Chapter 123: Coming Home
Friday, March 25, 2016
The Prevost crossed the California border just as the sun began to warm the desert. Michael was awake, watching through the window as the arid landscape gradually gave way to the suburbs of the Inland Empire, and then to the endless urban sprawl of Los Angeles.
It had been almost a month since he left. A month of buses, hotels, dressing rooms, and stages. A month of cities that blurred into each other in a haze of lights and applause.
But now he was home.
"Welcome back," Karl said, peeking into the suite. "How does it feel?"
Michael smiled. "Strange. Like a year has passed, not a month."
"A lot happened in that month."
"Too much."
The bus took the exit toward Hollywood. Palm trees rose against the blue sky, movie billboards dominated the buildings, and LA's particular energy—that mix of ambition and desperation—filled the air.
"What's the plan for today?" Michael asked.
"The show is tomorrow. Today you have the day off. Soundcheck at five, but until then... do whatever you want."
Michael nodded. He knew exactly what he wanted to do.
"Take me home first. Then I have some visits to make."
---
Michael's apartment in West Hollywood felt strange after so much time. Everything was exactly as he'd left it: the production station in the corner, the unmade bed, the posters on the walls, the empty coffee cups on the desk.
But he had changed.
He stood in the middle of the living room, looking around as if it were the first time he'd seen the place. A month ago, this apartment was his whole world. Now it felt small, almost claustrophobic after weeks of venues and crowds.
He walked to the window and looked out at the street. People passed by without knowing that the kid in the third-floor apartment had sung for thousands of people in recent weeks. To them, it was just another building, another window, another anonymous life in the city of dreams.
'That's going to change', he thought. 'After tomorrow, nothing will be the same.'
He showered in his own shower for the first time in a month. Put on clean clothes from his own closet. Poured coffee from his own coffee maker. Small rituals that felt like luxuries after life on the bus.
Then he grabbed his phone and sent a message:
"Amy. I'm in LA. Can I come see you?"
The response came in seconds:
"FINALLY!!! Come right now. I have the day off."
---
The gym where Amy worked was in Santa Monica, twenty minutes from Michael's apartment. When he arrived, she was waiting outside, with a smile that lit up the whole block.
"Michael!"
She ran toward him and hugged him with a force that almost knocked him over. Michael laughed and returned the hug.
"I missed you too," he said.
Amy pulled back and looked him up and down, evaluating him with a professional eye.
"You lost weight. Your dark circles are worse. And I bet you haven't done a single one of the exercises I taught you." She paused. "But you look... different. More confident. More you."
"The tour changed me."
"I know. I saw the clips. I saw everything." Amy smiled. "I'm so proud of you, Michael. What you accomplished is incredible."
They walked to a nearby café, one of those small Santa Monica places where hipsters drank oat lattes and wrote scripts they'd never finish. They sat at a table outside, under the California sun.
"Tell me everything," Amy said. "Not what went online. The real stuff."
Michael spent the next hour telling her stories he hadn't shared with anyone. The night in Kansas City where he broke down in front of the camera. The kid in Detroit who cried while singing "crybaby." Isabella in Miami, with her sign and her survival story. The recording of "I spoke to the devil in miami" at three in the morning, drunk and open.
Amy listened without interrupting, nodding at the right moments, frowning when Michael mentioned the whiskey and weed.
"You have to take care of yourself," she said when he finished. "Not just your voice. Your mind. What you're describing sounds like a lot of emotional pressure to absorb."
"I know. But I don't know how to do this any other way. The connection is what makes it work."
"Connection is fine. But you need boundaries. You can't carry the pain of everyone who listens to you."
Michael looked at the street, thinking about Amy's words.
"What if that's the price?" he asked. "What if the only way to make music that matters is to feel everything?"
"Then you find ways to process what you feel. Therapy. Meditation. Exercise. Something that's not alcohol and drugs at three in the morning."
Michael smiled. "Always so direct."
"That's what you pay me for."
"Technically, today's your day off."
"Friends don't have days off."
Michael felt a warmth in his chest that had nothing to do with the California sun. Friends. He was still getting used to having them.
