The New Girl [On hiatus]

Everything to Gain

When we pulled up to the venue, I noticed two things right away. The first was that the line was already massive, stretching at least two blocks, and the second thing was that they all started screaming when they saw our van. Which was a big deal to me.

"Whoa," Hannah breathed, obviously sharing my thoughts. I had no idea our band was this popular already. I mean sure, we'd been around for a couple years on youtube and playing shows, but I didn't think we had such a huge fan-base.

We drove slowly with the windows down, waving at people and looking for the entrance to park. We found it, and drove through, stopping in the unloading zone to get out our equipment, and start bringing it inside while Evan parked. Uncle Tom helped us bring our shit in and set up what needed to be set up right away, and told us we were the first band to show up. It was still pretty early.

"There's an A&R rep from Rise Records coming to see you guys tonight, so good luck. I know you'll do great," he said.

My jaw dropped. A talent scout from the biggest fucking label in pop-punk was coming to see us. Us. Holy fucking shit fuck. Aedan and I looked at each other and I could see the emotions passing through his eyes. He nodded at me and turned to Selina, putting his arms around her and kissing the top of her head. I looked at Evan and Hannah in turn, and we all just stared at each other, speechless.

"I'll take that as an overload of shock. See you guys later, I've got stuff to do." Uncle Tom said, leaving the backstage area.

"Holy shit. Can you believe it?" Selina screamed.

I just shook my head in response, as the others incoherently yelled things all at once. I waited for the news to sink in, or for Uncle Tom to come back and say "just kidding!" but he didn't.

Charlie touched my shoulder gently, bringing me back to Earth. I looked at her, and she gave me a concerned look, as if maybe I still looked pretty out of it. I grinned at her.

"Well shit eh, now we REALLY have to bring our A game. Elliot is on!" I chuckled.

Charlie smiled at me, and I shook my head again. Then everyone was hugging each other all at once, and I felt a surge of love for the people I quite literally spent all my time with. I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather share this opportunity with.

We quickly went over our setlist, and ran through our sound check. Troy, the sound guy here, gave us the thumbs up letting us know our levels were good. Since we were the first band, we wouldn't need to tweak it too much once we got on stage.

"You guys are gonna kill it tonight," Troy said. "Good luck, you guys deserve this."

We had time to kill before we'd hit up the line for entertainment, so we decided to sit around the unloading zone and chill, waiting for the other bands to show, and speculating who they could be.

A large black tour bus pulled up about ten minutes later, with no band logos announcing who they were. I sat up straighter, staring intently at the bus willing it to reveal who was inside. There was some movement through the bus windows, and the door opened, revealing the members of Memphis May Fire. I felt Charlie bolt upright beside me, where she'd been lounging, and grab my hand.

"Holy shit. You guys are playing with THEM!?" She whispered excitedly. I could barely believe it myself. Holy shit.

"Hey, you guys are Halos For Heroes?" The unmistakable ginger head of Matty Mullins appeared in my field of vision. I nodded, and stood, extending my hand to shake his.

"Yeah, that's us! I'm Kenzie, how's it going?" I said, shaking his hand.

"Hey man, I'm Aedan, nice to meet you."