* The following piece of writing is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental..
I don’t usually gig in the south, as I don’t like anyone local to me knowing this is what I do as a side hustle. I usually gig up north, and we make a trip of it, me and the band – we do mainly covers but I have the ability to make any song my own with my soulful voice. A day before the gig, I’m enjoying a leisurely Thursday evening at home and I hear a knock at my front door, it’s my agent, it’s unusual for him to make house calls but he was clearly desperate. They needed someone to fill in for a Friday night gig and he was anxiously hoping I could be that someone – every cell in my body wanted to say no, but I could hear the plea in his voice and see the desperation in his eyes, so I relented and said yes. It’s the night of the gig and I am always grateful that I have a stage persona that propels my confidence to atmospheric levels – I literally turn into a performer, and I love every minute of it, singing my heart out, to a room full of receptive folks who sway and dance to my every word – it’s euphoric to say the least. This is so far removed from how I normally conduct myself; I usually prefer to work behind the scenes, never really being centre stage but put a mic in front me and I’m transformed, I even move differently, it’s like my entire body comes alive to the music, the vibe, the atmosphere, just everything.
Tonight I’m doing a cover of Billie Eilish’s Birds of a Feather – one of my faves as the words mean a lot to me because I am more than brave enough to say I am a hopeless romantic and have always loved love and how much of a universal language it is – we all crave it, we all need it and it’s power is unwieldly. I am in full swing of the set and the atmosphere is just heavenly, I am thoroughly enjoying myself, more than I thought I would considering this is a local gig. The crowd are amazing, very welcoming considering they’ve never come across my work before – they are resonating with my energy, it feels electric, hyped, vibrant, oh I could go on, but you get the picture. There’s a band coming on after us, after we finish and take in the rapture of the applause, I am flying high on the buzz of how well it went. The band and I are walking through the crowd to get through to the dressing rooms out back, when I spot someone, I used to work with and I am actually okay with seeing someone I know, as I am still in my stage persona, so my confidence is still sky high. I stop and say hi to Chris, he’s shocked to learn about this side of me as in all the four years that we worked together I never told a soul about my singing. He is super impressed and has a tonne of questions for me, I laugh at his enthusiasm and as I am talking to him, explaining myself, he introduces me to the friends he came with and as I say hi to them that is when I realise, I also know one of them – someone I didn’t think I’d ever see again. My heart almost stops beating because I'd forgotten how sparkly his eyes were, how captivated I had been by him, he was my “if only” – the guy I had wanted so much from, but the timing had never quite been right. I hadn’t thought about him for a long time, but here I was face to face with him again and that high I was already on, skyrocketed. I was blown away by how much of an effect he still had on me, I thought it had faded to nothing, but seeing him again, now, in person, just brought it all crashing back.
He smiled at me and complimented what Chris had been voicing, saying how lovely he found the set – his smile, that smile – it mesmerised me, so much so my mouth had gone dry. I just about got the words “thank you, that’s really kind of you to say” out of my mouth because I was feeling so many things all at the same time. He looked so enamouring, still as well put together as the last time I saw him, but in the dim lights of the venue he looked even more mysterious and alluring. The last time we had communicated there had been so many things I had wanted to say to him, but I hadn’t and equally it had felt as though there had been so much that he had wanted to say to me, but he knew he couldn’t. I wondered how he was doing now, whether he was in a better place as he hadn't been doing so well a year ago, but then again, he was always a master masker – so hardly anyone would have known that anything was amiss with him. Every fibre of my being wanted to take him aside to talk to him alone and say the words I had wanted to say for such a long time, but I didn’t, I put my heart back inside my chest and left it all unsaid.
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