The air in the backstage production office was a toxic cocktail of stale coffee, industrial carpet cleaner, and low-grade, high-stakes panic. It was a temporary, windowless room, a nerve center cobbled together in the guts of the T-Mobile Arena, and it felt like the most stressful place on Earth. Wires snaked across the floor. Stacks of laminated schedules threatened to topple over. A bank of monitors showed silent, frantic images from a dozen different camera feeds.
At the center of the storm sat Brenda, the show's executive producer, a woman in her late forties with a headset permanently attached to her ear and the haunted, thousand-yard stare of someone who had survived a dozen live television broadcasts. She was trying to smile, but it was a thin, brittle thing, stretched taut over a bedrock of pure stress.
Across the folding table from her sat Alex, his father Michael, and his publicist, Claire. They were an island of calm in her hurricane. Alex was in his "CEO mode," his posture relaxed but his gaze direct and unwavering. The ghost was in full command. This was its natural habitat: a high-pressure negotiation with a gatekeeper who held all the cards.
"Alex, we're thrilled to have you," Brenda was saying, her voice a practiced, upbeat rasp. "Congratulations again on the wins this morning. Top New Artist, Top Streaming Song… it's a clean sweep. The kids love you. The audience is going to go nuts when you walk out there to present."
She was referring to the non-televised portion of the awards, the bulk of the categories that were handed out in the afternoon before the main broadcast. Alex had already won. The televised part of his evening was supposed to be a simple, contractually obligated victory lap: present the award for Top Female Artist, smile for the cameras, and boost the show's ratings with his presence.
The ghost had other plans.
"I appreciate the offer to present, Brenda," Alex said, his voice calm and measured, cutting through her effusive praise with a quiet, surgical precision. "It's an honor. But I think we can do something more meaningful. Something more memorable."
Brenda's smile faltered. She did not like the sound of the word "memorable." Memorable meant unpredictable. Unpredictable meant a deviation from the schedule, a document so sacred and so tightly timed that it was measured in half-seconds.
Alex leaned forward, his hands clasped on the table. He was making his pitch. It was an audacious, last-minute gambit, and he delivered it with the cool, unshakeable confidence of a man who knew he couldn't lose.
"Give me a three-minute slot during the broadcast," he said. "I'll do a tribute performance. No band, no backing track. Just me and a piano, live. It will be the most talked-about, most-shared moment of the entire night. I guarantee it."
Brenda stared at him, her expression a mixture of disbelief and outright offense. She laughed, a short, sharp, humorless bark. "You're kidding, right? A three-minute slot? Alex, I have global superstars performing fully choreographed numbers that we've been rehearsing for three days. The show is timed down to the second. There are no open slots. There are no windows. The show is locked."
"I understand that," Alex said, his tone still perfectly even. He wasn't arguing. He was stating a new set of facts.
Claire, his publicist, stepped in smoothly, her voice a gentle but firm counterpoint to Brenda's rising stress. "Brenda, with all due respect, Alex's social engagement numbers are currently higher than your top two performers combined. The narrative surrounding him isn't just about music; it's about a global conversation. A live, emotional performance from him isn't just a nice moment; it's a viral event waiting to happen. It's a gift to your broadcast."
Brenda's eye twitched. She knew Claire was right. The story was the currency, and Alex's story was pure gold. But the schedule…
Alex added the final, decisive piece of leverage, his voice still quiet, polite, and laced with the unyielding strength of a veiled threat. "If I can't perform," he said, letting the words land gently, "I'm afraid I won't be able to stay for the ceremony. A family matter has come up. It would be a shame to have an empty seat when the camera cuts to the Breakthrough Artist winner."
The threat was unspoken, but perfectly clear. The only thing a producer fears more than a last-minute schedule change is a major, award-winning artist—especially one at the center of a massive, emotional narrative—publicly bailing on their show. It would be a PR nightmare.
Brenda was cornered. She looked from Alex's calm, unblinking face to Claire's sharp, intelligent gaze. She was a veteran of these kinds of power plays, and she knew when she had been outmaneuvered. A flicker of something new appeared in her eyes: intrigue. The kid had guts. And he was probably right. The performance would be a moment.
