Breaking Point 
Chapters 1-4

Fame built them. Silence broke them. Love might be the only thing that saves them.

Chapter 1: Walls Closing In
 

Susie
Seoul, Korea, November 18, 2023

They say family is the most important relationship you’ll ever have. Mine was at a breaking point.
HGT was barely hanging on by a thread. 
And I was in Seoul.
I’d been here a few weeks. The band was on a break. Our longest in years. Six months. We were a few months in.
Emma was off in Spain with that asshole Rick Bradley. Liam was deep into label collaborations, practically carving out a solo career. Dan and Max? Partying like it was 1999 and the end of the world was next week.
Sal, my best friend, my lifeline, was adrift. 
More so than I was. 
I woke slowly, the weight of sleep still clinging to me. Soft linens wrapped around my legs, and the silk of my nightie skimmed my skin, making me feel more delicate than I was. I didn’t feel delicate. I felt like punching a wall. 
There was a deep ache in my chest, heavy and unmoving. 
It was 2 p.m. I had slept most of the day away…again.
That had basically been the pattern since I got here. Rockstar life. Stay up all night, crash at 3 a.m. (if not later), and sleep until the mid-afternoon sun was shining in my face. It was a rhythm I hadn’t managed to break yet, and, if I was honest, hadn’t really tried.
But the smell of fresh coffee filled my bedroom. Rich and earthy. The sound of oil on a frying pan filtered through my haze and I realized, as my stomach growled, that I needed both food and coffee. So, I got out of bed. 
After I’d changed into my sweats, I padded into the kitchen area of the apartment I’d sublet for the duration of my stay. Nine One Hannam complex in Hannam-dong. The condo space was clean, bright, with a contemporary-styled, open-concept floor plan. A view of the Han River nearby. The morning light streamed in through floor-to-ceiling windows, casting a golden haze over everything. 
The kitchen buzzed with activity. My personal assistant, Laila, was making the coffee and nibbling on a granola bar while the chef, Narae, prepped breakfast. Security, John and Mark, sat around the table, drinking coffee and scrolling through their phones.
Meanwhile, my translator, and the one person I absolutely could not do without on this trip, Yerin, sat at the counter.
I gave Yerin a quick wave, then greeted John, our stocky Korean-American guard in his early thirties, and Mark, the tall brunette in his late thirties with a crooked nose, crooked teeth, and a religious devotion to protocol. Narae caught my eye and offered a warm smile, returning my wave.
I wandered over to Laila.
“Coffee?” she asked, glancing up from the espresso machine.
I nodded. 
“Here you go,” she said, handing me a tiny white porcelain teacup.
“Too small,” I signed, raising a brow.
Yerin smiled from her spot at the counter and translated for everyone with ease. First in English, then in Korean for Narae.
“You’re used to American sizes,” Narae said in Korean, chuckling. Her bronze eyes twinkled as she wrinkled her nose at me.
Yerin covered her mouth, laughing along as she translated Narae’s words for me. Her hair was pulled back into a tight bun, and her deep brown eyes lit up with flecks of gold. 
Laila cleared her throat. “I’ll make you another. Yerin, do you want one too?”
Yerin nodded. “Yes, please.”
“Today you have a meeting with KSS,” Laila reminded me as she turned back to the espresso machine. Her hijab was a light pink today and it covered the tops of her shoulders. “So after breakfast, get ready, and we’ll head out with security to Dobong-gu.”
I nodded. 
Laila was Muslim, tawny skin, stunning, dark brown eyes that were almost black. She was short like me, but curvy and capable as hell. She offered to come along and handle logistics for this trip, and I was beyond grateful. Hiring her had actually been Liam’s idea, after I mentioned, via a chaotic 2 a.m. text, that I was going to Seoul to look for my birth family.
None of us had personal assistants. We had Wade, Andy, and the label team. We had a touring crew. But our own PAs? That always felt a bit extra. Honestly, we were pretty simple like that. We tried to keep ourselves grounded, even when everyone around us was screaming for us to do the opposite.
It’s why we gave half of our earnings to social programs, charities, and causes that mattered to us. It mattered more to us to give back. To make what we had count for something. We didn’t want our egos to grow bigger than our purpose or our calling, our love of music and of each other. None of us desired to be billionaires, or even hundred-millionaires. What we wanted most was autonomy. Ownership of ourselves and our music. The freedom to create how we wanted, and when we chose to.
Laila glanced at the tablet on the counter. “You’ve also got a couple of interviews while you’re here. The label lined them up. Ashley sent over details.”
