The Last Firework

At the label showcase, Lily Monroe pointed at the second microphone beside Adrian Vale and asked, "Is this where Mira usually sings with you?"

The room went quiet.

That mic had been mine for seven years.

From dive bars with sticky floors to sold-out theaters, I had stood to Adrian's left for every acoustic closer. I wrote the lyrics, arranged the harmonies, booked the early gigs, and talked club owners into paying us when Adrian was too proud to ask.

Everyone in the band knew that final song was ours.

Adrian had once promised me that when we sold out our first arena, we would sing it together before he announced our engagement.

But Lily only tilted her head and smiled, all nervous charm and pretty innocence.

"Can I try her part?"

Adrian looked at me for half a second.

Then he handed her the spare in-ear monitor.

"Go ahead."

The rehearsal room went silent in the way people go silent when they know they have just watched someone get replaced.

Lily stepped up to my microphone.

Adrian leaned close to adjust the stand for her height, his hand lingering at her waist as he showed her where to come in on the chorus.

The band looked anywhere but at me.

That was the moment I realized Adrian Vale and I were over.

After the showcase ended, Rachel, our tour manager, found me by the loading dock.

The crew was packing amps into flight cases behind her, and someone was still laughing inside the greenroom. Rachel glanced over her shoulder before lowering her voice.

"Mira, you don't need to come in for the acoustic rehearsal on Friday."

I already knew what she was going to say.

Still, my fingers tightened around the strap of my guitar case.

"Adrian wants Lily to sing The Last Firework with him."

The Last Firework.

My song.

The first melody came from my mother. She used to hum it in motel laundry rooms when she worked night shifts and thought I was asleep on a plastic chair beside the dryers. Years later, I turned it into lyrics in the back of our van while Adrian slept through another state line, too tired to notice me crying over the notebook in my lap.

He knew what that song meant.

He had heard the first demo in our kitchen, back when the fridge barely worked and our downstairs neighbor banged on the ceiling every time he sang too loud. He had held my hand after listening to it and said, "When we make it, this is the one we sing together."

Now he was giving it to Lily because she had a soft voice, a pretty face, and the kind of fragile stage presence label executives loved to protect.

I nodded.

"Thanks for telling me."

Rachel looked like she wanted to say more, but the drummer walked past us with a cymbal case, and she only squeezed my arm before leaving.

That night, I sat in my