Chapter Forty-One

By the first costume change, he was breathless and sweating. He ran backstage and was given a bottle of cold water, which he gulped down while wardrobe tore off his clothes unceremoniously. They patted him down with a towel as the stage manager called out the instructions for the next set.

“We’re going back in with Until You Wake. I need all fifteen dancers in front of me right now!”

Dax hurried to the make-up chair where the stylists and make-up artists reapplied the powder he needed to cope with the heavy lights. They highlighted his eyes, making them bright and alive, and they sprayed a little hairspray in to counteract the sweat. Then, in thirty seconds, he was ready to go again.

The show was going even better than planned. His voice was strong, his moves in time with the dancers, and he hadn’t fluffed a single line. The lights on him were so bright that he couldn’t see anyone in the crowd, and that made him feel better. He could hear the screams of all the fans, and in quiet moments between songs he remembered to thank them all for coming out and supporting him. He reiterated that he would never have recovered without them.

He went back out and did three more tracks before rushing backstage once more for his third and final costume change. He’d decided early on to go without an interval. In the past, intervals were for getting as much vodka down his throat and cocaine up his nose as possible before the second half. Now, nothing was stopping him. He was back, and he was better than ever.

Toward the end of the show, he started getting nervous. Still, he didn’t drop a beat or miss a step. When he went into his stellar song, Remembering the Future, he was pretty sure everyone was on their feet. He trailed off in the chorus and simply listened to everyone singing his song, grinning and nodding as they hit the crescendo together, over one hundred thousand voices, before he joined back in again and finished the track.

They thought it was over. The lights went down and, as arranged, everyone left the stage but his roadie, Theo, ran on and handed him the acoustic guitar. Alton Coy’s guitar. Perfectly tuned, and ready to play, it sat in Dax’s strong hand as he adjusted the microphone. His heart was racing, the blood in his head swishing in his ears.

The crowd fell silent, save for the occasional whoop, as Dax smiled out at them and wiped sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. “Damn,” he said, looking out. “That’s a hell of a view.”

They screamed and called out, but then were silent as he talked.

“You know, this last six months have been insane. I nearly died, and when I woke up in a hospital bed in London, I thought it was all over. Not my life, but my career. The thing that kept me going all these years.”

He paused. “And then I was given another chance. I was taught that it doesn’t matter what’s happened to you, you can always pick yourself up and try again. You can always find a way to make yourself a better person. And it’s not always easy, especially when the world has you put into a box, a mold of the way they want you to be. Well, for me that ends today.”

A hum went out among the crowd, but they were soon shushed by everyone else, who hung onto Dax’s every word. They felt it in the air. Something big was coming.

“You see, since I was eighteen, I thought I had it all,” Dax went on. “I had the money, the fame, the amazing, beautiful fans, and the life of a pop star. I thought it was what everyone wanted, and I was the luckiest guy in the world. But there were some things missing. I wasn’t allowed to walk the street whenever I felt like it, because it wasn’t safe. I wasn’t able to just go sit on the beach without being mobbed. And it sounds like I’m ungrateful, but that was the way of it.”

He took a deep breath and blew it out again. “I wasn’t allowed to fall in love,” he croaked. “The papers wrote what they wanted and I was seen with all kinds of beautiful women, but they weren’t right for me. I wasn’t right for them.”

The hum in the crowd got louder. Dax was shaking as he closed his eyes and pressed his lips against the microphone. “I’m a gay man, and I’ve lied about myself to you, and to me. For that, I apologize.”

He was cut off by a cacophony of noise. He was sure he caught one or two boos, but they were drowned out by screams and yells of support. The stadium erupted for five whole minutes with wild applause, and Dax felt the energy of tens of thousands of people giving him nothing but pure love.

With tears spilling down his cheeks, he thanked everyone. “I can’t tell you what it means to me to share this with you. You’re the people who got me here, and you don’t deserve the bullshit any longer.” He held the guitar up and licked his lips. “I want to tell the whole world that I’m sorry, and I want to apologize particularly to one person.

“Cameron, I love you.”

Again, the stadium went wild and flashes of lights from phones and cameras coursed through the crowd as Dax told the whole world the truth. Emboldened, he continued.

“I walked away when I should have stayed, and you didn’t deserve that. I’m sorrier than I could ever have been, and the last few months without you have nearly killed me all over again. This last song’s for you.”

And he was about to begin the first chord, when he paused for one last second. “Oh, and Grant? You’re fired.”

Most of the crowd didn’t even know who Grant was, but they didn’t care. They were swept up by the rapture of the moment and all its implications. The biggest pop star in the world had just outed himself live on stage. It was unprecedented.

Finally at peace, Dax began the song.

 

“You said you’d catch me if I fell, but it was a lie

I fell so damn hard and well, you just watched from the side.

Thought I’d recover, but then I discovered

I was watching myself from your eyes.

You couldn’t fix me

No, you couldn’t heal me

Broken bones mean nothin’ if my heart’s still sufferin’

No you couldn’t fix me

You couldn’t heal me…”

 

In the instrumental portion that followed, all Dax could hear was silence as everyone held their breath and absorbed the beautiful track. Then he launched into the chorus.

 

“Nothing could ever grow when the soil was stone cold

Nothing could ever live when the excuses all got old

Nothing could ever start when it felt life was at an end

Nothing could ever begin until I became my own best friend.”

 

He thought of Doctor Pravenda, who told him he needed to love himself. He thought about how right she was. Because there was no denying the swell of love that burst out from his chest when he finally declared to the whole world that by loving another man so completely, it meant that he’d accepted himself.

He thought about Grant, who was probably clawing to get on stage and kill him, and he smiled to himself as he pictured Rocky and the others holding him back.

But mostly, he thought about Cameron. Because now the secret was out, and they didn’t have to hide anymore, then maybe, just maybe, they had a chance. He could feel it in the way Cameron had hugged him. He could feel that there was a chance he dared to believe in.

As the song came to a close, and Dax bowed, the lights fell and he stayed on the stage for a few more seconds, soaking in every second, determined to remember this moment for as long as he lived. Then, he took a deep breath and ran off, to face a different kind of music.