar as the crowd cheers for something they don’t recognize.

“Brooklyn,” he crows, a smirk in his voice, “Have I got a surprise for you.”

He backs away from the mic so he can see into sidestage. Emma is laughing again and Georgie is looking between Shawn and Emma so quickly she’s going to give herself whiplash.

Joey, being Joey, takes his cue and hands Emma a tuned up acoustic. It’s not her little yellow guitar, but it’ll do. She smiles gratefully and looks back at the stage as Shawn races around to inform the band that a change is being made.

When all is settled, he nods to Joey and strides back to the mic. As Joey approaches, he lifts off his guitar and hands it to him.

“Thanks, Joey.”

Shawn stands in front of the mic, hands folded behind his back. “This is my last night on this tour,” Shawn begins, sounding a little nostalgic and a lot proud. Emma looks up from fiddling with a guitar pick to watch him.

“This was the best tour ever. I want to thank my incredible band and crew for all their hard work. You guys are everything. I couldn’t do this without you, obviously, but I also wouldn’t want to. Thank you.”

He steps back from the mic and applauds, looking to each member of his band gratefully. The crowd’s roaring dies down as Shawn takes the mic again.

“I also want to thank my tourmate,” he chuckles and Emma knows it’s because “tourmate” doesn’t even begin to cover what they are to each other now, “Emma Kingston.”

The crowd shows waves of recognition, they think they know what’s coming.

They don’t.

Emma turns to Georgie with bated breath. “Want to see something cool?”

Georgie nods. Emma grins. “Stay here. You’re gonna love this.”

Georgie squeals and stands back. When Emma looks back to the stage, Shawn is turned toward her, smiling in anticipation.

Emma grips the guitar for dear life.

She’s never been on a stage as Emma before. She’s been on who knows how many hundreds, maybe thousands of them. Pageant stages, sound stages, arena stages. She has stood at the back or the side putting on her mask, lacing up her persona. She became Emma Kingston for them because that’s what they wanted from her.

She’s never been this Emma before – this Emma in a shirt from Goodwill and ratty sneakers without a stitch of make-up. This is Georgie’s Emma, Shawn’s Emma.

Emma’s Emma.

And now it’s all that’s left.

Emma takes a deep breath and it feels like new life. It feels like a promise. It feels like she’s finally present.

She takes a step, then another. Shawn starts to clap and whistle as she takes the stage, scorched by the bright lights. She’s grateful, then, that all she can see is him.

She walks up to him, watches his smug smile grow. She shakes her head, laughing again, turning to the elated crowd to wave. They shake the damn stadium with their applause. Something new is happening. They can feel it.

Shawn’s gentle touch on her arm brings her back. He leans into her ear.

“You good?”

Emma leans back and looks up at his sparkling chocolate eyes. She nods meaningfully. “I’m ready.”

Shawn grins wildly, curls bobbing as he jogs back to take a seat at the piano.

Emma takes her time adjusting the mic stand, feeling the intensely weighted quiet of the crowd as they wait for her. They think they know who she is, but they haven’t seen this before. They’re curious. Who is she?

Emma looks down at the guitar as she plucks out the first chords slowly. She repeats them a few times, not as much getting her bearings as she is falling into this.

This, what she’s worked every day of her life for since she was five.

This, what she’s dreamed about through years of misdirection, of pampering, of bad attitude, of tight jeans, of broken promises.

This, what she’s built with her own two hands.

Emma lifts her head, tips it back and forth as her eyes slide shut. She starts playing to tempo, hears Shawn’s first notes on the piano come in shortly after.

“Little miss down on love… little miss I give up… little miss I’ll get tough, don’t you worry ‘bout me anymore…”

Her voice is hers. It’s not sweetened, it’s not tuned, it’s Emma Jean. It’s generations of southern heritage, it’s years of Tammy and Patsy under the covers in bed, it’s a little twangy and it’s fucking perfect.

“Little miss checkered dress… little miss one big mess… little miss I’ll take less when I always give so much more…”

Her eyes are shut, pinched tight as she feels every word like they’re getting tattooed on her skin as she sings them.

“It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright, sometimes you gotta lose till you win…”

“It’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright, it’ll be alright again.”

Her eyes open. The chorus crashes in. She rocks along with it, crooning into the mic, strumming hard.

“It’ll be alright again, I’m ok, it’ll be alright again…”

As the chorus fades back into the first chords, Emma feels the crowd with her. She has them – an artist knows when she has an audience, it’s like feeling the wind at her back. But this is Barclays Arena so it’s not wind. It’s a goddamn hurricane. And it feels so good.

“Little miss do your best… little miss never rest… little miss be my guest, I’ll make more any time that it runs out.”

Shawn’s impressive at the piano. She grins around her words as he strikes hard at the keys, feeling this as much as she is.

“Little miss you’ll go far… little miss hide your scars… little miss who you are is so much more than you like to talk about…”

With the build-up of the next chorus, Emma stomps her foot along with the piano and drums. The pause before the chorus breaks and Emma slashes at the guitar, going full rockstar like she’s always wanted to but never could. It gets even more of the crowd behind her. She’s a born performer. It’s hard to ignore.

