Chapter Text
“Step into my world, bittersweet love story 'bout a girl shook me to the core. Voice like an angel I've never heard before”
The stage lights were merciless, a thousand multiplied suns pouring their heat over trembling skin. Yet the applause —thunderous, alive— cut through the blinding blaze. It wasn’t just sound, it was vibration, a roar that settled into bones, making the very air quiver as if reality itself pulsed to the rhythm of a thousand hands.
It was the final night of The Anthem Project . The end of a long, brutal odyssey —eight weeks of glitter-drenched galas, impossible vocal gauntlets, endless rehearsals that devoured sleep and sanity. Fifteen hopefuls had walked through those doors at the start, but now only three remained. And while for the public reaching this stage was a triumph, for the contestants it was something sharper, crueler. Because here, losing wasn’t just failure. Losing was falling into a void so deep it might never let them climb back.
The audience thought they were watching a spectacle of songs and sequins. But behind every smile, every bow, there were sleepless nights, bleeding throats, trembling hands clutching at coffee cups, prayers whispered in dressing rooms. The show didn’t ask for their talent —it demanded their souls.
And tonight, it demanded everything.
Reaching the finals wasn’t measured in doubled followers on digital platforms or record label sharks already circling with ink-stained promises. Trending hashtags weren’t a prize. Tonight wasn’t about future opportunities. It was a precipice: all or nothing.
At the start of the week, the finalists had laid bare their histories through medleys, compressing their artistry into minutes. The verdict had been decisive: Eddie Diaz and Evan Buckley tied for first, Robbie trailing by only two points. A fragile balance, but fragile balances can topple with a single note.
And now came the final test: an unreleased song. Their last word. Their defining truth.
Eddie stepped forward first. He held the microphone with deceptive calm, posture carved in discipline, but inside his chest a storm battered violently. A soldier’s heart, conditioned to resist failure, hammered against his ribs. Yet when his voice broke the silence, it didn’t waver. Each syllable rang with the precision of someone who had taught himself never to fall. That was why, by the second week, they had already christened him The Golden Prince .
“Dame solo lo que puedas, no te pido más. Eterno contigo, nada más que hablar.”*
Eterno contigo.** A simple title, but in Eddie’s voice, it was no song —it was an oath. His smile as he sang was luminous, almost unfair, weaving its spell across the room. He wasn’t just performing; he was promising the world fidelity, constancy, eternity. And who could resist a promise like that?
But when Buck stepped onto the stage, the air itself changed. The audience leaned forward without meaning to, like bodies pulled by a storm. The moment his fingers struck the guitar, the room tilted, as if gravity bent toward him.
Buck didn’t sing —he bled.
Every lyric scraped out of him, raw and jagged, as though each word cost a piece of his soul. His throat tore itself open on the high notes, each one a cry, a wound. Break My Bones wasn’t melody; it was exorcism.
“I'll give you my heart, but if you're not true. You'll break more than my heart, you'll break my bones too.”
The pain in his voice wasn’t polished or gilded —it was too honest, too reckless. His performance wasn’t a coronation, it was a conflagration, a man burning himself alive so others could feel the heat.
Eddie, watching from the wings, couldn’t look away. A shiver electrified his skin every time Buck hit the chorus. He’d seen performers before, competitors who dazzled. But Buck? Buck was combustion.
By the end of his set, the tension was unbearable. Backstage, Eddie sat with Christopher bouncing on his lap, the boy giggling and clapping as if the whole show were just a cartoon made for him. Shannon at his side gripped Eddie’s arm so tightly her knuckles turned white, nerves raw and exposed.
Buck sat nearby, outwardly composed, but his hands betrayed him —shaking, restless, unable to obey the stillness he demanded. Maddie chattered endlessly beside him, filling the silence with scraps of trivial conversation, desperate to distract him from the storm twisting inside his gut. Yet the knot in him only grew, clawing through his chest like it wanted to devour him whole.
Robbie, infuriatingly, stood between them, calm and polished, grinning easily for passing cameras as if this were all just rehearsal for a future commercial.
Time dragged, cruel and syrup-thick, until finally, they were summoned back onstage.
