ketura - ch

chapter six

Even after we rehearsed for two hours straight, I couldn't get rid of the painful knot in my stomach telling me that I would be in front of thousands of people in less than forty-eight hours. That was the scariest feeling in the entire world, but I was also so extremely excited that it was the weirdest mixture of emotions.

I sat in the now cleaned up dressing room when Shane bursted through the door. He looked over at Mason who slept on the couch across from me and then looked over at me.

"Keturah," He said and walked over to me and sat down.

"Yes Shane?" I chuckled.

"We need to think of something good to get back at them," He said seriously.

"Do you have something in mind?" I laughed.

"No," He sighed.

I thought hard about what we could do. I was excited to start this small war because with the boys in our band, I figured we could think of something. Shane started googling things while I sat and thought. I thought of what could be funny or what could be creepy.

"I got it!" I said immediately.

"Alright," he said.

"Have you watched Stranger Things yet?" I asked.

"Yeah," He nodded.

"You know how the mom has lights all over her living room?"

"Oh, shit!" Mason sat up now.

"We could do that and put the letters on the wall... Maybe write, like, 'RUN' or something creepy," I explained.

"We should put up scary pictures too," Shane said. "And I'm talking... like everywhere. Cover the floors, walls, furniture, everything."

"When are we going to do it?" Mason asked.

"Tomorrow during their show?" I suggested.

"You're a special kind of evil, Ket," Shane laughed. "I love it."

"Tomorrow then," Mason agreed. "We need to get the supplies."

"I'm ready," Shane smirked.

I was just about to bring up other ideas when a knock at the door sent all of our heads shooting towards the direction.

"Hey," Michael appeared just behind the door.

"Oh, hey," Shane smiled.

"We were just talking about your lovely surprise here," I mentioned.

His smile grew big and he laughed. "We're professional pranksters."

"We'll see about that one," I squinted my eyes.

"So what's up?" Mason asked.

"There's pizza if you'd like to come out to the stage," he said.

"Hell yes," Shane got up right away. I picked up my phone and followed with out a word.

We walked through a few halls and to the stage where Ashton sat with Roy and a few crew members. The smell of pizza hit me, making me realize just how starving I was. I looked out to the chairs where Luke and Calum ran around, passing each other a soccer ball. My chest felt a bit funny at the thought of soccer. For a second I wanted to go over there and play with them, but the need for food overtook me. I sat down silently and watched as Luke and Calum cursed at each other for the ball. They constantly pushed each other and laughed when one of them would trip. It was actually entertaining.

"What about you?" Michael asked. My attention snapped over to Michael who looked at me with curious eyes.

"Sorry, I wasn't paying attention, what was the question?"

"We're talking about guitars. If you prefer Tele's or Strat's," He explained.

"Oh, well... it depends. Normally I would prefer to play a Telecaster. I like the feeling better, but Strat's are nice for soloing in my opinion," I explained. "Don't get me wrong, Tele's sound good when soloing too... but Strat's man."

"Keturah normally plays acoustic though," Shane explained.

"Oh, yeah. If anything I'd rather play acoustic. I write all my songs on acoustic anyways."

"What kind do you have?" Ashton asked.

"A Martin. DRS1 to be exact. It's my favorite because the wood is beautiful just like the sound."

"Do you like Taylor's?" Michael asked.

"Yeah, those are great too. Pretty much any Martin or Taylor will sound good to me just because I'm still fairly new to playing guitar and those are high end brands compared to my first guitar," I shrugged.

"Don't be so modest Tur," Roy said, using his odd nickname for me. "You've been playing guitar for almost three years. You kick ass at it too."

"Thanks Roy," I chuckled. I took another bite of my pizza and my mouth watered. I was so hungry.

"Guys," Calum came over with a smile on his face. "I just hit Luke in the face with the soccer ball and he got a bloody nose."

"Awesome," Michael chuckled.

I rolled my eyes. Such a boy thing to say. "Is he okay?"

"Yeah, he is," Calum looked down at me. I finally got a good look at him. His hair had gotten just a tiny bit longer but other than that, he was just how I remembered him. His hair was a dark brown, almost black. His eyes matched the color of his hair while his skin remained a light brown. His almond eyes squinted up when he smiled and his cheeks were just as pinchable as the last time I saw him. I did notice, however, that his face had matured just a bit. His jawline was far more defined than what it used to be and it made me want to melt just a bit. "Uh, have we met before?"

"What? Uh, no!" I shook my head.

"You look like this girl that I used to..." His sentence faded as he got lost in his thoughts. "I don't know. It was this girl in high school.. but that was a long time ago and I've seen so many people between then and now."

"Oh," I nodded. If anything, that added to my nervousness. It really wasn't that I had anything to hide, but I really didn't want to relive any thing that had to do with me being Ket Morris. I was Keturah Laine and I didn't want anything to change from here on out.

"I'm starving," Calum said now and went to grab pizza. I sighed in relief and got up to throw away my plate. I walked over to the trash can and when I turned around Calum was there again.

"Sorry if that was really weird for you," He chuckled. "You looked uncomfortable. You just remind me of this girl I used to know."

"Oh," I chuckled timidly. "It's okay."

"So are you excited for the show tomorrow?"

"More nervous than anything," I admitted and crossed my arms.

"I know the feeling. But don't worry too much about it. You guys are solid so I think you'll do great."

"Thanks," I smiled a bit. This was the Calum Hood that I knew. He was so kind and positive towards everything, trying to bring people up. It made me feel slightly better to know that he hadn't changed much through all of this fame. "Do you still get nervous before a show?"

"I do but at the same time I know that no one is really going to think I suck if I mess up. It's hard to focus on one person's opinion anyways when there are a thousand other people in the crowd. That's why I like big shows so much."

"That's a good point," I nodded.

"Yeah, it gets me through a lot of things," He told me. There was an awkward silence between us until he said, "so when did you start playing music?"

"Well, it's such a long story actually. To make it a short one, I started in high school. One of my classmates was really popular and known for him and his band. He inspired me a lot."

"That's good," Calum nodded. "Did they ever go anywhere with the band?"

He really had no clue I was talking completely about him and the band so I laughed and said, "Nah, they suck."