---
The message in the group chat had been simple: "I'm in LA. Where are you guys?"
The responses came in seconds:
Leo: "MIKE!!! Come to Sam's apartment. We're all here."
Sam: "FINALLY. Bring food."
Nate: "The prodigal son returns."
Sam's apartment was in Echo Park, in an old building with creaky stairs and neighbors who played music at all hours. It was the place where they'd gathered countless times before Michael's life exploded.
When Michael knocked on the door, it opened immediately and he was greeted by a chorus of shouts.
"MIKE!"
Leo was the first to hug him, lifting him off the ground with his ex-football-player strength. Then Sam, calmer but equally genuine. And finally Nate, with his ironic smile and a "look at you, all famous and stuff."
The apartment was the same as always: movie posters on the walls, a video game console connected to an old TV, and the permanent smell of instant ramen.
"I can't believe you're here," Leo said, still smiling. "We saw you in all the videos. You were in New York, bro! At Terminal 5!"
"Thirty-five hundred people," Sam added. "We counted."
"Tomorrow it's six thousand," Michael said.
"Six thousand!" Nate exclaimed. "Remember when you played at that shitty bar in Silver Lake and there were like twenty people? And half of them left in the middle of the set?"
Michael laughed. "How could I forget. That was like... four months ago?"
"Four months," Leo repeated, shaking his head. "In four months you went from that bar to stadiums. It's insane."
They sat on Sam's worn-out couches, like they'd done hundreds of times before. Someone passed beers around, someone put on background music, and for a moment Michael felt normal again. He wasn't Demiurge, the rising star. He was just Mike, the kid who had appeared out of nowhere a few months ago and had become friends with these idiots.
"How was it really?" Sam asked, always the most perceptive of the group. "Not the Instagram version. The real one."
Michael took a sip of beer and thought about how to answer.
"It was... a lot. Good and bad. There are nights that were magical, where I felt like I could fly. And there are nights where I almost destroyed my voice by not listening to my body. I met incredible people. I also met people who only see me as a product."
"And the girls?" Leo asked with a mischievous smile. "There have to be girls."
"Leo, always so deep," Nate said, throwing a cushion at him.
"It's a valid question!"
Michael laughed. "Honestly, I didn't have time for that. Between the shows, the travel, the interviews... I barely slept."
"What a waste," Leo muttered. "If I were famous..."
"You'd be in trouble within a week," Sam finished.
The conversation flowed naturally, jumping from topic to topic like they always did. They talked about the viral videos, about the songs they liked best, about each other's plans. Leo was working at a skate shop while trying to get into design school. Sam was still writing scripts nobody read. Nate had gotten a job in post-production for a commercial company.
Normal lives. Normal dreams. The kind of existence Michael had left behind without realizing it.
"Are you going to forget us?" Nate asked suddenly, his tone more serious than usual. "When you're super famous and all that. Are you still going to answer our messages?"
Michael looked him directly in the eyes.
"Never. You guys were the first to believe in me when I was nobody. That's not forgotten."
"You better," Leo said. "Because we have screenshots of all the stupid things you said in the group chat. First-class blackmail material."
"I hate you guys," Michael said, laughing.
"You love us," Sam corrected.
And it was true. He loved them. They were his anchor to normalcy, his reminder that before Demiurge there had been Michael, a lost kid who had found friends in the most unlikely place.
"You guys have tickets for tomorrow, right?" Michael asked.
"Front row," Leo confirmed. "Karl got them for us weeks ago."
"Good. I want to see you there. I want to see familiar faces when I look at the crowd."
"Don't worry," Nate said. "We're going to be the loudest ones in the venue."
"I'd expect nothing less."
---
After saying goodbye to the guys (with promises to see each other after the show and celebrate properly), Michael drove to Cole's studio in the Valley. The producer who had been fundamental in the early days of his career was in the middle of a session when Michael arrived, but he abandoned it immediately when he saw who was walking in.
"Mike! Brother!"
Cole's hug was rougher than the others, with back slaps that would probably leave bruises.
