DAYLIGHT FADING

HEART IN A CAGE

I don't want what you want

Leo is waiting just before the steps onto stage of my last show. I'm fairly sure he knows what I'm planning to do. Maybe we've just been practicing it in the tour bus too loud but I can't give a shit anymore. This is my last show as Angel. I don't intend to go quietly.

"Are you going to fuck this up for me, D'Angelo?" his voice has always made me grate my teeth. It's not even unpleasant in tone, it's just self-assured and smarmy and swimming in aren't-you-a-special-star sweetness. He doesn't talk like this to anyone except his artists. I expect it works on some of them.

"Hell yes I am," and I grin at him because there's fuck all he can do about it. Cam comes up behind me and Leo's heavy sigh means the look on his face also spells trouble. 

At my request, my stylist has pinned by hair back and disguised it with a ridiculously heavy wig. My plan only requires my getting changed but I wanted to have proper hair for it too. I've hated the repeated straightenings over the last two years, the ordering of my mass of curls on my head just as systematic as the ordering of my public image. I'm not even sure if most of the people in the audience tonight know that my hair isn't naturally straight. If I feel the slightest inclination to leave the house, even to do the shopping, then I have to straighten my hair. I've been tempted to say fuck it a few times but I've reminded myself that it can't go on forever. Eventually, everything ends. Sometimes that's a bad thing but by god, I can't wait until this is all over.

"You ready?" I ask Cam.

"Smile, wave and never let the world know how much you hate them?"

"Pretty much," I grin at him. He's still the same as when I met him, gangly and scruffy, his beanie pushing his hair halfway down into his eyes so I wonder if he can see. I've cut that fringe many times with a pair of kitchen scissors on my bus. I find it weird that I might not do it again. I've grown so used to having him right next to me.

"Well then, Angel, I won't see you on the other side," that has me grinning as well. This is almost all done. After this, I have less than 48 hours on contract which I expect Leo will milk for all its worth after the stunt I am going to pull in about an hour and a half but I don't give a shit. Finally, it is almost over.

I don't have a fucking clue what I'm going to do when it's actually over but hopefully it will be something interesting. I've got enough money that I can spend a hell of a long time doing music without worrying about it. Hopefully – eventually – this will all work out in my favour.

Mark Twain might have said the world doesn't owe anyone a living but sometimes it does so many shitty things to you that you reckon you've earnt part of one. I'm going to make my own start on this one tonight.

I've become numb to it, the dance routines and the smiles and strutting around on heels. I wonder if this is what it would be like if I drank my way through every show instead of smoking. Would I even remember them? To be fair, there's nothing particularly memorable about them to be now anyway. I'm not giving pieces of myself to every crowd. I don't feel connected with them. The songs that talk about heartbreak seem trivial when what I want to write is about everything I can't figure out how to say regularly when it comes to Adam. I want to write about whiskey and cigarettes and clinging to someone's voice on a turntable because you know it's probably the closest you're going to get again.

My voice had been smooth before I'd signed the contract two years ago- shit, was it three now? I couldn't really tell. Now, even when I tried my best to hide it, it still had a rasp. It was good to know that maybe there was a chance my lungs would shut down before my heart. At least something would.