What He Wouldn't Give (Unedited Version)

Chapter Twenty-One: For The Win

Chapter 21...For The Win

Tonight was a monumental night for Eli, the night before everyone in America who had paid attention to the competition had voted for the winner and tonight he could be the one who walks and frankly that scared Eli after he had done so well. For the past week Eli has been staying in New York because the final round, the tenth round, was hosted live to see if they cracked under pressure and Eli was pretty sure he had done fine, just ended up sweating a little too much due to the huge spotlights that shone on him for performance.

The finally round included one song from the genres of pop, rock, punk, hardcore, country, and a few other genres. This was to expose to the viewers any faults in the singer's voice and to see where they sung the best and had where their low points occurred. Eli knew his country talent was very limited and he blew the stage away with the rock, punk, and hardcore songs he picked.

The Songs from last night included:

Stay the Night by Zedd

Summer of 69' by Bryan Adams

1 Trillion Dollars by Anti-Flag

Right Back At It Again by A Day To Remember

Drunk On You by Luke Bryan

Not Afraid by Eminem

The Star Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key

The two final contestants led the last round off with a duet of the national anthem. The thing that Eli liked about this competition was that it actually had them on a real stage and not in some studio making it look as real as possible. People didn't sit in seats they stood as if it was a real concert and Eli just pretended that it was a concert in the backyard for his friends and classmates. Eli and Chester who was the other semi-finalist were sitting backstage hanging out. Since they were together for the partner rounds three and four they had resolved their conflict and realized they were more alike than they had originally thought.

A couple of record companies were sitting in the crowd tonight deciding if they wanted either one at their company. They had about fifteen minutes before they were supposed to do their final performances before the winner was announced as it was already locked in place. Eli had picked his favorite song to sing that night as tonight was all or nothing. As the minutes dwindled down Eli got anxious and he started to move his left up and down repeatedly and it would not stop unless Eli thought to stop it.

"Anxious much?"

"You don't know the half of it." He said with a slight chuckle to cover up the nervousness that surrounded him like an invisible cloak.

"Hey no matter what happens I was thinking maybe that we should try to reform Anthem Falls."

"I mean we could try it would be fun and I never meant to kick you out when you were sick way back when."

"It's alright and I can see why they did."

And leaving Eli with that Chester walked to the front of the stage as the hosts Dany and JoBell welcomed him to the stage.

Eli gave him a pep talk because sooner than later they called his name and it was now his turn to give it all and hope for the best.

"And for the second semi-finalist Eli Carter, who is here tonight to sing his favorite song."

With that he began to strum the guitar he had his left hand wrapped around on the intro chord and the pick in the right moving up and down the strings over the pick-up. He played the chords and stepped up the microphone and smiled at the crowd.