Tori|
Unlike Trina, I didn't always dream of living my life on the stage. In fact, before I got accepted to Hollywood Arts, my biggest dreams included owning a pet hedgehog and maybe being a fitness instructor. Before the day I substituted for Trina during the performance that changed my life, I had never been in front of a crowd. I didn't know the golden stream of adrenaline in my veins, the way it burned so deliciously through my limbs and my throat and pumped music from somewhere inside of me that couldn't be seen on an x-ray. I didn't know the thunder of a roaring crowd or the crackle of applause. I didn't know my home was up there.
In these moments just before I'm about to go on stage, putting all of myself out there for the world to see and judge, I feel more alive than I've ever been. I'm acutely aware of the way my lungs feel expanding and deflating in my chest and the steady drumbeat of my excited pulse throbbing in my neck and the distinct tingling in the tips of my fingers and toes. Even though the back of the stage is shrouded in shadows, my eyes feel like they're burning and everything seems louder than it really it is. Cat's warm-ups are blaring in my ears to the point of it being painful, but I don't step away or tell her to stop. It's a good, anticipatory kind of pain.
Through a thin sliver between the curtains, I can see the stage. It's empty and waiting and washed in white light. Beyond that is the auditorium, already almost full to bursting with Hollywood Arts students and staff and proud parents with their cameras on and ready for the performance. I find my own parents pretty easily - my mom is standing in the aisle, scanning the vacant seats and judging where the best angle to record me is located. My dad, bless him, is trying his best to appear interested, but when my mother turns his back, he checks his phone, probably hoping for a bank robbery to attend to. He obviously supports me, but my dad is more of a I-like-to-shoot-things kind of person and finds watching a bunch of kids sing and dance kind of boring.
There are even some people who don't really have a connection to Hollywood Arts out there - they just come for the entertainment because, let's be honest here; there is no such thing as mediocre at an art school talent show.
"Where's Jade?"
I turn at the question. Cat has paused in her scales to blink at me. "I dunno," I reply, stepping around Cat to look back and forth across the backstage for any sign of her. There's a lot of kids back here, giggling and sweating and shaking the nerves out of their hands and feet, but I don't see Jade yet. She performs after me but should be here by now. Chewing my lip, I slip back to the crack in the curtains, waiting to find a shock of black hair mingled with stripes of green to bob among the crowd. After a few moments of scanning, I think I've found her. I'm about to announce her arrival to Cat when the woman I thought was Jade turns, profile angled toward the stage, and I quietly gasp.
"I'm just as shocked as you are."
With the sentence comes a pair of arms around my waist. Without turning to look, I melt into Jade's chest. Her lips are by my ear. "Wow," I say, thoroughly impressed. Jade's mom was certainly the last person I ever expected to show up. "Isn't that something?"
"It gets better."
I cock my head just far enough so she can see my perked eyebrow. Her arm raises and I follow the straight line it creates out toward the crowd. To the left of Jade's mother and a little farther up is a tall man with dark cropped hair. I recognize him immediately from the one time we met as Jade's father, his hands stuffed into the pockets of his suit jacket. "Wow," I repeat. Frowning, I finally twist in Jade's arms to find her eyes. "How do you -"
My words come to a halt with my jaw swinging open because, man, Jade looks amazing. A shimmery ebony top hugs Jade's chest and in the dim backstage lights, I can make out a dark bolt of blue zig-zagging across the shirt like lightning. Tight black jeans are held in place by a belt so heavily studded it must be lethal, I'm sure, and great, intimidating black boots make Jade taller than usual. Eventually, my wandering eyes make it back to Jade's face - a cobalt shade lines her eyelids, her dusky emerald eyes crinkled by a lopsided smile currently taking residence on her face.