Narae finished plating breakfast, Gilgeori toast, a Korean egg sandwich I was obsessed with. Perfect start to the day.
“Narae, can you make one for Yerin too?” I asked, settling at the kitchen table with my bodyguards as I bit into my toast. 
So good.
“No,” Yerin said quickly.
“Yes,” I signed back at her. “Tell her, or I’ll text her.”
Yerin smiled, bright and wide, and I felt a pang in my chest. She’d been a godsend since I arrived. Fluent in English and ASL, she’d grown up in the States with her parents. Her younger brother was deaf, and after their parents died in a tragic car accident, she moved them both back to Korea to care for their aging grandmother. Now, she looked after them both. 
Yerin turned and spoke to Narae in Korean. Narae gave a playful eye roll and went to work making her toast. 
I smirked at her, which followed by a flutter.
Oh damn. I was in trouble.

Chapter 2: Drowning
 

Susie
 

I ate breakfast and joked around with everyone, had another coffee, and then headed into my room to get ready for the day.
I grabbed my phone. No new messages.
It was strange not having Sal here with me. Not being around her. We lived together for years, and more than that, we’d always been there for each other. Through everything. Since we met.
I scrolled to her name in my texts and stared at the last message between us.
Stay in touch.
We hadn’t. Just sporadic messages here and there.
And I hated it.
The memory of that last fight on tour still stung. We were at the Marriott in Sydney. The Heart Lines tour was in full, brutal swing. Europe was behind us, Australia was almost wrapped, and Asia loomed ahead, then the U.S., Canada, and whispers of yet another leg through Europe after that.
It was late. Everything was loud. Flashing lights. Drunken laughter. Music pounding through the floor we’d blocked off for the band. Just another night. Another hotel floor. Another city blurring past as we bounced from venue to hotel, hotel to airport, then onto the next stage. And we did it all over again. Screaming fans, bright lights, high notes, sweat, epic riff-offs, and giving everything we had night after night. Then the after-parties, fans throwing themselves at us, press, drinks, drugs and madness.
The hotel was the usual, luxury, polished, expensive, but they all looked the same after a while. Bleeding into the next. 
I sighed, flopping down on the couch beside Sal.
I pulled the hood of my sweater lower, trying to shield myself from the chaos, then turned to Sal.
Sal was leaning back on the couch in a silver sequined, fringed, low-cut one-piece, looking impossibly gorgeous as always. Her long black hair fell in loose waves, her eyes dark and smoky. She was dangling a red solo cup in her fingers.
“What are you doing?” I signed.
“You’ll have to be more specific, Susie-Q,” she said, sounding completely wrung out. “There’s a long list of things I’m doing right now that I probably shouldn’t be.”
“I mean this,” I said, gesturing to her. “The partying. The... whatever-I-don’t-care-anymore attitude. The constant stream of people coming in and out of your hotel room. What about Lee?”
She exhaled and gave me a long once-over, her lashes flicking as she did.
“I don’t know,” she said quietly. “I just don’t think I’m made for anything steady. For monogamy. Maybe people aren’t, in general.”
“That’s bleak,” I let out a sigh, then continued to sign. “And don’t you think that warrants a conversation with the person you're in a relationship with before you act on that whole complex line of thinking?”
She shook her head.
“Probably. Not like I haven’t tried. Lee doesn’t want to come out or join us on tour. They’ve got clients, friends, family. A whole life in L.A. One they’re not willing, or maybe not able, to put on hold. I’m trying to make it work as best I can.” 
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“I am. I even asked about opening up the relationship.”
“Oh, my God. How did that go over?”
“About as bad as you’d expect.”
“What the hell, Sal?”
“I know.”
She looked down, refusing to meet my eyes, her jaw tight.
“I feel like I need a cigarette.”
“I feel like you should already have one.”
She shrugged and then took a drink.
“Booze will have to do.”
“Look, I get that tours are brutal, and being in a relationship on top of that makes it even harder,” I signed. “But this… this isn’t you.”
“Maybe it is.”
“It’s not. Maybe this relationship just isn’t the right fit anymore, and you don’t want to admit that because it’s good…but not good enough. So instead of calling it quits with Lee, you just went and blew it up on your own.”
She scoffed.
“Guess so. And I guess that means I’m a disappointment to you, too. Add that to the list. Parents—check. Partner—check. Best friend—check.”
“Wow. Throwing a full-blown pity party on top of everything else, huh?” I signed, shaking my head.
