miss americana & the heartbreak prince

Chapter One

December 12th 2010

(Madison's POV) 

The car windows were tinted, so my view of the world was quite literally black and white as the car rolled very slowly down the street. Modest claimed they'd tried to keep the fact that I was appearing on the X-Factor finale a secret but obviously they hadn't really tried that hard. The paparazzi swarming the street was proof of that, right along with the fans waving signs and calling out to me. Paps I could care less about but I wished that I could stop and talk to the people frantically waving at me, smiling and hands full of trinkets.

Afterall, they were the reason I was where I was right now, not Modest or my record company or anyone else. They had faith in me and their support was probably the most dependable thing I had in my life right now. I wanted to tell them that but the rules were clear: no unscheduled stops and absolutely no getting out of the car until we were at the studio where the show was filmed. I couldn't afford to get mobbed and be late.

I checked my phone for the fifth time, resisting the urge to text him and wait to see how long it would take for him to respond. Jake had never been a super talkative person or the best person if I was being honest but the very least he could do would be to text me when I'm off in another country.

As I was trying to convince myself that I didn't care, the car finally rolled to a stop, though it was subtle from the snail's pace we were going I almost didn't notice.

~~~

Backstage was chaos, even though the show wouldn't be airing for another three hours or so, you would have thought the place was on fire or someone had died. I barely sidestepped a person moving at breakneck speed and felt my life flash before my eyes before moving on towards makeup and trying to get my pulse back to a normal level again.

Call me crazy but I didn't think having a heart attack would help my current situation at all.

The makeup department was thankfully near empty and no one was shouting so I sank into the nearest chair and took a few seconds to catch my breath, mentally reviewing my own lyrics and cursing my life choices. Whatever version of me that had a mental state to choose to sing Back To December clearly needed therapy and some common sense knocked into them. I consoled myself with the fact that at the very least it would bother Jake and maybe even enough to get him to pick up his damn phone.

Oh well, I shrugged it off and sat up straight, trying desperately to seem positive, it could be worse.

Thankfully, before I could figure out what worse would be, the makeup crew was surrounding me and there was no space for thinking about anything outside of glitter eyeshadow and lipstick shades. They were disappointed I wasn't already dressed but I assured them I really didn't care if the hues didn't perfectly compliment whatever dress I was wearing.

This did earn me some (jokingly?) disapproving looks but they left me alone after that.

~~~

My second near-death experience of the day came when I stepped out of the makeup room and had just enough time to register the sounds of shouting getting louder before someone ran around the corner and knocked me to the ground.

"Fuck!" The unfamiliar voice rang out, "Sorry I didn't not realize..."

I looked up and took in a boy about my height with a Justin Bieber style haircut and blue eyes. Since he still hadn't finished his sentence I did it for him, "That other people might exist?"

He grinned easily and I could see he was less worried now that he knew I wasn't angry. "Yeah, I figured I was the only one left at this point."

"Might wanna get your eyes checked then," I replied, matching his sarcastic tone.