The Truths Behind the Life of Maeve Sun Lively

13

IT WAS MID-2018 AND OUR GROUP had just started an album. Our own songs.

My voice used serious auto-tune in the songs, and I hated that. But Mr. Wang insisted. Although my dancing has gotten better than before, I was able to catch up. I was starting to dance as good as Bridget, and I thought she'd be threatened by that but she wasn't. She was happy for me instead, once she even said to me, "I'm so glad you've managed to get so good. We will be at the top together." I managed to smile back.

I don't know how she does that. Because if I were her, I wouldn't be joyful that one of my teammates might be as good or even better than me. I was just starting to realize that you can never really share the spotlight with someone else. Well, depends what kind of spotlight you're talking about. But I wanted to be the best, and the best only meant the best. Bridget and I couldn't be the best together.

Our first album was sent out for release, and when it was confirmed for a release date, Bridget and all of us were dancing in joy. I mean, it's this feeling. Your own work, being sold into the world for the first time after all that time of practice. How can you not feel happy? I remember we would stop dancing to other singers' songs. We were dancing to our own songs. Do you know what I mean? That feeling? Seeing the name G.W.F. under our songs, we were on music apps. It was exciting, and we could all feel that joy of starting to rise to the top.

But our songs weren't selling. No one was listening to it. And Mr. Wang was trying his best to book us music videos to shoot for some songs in our albums. But no company wanted to work with us. They barely cared to listen. We were nobodies, and we weren't given the opportunities to show ourselves. It's like you were rising to the top, but then the thing that is driving you to the top suddenly stops working, and you find yourself falling. We were all too excited, and then the hopes that had just begun dies.

You could feel the dread between all of us when we got up to train. Even Bridget, her voice didn't sound as exciting as before. And her dancing looked lifeless. We all felt lifeless. We worked so hard and the reality suddenly set in that even if we do work hard, it won't always work. It felt like we were working towards nothing.

Until Mr. Wang came up with another plan.

"Since we can't get music videos to shoot, we will do live concerts."

You can tell Kayla and Phoebe seemed unmoved by the suggestion.

"But no one even listens to our songs. Who will come?"

"We'll start the tickets cheap and give out free drinks, and people, they'll come for the cheap tickets and drinks. And once they have seen you guys, they'll keep coming. We just need the chances to show you guys off. People need to see your faces with your music, that's how it works."

We looked from one another, clearly a heat of rising hope between our eyes. That's when we all started working again.

Like how Bridget had mentioned, Mr. Wang wanted to go with the theme of highlights in our hairs. Phoebe and Kayla both hated the idea. But once they got it, Phoebe with blue highlights mixed in with her natural black hair, and Kayla with purple highlights mixed in with her natural black hair, you can tell they loved it.

When Mr. Wang got to me, he looked indecisive. I had just about the prettiest dark natural brown hair, and I think he didn't want to ruin it with the cheap hair dyes. So he decided to use some light brown hair dyes for my hair instead of some bright colors like the others. When it was done, you have to admit that the light streaks of brown highlights running through the dark brown of my hair looked completely natural, like I was born with it. I stood out from them like that, and I liked it.