I’d never seen Sal like this. She was the canary in the mine, and she was suffocating.
“There’s something wrong with me,” she said, staring straight ahead, her voice low and frayed.
“No, there isn’t,” I signed, shaking my head.
“There is. You think you know me, Susie, but you don’t. I’m just… a mess. As broken and fucked up as everyone else. I’m not built for living in boxes. Relationship constructs. Any of it.”
“You’re starting to sound like Emma,” I signed.
“Maybe she’s right. Maybe love isn’t for women like us. We’re too complicated. Too fucked up from everything life has put us through.”
Emma had been saying that exact spiel since the pandemic. Liam kept pretending he didn’t hear it. I could see right through her, just like he could. It was pain talking. Trauma. That belief that she was too broken to be loved. She’d told me outright once, “Liam deserves better than me. I’m too fucked up. I’m not made for happily ever afters.”
It was bullshit. She was healing, and scared. Scared of anything that might lead to more pain. Pain was her default.
Sal… Sal had been through her own storms. Her own kind of hurt. Disowned by her family for coming out at eighteen, she moved to L.A. and paid her own way through college, working three jobs, sometimes, and getting by on next to nothing but scholarships and sheer grit. Living on her own for years. Building her own support system, her own chosen family. Then she found us, and we became that family.
And here she was, proving to herself she didn’t deserve any of it. That love wasn’t for her. It broke my fucking heart. 
What is it with strong women thinking they're too hard, too much, too everything to be loved?
“I don’t know,” Sal said. “The situation we’re stuck in isn’t helping. This level of ownership? It’s a corrupt corporate mind-fuck. And maybe it was always meant to be. The idea of a clean career in this industry? It’s just a nice fucking sentiment meant for normal people who never have to survive the bullshit we do just to do what we do.”
“Sal,” I signed. “I know this is hard, but—”
“You can’t tell me you don’t think the same thing sometimes.”
“I do,” I signed back. “But the answer can’t be self-annihilation. You should talk to Emma. You two are right there together in the ‘self-destruction is safer than trying to heal ‘camp.”
Sal took a long swig from her Solo cup. I grabbed it and took one too. Straight whiskey. It burned going down and smelled like turpentine.
“Ew. Gross.”
“Yeah,” she said, taking it back, shifting deeper into the couch. “If you ever see her in the wild, not on a stage or magazine cover, see if she’ll pencil me in.”
“Haha.”
At that point, Emma barely showed up at the after-parties anymore. She lived by a ruthless regimen, shows, scheduled rest, workouts, interviews, photoshoots, brand deals, fan events. Chronically online.
She was a branding machine with a pulse.
“We’re all doing it. Collectively. It’s a parallel self-destruction,” Sal said, motioning to Dan and Max.
I looked over.
Dan’s eyes were red-rimmed, and he was holding court like a drunken Dionysus, loud, slurring, surrounded by chaos.
Max was nearby but distracted, swallowed by an entourage of rappers, models, other musicians, artists, actors. People drawn to his light, even as it dimmed by the day.
Liam was probably off with Wade and Andy, handling logistics, fighting executives, securing bonuses for the crew, making damn sure Greg Masters stayed on his side of the hemisphere. Shouldering everything. Burning himself out. Trying to do everything so we didn’t feel exactly how Sal felt. Trapped by our circumstances with Titan.
“Yeah,” I signed, my shoulders slumping. “We are.”
And suddenly I wondered where that left me.
Drifting just like Sal.
We used to anchor each other. But the Heart Lines tour… it was unlike anything we’d ever survived. The pressure was crushing, the crowds relentless, the dates stacked back-to-back like they’d never end. The press, the fans, the expectations. 
“We’re not gonna survive this tour if we keep going like this,” I signed.
Sal rubbed her forehead. “No, we are not.”
“And what if that did happen?” she said quietly. “Where would that leave us?”
“Us?” I signed, looking at her.
She didn’t say anything else. She didn’t have to. Her eyes were tired, her face wearing that impassive, guarded look I’d come to recognize as Sal holding something back.
“Yes,” she said, holding my gaze. “Us.”
There it was again. That same look. Heavy. Loaded. Something I didn’t have the bandwidth to unpack.
My body was buzzing.
What did she mean? What could she mean?
She was still technically with Lee. And she’d been knee-deep in chaos, new strangers every night, whatever numbness she could grab.
“Us” could only mean the band. Our friendship.
“We’re always going to be friends, Sal.”
After a long pause, she said quietly, “Friends?”
“Yeah. We’re family. We’ll always be here for one another.”