The bridge is simple, but it’s big. It builds like the chorus, but it’s more climactic. Emma feels it rising in her. It shows her true chops as a singer. She holds her note, grinning around it again as the crowd reacts in waves of cheers and applause.

“Hold on… hold on, you are loved, are loved…”

Emma’s voice fades out after an impressive vocal run that has at least half the stadium on their feet. If she looked behind her, she’d see the band exchanging shocked looks of delight -- all but Shawn, who knew for certain she had it in her. He’s smiling that perfect proud smile, eyes glued to her like the first time he saw her perform. He remembers her blue spangly dress, her bare feet, her mismatched voice. There’s nothing mismatched here, now. This is right. This is her.

Emma steps back from the mic for a moment, regaining her breath after her impressive display of vocal prowess. She gasps breath, lifts her hand to her mouth, shaking her head in amazement as the crowd grows even louder in reaction.

She stares out at them. She wonders about every face, every story behind every life, every song in the hearts of these people who didn’t expect this today but got it anyway. All these people who are making this memory with her. All these people who took a perfect dream and made it real.

She smiles wide. It’s projected stories high onto the screen behind her. The crowd continues to cheer.

She steps back to the mic and the song returns to its quiet beginning. Emma is solo, strumming the guitar, bobbing her head and scuffing her sneakers on the stage floor. She turns to face Shawn, lifts her head and flips hair out of her eyes. He’s sitting proudly at the piano, staring at her. He ducks his head shyly when she catches him. He knows what’s coming.

“Little miss brand new start… little miss do your part… little miss big ol’ heart beats wide open, she’s ready now for love…”

Fuck a strategy. Fuck Kyle Dillon. Fuck Island. Fuck Sandra.

Emma’s looking at Shawn and Shawn’s looking at Emma and it’s obvious to anyone with eyes. And they don’t fucking care.

The chorus builds again, bigger than before. It takes Emma a minute to realize why.

It’s because they’re singing along.

The crowd is chanting with her, “it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright.”

They’re singing her words back to her and it’s so much better than she imagined it would be. Tears catch at the corner of her eyes. When she glimpses Georgie jumping up and down sidestage, crying like a 13-year-old at a Bieber, concert, her tears come loose. Her throat grates, but she sings through it.

Emma sings “I’m ok,” Shawn echoes “it’ll be alright again” and for the first time in her life, Emma believes it.

She doesn’t want to let go when the song draws to a close, the last chord reverberating but barely audible under the mass of screams, of delighted cheers, of chants of her name.

Emma steps backward away from the mic, trying to catch her breath. She drops her pic and claps her hands over her mouth, shaking her head. The cheers grow louder as she gets emotional.

She recovers enough to swing her guitar behind her back and lift her arms to wave. She’s choking back sobs, biting her lips, wishing in the back of her head that Sandra could see this.

Emma looks to Georgie, who’s crying harder than she is. When Georgie realizes she’s spotted, she waves hysterically, cheering and jumping up and down again. Emma laughs, lifting her hand to wave back.

A big, warm hand catches her wrist. She looks up instinctively. He’s there beside her looking at her like she handed him the world.

Slowly, like she’s watching from above, he drops her wrist and steps into her, cupping her neck in his big, rough hands. The crowds roars are deafening as they see what’s about to happen. Emma holds onto his ribcage as Shawn leans in and gives her a searing kiss.

He holds nothing back. He slots their lips together, pulls her up on her toes to deepen it, dropping his hands from her neck to wrap around her waist and lift her slightly. She swings her arms around his neck and holds on desperately, gasping into his mouth, whimpering gently.

With the ground-shaking din of the crowd’s reaction ringing in his ears, Emma’s mind is perfectly blank, clearer than it’s been since she was small. She has one thought in her head. A memory.

She sighs, resigned. She sweeps a hand through his hair, gripping the back of his neck. She leans in and kisses him, soft and sweet. It lasts only a moment. His lips are soft and taste like morning and lemon. She shudders.

He has lost any sense of the world around them. He shrugs an arm around her, uses the other to move some hair out of her tear-streaked face. He leans back in and she shuts her eyes, waiting for another kiss. Instead, he trails his lips over her hair, her cheekbones, her nose, her fluttering eyelashes.

“Emma,” he breathes into her ear. Her body tightens against his in response.

The name doesn’t sound so scary anymore.

Emma smiles into his lips, overwhelmingly grateful.

Her hero’s journey for independence was a long affair, one Shawn arrived for the tail end of. He can’t be attributed much credit for Emma’s departure from her team, from Margaret and Sandra. He was a background figure in all of those scenes.

But Shawn did something just important, just as crucial to getting Emma to this point. He taught her how to be loved.

When Shawn releases her, they smile big and toothy in unison and start to laugh again like they did before, too filled with love and hope and plain, stupid youth that it comes out like explosive carbonation.

Shawn tucks hair behind her ear and kisses her forehead. The girlish shrieks are deafening. They make Emma chuckle again.

“Wait for me?” Shawn whispers in her ear.

Emma nods. “I’m not going anywhere.”

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