The air backstage at `Starlight Serenade` was thick with hairspray and nervous energy. Lyra felt a familiar sense of detachment, a quiet space she could retreat to inside her own mind.
Her success had made her a commodity. The show’s producers, once content to let her be the mysterious #StarlightGhost, now wanted more.
The show’s head producer, a man with a practiced, reassuring smile, pulled her aside. “Lyra, we want to give you a real platform,” he said, his tone dripping with sincerity. “A sit-down segment before your performance tonight. A chance for you to tell your story. In your own words.”
Lyra knew what that meant. His suggested questions confirmed it. What was it like being married to a Hawthorne? Why did it really end?
They didn’t want her story. They wanted drama. They wanted ratings.
Her first instinct was to refuse. To retreat into the silence that had been her shield for so long. Silence was safe. It was how she had survived her stepfather. It was how she had endured her marriage to Caspian.
But silence had also allowed others to speak for her. To twist her truth into a weapon against her.
She excused herself and found a quiet corner, her phone pressed to her ear. “Zara,” she whispered, “they want an interview.”
She explained the situation, her voice tight with anxiety. Zara listened patiently, not offering advice, not telling her what to do. When Lyra finished, Zara’s voice was calm and clear.
“Your voice is your own now, Lyra,” she said softly. “No one else’s.”
The simple words landed with the force of a revelation. It was true. For the first time in her life, there was no one to please, no one to placate. Only herself. And the child growing inside her.
Lyra found the producer. “I’ll do the interview,” she said. Her voice didn’t waver.
In the hours before the show, she didn’t just rehearse her song. She sat in her dressing room, the lights of the vanity mirror blurring before her, and rehearsed her truth. It wasn’t a speech. It wasn’t an attack.
It was a single, powerful statement.
She would not be a victim. She would not be a silent ghost. She would answer their ambush on her own terms.
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