“I mean, it’s not like we can even break up or call it quits. We’d owe the label everything,” I signed, forcing myself to focus. “Lost profits for the next four albums. However many tours. They’d own every HGT track we’ve ever written.”
Sal nodded slowly, the weight of it sinking in.
“Yep,” she muttered.
She looked away then, like the tension had burned her, too hot to touch, and tipped back the last of the whiskey.
“You know what, Susie-Q? Just… hold on to something. Anything. Whatever you can. Just keep yourself from drowning with the rest of us.”
And then she stood, walked into the crowd of bodies packed too tightly, and disappeared.
I sat in my room, staring out the window as the sounds of the city buzzed below. I felt just as empty and lost as I had that day.
The incessant buzzing of my phone snapped me out of my spiral.
Max.
I hit accept, and Max’s face filled the screen. His usual smile wasn’t there. He was looking worn and exhausted, like he hadn’t had a decent sleep in months.
Well, same brother.
“Suz.”
“Max-a-million,” I signed.
He ran a hand down his face.
“I’m stressing,” he said. “Liam just showed up at the Club.”
“To pull Dan out of his spiral, I hope,” I sighed, already bracing.
“Nope. To join the sesh.”
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s Sal?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been trying to reach her. She’s been disappearing for days at a time and then randomly resurfacing,” Max said, looking around the club.
“Flings?” I asked, stomach sinking.
“That’s my guess.”
“Have you heard from Emma?” he asked.
“Not in a few days. Why?” I signed back.
“Because I think something happened between her and Liam. Like…tonight. I haven’t seen him like this since the tour.”

Chapter 3: Pressure’s Building

Susie

I pulled back, grimacing.
We all remembered how it fell apart between them.
It gutted every one of us.
We stared at each other for a long beat.
“We have to do something, Susie,” Max said over the music in the club. “This feels like the end, or some bloody bollocks I cannot handle by myself right now.”
“I know,” I signed. “But it can’t be the end. We can’t afford for it to be. We still owe Titan four albums and just as many tours.”
“Five tours, actually.”
“Five?” I blinked.
“They’re not counting Heart Lines as two. Only one. And we missed two album tours during the pandemic.”
“Fuckers,” I signed.
“Yeah. I think they’re hedging their bets,” Max said. “Piling on the pressure because they think we might crash out. The more we owe, the more they can nail us with if we can’t hack it—or the less chance we have of walking away.”
“How the hell did our lawyers not fight that?”
“I don’t know. But it’s in the contract, now.”
“Oh, that fucking thing.”
A wave of anger surged through me, thick, raw, helpless. The machine was grinding us down, and there was nothing we could do.
“So if we crack, we’d be broke, fined to hell, and left with nothing,” I signed.
“Yeah. We’d be done for.”
I hesitated, then signed again, slower this time. “So we can’t break. We can’t. More than that… I can’t believe Emma and Liam would let it happen. After everything.”
“Agreed,” Max said as he rubbed his face. “Liam’s a wreck, though. We’ve got to do something. Have you heard his new stuff? Every track is about a… love story. One we’re all painfully familiar with.”
I closed my eyes against the guilt swirling in my gut.
“Every bloody song,” he continued. “He’s straight bleeding out all over the studio. I don’t know what the hell’s gonna happen when Emma hears any of it.”
“That’s why he’s spiralling. He’s unravelling and recording every second of it. He’s not getting any time to breathe, to think, to actually heal.”
“Yep. Pretty much.”
Max paused for a long moment, staring off and to the right, then let out a low groan.
“What’s he doing?” I asked my fingers moving slowly.
“He’s tearing through top-shelf scotch like it’s a fire sale. And the way he’s eyeing the talent in the VIP lounge? He looks ready to disappear with someone and never come back.”
“Dammit,” I signed, stomach sinking.
“Call Emma. Tell her to talk to him,” he pleaded. 
“I can’t,” I signed. “She’s not doing much better. And she’s with that asshole, Mr. Hollywood. He keeps her on a tight leash. She literally hides in the bathroom to talk to me and signs so he doesn’t hear her.”
Max’s jaw tensed. “Jesus bloody Christ. I can’t keep holding it all down myself, Susie. I’m only one man.”
“I know that. I can’t head back to L.A. yet. I’m close to something, and I need more time. You have to hold it all together until I get back. Then we’ll figure out a plan.”
He nodded, eyes heavy with exhaustion. “Fine.”
