“Thank you, all of you. I’ve got two songs to go. My next one is not a cover, so don’t feel bad if you don’t know who sang it.” The crowds laughs. “Someday maybe someone will cover it somewhere and say this is Cassidy’s ‘Never Goodbye,’ but right now, it’s only mine.”

I hadn’t given any prior thought to where I was going with this. In fact, until this very moment, it never even occurred to me to change the arrangement.

“Usually when I perform this song, the band backs me up,” I continue. “But if it’s all right with you all, tonight it’s just going to be me. I want you to hear it exactly the way it sounded in my head when I wrote it.”

My declaration of independence is met with a rousing cheer. I make my way to Jonah, who is one of the best piano players I’ve ever met, and ask him to slide down a bit on the piano bench. “The rest of you guys,” I say to the band, “just stay put. I’m going to do this old school. Just me and the piano, but I would greatly appreciate it if all of you would stay up here onstage for moral support.”

To a bandmate, they smile. A few offer nods of encouragement, which is enough to start my fingers playing the melody. Even though this is by far the largest crowd I’ve ever played, it’s as quiet as it was when I first laid down the chords alone in my apartment. I don’t hear so much as a breath coming from the audience. My voice is the only sound in the room.

It’s not until the applause breaks out that I’m awakened from the trance. Jonah, who I had completely forgotten was less than six inches from me, leans into my ear. “Oh my God,” he says.

My knees wobble when I get back up, but I make it back to the center of the stage. Then I close my set with Alicia Keys’s “Girl on Fire.”

After I’ve sung the last lyric, I can’t hear my own voice thanking the crowd above their applause. It hits me that I won’t be taking the stage for a few weeks now, while I’m performing on that other stage I call home: the criminal courtroom. As I’m wondering how much longer I can straddle this dual persona, I see the one constant in my life, my own personal North Star in my constellation of confusion. Gabriel. I leave the stage and follow that beacon right into his embrace.

“I love you,” he says.

No qualification. No trying it on for size. Just a declaration.

“I love you too,” I say without missing a beat.

40. DANA GOODWIN

40.

DANA GOODWIN