Felix
I follow Jenna through the arteries behind the stage, glad to see the various techs and wardrobe people have decided not to gather outside our dressing room, even though some must have heard. We move past other dressing rooms and green rooms, past bustling staff and shouting managers and stylists who reek of hairspray with hands dyed by colored mousse. At the end of the hall we come to a room with spare sound equipment, and Jenna collapses onto an amp.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“No. You?”
I lean against the door frame, where I can block anyone from taking notice of her. I’ll dazzle them with the brightness of my outfit alone. “No,” I say. I’m still stinging from the things Alec said, that Jenna’s never happy, that she bounces from one thing to another.
She was happy with me. I was sure of it. But, as Alec would surely say, she was happy with him once, too.
Jenna lets out a slow breath. And while I don’t want to disturb this tenuous peace between us, I need to know.
“Is he right?” I ask. “Was I just one more thing that was supposed to make you happy?”
“No.” Her hands clutch her knees tightly over the silver fishnet stockings. “You and me were real. But he may be right that you’re one more thing I’m running away from.”
“If that’s true, it was warranted.”
Jenna shrugs, like she’s not sure anymore, and while I want to cling to that spark of hope, the possibility she might decide she was wrong, I don’t want her to do that just because Alec’s shaken her faith in herself. She looks so small and alone and scared.
I can’t take it anymore. I squeeze onto the amp beside her and put my arm around her. Jenna leans into my shoulder, and glances down at my bare chest.
“I’m sorry about the outfit,” she says.
“I’m sorry I messed everything up.”
Jenna shakes her head. “Alec is a dick, but he’s got a point. I’m messed up. There’s stuff I haven’t dealt with and I don’t know how.”
I wish I knew the perfect thing to say, the thing that would give her the answer and make everything okay between us again. But I don’t, so I just squeeze her shoulder. “We’re all messed up. Just look at Leo and Roxie.”
Jenna laughs and turns into me, leaning her forehead against my jacket. “I’d rather not. God only knows what they’re doing by now.”
I hold Jenna against me, closing my eyes and breathing her in and savoring the way it feels to hold her, when I wasn’t sure I ever would again. And while it doesn’t change any of the things that are broken between us, I feel a small ray of hope—like maybe, someday, we’ll be able to put this back together.
It’s not a promise of anything, but I’m sure as hell going to stick around and see.
Phil looks like he wants to kill us when he finally tracks us all down for our stage call. For such a small man—not much taller or bigger in general than Jenna—he can be downright terrifying, though I’m growing increasingly sure his general intensity is spurred on by his steady diet of Red Bull and antacids. “You’re on in ten minutes,” he says at Jenna. “Have you even done a sound check?”
“We’ll be fine,” I tell him. Jenna and Roxie will be using equipment that’s already on the stage, and the truth is, if the rest of us sound terrible, it’s not going to do any more damage to our career than we’ve already done. We assemble backstage, and Jenna stares at the floor while Alec alternates between glaring at her and huffing dramatically. Leo and Roxie still haven’t stopped sucking face, even though Allison is bustling around them trying to fix what Leo’s done to Roxie’s hair.
We haven’t stepped out on stage yet, and I already know this is going to be the most interesting performance of my life, not the least because I’m about to step out on a stage currently graced by Tina Fey.
Tina calls us on, and we walk out on the stage, all of us projecting a confidence that at least three of us don’t currently have. Leo and Roxie are exchanging looks and smiling wider than I’ve ever seen—from Roxie, at least. I set up June while Jenna and Alec grab the mics and wave to the crowd, who clap and cheer uproariously. Alec has his backup guitar, which must have gotten here while Jenna and I were hiding, and Alec and Jenna hold hands and look as in love as ever, and before I’m even done tuning Roxie is looking at me, waiting for me to finish. I nod at her, and she starts to play.
The number we’re doing—“When I Saw You Standing There”—is one of the faster songs on the album, and Roxie, fresh off the high of however far she and Leo got backstage, plays it even faster than normal. Alec turns under the guise of singing in Jenna’s direction and tosses Roxie a look, but if Roxie notices, she doesn’t slow down. I’m glad for the pace change, and more accustomed to following her now, so I focus on the music and play.
When it’s over, Alec puts down his guitar and pulls Jenna into his arms and kisses her. The cheers swell, and I’m sure I’m glaring at them, but I don’t frankly care who catches me doing that on camera now.
Tina Fey motions them over for a post-performance interview. Jenna leans giddily against Alec, and I can tell by the way her shoulders slump that she’s leaning into how worn out she feels. I can’t blame her. The sooner they get this over with and we all get off the stage, the better.
Leo puts his guitar down and Roxie climbs out from behind the drums to stand behind Alec and Jenna, and I follow, positioning myself behind Alec’s back so at least most of the cameras will have an obscured view of my reaction to whatever Alec is going to say.
It’ll be about ten seconds, I tell myself. You can handle not killing him for ten seconds.
“Tell us,” Tina says. “Is there a limit to how cute you two can be? Because I think there are some cats on the internet who want their titles back.”
Alec laughs. “I don’t think there is. And there’s a reason for that.” Then he turns to Jenna, kisses the top of her head, and says into the mic, “Do you want to tell them, or should I?”
The stage suddenly seems unstable beneath me.
Jenna covers less well this time than she did at the concert. “What?”
“Aw.” He slings an arm around her waist, pulling her close. “Come on. We can’t keep it a secret forever.”
I ball my fists. If Alec has finally had it enough to announce she’s leaving him in front of all of these people, right before we’re supposed to go on tour, I swear the minute we get off this stage I really am going to punch him.
Jenna stutters something unintelligible, no doubt having the same thoughts I am. Alec grins at the Tina. “Jenna and I got married last week. We couldn’t stand it anymore, so we eloped.”
My heart stops. Jenna looks at Alec, eyes wide, and I see her freezing between Stage Jenna who has to take this all in stride and Real Jenna who just told him to stop interfering in her life. It’s like they both have a hold of her, and she’s glitching, stuck between the two.
Breathe, I tell myself. But I don’t breathe. Instead I grab Alec by the shoulders and shove him past Tina Fey in her glittering silver dress, past the stage mics and taped cords, pushing him as hard as I can right off the goddamn stage and into the audience.
The crowd shrieks and then goes eerily quiet as Alec clatters into the first row of chairs and lands with his head in the lap of Kanye West.
I stare in horror as Kanye’s chair tips and someone—is that Taylor Swift?—catches his chair, and the rest of the row scoots backward in this synchronous wave to get out of his way.
And then Alec is rolling off of Kanye and staring up at me and shouting something that might be what the fuck, man? But my ears are ringing and I can’t hear. In fact, maybe the crowd hasn’t gone silent. Maybe my mind is just physically unable to process anything beyond the fact that I just shoved Alec off a stage at the VMAs in front of Tina fucking Fey and Kanye fucking West and the entire rest of the music industry. I stand there, seeing security climbing the stage to get to me. I feel as if I’ve fallen into Pagliacci, an opera about a clown who discovers his wife is cheating on him and murders both her and her lover on stage, right in front of the audience, as if it’s all part of the show.
I was wrong. There was more we could do on this stage to damage our careers, and as the shock fades, I know I should be sorry.
But damn if that didn’t feel good.