Backstage: Third Time's the Charm

Alya Kendrick

Alya Kendrick
Grade 11
Music Program

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and continued the final edits of Miles's album. The clock flickered to midnight and then one. I continued working. We needed to finish by the end of the week, and there was still so much to be done.

His album was almost perfect. And we'd finally agreed to title would be "Dig Deep". It was two before I finally curled into bed. My alarm blared a few hours later at eight.

I groaned and pushed myself out of bed. Keaton has become a second priority since we started working on the album. My grades had dropped seriously. And I wondered if Jax's or Bianca's had too.

But today was Saturday. And we planned to meet at Keaton so we could finish the album for good.

Despite the haze of sadness that usually followed me around, it made me smile to see Vanessa and Beckett walking hand-in-hand. I guess they decided to patch things up after all.

They were probably here to practice a new dance routine. Dancers were almost always here on the weekends from what I could tell.

Kit waited for me in the recording station. Miles's leather song book sat on the table next to the sound equipment. I assumed she'd finally gotten it back from DJ Diamondmind since he recorded the music for "The Wolf".

Jax sat on a stool next to Kit, and they whispered quietly.

"Is everything okay?" I asked.

Kit and Jax jumped, startled by my entrance. She reached out and closed the book, but not before I saw an entry titled "My One Love."

"What's that?" I moved closer. I hadn't seen that song, and it wasn't one he'd recorded.

"Nothing," Kit stammered and fiddled with her toque. "We don't have much left to do. It's really just listening to them today."

"What are you changing the subject?" I snatched the book from Kit's hand as Bianca walked into the room.

I flipped open the book and quickly found the page with the song.

For Alya, my one true love.

"He wrote a song about me?"

"Who did? Miles?" Bianca asked.

"Why would you hide this from me?" I looked from Kit to Jax. How could they do this?

"Miles told me he was going to record it." Jax looked at the floor. "But we can't find it anywhere."

"We called Mrs. Lennox," Kit explained. "But she couldn't find anything on his laptop either."

"That doesn't matter! I don't care if he recorded it or not. It was about me. You shouldn't have kept it from me!"

Bianca raised an eyebrow. "We shouldn't keep secrets. Especially about this project."

"So you didn't know?" I asked.

"No."

"I'm not doing this today," I said. "Let's go, Bianca."