Rise To Stardom

Chapter 14

⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING ⚠️
THE END OF THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SLIGHT SEXUAL ASSAULT

Chapter 14

The guilt was prompting me to ramble on so I shut myself up and awkwardly chuckled. A ghost of a smile appeared on his face while he scoffed, but it quickly went away.

"No worries, Emory." He hesitated in walking back to his car. Instead, he turned back around. His eyes were glistening with unshed tears, but this time, he made no move to cover it up. "By the way, she was pregnant."

A small gasp escaped my lips at the bomb he threw at me. I thought he only lost his future wife, but he also lost the only piece he had left of her. Somehow, I felt worse and the guilt increased tenfold.

The door opened behind me and Kayla appeared with her jacket that was barely keeping her warm. She was bouncing up and down on her heels and wrapped her arms around her chest like me.

"What happened? You look like you just saw a ghost."

Feeling the drool escape from the corner of my lips, I swallowed and shrugged. "Nothing happened. I just apologized." I decided against telling her what he told me. He obviously trusted me to keep my mouth shut and I needed to respect that. The cold was becoming too much to bare, so I suggested we went back inside.

-

The day was already here. Today was the day of the first performance and the anxiety ring that mom gave me was coming in handy. Kayla and I decided to sing Can't Help Falling In Love as it was a slower song which I wanted because it'd be easier on our voices.

Thankfully, I already knew how to play it on piano so we only practiced singing until we could sing it in our sleep. Some duos were rehearsing in the music room throughout the day where it was soundproof and others in their rooms.

Come to find out, our voices blended well together when they harmonized. We were rifling through the racks of clothes, looking for a suitable outfit to wear and I settled for a black halter dress with a skirt that barely went past the knees.

I tried it on and it looked as cute as it did in my head. Kayla's dress was slightly more extravagant with a royal blue dress that had a long tail on the back, in contrast to the short front. It truly was a testament to how beautiful her sense of style was.

We were going to have our hair and makeup done backstage so we left the house as we were. They sent cars to pick us up and drive us to the stadium ten minutes away.

Brooke couldn't treat me like a slave here, but that didn't mean she was letting me off the hook. She picked apart my outfit, my wavy hair once the hair stylist was done and kept 'accidentally' bumping into me. She was making it hard to ignore her, but I had to.

Giving her a reaction was exactly what she wanted. She needed to grow up and accept the fact that I was telling the truth. I wished I had my phone so I could rant to Aubrey about Brooke's childish behavior.

"Are you excited for the club tonight?"

My eyes widened at the reminder. Between the pre-show nerves and the Brooke drama, I completely forgot that it was her birthday today. I would've cooked her her favorite breakfast and had everyone sing to her, made it feel special if I remembered. "I'm so sorry, Kayla. I completely spaced on it being your birthday."

She waved me off. "Don't feel bad. It's absolutely fine. You still wanna go tonight, right?"

"Yeah, of course!" I was excited to see Aubrey and to be able to hang out with her all night. She was picking me up at eight and everyone else's best friends were picking them up as well.