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Some fleeting moments that made my facade fall, the moments when I just couldn’t take the pretending anymore, and crawled back into his arms like the lost teenage girl who just didn’t have the chance to grow up right.

It was ebb and flow and back and forth and push and pull.

It was a miracle that Lan tolerated me.

I told myself I was doing this for him.

For us.

But somewhere along the way, I had no clue why I was even doing it anymore.

Maybe the biggest reason was to hide the big, big ache inside me.

A hole that just kept getting bigger and bigger.

I didn’t know how to grieve over something that could never be mine.

My facade became my lifeline that I just couldn’t let go of because honestly, I didn’t know how.

But even that crumbled afterthat night,six years later.

The night when I didn’t know what had happened to me.

But something did, something enough to derail my existence and shatter everything I built.

CHAPTER 12

NOW

KATY

It’d been one hundred and eighty-eight days since Lan and I broke up.

I made myself busier.

I made myself fifteen pounds heavier.

I made myself a ghost that I hardly recognized.

“Chris, is everything ready and the security cleared?” I asked my assistant on the phone.

“Yes, K, everything is good to go. Waiting for you guys,” Chris replied in his cheery voice.

“Perfect,” I mumbled, cutting the call before he could utter another word.

I loved my assistant for keeping me sane most of the time, but right now, any sort of joy was like a spinning chainsaw to my nerves.

I could feel the weight of all their gazes on me. Yes, they were more bearable now with each passing day, but it still wasn’t something I was used to.

So I ignored and evaded them like it was my new favorite sport.

As the band manager, I was never the one to be gawked at, yet I did have my moments when I walked the red carpet withLan, but that was the Katy hiding under her famous boyfriend’s shadow or the cloak of her fake persona.

But now, everything was different for her. She was no longer that girl.

Iwas the girl stuck between with no rope to pull me in the right direction.

Directionless.