Beautiful Disaster (Ongoing & on Hiatus)

Beautiful Disaster - Chapter 17

“Better?”  Tyler gave me a lopsided grin.

I nodded and mimicked Zerrah’s position by snuggling up closer to Tyler.  “Better.”

“There ain’t nothin’ to get worried over.  After all our rehearsals, I assure you, you won’t do good.”  Iggy said.  When I frowned at him again, he grinned back.  “You’ll do great.”

I gave him a little smile in return.  “Thanks, Iggy.”  I looked at the rest of the band anxiously.  “Um, can you guys promise me something?”

Tyler said “Sure” the same time Iggy said “That depends”, while both Caleb and Zerrah simply gave me looks that said, Go ahead.

I smiled at their responses, then frowned again.  “Promise not to hate me if I screw up, ‘kay?”

“You’re not gonna screw up.”  Iggy assured me, a bit exasperated.  “And if you do, then it’s alright.  We learn from our mistakes.  Do you know where the band had its first public performance?”

I shook my head no and heard Tyler chuckle under his breath.

“We performed at Ty’s school during their Fall Ball last year.”  Iggy went on.  “It was Tyler’s idea that we perform.  The rest of us were all for it, but the moment we got on stage, stage fright hit us like a tsunami.”

“We ended up playing the wrong song we’d been practicing for days.”  Tyler laughed.  “It was hilarious!  Then in the middle of the song, Caleb went a bit off-key—”

“—so he starts screaming the rest of the lyrics!”  Iggy continued, and the two of them erupted in laughter.  “Man!  Everyone thought we were a screamo band.”

“But what was surprising was that the crowd loved us.”  Tyler said, his eyes widening in animation.  “They were cheering your brother on and they asked us to do another song with more screaming.  Since we didn’t actually have any screamo songs, we played Hide and Seek and Caleb just screeched off the chorus like a wounded banshee.”

They laughed again, and Tyler reached his hand from behind me to give Iggy a hi-5.

The pressure in my chest lightened after hearing the anecdote.  “Seriously?”

“Dead cert.”  Tyler nodded at me.

“Yeah, and the following morning, I lost my voice.”  Caleb shook his head.  “I’m never doing screamo again.”

“And although the students loved us, the school board and faculty, not so much.”  Zerrah added with a laugh.  “So the chances of our band being invited over to play in their school again is probably as small as the fingernail on your pinky, which means”—she turned her head a fraction to face Caleb—“you won’t have to do anymore screaming, Cale.”    

            “Hooray for the oldies.”  Caleb muttered with a dry grin.

I was going to roll my eyes at them, but mid-roll, I noticed a man sitting in one corner.  Normally, I wouldn’t give much notice to a bearded man in a leather pea coat wearing a black derby hat, except for the fact that he was staring right at me. 

At me. 

I glanced over my shoulder to see if I was wrong, and hopefully, he was looking at whoever was behind me, but right behind me was a pillar.  I looked at him again and felt goosebumps rush over my arms.  He was still looking at me and it was freaking me out. 

            I was going to tell Tyler about him when a voice suddenly interrupted with a Southern drawl:  “A round of applause for Mack n’ Chiz!”  The music died down and the silence was quickly followed by the sound of clapping.