Then he blinked and looked offscreen. “Oh…shit. Sal just walked in. What is with everyone tonight? Did I miss the text about the full band spiral in the group chat? Is it a full moon or something?”
“Go take care of her. Please,” I signed quickly. “And Max?”
“Yeah.”
“Take care of yourself, too. I know the others are knee-deep in their own messes, but we need you—and we always have.”
Max groaned. “You’re gonna make me bloody tear up, Hartgrave.”
I smiled sheepishly.
“Love you, Susie-Q. You’re the sister I never had.”
“You too, Max. But like a brother.”
“Hurry back, yeah?”
“I will.”
The screen went dark.
I let out a long breath. The weight of it all sat heavily in my chest.
 

Chapter 4: The Noise
 

Susie
 

The press was gathered outside my apartment building. Fans with signs and phones raised, trying to catch their shots. The whole damn circus waiting for me. I couldn’t go anywhere anymore without being followed, tailed, posted about, since the press caught wind of my trip.
I waited in the vestibule, preparing to breeze past it all like I was made of stone while my security team flanked me.
I took a breath and stepped outside. I was hit with a wall of noise as the crowd erupted. Fans screaming at a fever pitch. Cameras flashing. I gave a quick wave and beelined for the waiting black SUV.
My driver nodded. Security climbed in behind me.
Then we were off to KSS. Korea Social Service. 
I was nervous, anxious, and impatient. I wanted answers faster than anyone said they would come. I needed them. It was long overdue.
Everyone knew who I was. I was Susie Hartgrave. Emma Hartgrave’s adopted little sister. The bisexual, Korean keyboardist savant. A symbol, apparently. A face people saw, pointed to, and said, “representation.”
But what did that even mean? Because the truth was, I didn’t know. Not really. Not enough. I didn’t know the language. I didn’t know the traditions. I barely understood the culture I belonged to, beyond what I’d picked up online or through people I’d met. 
And now, with K-pop exploding globally and Korean dramas becoming a whole phenomenon, I’d somehow ended up under this spotlight, an unexpected, uncomfortable kind of visibility. A figurehead for a community I didn’t truly feel like I belonged to.
There was this ache inside me, like something essential was missing. And it was. Because yeah, that’s where I was from, but I didn’t know that part of myself. And I was tired of pretending that it didn’t matter. 
And when the noise of touring with the band had quieted, during this break, I felt it. The hole in my chest. One not carved out by the family I’d never even had the chance to know.
And it was a hole the band couldn’t fill. Not anymore.
My mind spun through moments and memories as we drove through the city.
Growing up in White Plains with Evelyn, Harry—my adopted father—and Emma. Dad leaving us when I was thirteen. Emma leaving me. Moving to Nashville with her. Finishing high school between gigs. Playing dive bars with Emma. Wade and Andy finding us. Meeting the guys. HGT.
All of it.
Even the moments when everything began to unravel. The moments when I realized that the family we had all made together was more fragile than I wanted to believe. It sat in my chest like a lead weight. 
I thought about Vancouver. 
Emma had left for New York to shoot that commercial.
Sal, Max, Dan, and I were having breakfast at the hotel restaurant. A moment of peace. It was just before noon. Liam was nowhere to be found, and Emma was supposed to have been back that morning.
We’d arrived the night before. The city greeted us with the usual screaming fans and enough camera flashes to make it feel like the sun had come out. Then, we did what rockstars do, we partied. Liam had been a mess that night, like he’d been through a blender.
Sal sat with him most of the night. They talked and drank together, looking like they were consoling each other. And the pang of jealousy I felt was overwhelming. I couldn’t help but feel it because I was supposed to be that person for her. I felt the sting of her distance that night, and I didn’t fully understand why it was so strong. I still didn’t, really. 
It felt… sudden. Abrupt, even. 
So, I left the party early and went to bed.
“Oi!” Max said, at the breakfast table, tone serious. “Fam, enough! No more snaking my hash browns. Eat your sausage-chorizo-cast-iron-whatever-the-bloody-hell,” Max muttered.
“Max,” Dan scolded, shooting him a look. “Don’t be that way. Share.”
“Why?” Max threw his hands up in frustration. “Where’s Liam, anyway? He needs to be here to control you.”
Dan shook his head at him.
“What?” Max repeated, hands still in the air.
“Shush, mate,” Dan said flatly.
“What is with you two?” I sighed, narrowing my eyes at both of them.
There was an uncomfortably long pause. 
“Liam,” Sal eventually said, “may have had a rough night last night. That’s all.”