Hugs were exchanged, tighter than ever, families whispering hurried blessings, promises of love no matter the outcome. Then silence. Then light. Then the three stood shoulder to shoulder before the judges, their futures dangling by the thinnest of threads.
The speeches came like waves: critiques, praise, the measured tones of professionals who knew the entire world hung on their words. Applause swelled and stilled, swelled and stilled. Until, finally, silence fell so absolute it seemed even the lights were holding their breath.
And then it came.
The name that shattered everything.
“Eddie Diaz.”
The sound ricocheted through the hall, a verdict echoing in every wall, every chest.
Buck’s heart plummeted.
Eddie smiled, humble, bowing low, thanking again and again. He didn’t look like a man who had just won a multimillion-dollar contract with 118 Productions. He didn’t look like someone who had just secured his career in fireproof gold. He looked like a man who hugged his son and wife with quiet reverence, as though life had handed him grace, not glory.
Buck clapped. Too loudly. His palms stung from the force of it, but it was nothing compared to the bitterness curdling in his throat. His mouth shaped a smile —tight, brittle, an echo of joy that never reached his eyes.
Defeat was agony enough. But to lose to Eddie Diaz? To someone who seemed crafted from perfection, gilded in untouchable light? That was unbearable.
That night, Evan Buckley swore he would never forget what it felt like to lose to Eddie Diaz.
And he never did. The memory scorched itself into him, smoldering through the years. A fire that never went out.
Bobby Nash’s office was more than four walls; it was a museum of triumph. Framed diplomas hung beside photographs with legends of the industry, every corner heavy with the weight of a career that had shaped the sound of a generation. Platinum records gleamed like silent suns, each one proof that Bobby had turned other dreamers’ chaos into history.
Eddie and Buck sat across from him like modern-day gladiators awaiting their fate, though neither looked at the other. Buck kept his gaze fixed on some invisible point on the bookshelf, his jaw tight, while Eddie shifted uncomfortably in his chair, as though the leather itself burned against his back.
“This is a golden opportunity,” Bobby said, his voice carrying the measured calm of someone who had bent countless storms to his will. He clasped his hands over the polished desk and leaned forward. “A collaboration that could redefine pop music. An album. Diaz and Buckley, together. ”
The words hung in the air like a spell, but the silence that followed was suffocating.
Eddie cleared his throat and straightened in his chair, his every movement controlled, precise, as if he were back on stage under a thousand eyes. His voice came out smooth, almost too polished, betraying the tension simmering underneath.
“With all due respect, Bobby, I don’t think this is the best idea.”
The rejection landed like a cymbal crash.
Buck let out a sharp, sarcastic laugh, his leg crossing over the other with deliberate arrogance, as if to mask the sudden sting he felt.
“Look at this surprise: the golden prince doesn’t want to tarnish his reputation with me.”
The insult was a knife wrapped in velvet, thrown with a crooked smile that dared Eddie to bleed.
Eddie’s eyes flashed —anger, discomfort, and something unspoken that twisted deep inside him. He drew in a long, controlled breath and forced his gaze back to Bobby, pretending Buck’s words hadn’t lodged themselves beneath his ribs.
“It’s not a matter of reputation,” Eddie said, measured, firm. “It’s compatibility. Our styles are opposites.”
To anyone else, it might have sounded professional. But Hen, sitting quietly at one side, heard what lay underneath: fear. Fear not of failing, but of losing control.
Hen had seen these tempests before. She’d grown up in small neighborhood studios where microphones buzzed and cables tangled like snakes, where every take was fragile as glass. She’d learned that music wasn’t just notes—it was air, atmosphere. Mishandle it, and it shattered before it even reached the first chord.
And the air in Bobby’s office was vibrating now, charged with a storm on the brink of breaking. Eddie and Buck weren’t just artists —they were flint and steel, sparks ready to catch.
Bobby had trusted her with producing the collaboration, a decision that still left Hen breathless. For her, this wasn’t just a job. This was the culmination of all the nights she’d sat mixing demos on a borrowed laptop, headphones taped at the seam. This was her chance to prove her ear, her patience, her instinct were enough to mold something great.
