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The rhythms of the music I had so longed for again had settled themselves deep into my bones. It was a home-like feeling, like a resurrection of a feeling of comfort by hearing the lush music pouring out of those five human beings. Being in the seventh row gave me a sort of advantage; I could see everything perfectly and could still touch Jesse's hand if he reached out far enough, which he has yet to do. Zach saw me as soon as they hit the stage, basically meeting my eyes right off the bat. He smiled so big and wide that I elbowed my mom to frantically point him out to her. She waved and smiled at him until he waved back then proceeded to comment:
"Is he gonna let his hair grow any longer?"
It was true, Zach's hair had gotten a lot longer since the last time I saw him. As anyone knows, it's usually pretty long; if swooped to his right like usual, it graces his cheek easily. Now it was at the ball of his jaw.
I kept looking at his hair and face while they played. He would occasionally flick his locks if they got too far over into his eyes. When they lit him up on the big projector screen behind them, all the girls in the house went crazy. I concentrated solely on his hands and pouted mouth while they screamed and begged for him.
The night had grown thick outside and was settling in when "Uh-Oh" had ended. By that time, my parents had just come back from their smoke break and were yelling at one another in conversation over the crowd. I couldn't tell what they were saying, and as they neared me, all I heard was "I know." coming from my mom.
"Everything okay?" I asked.
"Yeah." she nodded. "Yeah, everything's fine."
I was beginning to feel as if they weren't enjoying themselves. "Are you guys liking the show?"
My mom was honest and said yes while my dad decided to be a smart-ass and throw comments at me like he'd been doing. Dads love to push their kids' buttons.
"Alright." Jesse came over loud and clear the third or fourth time he said this so he could speak to the crowd. With a half a moment's silence, a girl somewhere off to our far lefts yelled:
"I love you Jesse!"
He eyeballed her in that seductive way that he always does and gave her a wink. She screamed of course.
"Okay. Well, are we enjoying ourselves?"
The crowd went ballistic.
After a second, they were back under Jes' command.
"I'm sure all of you have heard of the sweepstakes going around right? I know all of you had signed up too, right?"
Usual cheering. Wippee-dee.
J smiled. "The winner will be announced here shortly. And we do have a little surprise in store tonight-"
"-A BIG surprise." Zach jumped on Jeremy's mic behind him and said. Everyone laughed.
"Okay well, it is one big ass surprise. But we know you guys'll love it. So, let's get this next song in and announce our winner."
"This is my Scarlet Ibis' favorite song by us." Zach spoke into Jeremy's mic once more as he piddled with his guitar. "She's always singing it or humming it."
I turned purple with so much embarrassment. He caught eyes with me and smiled, making me break out into a sweat. He is so beautiful.
With no further words, the strums began and Jesse started in far-away sounding tones that gradually deepened with projection of his voice into the mic. Then the drums. People were screaming.
"What is this? 'Afraid'?" my mom asked.
"Yeah." I had shown this to her before.
"Okay cool. I like this one." she smiled.
"...All my friends always lie to me. I know they're thinkin'..."
Indeed I adored 'Afraid'. It was my all time favorite. So beautiful and sad. It makes me cry nearly every time.
I was falling into the music. My heart fluttered fast, my skin lifted and broke out in chill bumps. My eyes widened. This was the most glorious feeling in the world! Beside me my mom and dad looked at each other then at me since I saw them. My mom smiled and my dad remained stone-faced as usual except this time, I believe there was something there. Something...unordinary on his face that made me question it entirely. Was it sadness? Or perhaps it was just the way I was seeing things due to the mood of the music. Either way, as I stood there and glanced once more over at my dad who was now watching them perform, I kept seeing that look on his face. Like he was forlorn. Like he was giving something away.
The bridge picked in and it was like the whole crowd rowed forward and back with the drum hits. Forward, back, forward back; in loose, almost easily flowing waves. People waves. Jesse rolled his head around with his eyes closed singing, Mikey and the others just kind of stood there, and Bryan beat his drums in time to his click-track. All in all it was a picturesque scene and just a little odd. Like the silence before a big storm or explosion, except there is no such thing as silence in a packed-ass stadium like this. Someone behind me bumped into me, making, I suppose, their jewelry clank in a fashion similar to clamps being closed on something. The end of the bridge was coming and the tension was as thick as soup in that room that night. Suffocating.
I screamed so loud at the feel of my heart being thrown into my throat I began to cry. I was holstered into the air so suddenly at the beginning of the last chorus I nearly kicked my mom in the face. I didn't know what was going on, or how, or why until I felt the tug of lines around my waist. It instantly clicked: the harness. Someone clipped ropes to me because I sure as hell didn't have them on before now. That, I found out, was what the clanking was behind me. Staff being slick and hooking me up.
Of course all this I determined long after it happened because I was incapable of self-control much less interior thinking while being lifted to the stage some twenty feet in the air. I felt nothing but wind until the drag brought me down onto the stage, fast at first then slowly as staff came to aid me down safely. Jesse's singing was over and he had just turned away from his mic, eyes on the floor as his hand slid off the mesh, so all I heard was the guitar playing. I was huffing hard as the three staff-one was the girl who asked me if I wanted the harness earlier- uncoupled the ropes and undid the belt around my waist. A man asked if I was okay, if anything was dislocated or torn because that was a pretty unexpected yank into the sky.
"I...I'm good. A bit rattled but good."
They all smiled at me then gathered their things and walked backstage. I was now face-to-face with thirty thousand people in the middle of The Neighbourhood's stage, scared shitless and shaking like a leaf. What the HELL just happened?
The crowd cheered though I know for sure half if not all of them were so damned confused as to why some random girl was yanked on stage. Jesse instigated their approval by clapping before taking his mic off the stand and walking leisurely to me.
"If some of you don't know who this fine young lady is, please take a look at the screen above our heads."
Above us began an entourage of pictures containing me, Zach and I a few times, me and the boys, me and my parents and one with The Mustang. There was one of me in the hospital after I got my stitches where I was smiling and holding up a thumbs-up. There was another where Zach was giving me the classical bunny ears with us and my parents. And there was also one I had totally forgot about, our first photo together where i wore that Mardi Gras outfit that one night at the club that I performed. That seemed so long ago.
"This is Koda. She is the winner of our sweepstakes tonight..." Jesse said over the gentle guitar strums. "But it is a FAR different one than anyone knows of."
I was enveloped in the photos on the screen that I jumped when the crowd gasped EXTREMELY hard. I thought it was the picture of me, Zach, Jesse, and Jeremy all holding one of my family's numerous cats. But when I looked at Zachary Abels leaning forward in front of me, down on one knee, I burst into tears that streamed down my face and plopped onto the floor between us.
"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll only know dear how much I love you. Please, will you marry me today?"