“Yeah, if by rough, you mean what he probably did with that pop star who was dogging him all night long,” Max blurted.
“Mate,” Dan groaned, dragging a hand down his face.
“What? Susie already knows,” Max said with a shrug.
I shifted in my seat.
I did know, and I hated knowing it. It’s how we spent most of the Break the Chains tour. Watching Liam and Emma hook up with other people, pretending they didn’t care about one another, when clearly they did. It made things uncomfortable for the rest of us, while we scrambled to stay neutral. I didn’t know how Dan felt about it, but I wasn’t a fan. I didn’t like lying to Emma. But any time I tried to be honest when she asked, she didn’t take it well. She'd be a salty bitch for days.
After the waitress came by and set down my food, eggs, toast, and a fruit cup. I stared at it for a good five minutes before Sal got my attention. She looked at me as she spoke.
“You okay?”
“This is so goddamn complicated,” I signed.
“It’s about to get even more so,” Dan sighed, running both hands through his wild hair.
“It’s a rough patch,” Sal said, chewing on her toast and working her jaw. “Emma and Liam had it out before she went to New York. He drew a line in the sand…”
“And she didn’t cross it.” I glanced at Max and Dan, both looking down at their plates. Then Dan met my eyes, and his look said everything. Guilt. Because we’d helped create this mess.
“So let me get this straight. Things are about to get weird and tense and awkward between all of us, not because Liam and Emma got together and screwed it up, like we all feared, but because they didn’t?”
“It would seem that way… yes,” Dan said, his hands laced in front of him, his cast-iron skillet of eggs and sausage mostly untouched.
“So we prevented nothing,” I signed. “We made them go through all of this for nothing.”
Max let out a heavy breath, dropping his toast back onto his plate and rubbing his temples.
Sal nodded her head slowly.
“They didn’t technically break up,” Dan said. “Because they were technically never together.”
I gave him a look. “And that’s our fault.”
“It’s not just our fault, Suz. It’s only partly our fault because it was mostly the contract,” Dan replied, slicing his hand through the air like he could summon the damn thing. “They knew the cost when they signed it. They agreed. So now, here we are. Splitsville.”
“Mate, don’t say that,” Max muttered, shaking his head. “This next leg’s gonna be bad. But it’s not the end. It’s not allowed to be. Because…”
“The contract,” Dan finished. He exhaled hard, rubbing his face. “I hate that thing. I know I signed it, but I bloody hate it.”
That’s when Liam came downstairs looking like he’d been hit by a truck.
“Liam? You okay, mate?” Max asked.
“Nah, mate,” Liam slumped into a chair, staring off like he’d left his soul somewhere upstairs.
“What happened?” Sal asked.
“Emma sent me a text from New York last night. Said she wanted to chat. I didn’t see it until this morning.”
“Well, that’s good, innit?” Max asked, glancing around the table for backup.
“I thought so…but she came back earlier than expected and she…”
He swallowed hard.
“She caught Delilah leaving my room.”
“Ooooh,” Max winced, dragging the sound out.
“Well, did she say anything?” Sal asked. “What did she want to talk about?”
Liam cleared his throat and grimaced.
“I don’t know,” he said. “She was so angry. Angrier than I’ve ever seen her. And…hurt. Like I’d gutted her.”
“Why would she be so upset?” Dan asked.
Liam didn’t respond. He just shook his head slowly.
“You two are not in a bloody relationship,” Dan continued. “She made that perfectly clear, the other night, and through the entire bloody pandemic. She couldn’t handle it after the whole Henry Mac—”
“Dan,” Sal warned him. 
He paused. Even saying the name made the whole table go still, like we were all holding our breath to keep from spiralling.
Dan cleared his throat and restarted. 
“I mean, she literally told you to move on, mate. She can’t come back now and crucify you for sleeping with some random pop tart.”
“She’s the opener for the rest of the tour, mate,” Max reminded him.
“Ooof, fuuuuuck, Liam,” Dan winced. Massaging his forehead with one hand while looking down at the table. “Jesus Christ. Way to pick ’em, bruv.”
Liam groaned, then slumped further in the chair, letting his head rest against the back of the chair as he stared at the ceiling.
“It was more like just…not disallowing.”
“Alright. Alright. Complication, yes. Condemnation? Not entirely,” Dan tried to argue, but none of us agreed.
“You think maybe she changed her mind,” I signed. “Realized she’d fucked up. Wanted to make it work.”
Liam sat up and dropped his head into his hands. Clearly, he’d been thinking the same thing.
