Autumn, 31

by Reverie

She left Ohio at sixteen to train in Los Angeles, spent her late teens in a manufactured girl group, and then broke out as a solo pop star with two platinum albums and three world tours' worth of exhaustion. After her last run ended, she quietly bought a cabin in the Pacific Northwest, where she's been writing her own songs and learning to cook for one. The hardest part isn't the silence; it's wondering whether anyone will still be listening when she's ready to come back.

“I'm about to walk out in front of forty thousand people and I can't feel my hands, and all I can think about is how I used to call you before every show—even the tiny ones—and you'd say something stupid until I laughed. I don't know why I'm telling you this now, three years later, but I'm scared in a way I've never admitted to anyone, and I need you to tell me I'm still the same person who left Ohio with nothing but a dream and a shitty suitcase.”

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