Blame Me

Chapter 1

　　Chapter 1

　　Elise 

　　

　　Breathe in. Breathe out. Everything will be fine. 

　　I kept repeating these words in my head in the hopes of calming the quickening pace of my heart. Public speaking and I never really got along, self-doubt and the fear of embarrassing myself always got in the way of the potential friendship. But even though my relationship with public speaking wasn’t very good, there seemed to be a great amount of people that wanted me to have words coming out of my mouth in front of a huge crowd.  

　　Most of the time, I wouldn’t have these many jitters when I prepped for a performance, but tonight was an exception. Tonight was a show dedicated to promote awareness about suicide prevention and raising money for a national organization. The show was supposed to have numerous famous bands, singers, and speakers performing, which meant that there were supposed to be a vast amount of people in the audience, both in the venue and the people watching the live stream. Not to mention all the people that would see the re-runs of the show. 

　　“You’ll be fine,” Dani assured me above all the noise around us. People were buzzing in the small space that the backstage offered. 

　　“That’s easy for you to say, you’re a natural on stage,” I told her, but Dani only laughed at me. She stood at her full height of 5’7, which was only my half an inch shorter than mine, but somehow with all her confidence she seemed taller and fuller than me. I mentally scowled at her, why couldn’t she give me some of her confidence, she didn’t need all of that anyways.

　　“Don’t worry, babe, you’re a natural on stage too, you just pysch yourself out,” Her dark blue eyes pierced right through my lighter grey ones, and I willed for her radiating confidence to be absorbed into my bones.

　　I sighed, there was no use in disagreeing with her, it wouldn’t get me anywhere, “You should probably go check on your models,” I told her, trying to distract myself for that last few minutes before we went up on stage. 

　　Dani only raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow at me, “You are one of them,”

　　Dani was a well-known a fashion designer for her own growing company that she had started when she was younger, and to add to that she was practically famous on the internet for her blog. And due to our extremely close friendship I was inevitably a part of her internet fame. I didn’t mind all that much, I never had to do more than what I did on a regular basis for my job, which was modeling. 

　　“Take a picture with me,” Dani demanded, practically pulling my arm out of its socket as she brought me closer to her. 

　　I barely had time to pose as she pressed the button to take the picture. I was almost certain I had a lazy eye. 

　　“Damn,” she cursed under her breath as she looked at what her phone had captured, “How the hell do you always manage to look so good in photos?”

　　I shook my head at her, not bothering to respond. The amount of times that she had asked this question, and the amount of times that she had responded with smacking me across the head when I disagreed with her were too many to count.

　　As we waited backstage for our cue to go on, another model that was working with Dani came up to us. 

　　“This dress is amazing!” she gushed, pulling her hair back as she stared down at her black chiffon and lace dress, “You have no idea how amazing it is to be working with you!”