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A soundcheck for two, what love sounds like in an empty concert hall
The voice of Australian indie-pop singer Mallrat, also known as Grace Shaw, drifted through the empty concert hall, sweet, unhurried, intimate. Her team placed two folding chairs in the center of the floor, a modest throne room for an audience of two. The air smelled faintly of stale beer and industrial cleaner. Overhead lights hummed softly.I reached for Warren's hand. Mallrat's voice had scored the soundtrack of our relationship. Now, hearing it live in this hush between rehearsal and showtime felt like being let in on a secret. I glanced at Warren as tears shone in his eyes, his face caught in the soft yellow of the stage lights. It was April 29, 2025. The eve of our sixth anniversary. And the eve of what we thought would be his third round of chemotherapy. We met in college, at a crowded Valentine's Day party I hadn't planned to attend. A friend lured me out with the promise of free drinks. Warren and I kept bumping into each other on the dance floor until I turned, half-laughing and half-exasperated. "What do you want?" I asked. He admitted he was trying to avoid some "situationships" and just kept accidentally running into me instead. We ended the night kissing between debates about politics. By spring, we were inseparable. On a road trip to nowhere in particular, we discovered Mallrat's "Groceries." The song made falling in love sound as natural and as necessary as running errands. That became our shorthand for everything small and sacred. I cooked dinner. He picked up groceries. We built a life not in milestones, but in patterns: shared playlists, flights booked with points, and a thousand repetitions of choosing each other. In March 2020, just before the world shut down, we moved to Dallas to stay with Warren's aunt and uncle. Their guest room became our first shared home. We worked side by side at mismatched desks. We learned each other's rhythms in the kitchen. We took long drives to be out in the world. Mallrat's voice played softly in the background. Somehow, she made everything sound like it might be okay. In 2023, I took a job on Capitol Hill. We moved to D.C., our third city in four years. The pace there was brutal, but Warren was the still point in the spin. I made him a latte every morning before racing to the Capitol. He never complained about the schedule or the ambition. He just stayed. Constant, patient, quietly rooting for me. Then came the first diagnosis. In March 2023, Warren learned he had testicular cancer. The doctors were confident. "Highly curable," they said, their voices smoothed by repetition. He would need surgery, not chemo. It felt clinical. Contained. A disruption, not a collapse. Warren approached it like a checklist. Find the best surgeon. Ask the right questions. Heal. I mirrored his calm. I didn't dive into every detail. I didn't hover. I put my fear aside and returned to work. When the post-op scans came back clean, we celebrated by doing absolutely nothing. We exhaled. In January 2024, I took another job in Dallas. Warren followed willingly, working remotely. It felt like returning to where we first became a "we." Life opened back up. We wandered Tokyo's side streets, got sunburned in Coachella's desert light, and lost ourselves in Mexico City's chaos. We weren't running away from anything. We were just alive again. Then, in March 2025, Warren started having stomach pain. At first, we told ourselves it was stressor bad takeout. But the ER visit told a different story. A large teratoma pressed against his organs. A pulmonary embolism, a clot in his lung. The cancer was back. This time, it didn't follow the script. The doctors used words like "resistant." Chemo began shortly after. Warren's strength drained slowly, then all at once. He moved like someone rationing energy. He lost his appetite. His hair came out in handfuls; I swept off the floor before he woke. This time, I didn't stand back. I took over the schedules, spreadsheets, and late-night bill payments. I became fluent in scan results and whispered prayers in the shower. Hope didn't come easily this time, but it came anyway. It had to.I needed to give us something to hold on to. Mallrat's tour was opening in Dallas the day before our anniversary. I wrote to her team about our story. They didn't hesitate. In the stillness of the empty venue, as Grace sang about finding someone who feels like home, Warren wept beside me. I held his hand and gently passed a small cup of peppermint oil under his nose every few minutes. It was a trick from the cancer center to ease the nausea. Then came the opening chords of "Groceries." Her team knew how special this song was to us. I turned to Warren."We first heard it when we started dating," I said. "I thought maybe this was just a summer fling. Something brief. But here we are, six years later, still building a life. I know the song is about trying not to fall for someone, and failing. That's exactly what happened. You were there in every small moment until you became home. I've spent most of my life torn between love and independence. But with you, it's never a choice. It's both." And then I asked him to marry me. Warren stood so fast his chair nearly toppled. "A million times, yes," he replied. Grace cheered. Then she crossed the stage and hugged us both. When the set ended, we stumbled through thank-yous. Grace signed some merch. Warren beamed like a kid meeting his hero. I said little and watched him, trying to memorize everything that was happening. Nine days later, on May 8, the day before what would have been his third chemo cycle, the doctor called.The tumor had shrunk, but not enough, and they were stopping chemo. Surgery would be necessary. I patched Warren into the call. Then I stood by the window, still holding the phone long after the line had gone quiet. I wanted his hand in mine instead of the cold metal that had delivered this new uncertainty. Then Grace's music played in my head. Just a pop lyric, but it had become something more. A quiet refrain against the unknown; a reminder that wishes still matter, even when dreams don't come true the way we expect. Because love isn't just what happens in the spotlight, it's what happens in the waiting rooms. In the meal you cook for someone with no appetite. In peppermint oil, shaved heads, and yes, even in folding chairs at a sound check. Love shows up even when you're scared. Especially then. The future remains uncertain. But that hour reminded me of something I've always known. You don't need certainty to make a promise, but you need presence. In the yellow light, two hands intertwined and made a vow we've made in a hundred quiet ways already. And whatever comes next, we'll face it the same way we always have. Together.Voices is dedicated to featuring a wide range of inspiring personal stories and impactful opinions from the LGBTQ+ community and its allies. Visit Advocate.com/submit to learn more about submission guidelines. Views expressed in Voices stories are those of the guest writers, columnists, and editors, and do not directly represent the views of The Advocate or our parent company, equalpride.
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