Friends of mine.

Chapter Ten.

I feel slightly dizzy as I hold my guitar close to my chest as a type of comfort, just simply waiting. The rest seem fine, me on the other hand, I'm panicking. What if I hit a bum note? What if my finger slips and everyone notices? What if they laugh? What if the band hate me because I mess up?
Fucking hell, Andy. Why do I have to panic so much about this? I just go out there and do what I do best, preform. I need to remember to be myself, like my mum used to tell me, although I never really know if I should listen to my mother the way I used to, the way I did before she left.
I feel a cold hand fall upon my shoulder, and I already know who it is before turning around.

"You're going to be okay."

Nick whispers in my ear, I'm soothed by his voice somehow.
I turn to meet his eyes, he's giving a small smile, a reassuring one that I think I may need right now.

"W-What? Yeah, I know."

I stutter, trying to loosen myself up a bit, making sure my shoulders don't look so tense.
Although I feel myself tense up again when Nick's hand doesn't leave my shoulder, just simply stays there as he stares through the curtains at the stage.
I look in his direction to see what is catching his eye.
Instead of looking where he is, something else takes my attention instead.
There is a microphone stand right where I know I'll be standing, my eyebrows furrow in confusion, I'm going to be doing vocals? I wasn't told this.
Now don't get me wrong, I'm not worried with my singing, I honestly think I've got quite a good voice. I sing all the time, but that's when I'm alone, now not only do I have to focus on my playing, now I have to focus on singing?
I step back the tiniest bit to meet Nick's shoulder, I watch Nick from the corner of my eye waiting to hear what I'm wanting to say.

"Am I- singing?"

I ask, motioning to the microphone from behind the curtain.
Nick raises a brow before looking to where I am looking, soon realising what I'm talking about.

"Oh, yes. We heard you sing, you're good. We need someone to do the backing vocals."

He says with a smile, not noticing the clear fear on my face.

"I don't really think I should- can't you sing instead?"

I ask with a slight plead in my voice, I just want this to go well without messing anything up.
Nick scoffs, looking at me with a brow raised.

"I can't sing for the life of me! You on the other hand..."

He says, his voice dropping lower, his finger poking my chest.
I look down at his finger on me, then back to his eyes.

"You're a performer, Andy. This is what you do."

He whispers, before he pats my back, giving me the signal we must be going on now. I think of his words, I'd love to be able to consider myself that, maybe I can warm to that name.
A performer.

I take my place, standing behind the microphone, breathing into it.
I scan the small crowd of people, all dressed similar to us, all of them seem to be interested in who we are, their attentions focused on us and their conversations stopped.
I look around myself, looking at each of the band closely, I can see their nervousness too, but it's probably not as bad as mine.
I turn around to see Nick, staring right back at me, I swallow thickly before he gives me a reassuring nod and a smile, I feel slightly better now.
Everything seems to be running smoothly, I still hesitate to sing in the mic but my confidence has gotten better. I think I sound alright, and by the looks of it the crowd are enjoying us.
They all seem to be dancing and we've seemed to light up the room a bit.
I feel proud of myself, I don't know why I was so worried, this is okay, I could definitely get used to it.