Page 82 of Crash & Burn

He gestures to Eddie, calling him up to the front of the stage.

Eddie stands up, and the crowd cheers as he comes up to grab Mateo’s microphone.

“This next song is a special one. To me, tous.” He gestures to Mateo, Theo, and Silas. “I wrote it with a certain person in mind, so this one is for her.” Mateo scans the crowd until he finds me, putting one hand to his heart and pointing at me with the other, mouthingthank you.

Theo walks to his microphone. “Without our girl, we wouldn’t be where we are, debuting this song for all of you.”

“She made all of you finding us possible, making us look good and putting us out there, showing the world our sound,” Silas adds into his.

Mateo takes the mic back from Eddie, “To my little sister, our photographer, social media manager, band manager, tour manager, personal assistant, and anything else we ever need, thank you. We couldn’t do this without you.”

People in the crowd turn to me, making the tears forming in my eyes even more embarrassing.

This cannot be happening.

Their debut song is forme? From all of them?

I clasp my hands together bringing them to my lips because I don’t know what to say. I feel Annie’s arm wrap around my shoulders, and Drew wraps her arm around my waist.

Eddie takes the microphone from Mateo one last time. “If you have someone in your life,” Eddie says, “who brings sunshine even on those rainy days,” he pauses, finding me in the crowd again. His eyes lock with mine, and the whole crowd disappears. There is no one besides him and I. “I want you to think of them while you listen to this song, and I want you to tell them how much they mean to you when you see them.”

I see Annie and Drew exchange a glance out of the corners of my eyes, but I don’t care because my world just stopped, and I will never be the same.

Why does that dedication feel different than the other?

He calls me sunshine, told me how every rainy day needs one.

But there is no way he wrote this song forme.

Eddie hands the mic back to Mateo and goes back to the drums. He doesn’t look at me again, but I never take my eyes off him. He hits his drumsticks together three times and the next song starts.

And my heart stops.

Annie and Drew are still holding on to me, and I’ll have to remember to thank them later because without their support I think I would have fallen to the ground.

I hear Eddie’s drumming, and Theo and Silas come in with their guitar and bass, and I recognize the song within the first three seconds.

Not because I’ve heard them play it before, but because it is the song Eddie hummed to me in my hotel room when I asked him to stay with me.

I fell asleep to him humming it to me.

And it is the song that has been stuck in my head.

The song that halts my dreams and haunts my nightmares.

The song I heard in every song I listened to.

The song Nico wrote for me.

Mateo’s vocals start, but I can’t focus on what he is singing. All I can focus on is trying to breathe as tears stream down my face.

I feel a weight on my chest lift, and the song wraps around me, injecting itself into my bloodstream.

I am in complete and utter disbelief, hearing the song I have been looking for for three years, the song I let go of, thinking I’d never hear it again.

Yet here it is.

AndEddiefound it.

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