Spotlight

33

***Tristan's POV***

I woke up to the sound of the stage director loudly knocking on my door. I looked up at the clock to notice it was nearly seven and I had missed soundcheck over an hour ago. I quickly jumped to my feet and tossed my wrinkled shirt onto the floor.

"Coming!" I yelled as I dug through my wardrobe to find a new one. I pulled out a black tank top and tossed it over my head. I ran to the door and swung it open in a quick gust.

"What have you been doing? You missed soundcheck!" the manager yelled.

"I was sleeping, sorry," I murmured. I really didn't have any other excuse because that was truly what I was doing.

"We're going to get promotional photos first, and then were going to get you four to go on stage with your opening act tonight, and then play an extended set."

My heart fell weak at the sound extended set and I instantly felt drained again. I could barely play a full show, let alone a set that was extended.

Sometimes I wondered how I had made it through the entire World Tour alive. At times when I felt like I was so tired that I was living off burnt coffee and cans of Redbull, I wondered what would happen if something happened to me. I knew I had adoring fans that would never want anything to happen to me, but what would happen if something did?

The tour manager that told me to continue moving towards the stage snapped me from my thoughts. We had already had multiple sets of photos taken, and we continued to another room before we came up from the bottom of the stage.

As requested every night of the tour I found a plastic cup full of pure coffee sitting on the edge of the only table in the room. For me it was pure ecstasy, slipping down a few coffee shots and feeling myself become instantly revived.

I swung my guitar strap over my shoulder and caught up to the other boys at the other end of the corridor. We instantly turned into a dark room, which turned out to be under the stage.

The roaring sound in my ears begun as I managed to tune into the voices in the arena. For one final time I had to give my all. Tristan Dawson was not making it to another World Tour.

Instantaneously we all stood on a black glassed floor, that was soon going to arise into the arena where the voices would scream louder and my headache would become a body ache.

Our opening song was always the most painful. It included jumping, and climbing all over the stage to ensure that the entire crowd was included in the hype. Sometimes I felt like standing in one position and singing an entire two hour set from that position. I didn't want to get booed off the stage though.

When we were lifted into the arena, the crowds roars could be heard even though the entire arena was in anticipation. The stage was dark, and I counted down in my head until Blake hit a string on his electric guitar and the entire set would begin in a fit of lights.

His one quick strum came fast, and the entire arena was lit into a burst of colorful lights and screams that deafened me.

The first lyric began and I sung with everything that I could, although I could feel myself falling apart underneath the lights.

After we had got midway through the set, the lights went down for our annual change of clothes. The stage was backlit by a series of lights that evaded through the back entrance. We jumped off the stage in a buzz from the previous fourteen songs we had played.

Ryder led us down the hall as he briefly laughed about some song that we played when someone in the crowd held up a poster that plastered profanities. To them it was rather funny, but I didn't have the energy to laugh at the moment.

Ryder led the pack, then Blake, then Jordan and then myself. I trailed a fair bit behind them as I dragged my feet along the concrete to the backstage room. Two women instantly ran up to me and forced my arms directly above my body. They carelessly slid the tank top off over my head and revealed the naked top half of my body. I felt self conscious around the other boys, although they were like blood to me.

Another tank top was quickly thrown over my head, and another lady dabbed a white cotton pad onto my face to remove the beads of sweat. I wanted to feel alive, or feel something realer than this. I didn't need costume changes or makeup artists. I just wanted to feel alive.

We entered the same corridor again and the crowd was still roaring from anticipation. Some would call this an encore, but we did the same thing at every show – so it didn't feel like an encore anymore. We would go out and play nine more songs and call it a night. We usually finished around eleven thirty.

The other boys led me as they always did. As we entered the stage through the side entrance instead of through the floor, I noticed a quick flash of brown hair and almost thought I was losing it.

My eyes were drawn to a corner of the crowd where the seats were empty, except for two seats taken by a man in a fluorescent security top. That specific section of the crowd was not open to the public, as the seats were considered behind the stage therefore we decided to not sell any tickets there... so why was someone sitting there?

My eyes fooled me in the distance as I stared at the two figures, who were looking across to my right. Their faces were unable to be made out from the distance I was standing at.

"Lets go man," Jordan called from behind me. The other two were lined up and ready to go on stage. A manager attached my guitar strap to the sound box I had to carry around on me, before handing me the guitar.

Jordan grabbed my arm and pulled me towards the stage with the rest of them, and we continued on with our extended set. I counted in my head until we had around three songs left.

In the middle of our third last song, I sat my guitar down at the back of the stage which I usually did. This song was pretty bass heavy, so Jordan and Ryder stayed on their instruments, while Blake and I moved around the stage with cordless microphones.

I covered the left side of the stage, while Blake covered the right side. It was the same that we had done at every other show.

In a flash the lights processed over to my side of the stage, and the stands were revealed in a quick second. I lowered the microphone from my mouth to my torso as I recognized the brunette figure in the crowd.

I flicked a curl from my forehead as the lights rose into the stands again, where Mae's adoring eyes stared up at me on the stage.