She let out a long, weary sigh, a sound of reluctant surrender. "Fine," she snapped, already grabbing a laminated sheet and a red marker. "You've got a tight three. After the second commercial break in the nine o'clock hour. You get a piano and a spotlight. That's it. If you go one second over, I will personally cue the orchestra to play you off. Am I clear?"
"Perfectly," Alex said, a small, triumphant smile touching his lips for the first time. "Thank you, Brenda. You won't regret it."
The scene shifted. The tense, claustrophobic office gave way to the cavernous, echoing expanse of the main arena. The house lights were on, bathing the thousands of empty red velvet seats in a flat, institutional glare. The stage, a massive, multi-tiered structure of screens and lights, felt impossibly large and intimidatingly empty. Stagehands in black t-shirts milled about, their voices bouncing off the distant ceiling, their movements dwarfed by the sheer scale of the space.
In the precise center of this vast emptiness, there was a single, gleaming black grand piano. And sitting at it, a solitary figure in the cathedral of silence, was Alex.
Finneas stood in the first row of empty seats, his arms crossed, his face a mask of quiet concentration. He was here not as a co-founder or a producer, but as a musical director, a trusted set of ears, and the sole audience member for the most important rehearsal of Alex's life.
"The acoustics in here are a nightmare," Finneas called out, his voice echoing slightly in the arena. "It's all slap-back delay. You're going to have to trust your in-ear monitors completely. Don't listen to the room."
Alex nodded, his fingers resting lightly on the cool ivory of the keys. He wasn't just rehearsing a song. He was crafting a public eulogy. It had to be perfect, not in its technical execution, but in its emotional honesty. It was a stripped-down, brutally potent medley he had arranged in his head over the last week. A three-minute distillation of a year of grief.
He played the first few chords, the hesitant, questioning progression of "How to Save a Life." The notes, small and fragile, filled the vast space, a tiny sound in an enormous silence. He sang the first verse, his voice clear and searching.
Then, at the end of the verse, he seamlessly, beautifully, transitioned. The key shifted, and the melody flowed into the raw, aching chorus of "Before You Go." It was the heart of his pain, the central, desperate question.
"So, before you go, was there something I could have said to make your heart beat better?"
The two songs, born months apart from the same raw wound, bled into each other as if they had always been meant to be one piece. The first song's confusion flowed into the second song's regret. After the chorus, he resolved it, transitioning back into the final, heartbreaking lines of "How to Save a Life."
"Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend…"
He finished, and the final, mournful piano chord hung in the empty air.
"The transitions are clean," Finneas called out, his voice respectful. "It works. It feels… inevitable."
Alex nodded, satisfied with the musical structure. Now for the final, crucial element. He beckoned one of the show's lighting technicians over, a young man with a headset and a weary expression.
"I have a single, specific request for the visuals," Alex said, his voice quiet but firm. "I don't want any fancy graphics. No swirling lights, no smoke machines. Just keep a tight, simple spotlight on me and the piano. Keep the rest of the stage dark."
The technician nodded, making a note on a tablet. "Got it. Simple spotlight. Easy enough."
"And at the very end," Alex continued, "on the final note of the song, as it's fading out, I want you to bring a single photo up on the main screen behind me. Full screen. Just for a few seconds."
He pulled out his phone, found the image, and showed it to the technician. It was a candid, happy photo of Leo he had gotten from his mother. Leo was sixteen, laughing, his head thrown back, his eyes crinkling at the corners. He was vibrant. He was alive.
The technician looked at the photo, then back at Alex. The weary professionalism in his eyes softened for a moment, replaced by a look of quiet, human understanding. He knew what this was.
"I'll make sure it's perfect," he said softly.
"Okay," Alex said to Finneas, his voice resonating with a newfound calm. "Let's do it one more time. Full run-through."
He settled himself at the piano, took a deep, centering breath, and began to play. His voice, small but clear, filled the vast, empty arena, a single point of raw, intimate emotion in a space built for spectacle. He poured every ounce of his grief, his guilt, and his love for his friend into the performance. It was a quiet, devastating prayer, offered up to the ghosts in the empty seats.
He held the final chord, his eyes closed. From the front row, Finneas gave him a single, solemn nod.
The stage was set. The eulogy was ready.