The Spotlight Between Us | Benson Boone

1

Teagan

The clock on my phone reads 11:57 PM, and I swear it's never moved slower in its entire existence.

I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor of my bedroom, my back against my bed, laptop open in front of me even though I haven't touched it in ten minutes. My phone is face-up on the carpet between my knees like it might explode if I look away for too long. My heart is beating so hard I can feel it in my throat.

Three minutes.

In three minutes, "Can't Fake It" stops being mine and starts being... everyone else's.

I exhale slowly, then immediately laugh under my breath because my hands are shaking too much to be convincing about the calm thing. I've been working on this song for almost a year—writing it in fragments, half-lines scribbled in my Notes app at three in the morning, voice memos recorded under my covers so Jasmine wouldn't hear me crying through the wall.

Now it's about to exist in the world, fully formed, untouched by the safety of my headphones.

"Tea," Jasmine calls from the living room. "You're pacing again."

"I'm not pacing," I call back automatically.

There's a pause.

"...You just moved from the bed to the door and back."

Okay. Maybe I am pacing.

I push myself up off the floor and step into the hallway of our apartment, the familiar creak of the old wood grounding me a little. This place still doesn't feel real sometimes. Two years ago, we were cramming clothes into trash bags and moving boxes up three flights of stairs, laughing like idiots because neither of us owned a couch yet.

Now it's home.

Jasmine is sprawled on the couch, legs thrown over the armrest, phone in one hand and a glass of cheap champagne in the other. She looks unfairly calm for someone whose best friend is about to release her first single to the entire internet.

"You ready?" she asks, eyes flicking up to meet mine.

I stop in the doorway.

"No," I say immediately. "Not even a little."

She grins. "Perfect. That's how you know it matters."

I sink down next to her, pulling my knees to my chest. The TV is on but muted, some late-night infomercial flashing silently in the background. Jasmine reaches over and presses the cold glass into my hand.

"For after midnight," she says. "You don't get to drink it until it's out."

"Cruel," I mumble, but I wrap my fingers around it anyway.

Jasmine and I have known each other since we were six. She was the kid who sat next to me in first grade and offered me half her fruit snacks because I was crying over my shoelace being untied. We grew up in the same neighborhood, went to the same schools, survived the same teenage phases we don't talk about anymore.

She was there the first time I sang in front of someone who wasn't my mom. She was there the first time I said out loud that I wanted to be a singer—like, really wanted it. Not just dream-about-it-before-bed wanted it, but chase-it-even-when-it's-terrifying wanted it.

And now she's here for this.

My phone buzzes.

Then again.

Then again.

I pick it up, my thumb hovering over the screen.

@teablakeofficial
Followers: 18.4K

That number alone feels surreal. Two months ago, it barely cracked a thousand. All I did was post a fifteen-second clip of the chorus, sitting on my bedroom floor with my guitar, hair a mess, voice raw and unpolished.

Can't fake it when it hurts like this...

TikTok grabbed it and didn't let go.

Strangers started stitching it, commenting lyrics back at me, telling me they'd cried to a song that didn't even exist yet. I read every comment until Jasmine made me stop because I wasn't sleeping anymore.

"You're doing that thing where you spiral," she says gently.

"I just—" I swallow. "What if it doesn't live up to it? What if the full song isn't what they imagined?"

Jasmine turns fully toward me. "Tea. Look at me."

I do.

"You wrote something honest," she says. "That's all anyone can ask for. You can't control how people hear it. You can only control why you wrote it."

I nod, even though my chest still feels tight.

The clock on my phone flips to 11:59 PM.

One minute.

My social media apps are open already, release posts drafted and scheduled. Spotify pre-save links, cover art I stared at for hours before approving. My name in clean white letters against a soft blue background.

Teagan Blake — Can't Fake It

I think about sixteen-year-old me, sitting on my bedroom floor in Los Angeles, earbuds in, dreaming about this exact moment without really believing it could happen. I think about every "maybe someday" I whispered to myself when things felt too big.

Jasmine squeezes my knee.

"Whatever happens," she says, "this is just the beginning."

The clock changes.

12:00 AM.

My phone vibrates like it's alive.

Notifications stack on top of each other faster than I can read them. Spotify release alert. Instagram comments. TikTok reposts. Messages from people I haven't talked to in years. My screen lights up so bright it feels like a spotlight.

"It's out," I whisper.

I open Spotify with shaking hands and there it is. Track one. Three minutes and twelve seconds of my heart.

I hit play.

Even though I've heard it a hundred times, it sounds different now—bigger somehow. Real. My voice fills the room, warm and aching and unmistakably mine.

I don't realize I'm crying until Jasmine pulls me into a hug.

"You did it," she says into my hair. "You actually did it."

I laugh through the tears, clutching my phone to my chest like it might disappear if I let go.

Outside, the city keeps moving. Cars pass. Somewhere, someone I've never met is hearing my song for the first time. Somewhere, it might mean something to them.

And for the first time, the fear is quieter than the excitement.

I lift the champagne glass.

"To 'Can't Fake It,'" I say softly.

Jasmine clinks hers against mine. "To Teagan Blake."

I take a sip, and it tastes like possibility.