The Rock Star Wrote Every Song About the Size 22 Girl at the Merch Table novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Comments

I read all four thousand comments before sunrise.

I know, I know.

I sat in the bathroom of the Detroit hotel with the fan on and my phone under my nose, and I read every word.

Some people thought it was sweet.

Most of them thought it was a joke.

"Who is THAT?"

"Charity case."

"He's slumming."

"She sells shirts, he sells records, and the math doesn't add up."

Somebody had put a pig emoji on my photo.

Somebody else had zoomed in on my belly.

Jude found me on the bathroom floor at six.

He sat down on the tile beside me in his boxers.

He took the phone out of my hand, turned it face down, and pulled me against his side.

"I'm going to post something," he said.

"Don't."

"Maggie."

"If you post something, it becomes a thing."

"Maggie."

"It becomes about whether you defended me, and not about whether I'm fine." I leaned my head on his shoulder. "I'm fine. I've been fat on the internet for ten years."

"I don't want you to be fine," he said into my hair. "I want you to be loved out loud."

I didn't answer, because my throat had closed up.

So in Chicago, he didn't post.

He did something worse.

Doors opened at seven.

The line outside the arena wrapped around the building twice.

I was behind my table arranging the last of the size XXLs when the crowd noise suddenly doubled.

Jude had come out of the stage entrance.

He was in jeans and the black leather jacket, with his hair pushed back.

He walked straight down the barricade toward my table.

People screamed.

Phones came up in a wall.

He walked around the table, took my face in both hands, and kissed me.

It wasn't a quick kiss.

It was the kind you give someone when the room has disappeared.

His thumb moved along my jaw, and he opened my mouth with his, and I heard Stevie say "Oh my GOD" from somewhere behind me.

When he let me go, my lipstick was on his mouth.

He turned to the line.

"This is Maggie Doyle," he said, loud enough for the first six hundred people to hear.

"She's a size 22. She's the best thing in this building, and you're welcome to be jealous."

Nobody said anything.

Then a girl in the front row, about nineteen, in a Hollow Pines hoodie and rainbow braces, screamed, "WE LOVE YOU, MAGGIE!"

And half the line cheered.

The other half stared.

A man in the back booed.

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