Listen to Your Heart

Chapter One

Present Day

She'd never been very good at leaving things behind. Her mother had called her a "pack rat" when she was growing up because she had kept everything; Playbills and programs and ribbons she'd won and love letters from ex-boyfriends. She'd sworn it was because she couldn't stand to throw anything away that had a memory attached but as years went by; she'd come to realize that perhaps it ran deeper than that.

There was an entire room in her house dedicated to attachments she could never part with. It wasn't as if she even opened the door very often but simply knowing those things were in there, gave her a small sense of comfort. Nobody dared asked to go in or even what she kept there, not even Natali. The thought of divulging she kept Taylor's shirts she had worn, or jewelry Christian had gifted her stashed away in a room, rather than giving them to charity or tossing them, made her instantly nauseous. And it wasn't as much the fear of what the people in her life would say, then it was her own awareness that keeping such items made her seem a little unstable.

It made sense then, why she was having such a difficult time, even after more than a year, leaving Ally behind. Letting go of people, even fictional people, she learned, was as hard as hell. There had been a huge void when she'd had to finally give her up, one that couldn't be filled, no matter how diligently she tried. Many times, she hesitatingly brought it up, to her sister, to Bobby, to Bo. The general response was uniform; of course, it was hard for her to let her go. The movie had changed her life, it was her first starring role, she'd spent months preparing, so much so that she knew Ally almost as well as she knew herself. They were all kind and sympathetic, but they couldn't understand, not really.

The day Bradley gave her the picture, she'd been completely spent. It was her wrap and the scenes she'd filmed that day, plus the reality that it was truly over had left her exhausted and heartbroken. Her eyes were raw, and her throat was raw, and everything ached. It had been surreal to know that Jackson was already gone, yet there was Bradley, so close she could have touched her fingertips to his kneecap, right there with them in the scene, his quiet, open presence encouraging her to dig as deeply as she could. I know this sucks, his eyes seemed to say as they bore into hers, it sucks and it fucking hurts, but I just need you to trust me. And she had. Maybe more than she had ever trusted anyone. By the time everything had ended, she was hit with the reality that Jack was gone, and she'd never see him again and by that token, Bradley would be too. She knew they'd still talk, and they'd see each other quite often on the press tour, but it wouldn't be the same.

Instinctively, he could sense how hard it was for her. The entire process had been the most emotionally fulfilling experience she had ever had, and it was almost all his doing. Not only was she creatively nurtured the second she stepped on set, and even beforehand, when they began character work together, she felt safe. She had known she was going to have to go to dark places, places that she'd shut the door on a long time ago but there had been no way of knowing just how much of herself, the real her, she'd need to bring to light in order for Ally to come to fruition. Bradley knew. He knew how to get her to those places without damaging her but what made her feel taken care of was that he was right there with her, ready at any time to dive headfirst into the uncomfortable and the terrifying and the unknown. She felt brave with him by her side, both in front of and behind the camera. The most dazzling thing of all, she realized not far into the process, was that she wasn't Gaga to him. He'd seen through that instantly. She was simply Stefani and as daunting as it was not to hide behind the well-crafted facade she spent years building, she was acutely aware that in order for people to buy her as Ally, in order for people to buy the film at all, she was going to have to be that person again. And that meant all the parts of who that was, including the ugly ones. It was scary and she had sobbed through some days, but he'd been there for comfort or for gentle advice and she really and truly trusted him beyond measure.