CLEAN || Taylor Swift Adoption

TWENTY-SEVEN

"That was the first time we were there..."

~EVERLEIGH~

August 14, 2019

"Hello!" A blonde woman that looked to be on the younger side said, greeting Taylor and me at the door to a classroom that I assumed was the choir room. "I'm Ms. Hall, the choir director here at Alcott." She turned to me. "You must be Everleigh."

I nodded, reaching out to shake her hand politely. "Yes, ma'am. It's nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too," Ms. Hall smiled, before turning to Taylor.

"I'm Taylor," Taylor introduced herself as if no one here had any idea who she was. "Great to meet you."

"You too," Ms. Hall said, smiling at Taylor in a manner that made me assume she was slightly starstruck. I didn't blame her—I had been the same way when I first met Taylor at the Secret Session in Nashville. "Alright, so I'll probably only need Everleigh for about twenty minutes max, so if you want to hang out here, feel free to do so."

"Will do," Taylor said, nodding towards Ms. Hall before she turned to me. "Break a leg, Ever."

"Thanks," I said, giving her a relieved smile as I followed Ms. Hall into the choir room. She sat down in one of the chairs in the front row before nodding for me to stand in the center of the room. "Alright, so you can go ahead and sing whatever you've got prepared, and then after that, I might have you sing a few other things, just to get a sense of your voice," she said. "Whenever you're ready."

I nodded, rolling my shoulders back as I took a deep breath. "The drought was the very worst, when the flowers that we'd grown together died of thirst..."

I'd only been told about the audition requirements two days prior to the actual audition, and when I was told to sing any contemporary pop song, there seemed to be only one right choice. Not only could I put 'Clean' in a higher key and have it fit my voice perfectly, but it was also a song that I knew by heart, forwards and backwards. I could sing it in my sleep if I needed to, so I spent the last two days trying to perfect every little detail and add character to my version of the song. Even though I was now living with the original artist of the song, I wanted my audition to sound like it was a song that I had written, from my perspective. I could only hope that it would pay off when Ms. Hall heard it.

After I finished singing, I nodded slightly to let her know that I was done, and she gave me a warm smile. "That was beautiful, Everleigh," she said. "Any particular reason for the song choice?"

"Yes, actually," I nodded. "That's been my favorite song since the album it's on was released. Growing up in foster care, there have been a lot of really hard moments for me, and there's been a lot of people who haven't exactly treated me in the best way possible. So hearing a song that was able to help me realize that I could forget about these people, I could erase them from my life, and I could move on and work towards healing one day has been something that I've carried through almost every placement I've been in since I heard the song. It's always resonated with me, and I guess I'm just lucky that I can transpose it to compliment my voice nicely."

"Well, it was a wonderful performance," Ms. Hall said, nodding to a chair near hers for me to sit down. "Your tone is excellent, and very mature for your age—it's quite impressive. Your voice is very clear, which I think helped to make the song you chose a really great one. I'm gonna say this right now, before we go through with the rest of what I need to hear from you today—I see no problem at all in having you join Chamber, which is our junior and senior choir. I will give you a head's up and say that there are about sixty students in the class, but I don't think it's anything that you won't be able to handle."