I can do it with a broken heart (Lando Norris)

Prologue- Exile

"So step right out, there is no amount of crying I can do for you. All this time, we always walked a very thin line. You didn't even hear me out."

📍 Arlington, Texas- March 2023

The silence in the dressing room was deafening. The music from her support act bellowed through the stadium and yet to Hannah it felt like she was frozen in time, standing in her dressing room looking at the man she loved.

Hannah stood, frozen in place, staring at her long-term boyfriend Joe who was sitting on the sofa. He was doing everything possible to avoid meeting her eye, instead keeping his gaze trained firmly on her sparkly shoes.

She'd been midway through her vocal warm-up, pacing around the room already dressed to go on stage, so she was ready to go on stage in a few short minutes.

"What did you just say?" She stared at him in disbelief, eyes flickering back and forth between him and the clock hanging on the wall to her left. She should be on her way down to the stage already. She was surprised no one had come to hurry her up yet. She was bordering on being late.

"You heard me." His voice was calm, the unbothered shrug of his shoulders sending a wave of anger rippling through her. How could he just sit there like this was nothing?

"Say it again." She got out through gritted teeth, blinking frantically as her eyes began to fill with tears. She didn't have time to fix her make-up before she had to go on. She couldn't cry, at least not on the outside. Not until after the show.

Joe gave an exasperated sigh, getting to his feet and almost rolling his eyes at her. "I said, this isn't working. I've been seeing someone else, Hannah. I know I said I'd stop and give us a proper go, but I think I love her and being with her has made me realise how much this isn't working with me and you. I'm done with this whole crazy world you seem to love so much, I want out. I'm done letting this make me miserable."

She stared at him, mouth open from the shock of hearing the words again. They hit harder the second time around. She was almost sure that she'd misheard him a moment ago, or that perhaps it was some kind of sick joke. It had to be, didn't it? Why else would he be choosing this exact moment to tell her?

"We've been together for the last three days and you decide you want to talk about this now when I have to go on stage in five fucking minutes?" She asked him in utter disbelief. She should've known something was going on at the point he announced he was flying out to visit her really, Texas hadn't ever been high on his list of places to visit and it was the first time he'd made any kind of effort to visit her without her begging.

"That's the point, Hannah." He shrugged. "I don't want to talk about it. I've thought about it, and I'm done. There's no need for discussion."

"We've been together for five years and you're not even going to do the decent thing and hear me out?" She shot back at him. Her voice was raised and she was somewhere conscious people outside could probably hear the two of them and she ought to keep it down.

"I don't want to hear it." He said quietly, bending down to pick up his bag. "Good luck, with the show. I hope the tour is everything you wanted it to be and that it's all worth it."

"Joe, wait." She pleaded, trying to grab his arm as he walked past but he wiggled himself free of her grasp and walked out of the door without so much as a backwards glance. It was at that point she realised he'd planned it this way so she couldn't chase after him. He knew she had no choice but to stay and perform.

The door to the dressing room was left open and the doorway was soon filled with the familiar face of her longtime manager, Cassie, who had quite clearly heard every word of the conversation from the look on her face.

"Hannah, I-" Cassie fumbled for the words, a far cry from the way she'd usually be barking at her for being late.

"I'm coming." Hannah choked out, quickly turning to the mirror to check her makeup had survived. Her eyes were glassy with the unshed tears but everything seemed to have survived this far.

"Are you going to be okay?" Cassie asked quietly as she trailed behind Hannah through the halls of the stadium to make it to the stage.

"Do I have a choice?" Hannah retorted sarcastically, a slight tremor in her voice. The answer was no, of course. There were tens of thousands of people sitting on the other side of the stage waiting for her to put on a show. Cassie's silence only confirmed it.

It was the first of three nights she was playing in Texas, midway through the American leg of her tour, and she had a feeling tonight was going to feel like the longest show of her life.

She took the microphone she was handed, slipped in her earpieces, forced herself to take a deep breath and plastered what she hoped resembled a smile onto her face as she climbed onto the lift that would take her up onto the stage.

The music playing above her went quiet and the crowd began to chant, the familiar countdown in time with the screen that played at every show. She'd done this so many times over the last few months it felt familiar, almost comforting. She was fairly sure her body could make it through one of these shows on autopilot she'd done so many. It was a good job too, because her mind was anywhere but on that stage with her.

It was when she reached the end of the show that it hit her. She stood there, confetti falling from the sky as fireworks went off, the crowd screaming and clapping, chanting for one more song. The dancers and her band took a bow, slowly filling off the stage until she stood there alone, looking around at the packed stadium.

70,000 people had all come out to watch her perform, and the stadium would be packed for the next couple of nights too. The tour had been a sell-out, broken records for the amount of tickets sold. It was the biggest tour of her career, and yet as she stood on that lift waving to the crowd as it slowly descended she had never felt so incredibly alone in her life.

As she descended out of view of the crowd, who she could still hear chanting her name, a single tear rolled down her face, quickly followed by several more. Before she knew it she was sitting on the floor of the lift sobbing, unable to stop herself.

"Let's get you back to the hotel," Cassie said quietly, offering a hand to help her up. "You can get some rest and you'll feel much better by tomorrow night's show."

"Have you got my phone?" Hannah asked quietly, wiping at her eyes.

Cassie nodded, pulling it out of her pocket and handing it over.

Hannah looked at the screen for a moment, ignoring the way Cassie's hand was still outstretched to help her up. There were no messages from Joe, and she probably should've known deep down that there wouldn't be. She pulled up his contact information and hit dial, but it didn't even ring once before it cut off.

"Okay, let's go." She sighed, getting to her feet and slowly following Cassie in the direction of the car to head back to the hotel.

She'd shut her hotel room in Cassie's face as soon as they arrived back, cutting her off midway through a sentence about what time they needed to leave for the show the next day. Nothing was further from her mind than getting back on that stage at that moment.

Instead, she stripped out of the clothes she'd pulled on to travel home in, turned the shower up as hot as it would go and sat down on the floor under the spray of the water. The tears were falling freely from her eyes but at least under the spray of the water, she could pretend that she wasn't crying. She could pretend that he hadn't completely shattered her heart again and everything was fine.

She had absolutely no idea how long she'd sat like that. Long enough she hoped that it would've washed the makeup off her face because she didn't have the energy to try and take it off.

She didn't look in the mirror as she climbed out of the shower and wrapped herself in the fluffy white robe hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She didn't want to see what a mess she looked like.

Instead, she walked back into the room, grabbed a handful of the mini liquor bottles out of the minibar and proceeded to down them in quick succession in the hope of calming her racing mind enough to get some sleep.

Anything to dull the pain she was feeling in that moment.