“Fuuuuuck,” he groaned, as he clenched his fists. “She wouldn’t speak to me. She looked right past me.”
“Like she does when she’s in the same room as Greg?” I asked, fingers moving as I did.
“Yes,” Liam nodded. “Then she bloody stormed off. I went after her. She went into her room, locked the door, wouldn’t come out.”
“That’s not good,” Max said.
“I tried to coax her out for half an hour. Nothing. She wouldn’t answer my texts or my calls. I was yelling at the door like a bloody lunatic. And I could hear her in there. Eventually, I just sat against her door. I swear I heard her crying in there. ” Liam’s voice broke. His lower lip quivered as he rubbed his face. His eyes were glassy.
We all sat there, looking at him… at each other.
Silence filled the booth. Heavy and suffocating, while the rest of the dining room buzzed with ordinary life. Coffee cups clinking. Forks scraping plates. People laughing like the universe wasn’t collapsing in front of us.
“Did… did I—” He cleared his throat when his voice caught. “Did I just fuck this up beyond repair? Did I mess up so badly that she hates me now?”
His voice dropped to a whisper, like he couldn’t believe the words himself. 
“Did I just destroy the realest thing I never had?”
It was jarring to hear him say it out loud. That unspoken thing between them. The thing etched into every song, every note, every album, every music video, every performance. The chemistry and connection that built us might be the very thing that broke us.
We all knew it had the potential to do so. That’s why we warned them. Why the label gave us an eight-album deal with a breakup-and-scandal clause so ironclad that our future kids, if we chose to have them, would be paying off the lost-revenue penalties until they were middle-aged, and they’d never see a dime from our music.
“I…” Sal started. “No. I don’t know…”
She looked at me.
I didn’t have an answer.
Because whatever happened, Emma wasn’t answering my texts.
A few nights later, she fell in with Rick, and from there, everything just kept spiralling.
We were on the plane, a flight from New Orleans to New York. Everyone welcomed the stillness and quiet, even if it was only for a few hours. Well, everyone except Dan, who was already one and half drinks deep before we even took off.
“I think we need to take a break. A big one,” Emma said.
Liam was in his usual routine. Headphones on, hoodie up, cap low, setting up his gear. But the second Emma spoke, his head snapped up so fast I thought he might give himself whiplash.
“A break? Where’s this coming from, Em?”
“Don’t do that.” Her tone was tight, guarded. She leaned back in her seat, eyes hidden behind oversized sunglasses.
She’d started dressing differently, always in black blazers and wide-leg trousers or mom jeans, heels clicking wherever she walked. Hair blonder than usual, styled in sleek waves or bone-straight. Red lips. Perfect skin. She used to be casual-cool, vintage tees, jeans, boots. Now she looked like the CEO of a luxury beauty brand. She always did that. Disappeared into the men she dated, became what they liked and wanted.
There was only one guy I’d never seen her do that for. Around him, she became more herself. And it was Liam. But they’d never technically dated. 
Liam lifted his hands. “Do what?”
“Make this about something other than the band.”
The tension in the cabin was thick. You could’ve cut it and served it on a silver platter.
Wade and Andy exchanged a look. Ashley glanced up from her tablet, a granola bar hanging from her mouth as she typed furiously. She barely had time to eat these days, let alone keep up with the constant chaos.
“What else is it about, besides your new boyfriend wanting to whisk you away to red carpet premieres and off on holidays? Please, enlighten me,” Liam said, his voice like steel.
Emma rolled her eyes and crossed her arms.
“We won’t survive if we don’t.” 
That made him flinch. 
“We can’t keep going like this. Running from facing realities we’re too cowardly to confront,” She said.
Everyone on the plane shifted.
“So your plan is to leave. Run off. Sounds familiar,” Liam said, not even looking at her. 
“My plan is to live outside of this for a while. Get some distance,” Emma replied, her tone clipped. “That’s not running.”
“Alright. Mmm-hmm. Pull the other one.”
Emma shot him a glare.
Liam groaned and rubbed his face. “Emma, we’re not doing an extended break. Three weeks. That’s it. That’s all you get. Deal with it.” 
She shook her head, lips pressed tight.
“Besides,” he continued, voice sharper now, “that’s not what we agreed on. We agreed to grind out the last four albums, finish the tours, and get out from under Titan as fast as we bloody could. You might’ve forgotten, but I haven’t.”
“I remember,” she snapped. “Believe me. No one lets me forget what I have to carry.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Did someone say something to you, Emma? Was it Greg? Because I warned him…”
“No. It’s nothing.”
