-girlsdoporn- 18 Years Old - E320 -27.06.15- -

He pushed open the heavy control room door and walked into the dressing room. The air smelled of hairspray, sweat, and expensive roses. Up close, Kira was smaller than she looked on screen, and more fragile. The foundation couldn’t hide the dark circles. The fringe couldn’t hide the tremor.

The roar of the crowd was a physical thing. It pressed against the soundproof glass of the control room, a muffled, seismic wave that made the monitors tremble. Inside, Leo Vasquez, director of the decade’s most anticipated documentary, Idol Fall , didn’t flinch. He just stared at the bank of screens, each one showing a different angle of the same beautiful, crumbling disaster.

“They love the fire,” Kira whispered, her voice raw. She didn’t drink. She just held the bottle, using the cold to ground herself. “They don’t know I’m burning.” -GirlsDoPorn- 18 Years Old - E320 -27.06.15-

“Leo. Are you getting this?”

“He’s so predictable,” she said. She set down the water and walked to the mirror. She began to unclip her earrings, methodically. “He thinks that’s the bomb. That’s just the warning shot.” He pushed open the heavy control room door

Leo leaned forward. This was it. The thesis statement.

“He didn’t steal my song,” Kira said, her voice steady now. “I wrote ‘Gravity’ in a hotel room in Osaka while he was passed out from a Xanax and tequila bender. I recorded him the next morning admitting he’d tried to sell my demos to his producer. That’s the bomb.” The foundation couldn’t hide the dark circles

On Screen 4, Kira Jaymes, the pop star they’d once called “The Diamond,” was walking off the stage of her “Phoenix Rising” tour. The stage was a marvel of engineering—a massive, burning bird skeleton from which she’d just descended. Her costume was a cascade of silver fringe, her makeup flawless. But Leo wasn’t looking at the spectacle. He was looking at her hands. They were shaking.

“Leo,” she said, and her smile was sad, sharp, and utterly human. “It always was.”

“Kira, if he has the demo files, the time stamps—he can prove you didn’t write ‘Gravity.’ That’s your signature song.”

He watched on Screen 2 as Kira reached her dressing room. The door slammed. She leaned against it, her chest heaving. The roar of the crowd was a distant memory here, replaced by the hum of the air conditioning and the rattle of her spangled bracelets.