Swish

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The retina burning ring light set before me highlighted the professionally applied makeup which cast shimmering gold across my dark features, a matte pink dancing along my plump lips and deep neutrals and glittering metallics across my eyelids, an artful black eyeliner wing and long fake lashes pulling it all together making me seem like a completely different person. 

I didn't want to see Eli like this.  I'd take it all off before going to him because, while the effect made me look beautiful and almost otherworldly, I wasn't me, but a caricature of what my music industry manager wanted me to be.  

Countless staff with headsets and clipboards dressed in all black shirts and dress pants scattered about all around me, talking to one another on their closed channels, but I couldn't have felt more alone. 

Sure, my grandparents were in the stands above, as well as my new friend Sierra from work and even my bitchy manager Bree, but the person that I needed to have close-the person that I would give the air out of my lungs to see one more time, was out there somewhere and I couldn't stop the raging butterflies in my stomach from attacking one another. 

The fading sunset cast a glinting magenta hue through the windows of the green room and I sipped lukewarm water through a straw before practicing my vocal exercises one more time, desperate to make sure that I didn't crack on a single note in practice before the big event. 

If only I knew where Eli would be sitting, so that way I could focus on him and not on the countless strangers watching me, waiting for me to fail. 

The fact that I still felt so strongly for him after so long without seeing him was not lost on me; I knew without a doubt in my mind that I was still in love with him, desperately so.  I just needed to make sure he felt the same about me...

"Two minutes, Miss Bruins."

"Thank you," I responded to the tech who had been stationed beside my chair the entire time, the one specific worker tasked with keeping an eye on me and making sure I was at my mark by the time the cameras dipped down from the inside of the stadium to the court below, catching every blink and eye twitch, every tremble in my bones and bead of sweat rolling on my forehead. 

A few phones began chirping close by, but just as I was about to grab my own to see what the news was, it was suddenly snatched from my hands. 

"Your manager said no distractions.  Sorry."

Of course, she did.  I shot a tight lipped smile to the tech who was only doing her job and asked her name to keep my mind off things. 

Her name was Shawna, and she was a huge fan of Eli's.  So.  That wasn't awkward at all. 

I self consciously touched the top of my hair, smoothing down imaginary bumps that my mind created to give my idle hands something to do. 

One more vocal run up and down the scale, one more double checking of the lyrics, and then I didn't have two minutes anymore. 

Instead, I was being ushered down the hallway and into the stadium carousel, passing the rope that cordoned off the public from the private sections.  Large men wearing all black accompanied us, though I doubted I needed security.  

The basketball players were already on the court, but the roar of the crowd made it seem as if the game were already in full swing. 

Suddenly, the sound blotted out everything and I almost tripped in the expensive heels that had been loaned out to me by a designer wanting to show off their new pieces before the collection dropped.  

Needless to say, I had big shoes to fill. 

My slick hands trembled in the tight fists they were balled up in, but I refused to show fear on my face.  On the outside, I was the picture of perfect calm and no one had any idea that I'd never performed in front of a crowd so large before.