When the Song Ends- Elijah Hewson
27 parts Ongoing Sometimes the person you need the most is the person you'd least like to be.
Emmeline Hayes has spent her life in the shadow of a voice that no longer exists. As the daughter of legendary Irish musician Reid Hayes, she knows better than anyone how music can haunt a person. After his death, her mother buried herself in religion, and Emmeline buried herself in silence-moving to Dublin at eighteen to escape the weight of both.
Sometimes, Emmeline wondered if fate had already written her ending. If she was destined to follow the same path as her father-chasing melodies until they swallowed her whole. She had his voice, his hands, his ear for music. And maybe, buried somewhere in her bones, she had his weakness too.
It was an unspoken fear, one she never voiced even to herself. That one day, she would lose control. That the same vices that had taken him-pills, powder, the relentless ache of needing more-were waiting for her too. Lurking beneath her skin, patient and inevitable.
Her mother would say faith was the answer. That God could cleanse even the deepest stains. And sometimes, in her loneliest moments, Emmeline wished she could believe that. It would be easier if she could kneel, clasp her hands, and trust that someone was listening. But she never could.
She had tried.
So, she carried the weight alone. Hoping, every day, that she wasn't walking toward the same ending.
Hoping that she was more than just her father's shadow.
No prayer had saved her father. No god had stopped him from slipping away. And if she wasn't careful, she feared she might disappear the same way.
But when a familiar song plays in a quiet store, and a stranger with a name she's heard before walks into her life, Emmeline is forced to confront the echoes of a past she's tried to outrun. Because grief lingers. Fame never really fades.
And some songs never truly end.