Miss Mississippi

People say it's impossible to love too much, and while true, they forget you can fall too hard - and when you fall too hard, there's no way to keep from getting hurt. Even when you soar from the top of a stage and dive into a sea of adoring fans, that pit of despair never seems to fill, and the feeling of tearing at your heart never goes away. For an organ made almost entirely of muscle, it's much more delicate than the sum of its parts suggests.

And mine's been torn at for far too long, the thought screamed into Nora's head louder than the music of her bandmates or the cheers of the fans undulating her crowd-surfed body back to the stage. Her eyes scanned the audience in search of the wavy, brown hair that made her heart skip, and her vision jumped from one hollering face to the next until it rested on the beautiful, beaming smile that sent shivers down her spine.

Ava had come to support her again, and although she was both a fan and a friend, for Nora she was much more. In her mind, Nora had dedicated all her performances at the battle of the bands to Ava and had allowed herself (as foolhardy as it was) to feel the small gesture would magically turn into something more. She'd spent so much energy trying to wish the fantasy into existence that by the time she'd finished her last set of the day, she was exhausted enough to ignore the usual heckles from the less civil parts of the crowd: "Is that a beard on her face?", "I think the frontman needs to learn how to juggle some balls if you know what I mean...", "Baby, come over here. I can give you what you're missing."

Nora left the stage with a bounce in her step despite it all - the smile had electrified her with positive energy - but the bounce didn't do much to assuage the pains of having worn five-inch heels for too long, so she kept her interactions with Ava to a simple "hello" and "thank you for coming" before leaving the auditorium. She walked past the broad lawn and parade of parked cars, casually observed the few puffy clouds in the slowly darkening sky, and tried not to wince with every step as she arrived at her front door.

Once inside, she relieved her feet of their tormentors and continued to relieve her chest of its tight top and bra. She moved to the bathroom and filled the sink with hot water, soaking her calloused fingers in the warmth, then scooped it up to her face and removed the makeup. Slowly her red lips faded in color and the rosiness of her cheeks settled on a somber tan, the midnight blue eyeshadow saw sunrise, and the pitch black eyeliner found its skin lining. The leather mini and panties followed, and a quick shower later, there emerged from the bathroom the face of someone not so well-known as the lead singer of Peacock.

It was a face its owner had known for far longer and one that could blend in more easily with the passing crowds whenever desired or necessary - it was the face Aron was born with.

He pulled his hair into a messy bun and rubbed the skin where the bra's underwire had left an indent. Hastily slipping a loose shirt over jeans, he grabbed a pair of less painful boots and left the apartment in hopes of catching the tail end of the battles.

When he arrived at the auditorium, it was packed much tighter than earlier, so he lingered for a couple songs by The Chameleons and one by Schroedinger's Cat before retiring to fresh air. Not in the mood to return home or reemerge as Nora - especially with Ava nowhere to be seen - he found a high curb next to the lawn and began to fiddle with the guitar he'd brought with him.

The taut strings gave off an unwanted sound as he strummed, but a half-turn of a couple keys let him fall into the music effortlessly. His left hand caressed the frets, and he smoothly transitioned into an acoustic version of the song Peacock had performed earlier, dropping the scale by an octave to allow for a huskier tone:

She's just a girl
But she's gonna save the world,
And when she does
She's gonna come and rescue me
From all these things
That wanna drag me six feet deep.
Oh, Miss Mississippi,
You're the one for me...