Encore || Drake

And There He Was...

Lawrence gave me a brief tour of backstage of the arena and then took me to my dressing room.

"This is it." He said motioning to the empty room with nothing but a bare vanity and a chair.

"Wow." I said amazed, regardless of how simple it was, it was mine.

He pulled out his phone and began quickly searching for something.

"Yeah. You'll be sharing with Blair for the rest of the tour, she's the choreographer."

"Oh." I said slightly disappointed.

"Dress rehearsal is in thirty minutes. We have a lot to get done before the opening show tomorrow night."

My heart began to race with excitement and a little bit of nervousness. I was going to be performing in an arena tomorrow. Wow.

"Also, I'm airdropping you your set list." He said tapping on the screen of his phone.

My phone dinged and I looked at the screen completely puzzled. It was a list of songs by HER, Brandy, Lauryn Hill, and others.

"I'm sorry, these aren't my songs." I said.

"I know. No one knows you so you need to sing those." He said starting towards the door.

"But – "

"No buts, we have no time to discuss anything. Be on stage in thirty minutes." He said leaving and closing the door behind him.

Great. Just great. I won this contest with my own writing, my own songs, and yet I can't even perform them. This experience wasn't going as planned already.

Luckily, I knew just about all of the songs on the list by heart so there was no need to try to cram and learn them before dress rehearsal. Fifteen minutes passed and I headed out of the door to find my way to the main stage. The signs were pretty obvious with big black arrows that said "Main Stage" lining the halls. It was chaos throughout the halls. People with head sets running back and forth, yelling from random dressing rooms, and the smell of weed filled my nose. Following the arrows, I made my way past the large room where the dancers were rehearsing.

"Get it the fuck together or I can find eight other bitches who can get this shit down in two fucking seconds without missing a beat!" I heard a voice yell from inside.

That must have been Blair. She seemed like a tough one, good thing I stuck to singing.

As I got backstage I searched around for Lawrence to give me direction of what to do and when, and then I heard his voice over the humongous speakers echoing through the arena.

"Why is my band not set up yet? What is so hard?" he complained.

I peaked behind the curtain only to see the drummer still screwing in his symbols, everyone else in place. Talk about a perfectionist.

"Thank you." He echoed once the drummer was done and in place. "Luckily we only need you guys for the opening act."

He was too far away for me to see with all of the stage lights but I'm sure he was rolling his eyes right about now.

"And you, get your ass backstage until you're called on. We can all see you." He said in a bored voice.

I knew instantly he was talking about me and I ducked my head back behind the curtain. I heard a gaggle of laughter behind me and saw it was the dancers, all matching in their tight black leggings and crop tops, hair pulled back in sleek tight ponytails. They were gorgeous and I'm sure they all had about a million Instagram followers a piece. I turned away, feeling my body growing hot with embarrassment.