A Heart Forced To Choose

Chapter 2: The Rabbit In My Memory

Ander’s POV:

People only ever saw the good parts of the job. The screaming crowds. The nice hotels. Forty thousand light sticks moving together in an arena like they were all part of the same ocean.

They didn't see what happened before any of that.

They didn't see us running the same five seconds of choreography over and over because someone missed a step. They didn't see the plastic trays of food we'd eat whenever we could find the time, or the way we'd stumble out of bed before the sun was even up because there was another rehearsal waiting.

I could handle all of that.

What I never really got used to was coming home after a show.

One minute, there were thousands of people screaming my name. The next, I was standing in my apartment with my keys still in my hand, listening to how quiet everything was.

The place always felt strangely big afterward.

I'd tell my team I was fine. I'd joke about being used to it by now.

I wasn't.

Not really.

"Again!"

Our choreographer's voice cut sharply through the studio, echoing off the mirrored walls. I bent over, hands resting against my knees as I fought to catch my breath, sweat dripping off my jaw and soaking through the collar of my shirt. In the mirror, my reflection looked just as drained as the rest of the team.

Behind me, Leo let out a long, theatrical groan and collapsed flat onto his back.

"You've been useless for the last twenty minutes," I said, glancing over my shoulder as I wiped my face with the back of my hand.

"I'm pacing myself," he muttered into the ceiling.

"You're supposed to be in formation."

"I've decided dancing violates my rights," he replied, barely raising a hand to catch the towel tossed at his chest. He dragged it over his face with a long groan. "I've finally found my life's purpose."

"Oh yeah? What's that?"

"Early retirement."

“Five minutes!” our choreographer called, pointing toward the middle of the floor.

The boys didn't need to be told twice. One by one, they dropped wherever they happened to be standing.

I reached for my water bottle from the ledge and took a long drink. My towel had slipped halfway off my shoulders, so I pulled it back up and leaned against the wall.

Five minutes. That was supposed to be a break.

I glanced at the schedule taped beside the mirror. The tour was still a few days away, but somehow it already felt like we were living on borrowed time. This year, we were going somewhere completely new, and everyone had been talking about it for weeks.

New cities. New venues. New everything.

Sounds exciting, right?

It was.

It was also going to be exhausting.

The schedule was packed from morning to night—early interviews, rehearsals, fittings, flights that would probably leave me wondering what day it was. Then we'd do it all again in another city.

Still, I couldn't imagine doing anything else. I loved performing. I loved the noise, the adrenaline, all of it. I just wished my body understood that as well as I did.

Sometimes, though, I wondered what it would be like to have a normal life.

To wake up because I actually wanted to, instead of because an alarm was going off. To sit down and eat breakfast without someone reminding me that we had to leave in ten minutes. To walk outside without pulling a cap low over my face and putting on sunglasses just to buy a coffee.

Sometimes, I missed things I had never really had.

And if I was being honest, what I wanted most was someone who knew me without all the other stuff attached to me. Someone who didn't care about the stage name, the songs, or whatever version of me they saw on TV. Just me.

It sounded nice.

Probably too nice.

Considering I'd barely had a dating life at all, the boys would never let me hear the end of it if they knew I was sitting around thinking about some girl I hadn't even met yet.

Thankfully, they couldn't read my mind.

"Hey, Ander," Marcus said from across the floor, double-knotting his sneakers. "How's the love life treating you?"

"It isn't," I said. "It's nonexistent."

Marcus nodded with mock approval. "Good to see you staying consistent."

I shook my head and reached for my water bottle as the rest of the guys laughed. Leo finally sat up, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "Seriously though, Ander. You're international-star famous, rich, decent-looking, and single. It's almost unnatural."

"Glad to know my misery brings you balance."

"It's a medical mystery," Leo corrected smoothly.

I rolled my eyes while Marcus leaned back on his elbows, grinning. "Come on, when was the last time you went out with someone?"

"A couple months ago," I muttered.

Marcus raised his eyebrows. "Months?"

"I'm just focused on work," I said, leaning back against the cool studio wall.

"Work?" Marcus echoed, tossing a sweatband at my knees. "Ander, even our manager has had more dates than you this year."

The joke died the second the words left his mouth.

"He's still holding out for the girl from the amusement park," Leo said.

My hand stilled against my knee. Around us, the lingering grins faded as a sudden, uncomfortable silence settled over the studio floor. Leo caught the shift in my posture and immediately dropped his shoulders, his voice losing its teasing edge. "Look, Ander, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine," I cut in softly, looking down at the floor between my sneakers.

