Ghosts {L.P.}

2:20

Ｇｈｏｓｔｓ Ｈａｖｅ Ｇｏｏｄ Ａｄｖｉｃｅ

▶︎ •၊၊||၊|။||||။၊|• 0:46

Riya was horrified. Scared. Terrified. Every last synonym in the book.

Her hands shook as she plugged in the electric guitar she had borrowed from the music room, hearing the remnants of Dirty Candy singing only a few feet away.

Julie and her had only had ten minutes to figure out when Riya came in, which backup vocals would she add on, and whether she'd sang a verse to break up the monotony of only Julie singing. And Riya wasn't entirely sure if she remembered all the arrangements correctly.

Just as she had requested, Riya was hiding behind the curtain, which surprisingly no one had questioned yet, which only left Julie with a small stripe of space at the front of the stage, but she kept assuring Riya she didn't mind, so Riya herself didn't push it.

Riya made sure the amplifier and microphone were both turned off before plugging them into the nearest outlets she could find, carefully stepping over the array of cables she had strewn around her.

The last thing Riya wanted was to accidentally cut off Dirty Candy's performance and have everyone listen to her panic or practice rounds on the guitar.

Another worst-case scenario would be to trip over the multiple cables surrounding her, from the aux chord connecting the guitar hanging from her shoulders to the amplifier in the corner, or the too long microphone cable covering half of her space.

Or she could even somehow alert the person working the lighting and sound and be scolded away for being backstage and connected to the sound system without asking for permission.

But Riya tried not to think about the negative possibilities too much; otherwise she'd run out the back door and switch schools entirely so she never had to face Julie again.

"Nervous?" Riya jumped in place, her fingers freezing over the frets and nearly dropping the pick held in her hand.

"You're gonna give me a heart attack if you keep doing that," Luke grinned, leaning on the mic stand as Riya danced around him nervously chewing on her bottom lip while painfully aware of how she could trip any second and make a complete, utter fool of herself.

Not thinking about it wasn't working.

"I thought I didn't have to see you again."

"You haven't sung yet, so I still get to see you." Riya rolled her eyes, absentmindedly picking at the strings of the guitar hanging by her waist, a nervous habit Luke had picked up on in the short hours of their meeting.

"You know, if you get nervous, you can just look at me." Riya gnawed harder on her lip, purposely not focusing on the leaning Luke before she regretted everything.

She thought the curtain would be enough to make her feel like she was just inside the music room, only the empty air to keep her company.

But between all the cheering outside, the music playing, Dirty Candy singing, it just made Riya even more nervous. So even if just focusing on Luke would make her have some sense of familiarity in a room of chaos, there was no way Riya was peering past the curtain and catching even the smallest of glimpses into the crowd just to further worsen her mood.

"You'll make me more nervous."

"Then look at Julie, or a wall, even the door. Just don't look at the crowd and try not to freeze." While Luke was giving Riya genuinely good advice, she was too far into her fantasy of the back of the curtain being the music room to be in her right state of mind.