Liam stared at her for a long beat, then wordlessly put his headphones back on, shutting her out.
Emma opened her book.
Sal and I exchanged a look.
“This must be what kids feel like watching their parents get divorced,” Max muttered.
I looked over at him and signed, “Pretty much. At least they’re still arguing. When that stops, we are well and truly fucked.”
He grimaced. 
Dan just drained the rest of his second drink without a word. Held up his hand for the flight attendants to grab him another.
I let out a sigh as the twist in my guts worsened.
We weren’t making it past L.A., and we all knew it after that flight. 
And we were right.
After the second North American leg officially ended, the Heart Lines tour was finally over, after a year and a half of shows, sweat, and survival.
And Emma was leaving. Really leaving.
Jetting off on some elaborate string of vacations and trips. Film festivals with Rick, luxury resorts, press tours, sailing around on a yacht off the coasts of Spain and Africa.
She was forcing all of us into a six-month break, whether we wanted it or not.
Liam had tried to stop her.
His final attempt came after that last show, and it exploded into the biggest, most brutal blowout any of us had ever witnessed.
We were in the hallway, just outside the dressing room, and we could hear every word. I could just see them too, standing there, raw and exposed, every heartbreak-laced shout echoing off the walls.
“Emma, stop running from this,” Liam said, his voice low but shaking with emotion.
“Me? What about you?” she snapped back. “Your distractions, your silences…”
“Yeah, and what about your inability to say what you feel until it’s too fucking late?” He shot back.
“Oh, so this is my fault? That’s rich.”
"No,” Liam groaned. “Look, I’m sorry, Em. I truly am."
"For what, exactly, Liam?" Her voice sharpened. "For fucking Delilah? Or everything since Manchester."
Liam’s face crumpled.
“You asked me to let you go.”
“And you did.”
“I thought that was what you wanted.” 
“I thought it was what you wanted.” 
She turned, but he reached out, grabbing her arm, not rough, just desperate.
"Emma, don’t leave with him," he pleaded. "Please. I’m begging you."
“It’s too late, Liam,” she went on. Her voice had dropped to something softer, almost fragile. “Everyone was so afraid we’d blow up this band, this money-making machine, for everyone else, if we ever got together. But no one thought for a second what it would cost if we didn’t.”
His face twisted, pain rising to the surface.
“We’ll figure out how to do the albums. The tours. But I need space. Time. Distance,” she said. 
He stepped forward, desperation bleeding through every word.
“You’re running, Emma. From me.”
She said nothing. 
“You’re running from us.”
He paused, searching her face.
“You’re running from your family.”
She cleared her throat at that word. Family.
And I silently willed her to listen to him, to really hear him. To not run. Not again.
I’d never been able to stop her once she went into flight mode. But maybe he could. 
“Do you remember what we said in my apartment,” Liam asked, his voice softer now, “after your mother gave you that ultimatum, and you stayed?”
“I remember, Liam. I also remember everything after Manchester.”
Liam let out a long breath.
“Don’t make me say it again. If you need me to, I will. But there’s only so much begging I can do.”
He stepped closer.
“Don’t run. Just… let me fix it.”
She looked at him, long and hard, eyes full of ache.
Then she shook her head.
“Too much has happened. So much,” she said, her voice cracking.
“Don’t leave and go straight into the arms of another man who’s going to treat you like some doll he can manipulate. I will not be there to put you back together this time.”
She pulled in a breath and shook her head. 
“I have to go. I’m late.” 
Just before she stepped out of the dressing room, we all did a mad dash from our spots in the hall. Hiding behind nearby curtains that covered a stretch of the cinderblock stadium wall. She walked out with her security in tow, tears streaming down her face.
Liam stayed behind. The silence that followed was the worst kind. So heavy and final. I could feel it settle in my bones.
Then came the crash out. 
Glass shattering. Bottles and furniture being hurled across the room. The sound echoed down the hallway like a scream no one was brave enough to let out.
My heart ached knowing Liam was hurting that badly. That Emma was. That all my bandmates were. My family.
It was one of those moments when fame felt like it had swallowed us whole. Our place in all of it had cost us so much. Too much.
And now, we were all drowning because of it.
I stared at my reflection in the SUV’s tinted window, the glass turning into a perfect black mirror. The girl staring back at me looked lost. No blood relatives. No family. No friends. No home. No place.
The city blurred past outside, as my heart hit the floor. 
Where do you even start looking for yourself when the only people you’ve ever known and loved can’t help you… and don’t know how to help themselves?