The night belonged to Airwindale.
Inside, Alfred and Leila carried the stage, their duet filling the rafters with warmth and fire. The crowd cheered. The music soared.
But Michael Blurb was nowhere to be seen.
Once, his arrival had been inevitable an unspoken promise. People leaned toward the stage out of habit, expecting him to step from the wings, expecting the piano bench to bow beneath his weight, expecting his golden voice to rise above them like a hymn.
But the bench stayed empty. The silence of his absence pressed heavier than the applause.
Some whispered. Some waited. Some prayed he might yet appear.
For years, Michael's presence stirred the world and even the heavens as if stars held their breath when he sang. Tonight, though, the heavens remained still, and the air felt incomplete without him.
Alfred and Leila held their harmony, yet beneath the brilliance of their notes lingered a shadow—one name, one voice the audience could not forget.
Michael.
At least, that's what they would think.
Across the street, under the pale glow of a broken streetlamp, he sat with a paper cup of coffee cooling between his hands. The steam rose faintly, but he barely noticed. His eyes, once a bright, boyish blue, had darkened, like deep water under storm clouds.
Let them have their night.
He shifted his gaze, refusing the pull of the music he knew by heart. Cars passed, strangers hurried along the sidewalks, life carried on as if he wasn't unraveling just a few steps away.
I could walk in there. I could stop it all. One word, one look, and Leila would see me again. But no...not tonight. Tonight she sings for him.
He pressed the cup harder between his palms, as if it could ground him. The coffee had gone bitter, but he drank it anyway.
They think I'm absent. They think I've given up. But I'm still here. I'm always here.
The applause burst again from the venue, muffled but sharp, like thunder through the walls. Michael closed his eyes. For a moment, he let the sound cut him open—then he breathed, slow and deliberate.
This was not the end. This was only the pause before his next note.
Michael had almost convinced himself he was alone. That the storm inside him had no witness. Then the bench dipped beside him.
A voice...steady, almost teasing...cut through his silence.
"Dark eyes, cold coffee. You don't look like the man who used to make a whole room melt."
Michael turned.
It wasn't a fan. Not a journalist. Not Alfred's shadow come to gloat.
It was her.
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