Counting Up The Days (Camren)

After (A Performance)

I didn't separate myself from Dinah for the next few days and she didn't stray far from me either. We were finding solace in each other, prosthetic limbs to a piece of ourselves that had been ripped from our bodies. Ally and Normani preferred to suffer through it alone or with other people that weren't part of the group, distance is what they craved. But distance seemed unattainable to Dinah and I at that moment, separating ourselves from the ball of energy that had been Camila seemed like a far away objective if it was even which was even possible. I was thinking of her almost as if she had passed away, the other option was just as painful. So I stayed by Dinah's side and she stayed by mine throughout the days in LA.

Los Angeles, the place where both Angels and Demons reside alongside each other, sometimes even sharing the same body. The place where the tears flow most easily and where dreams are made reality only in limited, controlled amounts. The city of Angels, the intermediaries between Heaven and Earth, between luck and fame and misfortune and disgrace. As you can probably tell I don't hold this city in very high regard, or rather I don't hold the people who control the city in high regard- and for once I am not talking about the politicians.

It was back to the rehearsal grind, the blood and the sweat and the bruises and the almost giving up before being forced to keep fighting through the searing pain in your muscles because you've only been at it for an hour and there's still three and a half more to go. There's the rush too though, of muscles being stretched into nasty new positions, of feeling your stomach tighten, of finally getting an impossible move right. I truly do love dancing, but especially when we're on tour it sometimes feels like I'm more of a dancer than a singer- I definitely spend more time practicing dance techniques than I do perfecting singing ones.

Day twenty three and the first performance of the year, the first performance without Camila being an official member of the group was coming ever nearer, and to top it all off it was an award show. I have become used to normal tour shows, with arenas filled with fans and people who will on the most part have a good time regardless of if you mess up- it just adds to the candidness of seeing us in person. When the room is filled by people of the same industry however, some of which are more famous than you, more talented than you and with a larger following than you, the celebrity hierarchy as we like to call it starts to appear and the nerves of being judged by people that matter begin to kick in.

And then of course there's the awards themselves, however much you prepare yourself for defeat you can never quite get accustomed to unwillingly building yourself up with secret hope and anticipation before being beaten on live television aired across the country with hundreds of cameras around you and that growing pit of failure in your stomach. Despite what they'll tell you the people in our industry got to where we are for a reason, and part of it is a very competitive streak. It has got ugly backstage before and even though I've never (thank God) participated in any of those rows to date, the feeling of failure is not that much nicer. At least there were four other people to share that pain with- but now there's only three.

Three is better than none, but it's not the same as four. To top it all off I got given her Work From Home verse, all I could hear in my head during rehearsals was her own voice singing it back at me ten times better, the failure had already kicked in and I hadn't even lost an award yet. The dances were different: different formations different stances different choreography even at parts. We were truly trying to start over it seemed, but our problem was it's pretty difficult to start over when we have the same old material to work with.

Day 24 and I couldn't sleep. Even with Dinah by my side I couldn't stop my windpipe constricting and my stomach's butterflies going into overdrive.

Day 25 and I got truly sick. But fill me up with drugs and herbal teas and basically anything that claims it works and I persevere on with the rest of them, getting angrier by the minute at my lack of a fully functioning body.

Day 26 and it was show day. We spent our sun-lit hours at the artificially lighted venue doing soundchecks, getting a feel of the stage and all-round just trying to not freak out too much about that evening. The seconds, minutes and then hours ticked by grudgingly slowly at first and then all at once until I found myself in that box with the lights off, mic-packs in, a crowded room full of momentarily silenced people and my heart in my mouth. Then the music started.

It becomes muscle memory, the lyrics and the melodies and the moves. Now is the time that I give thanks to the hours of incessant rehearsal hammering all this into us until it becomes second nature. When you're on that stage you don't hear the ceaseless screams and shouts until you realise afterwards that your ears are numb, you don't see the crowds because the lights shining on your face are too bright. In that moment you don't even think.

I was told once that I would truly know the moment I had made it as a performer when I didn't just think about the music when on the stage anymore. Instead I would really have become one with my job when, in the instant of performing, I became the music itself, no thinking necessary. For a long time I didn't know what she was on about, I kept willing myself not to think-and we all know where that leads us to when we consciously try to become unconscious of something.

But then one day something was different in my performance, and like with a lot of my greatest memories and most life changing moments Camila played a part in it. Who Are You. Not when we first heard the demo and were put in that recording booth to try it out, not when we first sang it to a live audience, not for a long time.

412 days before in Madrid, Spain. It wasn't by far the biggest or the best concert we'd ever done nor did it mark any particularly tumultuous day in Camila and I's ever changing relationship, but for some reason it was just the Day. Over the years I've come to the conclusion that it was the city, never visited before and yet full of wonders we had always fantasised about; and it was also the people, so loud so loving so enthusiastic to see us and to share their passions with; and it was the language, what brought Camila and I together in the group making us feel like the only ones able to decipher the Morse code (and maybe the message hidden in that language made for just two was love). And it was also the weather and the looks and the bus ride the evening before and a million and one other little factors which culminated into that starry night.

It hadn't been long since we had broken apart officially what was our relationship. Only nine days later in fact. The day started without another body's presence in my bunk (although a lustful truce had been made during a few hours of the night). That's probably what hurt the most: us caving into each other when the stars were our only witness, whilst continuing on with unsatisfied craving during the walking hours of the day buried in the knowledge that the sun and moon had more chances of ending up together than us.

So it was this myriad of emotions and unforgettable experiences all orchestrated together in a single day which made two of my synapses connect in a way they had never done before- call it luck call it biology or call it something in between but everything just clicked. When Camila sang her introductory melody I looked over at her for the second I permitted myself to and was met with a sadness and pain that I'm sure reflected my own. The helplessness of the situation and the hundreds of personas I realised we were forced to take on even when we were alone together brought themselves simultaneously in concert so that the second I started singing it wasn't a voluntary effort to let words loose so passionately and truthfully, it suddenly became as much of a reflex as closing one's eyes when sneezing or for one's pupils to dilate after a unexpected rush.

I had become the embodiment of the lyrics, creating them in my heart or my heart being created from them- there probably isn't a difference.

It took me a while longer to master the technique, but by this point even during songs that lacked any personal depth such as Work From Home this learnt reflex came to me as easily as the sky turns from blue to black at night. It's not a thing in science and of the few people I've told about it barely any claim to experience something similar, but I am convinced this magical learnt reflex exists if only to assure myself of the fact that I was made for music and for the life I am living.

I'm back on the People's Choice Awards' stage, breathless and returning to reality as the lights go up and I'm almost blinded by a sea of faces all staring back at me.

We did it. We completed the first phase of the next step of our journey and won an award to boot. So when we got off the stage with the sound of music coupled with laughter and shouts still ringing in my ears and with champagne and friends to greet us, I allowed myself to be swept away by the tide of emotions coming crashing in. All of them happy for once.