Backstage Pass

I'd been following Violet Haze for two years before I finally got the chance to meet her.

She was the lead singer of Neon Requiem, a band that had started in Brooklyn basements and was now selling out mid-size venues across the country. Her voice was this incredible thing, raspy and raw and capable of making you feel emotions you didn't even know you had. Her stage presence was magnetic. And her lyrics? They were poetry that somehow spoke directly to the parts of me I kept hidden from the world.

I'd been to seventeen of their shows. I had all their albums, their EPs, even the rare acoustic sessions they'd recorded before getting signed. I wasn't a stalker, I was a superfan. There's a difference.

Or at least, that's what I told myself.

* * *

The Night Everything Changed

The venue was a converted warehouse in Pittsburgh, packed with fans and thick with the smell of sweat and beer. I'd managed to get a spot near the front, pressed against the barrier, close enough to see the sweat on Violet's brow as she screamed into the microphone.

She was wearing what she always wore, black jeans, a tank top that showed off the tattoos covering both arms, combat boots. Her hair was shaved on one side, purple on the other, and her eyes were lined with enough kohl to sink a ship. She looked like a rock goddess. She looked like everything I wanted to be but never had the courage to become.

Halfway through the set, our eyes met.

It was probably nothing, performers looked at the crowd all the time. But for a moment, just a fraction of a second, she was looking directly at me. And something in her expression shifted. Recognition, maybe. Or curiosity.

Then she launched into the next song and the moment was gone.

After the show, I was walking to my car when a security guard stopped me.

"You. Purple shirt."

I looked down. I was wearing the tour shirt I'd bought at their first show, faded now from years of washing.

"Yeah?"

"Violet wants to see you. Backstage."

I was convinced it was a joke. Some kind of elaborate prank. But I followed him anyway, through a maze of hallways and equipment case

s, until we reached a door marked "GREEN ROOM - NEON REQUIEM."

He knocked twice and walked away.

The door opened, and there she was.

"You're the girl from the front row. The one with my face tattooed on her arm."

I looked down at the tattoo in question, a stylized version of their album cover, which did technically have her silhouette on it.

"It's the album art. Not your face specifically."

"It's my face. I posed for it." She smiled, a half-smirk that made my knees weak. "Come in. I don't bite."

The green room was surprisingly normal, a couch, some snacks, water bottles everywhere. The rest of the band was gone, probably at the after-party. It was just us.

"I've seen you before. At the Detroit show. And Chicago. And both New York dates."

"I'm a fan."

"You're more than a fan. You're a constant." She sat on the arm of the couch, looking at me with those intense dark eyes. "Every time I scan the crowd, you're there. Same spot. Same energy. Like you're feeling every word as much as I'm singing it."

"Your music means a lot to me."

"Why?"

The question caught me off guard. Nobody had ever asked me that before.

"Because it's honest. Because when you sing about being broken and putting yourself back together, I believe you. Because your songs made me feel less alone during the loneliest years of my life."