Break My Fall

Chapter Six

(Rachel’s P.O.V.) 

I tapped on my microphone to make sure it worked and smiled. “Awesome,” I said, not realizing I was speaking into it. My voice echoed throughout the arena and everyone looked at me. I silently thanked God that we were on commercial.

It was dead silent, so I just smiled and waved. “My bad!” I said, making sure I wasn’t talking into the microphone this time. A few people laughed, but it was mostly just awkward. Once everyone had returned to their own business, I started laughing like a maniac.

“Smooth, Rachel,” Tessa said walking over to me in her high heels. I stuck my tongue out at her and she wrapped her arm around my neck and I could hear her ragged breathing in my ear.

“Nervous?” I asked. She nodded, holding her stomach.

“It’s worse than yesterday. Cause today, we find out if we made it or not and I’m scared we didn’t. I don’t want to go home, Rachel,” she said, looking at me with wide eyes. I hugged her tightly, but it was slightly awkward because she was so much taller than I.

“Tessa, don’t worry, okay? Whatever happens is meant to happen. And if we don’t make it through, we’re staying as a band and we’ll find our way to fame. Breathe, honey,” I said. She stopped shaking and took a deep breath in my ear.

“Girls, the song starts in thirty,” the stage manager reminded us, walking by. I pulled away from her as Cher and Kara joined us and we walked onto the flight of stairs that had been put out on the stage for us. We all sat on the stairs and positioned the microphones right.

“I guess I just lost my husband I don’t know where he went. So I’m gonna drink my money, I’m not gonna pay his rent,” Mary sang. I winked at Cher as she sang her part.

“I got a brand new attitude, and I’m gonna wear it tonight.”

I opened my mouth and sang into the microphone, the knot in my stomach disappearing. “I’m gonna get in trouble, I wanna start a fight.”

The four of us, Mary, and Maura sang together, “Na na na na na na, I wanna start a fight. Na na na na na na na – ”

“I’m gonna get in a fight!” Kara sang.

The rest of the performance was fun, I loved singing with all the acts because it was so much fun. I completely forgot about the fact that it could be the last time I was performing on the X Factor stage.

I couldn’t help but laugh a bit at Louis when he said “check ma flow” because he sounded so sassy.

When we finished, they cut to commercial again and we huddled together with the other acts who also had Cheryl as their mentor and waited. I grabbed Cher and Kara’s hands, and Kara grabbed Tessa’s. I could feel all of our hands shaking.

“I just want to let all of you know, before the results, that it’s been such fun mentoring all of you, and I hope you all get to stay,” Cheryl said.

“Aww, Cheryl!” I said, hugging her tightly. This resulted in all of her contestants engulfing her in a suffocating group hug as they started the results.

Dermot was talking about something irrelevant to drag the time on and to make us all sweat. He announced that Kevin was safe first, then Maura, then Mary, then Matt. After this, they cut to commercial.

I let out a huge breath, feeling much more nervous than before. I had a lump in my throat and I was afraid that if I opened my mouth and tried to speak, I might start crying. So I stayed silent.

Soon the show was back on and Dermot was talking again, but all of his words were going in one ear and out the other. Now, I felt like I couldn’t cry even if I wanted to, everything was numb.