Undercover Star

♪ Nine ♪

I walked to the church early on Thursday. I wanted to leave before Rich caught me in the morning. I spent all day with him the day before stuck in the hotel because of more bad weather. I was completely Riched-out.

There were no other people walking around that early in the morning. I could hear every one of my footsteps. I was again overwhelmed by the quietness of the town.

I could already feel the sun on my back at such an early hour. It was not even ten, and it felt like it could be ninety degrees. Luckily, I was used to hot weather.

The church was empty, as expected. It was peaceful, too. The shone through the large window, casting a streak of glittery light across the front. The simple sight was almost breathtaking.

I felt like I could take a nap in one of the pews. I hadn't been sleeping very well, and I could thank Rich for that. He was an awful person to share such close quarters with. He moved around too much and snored like a wild beast. Every once in a while, he would get quiet, and I would think he was asleep. Then, within seconds of silence, he would get up and go into the bathroom, causing a whole bunch more ruckus and noise. How I missed home.

I walked to the piano and sat on the bench. I shuffled through the note sheets on top of it. I decided to sort some of the songs out for practice. I wasn't sure what time it was, but I knew I had quite a bit of time to kill.

I rested my arm on the keys, making an atrocious sound bounce out of the instrument. It was too early in the morning to be making such noise.

I had never learned how to play the piano. I didn't even understand how it worked. Why were there two different colored keys? Did they make the same notes? Clearly I was knowledgeable on the subject. I pressed my fingers down on a few more random keys. It couldn't be that hard to play. I thought I would probably be able to teach myself.

I decided to test it out with the song that was already on the stand above my hands. It was called '10,000 Reasons'. I wondered why it was there, considering we weren't singing it this week. It was probably another song Summer thought was 'wonderful' and wanted to sing it in the future.

I didn't know which keys each note on the paper corresponded to, so I guessed. I didn't know what the song was supposed to sound like, but I was pretty sure what I was playing was not how it sounded.

I tried singing the song and matching the notes I played to my voice. It didn't work out as well as I thought it would. I laughed to myself, and sang louder to cover up my awful piano playing. I liked the words of the song, and ended up getting really into the singing.

"What's your secret?"

I jumped up from the piano, and spun around. I finally noticed Summer standing behind the bench. I leaned down, trying to calm down.

"You scared me!" I panted, like it wasn't the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm sorry, Jesse," she said, trying to hide her smile. "I didn't mean to give you a heart attack!"

I tried to play it off like I didn't just die. "That's okay."

"So are you going to tell me?" I raised an eyebrow. "Your secret," she clarified.

My heart sunk again. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind. So, she had figured it out already. I needed to reassess my acting career, maybe look into a day job.

"I - I, uh." I couldn't even think of the right words to say.

"Did you take voice lessons?"

I looked at her, completely lost.