There was no point in pretending otherwise. They all knew the story. They’d lived with it almost as long as I had, listening to me recount every detail until they probably knew the memory better than I did.

I was eight when I got separated from my parents at a theme park. One second, they were right there. The next, I couldn't see them anywhere.

I remember standing in the middle of all those people, trying to spot a familiar face. Everyone looked the same. Parents holding their kids' hands, people carrying bags, kids running past me. I didn't know where to go or who I was supposed to ask.

I was scared. Really scared.

Then she came over. She was probably around my age, maybe a little older. I don't remember exactly. What I remember is that she wasn't scared of me.

She sat down beside me on the curb and asked, "Are you lost?"

I couldn't even answer at first. So, she just stayed.

She talked about random things while I tried to stop crying. I don't remember what she said. Something about the rides, I think. Maybe the food. It didn't really matter. I just remember listening to her until I could breathe normally again.

Eventually, her mom came looking for her. Before she left, she reached into her little bag and handed me a small plush rabbit.

"For your company," she said.

I still have it. Fifteen years later, that rabbit has been in more hotel rooms, dressing rooms, and studios than I can count. I never saw the girl again. But somehow, I never forgot her.

"How do you even know you'd recognize her?" Marcus asked, leaning back on his elbows. "She could be living on the other side of the world. Married. Completely off the grid."

I grimaced. "Appreciate the optimism."

"I'm just laying out the statistical probability," he said smoothly.

"You're terrible at this."

Marcus gave me a dry shrug. "I offer honesty, not comfort."

Leo let out a loud bark of laughter, and I couldn't help shaking my head with a faint smile. They were exhausting and impossible to take seriously half the time. But beneath all the blunt commentary, they understood the boundary. Nobody ever cracked jokes about the plush rabbit.

It wasn't like I never tried dating. I had been in relationships before. Some lasted a few weeks. Others lasted long enough that I thought maybe, this time, it could actually work.

But I always ended up doing the same stupid thing.

At some point, I'd bring out the rabbit.

Usually, I'd mention it casually, like it wasn't a big deal. Then I'd ask if it looked familiar. Maybe she'd stare at it for a second. Maybe she'd laugh and ask why I was carrying around an old stuffed toy.

I always hoped for something else.

A pause. A change in her expression. Anything.

It never happened.

I'd get a polite smile or a little laugh, sometimes a joke about how sentimental I was. Then the conversation would move on.

And I'd know.

It wasn't her.

None of them were.

The relationships usually end after that. Not because they had done anything wrong. They hadn't. They just couldn't compete with someone who had been living in my head for twenty years.

And honestly, that wasn't fair to them.

I couldn't keep asking someone to stay while a part of me was still waiting for a girl who probably didn't even remember me.

"You're impossible, you know that?" Leo said, tossing his hands up. "You kept a stuffed rabbit for over a decade."

I opened my mouth to defend myself, but before I could find the words, Marcus burst out laughing. I grabbed my damp towel and whipped it straight at his chest, but he ducked just in time, shouting, "Violence!" as it hit the mirror behind him.

"Rehearsal in thirty seconds," our choreographer's voice boomed over the speakers.

A wave of dramatic complaints filled the air, but we were already standing. As the track restarted, our reflections aligned in the mirror, every step and gesture falling neatly into sync. The rhythm took over, clearing out the lingering quiet from a moment ago. In here, there were no unanswered questions or long-lost memories—only the sweat, the beat, and the inevitable road ahead.

It was well past midnight when I finally got home.

After eight hours of music, shouting, and people yelling counts across the studio, the silence in my apartment felt almost strange. I dropped my bag on the sofa, loosened the top buttons of my shirt, and went into the kitchen for a glass of water. I had barely taken a sip when my phone buzzed on the counter.

6:30 AM pickup. Rehearsal.

Ignoring the notification, I left the phone behind and walked down the hall to my bedroom. Before getting into bed, I pulled open the drawer of my nightstand.

The rabbit was still there.

I picked it up carefully. It was smaller than I remembered, or maybe I was just bigger now. The fur had faded in places, and one of its ears had stayed folded for years. I ran my thumb over the worn fabric.

I wondered about her sometimes. Where she was, what she was doing, whether she had grown up remembering that day at all.

Probably not. She’d been a kid; it had likely been nothing more than a random afternoon to her. But for me, that single memory had somehow stretched across twenty years.

I gave the rabbit one last look before resting it back on the wood. In a few hours, I’d be on a plane heading out of the country, stepping back into the blur of stadium crowds, spotlights, and rehearsed smiles. On paper, I had everything a person could ask for.

But as I closed the drawer and turned off the lamp, I knew I was still waiting for the only piece that mattered.