Shivley: A Now United Story

Ch 44: We'll Be the Stars

1 week later...

So much had happened last week since Kyle had told Shivani to go see her mom and Simon in the auditorium. Right now Shivani was sitting in her room in India too tired to process everything around her. 

She could still picture her mom's face staring at her angrily. Simon seemed sympathetic towards Shivani, but there was nothing he could do to stop Shivani's mom from saying they both needed to go back to India and that Shivani would have to leave auditions early.

In hindsight, Shivani should have expected this to happen. She'd let herself ignore what it would really mean for her to make it into Now United, but now reality had finally caught up with her.

She groaned and flung herself onto her bed. After that dance practice with Will, she'd let herself believe that she actually had a shot of making it into Now United. She could she her performing with them for fans around the world and the thought made her really happy, but now her mom had basically taken her out of the running and she was back to her real life. To make things even worse, Kinjal wasn't responding to any of Shivani's texts.

She heard a knock on her door. "Shivani. Come eat." It was her dad. Her mom was still refusing to talk to her. 

"I'm coming," she said. She managed to get herself off her bed somehow and she walked outside where her parents were sitting at the table already. She sat down quietly and served herself some food. Unfortunately they were eating karela which Shivani hated, but that meant that her mom was still punishing her. Great.

She managed to get her dinner down somehow and they all ate in silence. When they were done eating, she took her plate to the kitchen and then walked to her room. She was about to go in, but she stopped at the door and walked back to the dining table.

"Okay let's talk."

Her mom just sat there silently and her dad sighed.

"So what, we can't even talk anymore?"

"What is there to talk about?" her mom snapped. "You failed your school board exams, your future is ruined, and then I hear you were sneaking around with two boys." Her mom got up and took her plate to the kitchen leaving Shivani standing next to the dining table trying not to cry.

"Dad?"

"Shivani you made some very serious mistakes. It's going to take your mom and I some time to understand why you did what you did."

Shivani just turned around and closed the door to her room. She grabbed a pillow and pressed against her face to stifle the sounds of her crying. Basically after tenth grade, every student in India took a board exam and based on that score they could either choose to be on the math/science track, commerce track, or the arts/humanities track and with her score she could only qualify for the arts and humanities track. This meant that she was stuck on this path and when she went to college she could never study engineering like her parents had hoped, but...but she was okay with that. 

Unfortunately her parents weren't. Especially when their nosy neighbors and family members had called every day to express their remorse to them that Shivani had done so badly. When her mom found out, she was upset, but then she saw a picture of Shivani and Bailey online when they were at the beach and Shivani and Noah during audition week and she immediately decided Shivani needed to be taken home.

At that point, Shivani had time to do an audition of the piece Willdabeast had taught them and then she went upstairs to shower, pack, and then she was on a flight. She hadn't had time to see anyone because they were all still in rehearsal or eating lunch.

Shivani was extremely frustrated and at this point the Now United audition felt like it had been a lifetime ago. She secretly wondered if she'd made the band, but she knew it was useless. Speaking of useless...she wondered if she should take her phone off of airplane mode and see if anyone had texted her. As soon as she turned on her phone, she saw a text from Hina, a text from Bailey, a text from Noah, and a text from Kinjal. Well that was surprising.

Hina had sent her several texts over the last three days asking where Shivani was and what had happened. Apparently Simon hadn't told anyone the situation and Hina seemed upset that Shivani hadn't talked to her, but also extremely worried. There were about fifty texts from her.

Bailey had initially sent a message saying he was going to confront Ylona now and be done with her...something that had completely slipped her mind. His next text updated her that the conversation didn't go well, but Simon walked in on Ylona throwing things around the rehearsal space and immediately disqualified her from the competition. Apparently Simon also told her that her outburst had been caught on film and if she wanted the video to stay private, she would have to stay quiet about the Maya situation. Shockingly it had worked. His next text asked if they could meet in person, then he said he talked to Hina and was worried about where she was, and then there were five more texts asking where she was, if she was okay, and if she could at least text him back. His last text had been sent ten minutes ago.

Noah topped both Hina and Bailey with the number of texts he had sent and it took Shivani a while to scroll up to see what he was saying. Apparently his audition had gone really well and he wanted to celebrate with her and then he sent several lengthy apologies and then he asked if she was absent because of their kiss and then there were at least 100 texts sent afterwards asking where she was and if she was okay and if she could just text him and if he'd done something wrong. Apparently he was sitting outside Shivani's former hotel room that she had shared with Hina for so long that the housekeepers had to call security to move him back to his room. Shivani felt a pit in her stomach. She wanted to respond, but she knew that if her parents checked her phone, it would only make things worse. She also felt too overwhelmed to say anything. 

She sighed and looked at what Kinjal sent. It was a just the word sorry. What did that mean and what was she sorry about?

Looking at these texts wasn't making her feel any better. She sighed, but just as she was about to put her phone away, she got a text from an unknown number. She opened the message and it said I think you're going to make it into Now United. The question is - will you accept?

What? What was this weird text? It had to be someone who was at auditions...but who? And why were they texting her this?

What do you mean?

I mean...I'm pretty sure you won Simon over. So are you coming back to LA?

Who are you?

Someone who cares about you.

Now Shivani was extremely confused.

Why won't you just tell me who you are?

Because then you won't let me help you.

Okay that was cryptic.

How do you plan on "helping" me?

Easy. We're going to convince your parents that you're ready to come and join Now United.

Wait how did he know about her parents? How did he know she was going to make it into Now United? Was it even a "he"?

She didn't say anything for a while. 

You can trust me. We've met.

She didn't know who this person was, but it was nice to talk to someone.