Falling For Mr. Perfect

22 Say It All

"SAY IT ALL"

The next two days flew by in a blur of rehearsals and song writing.

The End of Summer Showcase was being held outdoors at Sunlight Beach. It was a three hour drive and since we had to be there for the weekend, my dad, Cherry and I stayed in a hotel, turning the trip into a mini vacation.

Friday was spent rehearsing "I Don't Wanna Dance With You" with a live band. Having musicians play the music I made myself with a beat machine my dad bought me for Christmas five years ago was amazing. Unfortunately, everything moved so fast that I hardly had time to enjoy it before I was being dragged to the next thing.

Of all the people I was introduced to that day, I hoped one of them would be Bea Lopez. Her assistant, Gabrielle, was there in her place, though.

She talked faster than I could process and I was happy my dad and Cherry were with me. There was no way I would remember everything she said when I was still kind of freaking out about performing tomorrow.

I got to perform two songs, same as all the other performers. My first song was definitely going to be "I Don't Wanna Dance With You".

Even though my music leaned more towards self love these last couple of weeks, I wasn't completely abandoning songs about romantic love. And "I Don't Wanna Dance With You" was my most popular song.

For the second song, I was stuck between my newest one, "For My Eyes Only" and "Favorite Afternoon".

"Favorite Afternoon" was the only other song I had uploaded to my social media pages. I wrote it years ago, a few months before Sabrina's accident.

She had made up her mind that she was leaving after her graduation. We went on a sister date to the movies. Had hot fudge sundaes and hung out at the beach. She promised she'd always be there when I needed her, even if we were in different states.

The song was her goodbye present from me the day the she snuck off to the bus station after our parents left for work.

Both songs were personal. I didn't know if I was ready to perform either for a live audience. My only other options were one of the dozens of love songs I've written. It didn't feel right to sing any of them, though.

Except, maybe the song I recently wrote about Peter and the end of our brief summer romance titled "Artificial". Maybe performing it for a crowd would finally rid me of these feelings.

Ever since Taylor Kings party my mind has been stuck in a game of what ifs.

What if Peter meant what he said?

What if he really was different from other guys?

What if I pushed him away for good?

No matter what I tried, I couldn't shake that night out of my head. I couldn't forget the look on his face when he told me he was willing to take a risk on us.

Gabrielle told me I needed my second song picked out before the concert so the tech people could be prepared. Which ever song I picked, I knew I wanted to play the piano while singing it.

***

"I vote for 'For my Eyes Only'." Cherry said as we rode the elevator to the lobby.

Rehearsals ended an hour ago and if I didn't get Cherry in water soon, she'd shrivel up. My dad stayed in the room, a Star Trek marathon on the tv catching his attention.