The gas station in Sandusky sold stale donuts and surprisingly good coffee, which Margo considered a metaphor for life.
"Sometimes the packaging is terrible but the content is excellent," she philosophized, powdered sugar dusting her black sweater. "Like Jax Viper's first album cover. That graphic design was a hate crime, but the music? Chef's kiss."
I cradled my coffee, watching the trucks roll past on the highway. Three hours from home, two hours from Cleveland, and the knot in my stomach had only tightened.
"Can I tell you something embarrassing?" I asked.
"Please. I live for your embarrassment."
"I used to imagine him singing at my wedding."
Margo's eyes went wide. "To Boring Brandon?"
"His name was Brian. And yes." I winced at the memory. "I had this whole playlist planned. 'Crimson Hour' for the first dance. 'Everything and Nothing' while we cut the cake. I thought it was romantic."
"That is romantic. And also slightly unhinged." She shoved the last donut toward me. "Eat this. You need sugar for what you're about to confess next."
"There's nothing else to confess."
"Emma. I've known you for ten years. You're doing the thing with your hands."
I looked down. My fingers were shredding my napkin into tiny, nervous pieces. Damn.
"Fine." I took the donut, took a bite, and let the artificial sweetness ground me. "When Brian and I broke up, I listened to 'Midnight in December' on repeat for, like, three days. I know every word. I know the guitar solo. I know the part where his voice cracks on 'I waited' and it sounds like he's actually about to cry."
"And this is embarrassing because...?"
"Because I'm a grown woman! I have a career. I have a retirement account. I should not be processing my emotions through the discography of a man who probably doesn't know Ohio exists."
Margo set down her coffee with the careful precision of someone about to deliver a lecture. "Okay, a few things. One: Ohio absolutely exists and it's where all the swing voters live, so everyone knows Ohio exists. Two: art is supposed to make you feel things. That's literally its job. Three: you are allowed to have feelings, Emma. You're allowed to be sad about your wedding getting cancelled and your life not going according to plan. The fact that some hot guy with a guitar helped you process that? That's not embarrassing. That's human."
My eyes burned. I blamed the gas station fluorescents.
"I just..." I swallowed. "I spent so long being the practical one. The one with the five-year plan. The one who always knew what came next. And then Brian cheated, and my plan fell apart, and the only thing that made sense was some stranger's music. What does that say about me?"
"It says you're not a robot." Margo's voice was gentle. "It says that somewhere under all those lesson plans and parent conferences, there's still a person who feels things. And that's good, Emma. That's really good."
We sat in silence for a moment, the gas station humming around us. A trucker paid for diesel. A kid begged his mom for candy. Life continued, ordinary and mundane, while I grappled with the extraordinary fact that I had feelings.
"I'm scared," I finally said.
"Of meeting him?"
"Of wanting things again." I looked at Margo, at my best friend who had driven three hours to take me to see a rock star because she thought it would make me happy. "For the past year, I've kept everything small. Small apartment, small life, small expectations. Because if you don't want anything, you can't be disappointed."
"You can't be happy either."
"Yeah." I crumpled the donut wrapper. "I'm starting to figure that out."
Margo stood, brushing crumbs off her sweater with aggressive determination. "Here's what's going to happen. We're going to get back in that car. We're going to drive to Cleveland. We're going to meet Jax Viper, who will probably say something generic like 'thanks for coming,' and you will probably say something awkward, and then we will have a story to tell forever. And maybe—just maybe—you'll remember that life is supposed to be about more than survival."
"That's a lot of pressure for a backstage pass."
"Life is pressure, baby. Now get in the car. We've got a rock star to meet."
Cleveland announced itself in layers: first the sprawl of suburbs, then the tangle of highways, then the silver-gray skyline rising against the darkening sky. The arena appeared like a spaceship, all glass and steel and light, with crowds already gathering outside despite the early hour.
My stomach dropped. "There are so many people."
"Twenty thousand, according to Ticketmaster."
"Twenty thousand." I pressed my hand to my chest, where my heart was doing something that felt medically concerning. "And they're all here to see him."
"To see the band," Margo corrected, but we both knew what she meant.
Jax Viper was Crimson Edge in the way that certain frontmen become synonymous with their bands. He wrote the songs, commanded the stage, generated the headlines. The other members—talented musicians in their own right—existed slightly in his shadow, planets orbiting his particular sun.
I had read exactly one interview about this dynamic (okay, twelve interviews) and he'd seemed almost uncomfortable with it. "We're a band," he'd insisted. "Rico, Maya, and Chris are the reason any of this works. I just happen to be the one with the microphone."
It was probably PR training. Everything these people said was filtered through managers and publicists and carefully crafted narratives. But something in his voice had sounded genuine. Something had made me believe him.
Which was probably naive. Which was probably exactly what I wanted to believe.
"Earth to Emma." Margo was waving the backstage passes in front of my face. Laminated, official, real. "We should head in. The meet-and-greet starts in thirty minutes."
I took my pass, the lanyard cool against my palm. This was really happening. In thirty minutes, I would be in the same room as the man whose voice had gotten me through the worst year of my life.
"What if I say something stupid?"
"You teach kindergarten. You once convinced a five-year-old that eating glue wasn't food. You can handle thirty seconds with a celebrity."
I wasn't so sure. But I followed Margo anyway, past the growing crowds and the merchandise tables and the endless Crimson Edge banners. Into the arena. Through the security check. Down the corridor marked "VIP ACCESS ONLY."
Toward whatever waited on the other side.