He raises his hand, and it immediately grows quieter. “We’re almost playing a cappella for you now, just me and Zozoo—it’s gonna be great. Phenomenal!”
He is so confident. So different. So strong.
Goosebumps crawl across my skin, a mix of fear, confusion, and longing. This is no longer the boy from the river.
River looks into the crowd, but it feels like he’s only looking at me. And then, when he sings, I don’t understand the words even though I know the song. It’s “All Your Glittering Pieces.”
The lights dim, and suddenly, hundreds of cell phone lights shine in the darkness. I understand why he’s doing this. He wants to subdue the crowd until more security arrives. He doesn’t want the situation to escalate, and this is the only way to keep his fans in check.
As if in a trance, I listen to his voice, the voice I know and love. It sends a shiver across my skin like a spring storm of butterflies, every time.
“Zozoo says you’ve been traveling with him all summer,” someone next to me suddenly says.
I glance absentmindedly at the brunette woman with flushed cheeks. She looks worn out. Her sequined dress casts a thousand shimmering points of light around her, as if she were the sun around which everything revolves. A fixed star. Her makeup has melted in the heat of so many people, and her eyeliner or mascara spreads under her eyes like blue war paint.
Mom, I want to say it, but the word is stuck in my throat like a fishbone.
“Perhaps you could give an interview later. I know a well-known reporter, Shelly Gibson. The people here are keen to hear every detail, and I owe them a favor.”
She doesn’t recognize me.Mom, it’s me, Kansas!
She wipes her forehead nervously. “What a mess, isn’t it?” she babbles on, and I feel like we’re in the middle of an island,cut off from everyone else. “Luckily, the staff was able to get the prints to safety in time and locked up the hall... My goodness, I need to get my daughter something personal from him. Maybe a T-shirt or a cap. Something he wore... Are you a couple?"
Something inside me breaks. Maybe the part of me still sleeping at the kitchen table, waiting for her to come home and put my life back together.
I don’t know what’s worse. That she mentioned a third daughter or that she doesn’t recognize me.
I grab her arm and squeeze. And somewhere, from the depths of my soul, I squeeze out the one word: “Mom!” It sounds scratchy, rough, and pathetic. As miserable as I felt at the beginning of the summer.
Her green eyes, which could be my own, widen. For a few seconds, she seems confused. “Arizona?” she asks, uncertain.
She might as well have rammed her fist into my stomach. I lower my hand. Hot tears well up in my eyes. Of course, I’m blonde like Arizona right now, but apparently, she’s not looking properly. She never really looked. Maybe she just never cared about us.
Suddenly, it seems to me like one of her oil paintings—shrill, strange, and distant. An artist who only cares about one person: herself.
“M-om, w-w-why?” It’s the child in me squeezing out these words from the past.
She’s still staring at me, a hint of recognition finally flaring in her gaze. She shakes her head. A few times, her facial expression changes from bewilderment to disbelief, and then there’s a spark of regret and aloofness.
“You’re still having trouble speaking.” She doesn’t move, doesn’t take me in her arms. She stares at me like she can’t believe I’m her daughter—this loser who still has problems.
I want to punch her in the face and tell her she’s the shittiest mom ever, but her expression pushes all my words back into my throat.
I mechanically pull the band with the VIP pass over my head, drop it, and push past her. She doesn’t stop me. She doesn’t even try. Everything inside me convulses as I fight my way through the crowd, that seems like a wall.
“Kansas!” Only after many feet do I hear my mother calling, but I don’t care. I don’t carewhy. I don’t care about anything she has to say.
For a moment, I glance at the cafe and hear the soft, gravelly voice that has been mine for a summer. It’s like the whole world collapsed on top of me. Breathing hurts.
Remember the lessons, River whispers in my head. He emphasized that earlier, which means he’s not done with me yet. I asked my mom why, but I haven’t said,I love you,yet.
My list isn’t finished, and I realize that’s exactly what River was planning to do before his masquerade was exposed. He wanted to fulfill my wishes. He didn’t succeed, but he still wants to.
The only question is why? Why does a celebrated rock star, whom everyone loves, want to fulfill the heartfelt wishes of a silent, inconspicuous girl? A lost girl?
There can only be one answer. An answer he carries with him, written on his skin in dark blue—the color of a starry night's eternity.
Still alive for you, June.
