Fortune (Camren)

Chapter 12: Sacrifices

So sorry had some health complications so I wasn't able to work on anything until today.

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Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart. O when may it suffice?" - William Butler Yeats

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The stage lights clicked loudly and hummed as they sparkled into electronic life. Elegantly dressed people representing the who's who of the small town as well as the nobodies that came to see the show began a meandering walk to the stage area as an announcer, in a crooning tone piped through high speakers, indicated the evening's entertainment was about to begin.

Mr. Kordei, impossibly tall and solid-looking in the black tuxedo he wore, walked to the center of the stage and focused his attention out onto the gathering masses, "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I just want to extend a warm welcome, and to say thank you from the bottom of my heart for attending and contributing tonight. As you all know, mental health is such an important topic these days, and those in need of help and rehabilitation are often without resources. Ridgeview has been a pillar of our own community, and I for one am overjoyed at the donations pouring in that will go the facility." He clapped his hands, and the audience clapped along with him, slaves to the self-congratulatory gesture. "We have some very special guests tonight to impress you, and I am pleased to introduce one of our very own hometown singers making her debut tonight, Taylor Swift!" He flourished a hand to the side of the stage before it went dark, a single light left on as he exited while the cheering reached its pinnacle.

Taylor sauntered into the spotlight, a place she was born to inhabit. The glow lit her features, pointing out the perfect cleft of her chin, dazzling the sapphire of her eyes, highlighting the cupid's bow of her lips, radiating through and around the curls of her yellow hair. She was magnificent, and she swayed as the music accompaniment began in the background, a slow and light melody drifting down to the crowd, silencing them before Taylor's clear voice began.

I've got a girl crush
Hate to admit it but,
I got a hard rush
It's not slowing down
I got it real bad
Want everything she has
That smile and that midnight laugh
She's giving you now

From backstage, Camila watched her friend in stunned fascination. Up to this moment, she hadn't thought about what Taylor would sound like or what song she'd sing; she'd simply made sure the soundtrack had made it the engineer's hands and given Taylor's instructions to have a single spotlight on her. Now, listening to the lilting torch song, she felt something painful wrenching in her heart, whether it was from the simple beauty of the song or the tortured way Taylor was singing it, she wasn't sure.

I want to taste her lips
Yeah, cuz they taste like you
I want to drown myself
In a bottle of her perfume
I want her long dark hair
I want her magic touch
Yeah, cuz maybe then
You'd want me just as much
I've got a girl crush

I don't get no sleep
I don't get no peace
Thinking about her
Under your bed sheets
The way that she's whispering
The way that she's pulling you in
Lord knows I've tried,
I can't get her off my mind

Lucy, sitting on a stool and holding her guitar up by its neck, soundlessly mouthed a string of curses as she heard the words. She watched as Taylor smiled tenderly and then glanced over from the stage at Camila, who was standing ramrod straight as if she had been turned to stone by a gorgon. When Lucy's eyes alit on her best friend next to her, the understanding realization at the challenge put forth in the song was obvious. There was a cyclone there in Lauren's face, twisting her features into astonishment and turbulent wrath.

By the time Taylor began the chorus again, Lauren was awash in colors. Her fists were balled tightly, the chords of tendons in her hands and forearms standing out in white against the tan of her skin. Her eyes were narrowed, their normal light green hue turning to a dark emerald as her black pupils enlarged with the dim light and her anger. She had let her hair down, and it hung in chunky waves down her back, its highlights of bronze among black slightly contrasting with the deep ebony of her shirt. Her cheeks were flushed, ensanguined with the crimson of her blood. And her whole body vibrated a violet aura of violence as she fought to keep from hurling herself at the blonde as her song ended.