3

Hannah Blackwell returned to the apartment to find her husband passed out on the couch and the baby crying weakly.

A nauseating wave of panic and horror washed over her.

She rushed to the child. His whimpers were feeble. She touched his skin – cold and clammy. The inside of his mouth was paper-dry. The color drained from her face. She knew what was wrong.

Trying not to burst into tears, she ran to the refrigerator and seized a milk bottle; sure enough, there were exactly the same number of bottles as there had been when she left that morning. She dashed back to her son and stuffed the teat into his mouth, her heart calming as she watched his little lips quiver contentedly. For two minutes she was filled with the same serenity that always filled her when she fed her baby. This time, however, it didn't last long. Another complex emotion was creeping upwards: pained and indignant anger.

She turned off the TV, placed Phillip's head upright, and shook him as gently as she could. "Phillip," she whispered.

His bloodshot eyes opened languidly. "Wha..."

"Phillip," Hannah said again. Her eyes filled with tears. "You didn't feed the baby."

"I di – the baby – no, I did."

"No, honey, you didn't." She couldn't hold it in anymore. Her lip quivered and tears rolled down her cheeks. She held him tightly and sobbed into his shirt, smelling the pungent odor of alcohol.

He smoothed his hand over her back, as if to comfort her. "Babe, I clearly remember that I did feed him."

Something inside Hannah finally snapped. She jerked away from his embrace. "No, you didn't," she said. She pushed him away against the couch. "No, you didn't," she said again, louder this time. "NO YOU DIDN'T!" she screamed, slapping him. "NO YOU DIDN'T! NO YOU DIDN'T! NO YOU DIDN'T!" She hit him, pulled his hair, did all she could – then crumpled to the floor, bawling.

She saw him stand up and sit down next to her. She felt his hand on her shoulder. "Hannah, I haven't been drinking."

"Don't lie to me."

To her surprise she realized that he had also started crying. "Oh my god, Hannah, I'm sorry," he choked.

She was silent. Two arms wrapped around her neck.

"Oh my god, I love you," he whispered frantically over and over as he pulled her close again. "I love you more than... I was drinking... I was... You don't know how sorry I am... I've just been miserable, you know? So miserable...lost something... I lost something..."

"You're sick, Phillip," she whispered tearfully. "You need help."

He didn't answer.

They held each other like that for a long, long time.

"Tell me," Hannah mumbled as Phil's fingers stroked her hair. "Why are we here in San Diego?"

When he answered, he sounded a little more sober. "Tour...and my problems. You were the one who wanted to follow me. Don't like it, you can go home. I won't stop you."

She shook her head. "I followed you because I love you and I want to be there for you. In sickness and in health. I can't leave you here depressed like this."

Once again, that bitter laugh she heard so often recently. "Then prepare to be stuck here for a long time."

Phil was asleep. Hannah turned on the TV on low volume.

It was on MTV, and there was Jessica Sanchez, Phillip's friend from American Idol. She's absolutely stunning now, Hannah thought admiringly. And so successful. Everyone knows who J-Chez is. She smiled as she remembered that she had all three albums in her iPhone. She always found it a bit odd that Phillip never talked to her about his superstar friend. They were such good friends during the show, but they seemed to have drifted apart completely. Four years ago when Blue Jay was first released, Hannah had asked Phillip if he could get an autograph for her, and was returned with an exasperated glare. She never asked again.

She felt happy watching Jessica, the fully bloomed starlet. She was such a sweet girl. She looked at the video that was playing: it was Skinny Mini. How did that one go?

Skinny mini mini,

won't you light a fire in me baby,

Stay, stay, stay with me

you're my skinny mini, baby...

Hannah looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then she got up and danced to J-Chez's moves, giggling, feeling the aching emotional stress lift from her shoulders, until the video was over.

He walked alone in a sprawling, unfamiliar metropolis. Around him, the buildings rose up like silver concrete giants. The windows glittered; the sky was a blazing, cloudless blue. In the distance, he spotted the tallest skyscraper he'd ever seen. He couldn't tell if it looked like a trophy or a Johnnie Walker Black Label. Probably a bit of both.

It took a while for it to register that he had no idea where he was. He wasn't very familiar with San Diego. He was lost. The first thing that came to his mind was that he needed to ask for directions. But by all accounts it looked like he was alone.

Except for Jessica Sanchez, who was walking some distance in front of him,

He hadn't seen and couldn't see her face, but he was somehow a hundred percent certain it was her. Despite her four-year absence in his life, it felt completely obvious and unsurprising that she was right there. He tried to pick up his pace to catch up with her, but his feet met resistance, as if they were in water, even though they were walking on a paved path. Even so, she seemed to sense his intention and, to his frustration, started walking even faster. He noticed that her footsteps matched his accelerating heartbeat.

Whenever she made a turn around a corner, he lost sight of her for a few seconds and panic seized him, but then he'd spot her in the corner of his eye even further away than she'd been before, and he'd feel a kind of annoyed relief. In this way they weaved through the cement labyrinth as they ventured deeper and deeper into the heart of the strange city.

"Slow down," he tried to yell. No sound came out – or perhaps the words were simply being drowned by the increasingly loud sounds that were drifting from the towering buildings as they progressed: disjointed guitar riffs, piano notes, and drum rhythms. He was amazed to hear the separate elements of the cacophonous mess floating in the air somehow entwining with each other by their own accord, forming a discernible melody, a veritable tune, a backing track for their tense promenade. It was the best thing he'd ever heard.

Around them, the buildings began to crumble and fall away. Suddenly they were wading in shallow water as the scene opened into a sandy aquamarine coastline that stretched sideways into oblivion. He heard lyrics. Was she singing? It was her voice, but it seemed to be coming from the air itself, a natural surround-sound system. The words made him cry.

He stopped short, and his heart skipped a beat. He felt like he couldn't breathe – not only because he was crying too hard, but also because he saw someone else sitting on the edge of the beach.

A man. Was it Colton Dixon? Phillip couldn't see.

He saw Jessica sit down next to the man. She put one arm around the man's waist and caressed him with the other, kissing his neck. Phillip felt a stab of jealousy. He slowly approached the intimate lovers from behind them. When he got close enough, he grabbed the man's head in a fit of irrational rage, and twisted it to face him.

Phillip felt cold.

Staring at him was the bewildered face of himself, only from five years ago: his youthful 21-year-old face, the one that had known Jessica Sanchez in person. Now she turned to look at the rude intruder as well, and Phillip saw that her nonchalant, half-smiling face was the same one on TV, the 21-year-old face that everyone knew.

She looked him dead in the eye.

"You lost me," she said.

Then the waves rose and swallowed all three of them.

Phillip Phillips woke up on the couch with a song ringing in his head.

He wasted no time. It was 3 in the morning, but he made a break for his room for pen, paper and guitar.

He remembered that before he passed out, he had planned to write a J-Chez diss song to send to Jessica, but now that idea sounded ridiculous.

Because he finally realized what he'd lost on the night he won American Idol.

Or rather, who.