The Sinner's Saint

DIFFERENT WORLD

Alex's evening splits itself into two worlds the way her life often does, tonight's gonna have different looks, different rooms and it's gonna need her to flip switches on her energy while still being the same girl holding it down.

The awards ceremony comes first. Her manager had sent a message earlier saying

The schedule's been updated.

You're presenting tonight, a Car will pick you up at six-thirty.

She settles on something that needs its own entrance. an off-the-shoulder ivory corseted gown with a bodice that catches the light with crystal detail before the skirt breaks into a dramatic ruffled train that moves like water when she walks. It's full and dramatic with high jewellery catching the light at her wrist and ears. She chose a rhinestone-covered platform heel high enough that she's grateful she walked in them many times before.

She does her own base because most people don't get her undertone right the way she does, so she stopped letting them touch her face a while ago. With her Music up, ring light on, everything laid out in the order she uses it. She films in pieces. The skincare, the makeup, the specific way the highlighter catches when she turns her face. She does her liner but then takes it off because it's not quite right in her eyes.

For her hair, she pulls it into a sleek high bun with a deep side part to let her earrings do their thing. Her makeup is precise defined, the kind that reads effortless on camera but took a practised hand and a very specific under-eye product she refuses to reveal to the public.

Her stylist arrives at 7:45 with the dress she settled on in a garment bag and a second person for the jewellery and makeup art. They work fast and yet hold conversation and laugh with her since they're the duo she always goes for, after they help her into the gown, lace the corset, clip on the cuff and stack the bracelets last, she's done in 20 minutes.

She's checking her notes while the stylist works through her final curls. The mirror catches the calm in her face but not what's behind it. The quieter, low hum of nerves that has nothing to do with the spotlight and everything to do with the balance she has to keep holding.

When the car pulls up outside and Alex is already ready physically and mentally she memorised everything she needs to. She checks herself one last time in the mirror by the door the way she always does, just habit and nods when Shes happy with how she's looking.

⚬⚬⚬
The venue is the kind of place that knows it's the kind of place. The red carpet outside is doing its job perfectly while cameras do theirs. Alex steps out and the noise shifts like a current, the way it does when enough people recognise you at the same time.

She moves through the press line easily. Chin up, pose, turn, smile, turn again. She's done this enough times that her body just knows. Someone calls her name from behind a camera and she finds the lens without looking for it.

Inside is even better than outside, everything's lit warm and golden, the walls are Tall like medieval cathedral-type walls and the ceiling is golden and covered in Renaissance paintings, Alex was now beginning to understand how important this event really was.

She walks around, says hello to the right people, and accepts a glass of something sparkling she definitely won't finish from a waiter walking by. She's in a conversation with this beautiful Bulgarian model she's met twice before, theyre on a nickname basis now when her handler materialises at her elbow, schedule in hand.

"You're the third presenter. After the break, before the album of the year category. We'll give you a five-minute warning."

"Okay, thank you."