And she knew the truth already: Buck was a hurricane. Eddie was a wall. One tore down everything in its path, the other resisted until it cracked. But she also knew that if she could line them up, if she could tune them just right, they could create not noise, not disaster —something unforgettable.
Her eyes flicked between them, listening not just to what they said, but to the silence between their words. Eddie’s rigid composure, Buck’s mocking defiance, both disguises for wounds neither wanted to admit still throbbed: Eddie’s fear of disorder, Buck’s burn from a defeat that still hadn’t cooled.
“Exactly.” Bobby spread his arms wide, like a preacher unveiling a revelation. “That’s why it’ll work. Fire and gasoline. One burns, the other controls the flame. It’s the perfect combination.”
Buck leaned forward, his grin sharp and reckless, his voice dripping challenge.
“Or a sure explosion?”
Hen chose that moment to cut in, her tone calm, deliberate —like a soft knife slicing tension into pieces small enough to handle.
“An explosion can also be music, if you know how to direct it.”
She let the words settle, then looked straight at Eddie, then at Buck. Her voice carried no reproach, no judgment, only certainty.
“Both of you hold immense power. If we can synchronize that… what comes out won’t just sell records. It’ll outlast trends. It’ll be unforgettable.”
Buck’s smirk faltered, just slightly, replaced by a flicker of curiosity he tried to hide. Eddie lowered his gaze, his mask slipping for a moment as if Hen’s words had pressed a finger against the crack in his certainty.
Bobby leaned back, smiling like a man who’d just heard the missing piece fall into place.
“That’s exactly what I want. Someone who understands how to harness the storm.”
Hen didn’t reply, but inside her chest something flared —excitement, resolve. She wasn’t here just to stitch an album together. She was here to prove that even forces destined to collide could be coaxed into harmony. If anyone could make fire and gasoline sing instead of explode, she believed it was her.
Eddie pursed his lips, weighing the decision with the same gravity he once gave to every step on a stage. Buck sat beside him, restless, the old ember of humiliation from The Anthem Project glowing hot again. Nothing had changed. Eddie still stood as the model of perfection. And Buck? Buck was still the storm that didn’t fit in, never tamed, never crowned.
“Eddie. Buck.” Bobby’s voice was soft, but carried the weight of finality, like a gavel. “You both need to get out of your comfort zones. We have the opportunity to open the Golden Chords Awards. We’re not going to waste it. This collaboration isn’t a suggestion. I expect you both in the studio tomorrow at eight for pre-production. Understood?”
The silence that followed was thick enough to choke. Eddie’s jaw tightened until the muscle jumped, but he nodded, sharp and wordless. Buck gave a wry snort, his mouth twisting into that familiar crooked grimace Hen had seen a hundred times before —the look of a man bracing himself to walk barefoot across fire. But in the end, he bowed his head too.
That was when Hen moved.
She leaned forward slightly and laid a hand on Eddie’s arm —barely a touch, almost invisible, but enough to ground him, to ease the storm behind his eyes. Then she turned her gaze on Buck, steady and unwavering, meeting his defiance with calm certainty. Her look said what words could not: you won’t be alone in this.
For a fraction of a second, the tension broke. Not much, but enough.
Hen allowed herself a small, private smile. This was the beginning. And beginnings, she knew, were always the most dangerous, the most fragile —yet also the most thrilling part of any story.
Eddie’s car was suffocatingly silent on the drive home. The hum of the engine was steady, almost too steady, while his knuckles whitened around the steering wheel. The radio, on its own cruel whim, began playing one of his most recent singles. His own voice poured through the speakers —polished, controlled, flawless. And yet, it grated on him like static. With a brusque flick of his hand, he shut it off, the silence that followed somehow louder than the song.
His jaw ached from clenching. Every tendon in his arms pulled taut as though he were holding the car itself together by sheer will. For years, he had worked with iron discipline —every note rehearsed to exhaustion, every performance sharpened until it gleamed. He had built a career where nothing was left to chance. Perfection wasn’t a goal; it was survival.
