The chaos of the American Music Awards was a glittering, deafening assault on the senses. A turbulent sea of manufactured glamour, flashing camera bulbs that exploded like silent fireworks, and the constant, high-pitched roar of the crowd. Alex sat at a table near the front, a small, quiet island in the overwhelming ocean of it all. He wore a simple, well-tailored black suit that felt as foreign as a spacesuit. Next to the flamboyant, jewel-toned outfits and calculatedly edgy fashion of the stars around him, he looked stark, almost monastic. He was composed, his posture straight, his expression neutral. He looked less like he was attending a celebration and more like he was waiting for a verdict at a hearing.
Beside him, Billie and Finneas provided a tiny pocket of familiarity. Finneas, looking uncharacteristically formal in a dark jacket, was taking in the spectacle with a producer's analytical eye. Billie, in a simple, oversized black outfit that seemed to absorb the light around her, was a bubble of quiet intensity, her gaze sweeping over the crowd with a look of detached, anthropological curiosity. They were his anchors, the only reason he hadn't already dissolved into the noise.
He was nominated for Breakthrough Artist. The category was a blur of other viral sensations and industry darlings, their faces and songs flashing on the massive screens that flanked the stage. Alex watched, feeling no sense of competition, no flutter of nerves. It all felt like it was happening to someone else, to the icon from the news reports, to the character named Alex Vance.
Then the presenter, a pop star with impossibly white teeth, tore open the envelope. "And the American Music Award goes to… Alex Vance!"
A thunderous, deafening wave of applause crashed over the room. The cameras zoomed in on his table. Alex didn't react. For a full, suspended beat, he just sat there, the name echoing in the vast auditorium, feeling no connection to it. It was just a name.
He felt a gentle nudge on his arm. It was Billie. She was looking at him, her eyes cutting through the noise, her expression a mix of encouragement and a quiet, urgent plea. Go. This is real.
The touch grounded him. The ghost, the professional handler of these impossible situations, took control. He stood, his movements steady and deliberate. He smoothed the front of his suit jacket, nodded to Billie and Finneas, and began the long, surreal walk to the stage. The applause was a physical force, a wall of sound he had to push through.
He accepted the heavy, star-shaped award from the pop star, the metal cool and solid in his hand. He shook her hand, managed a polite, practiced smile for the cameras, and stepped to the microphone. The light was blinding, a pure white glare that erased the audience, turning them into a vast, shapeless darkness.
He began his speech. It was the one the ghost had prepared, the one that was polite, professional, and almost completely detached.
"Thank you," he said, his voice even and clear, amplified to fill every corner of the arena. "Thank you to the American Music Awards, and to everyone who voted. This is an incredible honor." He paused, his eyes scanning the darkness. "I need to thank my parents, for their endless support. And Echo Chamber Records."
He turned his head slightly, in the direction of his table. "And to my partners, Finneas and Billie O'Connell. You are the architects with me, my family. I share this with you completely."
He was about to wrap it up. The plan was to offer a generic 'thank you to the fans for listening' and walk off the stage. He opened his mouth to say the words, the safe, professional words.
But then he paused.
He looked out at the massive, glittering void, but he didn't see the thousands of famous faces or the rolling cameras. He saw a dusty dashboard. He heard the tinny crackle of a car radio. He smelled old french fries and cheap air freshener. He heard a laugh, loud and unrestrained and full of a joy so pure it felt like the only real thing in the universe.
The carefully constructed wall around his heart began to crumble. The professional mask dissolved. The ghost retreated, leaving a fifteen-year-old boy standing alone in a blindingly bright light, holding a heavy gold star.
"There was… there was someone else who was supposed to be here with me tonight," he began, his voice suddenly smaller, more vulnerable, stripped of all its practiced authority. A hush fell over the crowd, a perceptible shift from polite applause to rapt attention.
He told them the story. He told them about driving around in a beat-up blue sedan with his best friend, about the impossible, miraculous moment they had heard "Youth" on the radio for the very first time. He described Leo's explosive, ecstatic celebration, his triumphant, screaming joy.
"He heard it before anyone else did," Alex said, his voice beginning to break. "Not just the music. He heard… me. He was my first fan. And my best friend."
The name, Leo, hung in the air of the vast arena. He had finally said it. He had given his pain a name in front of the entire world.
Tears he had been holding back for months, tears he had choked down in the silence of his own room, finally welled up in his eyes. They spilled over, tracing hot, silent paths down his cheeks. He clutched the award in his hand, his knuckles white, as if it were an anchor in a storm. He looked up at the ceiling, at the complex grid of lights and rigging, as if he were looking for someone in the rafters, in the stars.
He delivered the final line, his voice thick with a sorrow so profound, so raw, that it silenced the entire room.
"This was our dream, man," he choked out, the words a direct address to the ghost that haunted him. "This is for you, Leo."
He stood there for a moment, tears streaming down his face, the bright lights showing every bit of his shattered composure. The applause that came then was different. It wasn't just for the award. It was for the boy. For the raw, authentic, human grief he had just laid bare. It was a roar of empathy, of shared understanding. He had ceased to be a symbol. He was just a boy, mourning his friend on the world's biggest stage.