Chapter 3
THREE
KAYLEE
The roar that greeted us when our band name was announced was deafening. A hundred voices in a small room could cause more of a ruckus than ten thousand in a stadium, if those voices were fervent enough.
“Do you think they stacked the audience with our fans on purpose?” Anya whispered to me as we waited backstage.
“I’d rather assume we’re so big that the general public just loves us,” I said with a cheeky smile. “A nice boost to the ego, right?”
“None of us need that kind of boost.” Anya bit her lip to stifle a laugh. Or maybe she was biting her lip to keep it from trembling with nerves.
Micah had been right, most of us got over our nerves long ago. Not Anya, though. Despite how cool she seemed on stage, she still turned green while in the green room. Ha. Was it uncool to snicker at my own dumb joke?
“So about our first song…” I started.
“Mm-hm?” she hummed, dark brown eyes scanning the waiting audience.
“You know how I sorta-kinda-not-really wrote it about my mom in a ‘I didn’t use your name so you can’t sue me for libel’ kind of way?”
Anya flicked her eyes to me, now curious, and nodded for me to go on.
“I was wondering if this time you could do something different with it,” I said.
“Different?” she asked, cocking her head. “Like what?”
“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “It’s about the chorus.”
As I was outlining my idea, the rest of the guys in the band came barreling over, assistants and staff surrounding them in the front and the back, making an oddly protective-looking ring.
I nearly snorted. And here they were, with their entourage, making a scene wherever they went.
Micah broke away from the group first and began to make his way toward the curtain where Anya and I were standing. Our eyes met.
I don’t know what expression was on my face but he stumbled in his haste to turn on his heel. He instead moved to take a peek out of the curtain blocking us from the stage, as if that had been his intention all along. I continued staring at him, boring a hole into his back with my gaze alone.
“Oh,” Anya said knowingly. “Change the chorus, hm?”
I didn’t have time to give her any further instructions because the lights went down and we were ushered out from behind the curtain and into our places on the stage.
Anya took the microphone. Zain and Chris settled their guitar straps around their shoulders.
Finn hefted his bass guitar in his hands.
Micah took his place behind the keys. I settled myself firmly behind my drum set, making sure to have extra pairs of drumsticks sticking out of my knee-high boots.
I waited, anticipation growing in my chest, hands at the ready. Then the lights flared back on and it was go time.
The deep thrum of Finn’s bass guitar hit me straight in the gut and Anya’s singing went straight to my heart.
She really had taken my idea and was running with it full speed.
I’d been the one who’d written the lyrics so it made sense that I might feel overly-emotional.
Her voice was full of such feeling that by the time she got to the chorus, I struggled to keep my eyes from stinging with the beginnings of tears.
I’ve been told since I was ten years old
that I shouldn’t be too bold
And I was told as a thirteen year old
that I had to be controlled
But I’ve changed
I’ve left this cage
Because I’ve finally aged
I asked Anya to switch one of the lines.
‘Because I’ve finally aged’ was supposed to be ‘And now I’m on the stage.’
I wondered what everyone would think of it: the audience, the guys, the rest of the world watching on their TV screens. The line change was subtle, but true fans, and our band members, would notice.
I won’t hide cause now I’ve got my pride
and I’ve opened up my eyes
Won’t change my mind, I’m taking to the sky
‘cause I know it’s finally time
So I’ve changed
I’ve left this cage
Because I’ve finally aged
I hadn’t teared up during a performance in years, yet here I was, doing exactly that.
I took a brief second to shift my eyes to Micah, to see if he had any reaction. His head was bowed over the keyboard and he played with such ferocity I had to imagine he’d realized what I’d asked Anya to do.
Soon the performance wound down. It was a short set, we only had time for three songs. You better believe we’d all almost come to blows over the set list. What family didn’t fight over things, after all? But I’d come out the victor with one of my songs being chosen to play first.
I hadn’t exactly planned on the whole ‘stick it to Micah’ thing, but I guess it turned out to a be good song choice in the end.
After the last song we left our instruments and headed over to the sofa and chairs next to the host’s desk. Micah took a seat at the back. I made sure to sit on the exact opposite side, putting me in the front.
We had a bit of an intro already planned, with Finn and Zain drawing the center of attention away from Anya, as usual, so I spent the time brainstorming explanations I could give if the host asked about the song change.
I could tell the truth, that it had been about my experiences growing up, especially with people like my mom in my life.
Or…
Maybe I could change the narrative a little?
Talk about how it was based on something recent?
I couldn’t help but want to see Micah squirm as I recounted a too-true-to-life story.
Maybe that was mean of me. When it came to harmless pranks, Finn tended to be the one to overdo it, not me.
If I essentially told on Micah and aired our dirty laundry, so to speak, without naming names, would that be going too far?
I wanted to make him squirm, yes, but I didn’t want to actually hurt him, even though he’d hurt me. I didn’t want our relationship to turn into something like that, where we each took turns emotionally wounding the other, back and forth, until our friendship was unsalvageable.
I just hoped we hadn’t reached that point already.
“So Kaylee,” the host said, turning to me.
I snapped back to attention, chiding myself.
I’d let my mind wander so far that I’d almost forgotten I was on live TV.
The host was an average late-middle-aged guy with a stand-up comedy background, the kind we dealt with on almost every late night show, so I had to hope he wouldn’t throw me any curveball questions.
“I’m told you wrote the first song the band played, is that right?” he asked.
“Right!” I chirped, putting on my brightest smile as I nodded, red curls bouncing down my shoulders.
“We’ve all written songs, but this one was mostly mine, with some help from Micah, our keyboardist.” I turned my head around and gave him a cheery grin.
I’d decided to not let on that there was anything wrong with the band.
“I wrote all the lyrics and came up with the melodies. He helped with arranging.”
“Can you tell me about the song?” the host asked. “What’s it about?”
“Well, all of my songs come from the heart.” I shifted in my seat to lean forward dramatically.
“Sometimes I take phrases right out of my journal, to be honest. So a lot of the stuff I write is very personal. I don’t like to be too specific about what my songs mean.
I like to leave things to the listener’s imagination.
” I laughed then. “I find that the kind of theories people come up with are more interesting than reality, actually.”
“Fascinating!” the host said effusively, and even managed to not sound insincere about it. “So Zain…” he said, turning to face our lead guitarist.
I breathed a sigh of relief. He hadn’t asked for any more details about the song lyrics. Probably wasn’t a fan so he didn’t care.
But from the narrow-eyed stare I could see aimed at me out of the corner of my eyes, Micah certainly did.