"How was the tour?" Cole asked, leading him to the control room.
"Intense. Transformative. Exhausting."
"I saw the numbers. They're crazy. 'Hope' exploded after the Cleveland premiere. 'I'm Gonna Be' already has two million streams and it just came out a few days ago."
"Really?"
"Really." Cole sat in his chair in front of the console. "People are hungry for what you do, Mike. I haven't seen anything like this since... well, never. You're a phenomenon."
Michael sat on the studio couch, the same couch where he'd spent countless hours working on songs that thousands of people now sang.
"What do you have that's new?" Cole asked. "I know you recorded stuff on tour. T-Roc told me."
Michael hesitated for a moment. Then he pulled out his phone and searched for the file.
"I recorded this in Miami. At three in the morning. I was... not at my best."
He connected the phone to Cole's system and pressed play.
"I spoke to the devil in miami" filled the studio. Michael's hoarse voice, the ethereal sounds, the Latin at the end.
Cole listened in silence, his expression going from curiosity to awe.
"Anima vestra," he murmured when the song ended. "Your soul."
"Yeah."
"Mike, this is... different. It's dark. It's beautiful. It's terrifying."
"Do you think I should release it?"
Cole thought about it for a moment.
"I think you should release it when you're ready. Not for the numbers. For yourself. When you can listen to it without feeling like you're opening a wound."
Michael nodded. It was the right advice.
"Thanks, Cole. For everything. For believing in me from the start."
"Always, brother. Now go get ready for tomorrow. You've got a show to put on."
---
After soundcheck at the Shrine Auditorium (which was brief, professional, and surprisingly emotional), Michael found himself alone for the first time that day.
Instead of going back to the apartment, he drove to Griffith Observatory. It was an LA cliché, the place where all the tourists went to watch the sunset, but Michael hadn't been there since he arrived in the city months ago.
He parked and walked to the overlook. The city spread below him, an infinite grid of streets and buildings fading into the horizon haze. The sun was going down, painting the sky orange and pink.
'Six months ago I didn't exist', he thought. 'Not in this world, at least. I was nobody. I had nothing. And now...'
Now he had an apartment, a team, friends, millions of fans, and a show tomorrow for six thousand people at one of the most prestigious venues on the west coast.
He pulled out his phone and opened the notes app. He wrote:
"Los Angeles, March 25, 2016.
I came back home. But I don't know where home really is anymore.
Is it this apartment I've barely used? Is it the bus where I spent the last few weeks? Is it the stage where I feel most alive?
Maybe home isn't a place. Maybe it's a state. Being home means being where you should be, doing what you should do.
If that's true, then tomorrow I'll be home in front of six thousand people.
And that's terrifying and beautiful at the same time."
He saved the note and watched the sun disappear behind the Pacific Ocean.
Tomorrow was the day.
The end of the tour. The beginning of something new.
But tonight, he just wanted to be here, in silence, watching Los Angeles light up below him like a million dreams glowing in the darkness.
---
Back in his apartment, Michael sat in front of his production station for the first time in a month. Not to work, just to feel the familiarity of the space.
His phone buzzed with a message from Karl:
"Everything's set for tomorrow. Rest well. It's going to be historic."
Then one from Amy:
"It was great seeing you today. Kill it at the Shrine tomorrow. I'll be there, front row. ❤️"
And one from Cole:
"That devil song... I can't stop thinking about it. When you're ready, we'll produce it together. It's going to be special."
Michael smiled reading the messages. He had people. Real people who cared about him, not just his music or his fame.
He lay down in his own bed for the first time in weeks. The mattress felt strangely soft after the bus bunks. The silence was almost deafening after nights surrounded by screaming fans.
He closed his eyes and tried to visualize tomorrow. Six thousand people. The Shrine Auditorium. The biggest show of his life.
But instead of nerves, he felt calm. A deep certainty that he was exactly where he should be.
'Tomorrow', he thought. 'Tomorrow everything changes.'
He fell asleep with the lights of Los Angeles filtering through the window, dreaming of stages and crowds and songs he hadn't written yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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