New Life

Ice Bath

Thirty four.

The girls had done a total of thirty four shows and interviews in the last three weeks. That didn't even include volunteering and meetings. Don't even mention recording sessions.

Emma was fatigued, but stayed positive, even if she only got about 6 hours of sleep a night. Kyara was a different story.

Kyara was weathered to the bone, not even sleeping 4 hours every day. Her immune system quickly went to shit. She had always had a terrible immune system, but this was a whole new level of bad.

It seemed she had a permanent cough. They had to make her gargle warm salt water for two minutes before she went on stage or on camera...

Which is what she was doing right now. Kyara felt like an idiot with her head tipped back and her mouth hung wide open while the stylist tried to put the final touches on her make up.

Emma sat on the sidelines, feeling bad for Kyara. She knew that the girl didn't function well with little sleep, and management had been pushing her to the limit.

When Kyara had spit into the little paper cup that Greg handed her, Emma noticed the girl wince when she stood up from her chair.

"You alright, Kay?" Emma furrowed her eyebrows as Kyara put on an obviously fake and obviously tired smile.

"'M fine. Just tired." She shrugged and pushed past the stylist to stand on the little purple x that told her where to stand for the entrance. Emma shook her head and went to stand on her own blue x on the other side of the stage.

Greg patted Kyara's shoulder, then fixed a little wrinkle in her black sweater. The girl looked up at him with a raised eyebrow as the music started.

"Don't strain yourself..." He mumbled and clipped the mic onto Kyara's ear. She opened her mouth to tell him that she was fine, but it was her cue to walk on stage.

Kyara sang right along side Emma, grimacing when she turned to face away from the crowd, clutching her stomach when she walked behind a piece of equipment.

Emma noticed, but could only watch as Kyara's eyes glossed over in pain and her legs began to tremble as she pranced around on stage. She could only watch as she broke out into a sweat and her breathing got more rapid.

It was a small crowd, in the music business standards. About a thousand people in a little out door park. But what they lacked in numbers, they made up for in energy. At this point, they were the only thing keeping Kyara from yacking all over the stage and passing out.

During the wardrobe change, Greg offered Kyara a cup of mint leaf tea to help her throat, and she literally gagged into her hand. She plugged her nose and ran back on stage before Greg could even look at her weird.

Kyara smiled down at the people in the front row. She wasn't at all surprised to see Luke sitting in between Calum and Mikey. Ever since their tour had ended, Luke tried to come to every show possible. He blew a kiss at her, making her give a halfhearted thumbs up back.

Emma looked at her weird and kept an eye on her as they started singing Primadonna. It didn't take a doctor to know the the girl was about two seconds away from hurling. Even Luke saw it, and he wasn't the best at body language.

During one of Emma's solos, Luke mouthed something like 'You okay, babe?' to Kyara. She just nodded and went back to the choreographed stage-walking.

"And I'm sad to the core, core, core
Every day is a chore, chore, chore"

Hell yeah every day was a chore. Kyara had written this song in the first week of the schedule. She almost wished that she could be curled up in her childhood bed with one of her pugs.