And now Bobby was asking him to abandon all of that control. To join his voice with Buckley’s .
Buck —who seemed to thrive on chaos, who bathed in the roar of immediate applause, who threw himself into every performance like a man with nothing to lose. Buck, who risked everything for the sake of feeling.
This is going to be a disaster, Eddie thought bitterly, pulling up in front of his house. He cut the engine and sat in the quiet, fingers still wrapped tight around the wheel. His own breath sounded heavy in his ears, uneven.
But then, unwelcome, Hen’s words echoed back, dripping into his mind like water through stone:
An explosion can also be music, if you know how to direct it.
He rubbed a hand across his face, exhaling hard. He didn’t want to admit it —didn’t even want to consider it— but something in that sentence had lodged itself beneath his ribs, leaving a dull, persistent ache. What if she was right? What if the very thing that unsettled him most about Buck —the recklessness, the chaos— was precisely the thing that could force him out of his polished, suffocating comfort zone?
What if Buck wasn’t just a storm to resist, but the storm he needed to grow?
The thought made his chest tighten. It was dangerous, that kind of thinking. He shook his head violently, as though he could rattle Hen’s voice out of his skull. Almost angry at himself for even entertaining the idea.
No, he told himself firmly. Buck was a hurricane, and hurricanes couldn’t be tamed. They didn’t guide you into growth. They tore you apart. They left wreckage. That was all.
With that conviction, Eddie got out of the car and closed the door harder than necessary, as though the sound itself could put an end to the thought.
Meanwhile, across town, Buck threw himself onto his couch with his guitar pressed tight against him, like a lifeline. His body sank into the cushions as though gravity had doubled, dragging him down, pinning him under the weight of his own frustration. Without thinking, he struck a loud, jarring chord, the sound bursting into the air like a flare. It was raw, messy, unrestrained—exactly how he felt.
He let out a bitter laugh, tilting his head back, staring at the ceiling as if it might have answers.
“Perfect combination…” he muttered. His voice was sharp, scornful. “What a joke.”
But no matter how much venom he tried to lace into the words, Hen’s voice replayed in his head, insistent, unshakable.
Both forces have immense power. And if we learn to synchronize them, what comes out of it won’t just sell records… it’ll be unforgettable.
“Unforgettable,” Buck repeated, this time almost to himself, and his laugh came softer, more incredulous. What did he know about unforgettable? The only unforgettable thing that haunted him was the taste of losing to Eddie Diaz all those years ago. That scar still stung like it had been carved yesterday. And now Bobby wanted to throw them together, as if history wasn’t a wound still bleeding.
His grip on the guitar tightened until his fingers ached. It was his shield, his anchor, the one thing he trusted not to betray him. He pressed it close to his chest, but despite himself, his imagination betrayed him. He saw it —two voices colliding, opposite and wild, clashing in a way that didn’t destroy but created. He could almost hear it, the way Eddie’s golden discipline could lock into his reckless fire, the way the contrast could light up a stage like lightning cracking against stone.
He hated the thought. He hated that Hen’s conviction had been so steady, so believable, that it had cracked a sliver of curiosity open inside him.
And curiosity was dangerous.
“Damn it,” he muttered, dragging a hand over his face.
He didn’t want to give Eddie the satisfaction of credit. He didn’t want to agree with Hen. And yet, the idea pulsed beneath his skin, stubborn, like a string on his guitar vibrating long after the note had been struck.
He dropped his arm across his eyes, shutting out the world, exhaling until his chest ached. The silence stretched, but inside his head, the noise was relentless.
“Small… and challenged,” he whispered into the empty room, the words tasting like rust on his tongue. He remembered it all —standing on that stage, watching Eddie claim the crown, feeling himself shrink while the audience roared for someone else. That feeling had branded him, and no applause since had managed to erase it.
And against every instinct, against every ounce of pride screaming inside him, part of him longed to feel it again. That fire. That raw challenge. That reminder he was alive.
“Small… and challenged,” he repeated, a grim smile tugging at his lips. His voice was ragged, but honest. “Yeah… maybe that’s exactly what I need.”