in my wildest dreams - a taylor swift fanfiction

6 - sweet, sweet superstar

I could feel my heart beating faster in my chest as I grabbed the guitar and started walking out onto the stage. Thankfully the lights were kind of blinding so, if I didn't concentrate on the individual faces in the sea of people in front of me, they all just looked like dark blobs. I went over to the middle of the stage, gulping.

"Uhm, hi," I said, waving a little with my right hand. "My name is Skye, and I was originally s'pose to sing Change by Taylor Swift for y'all... but uhm, — I don't know if you know this or not — but I work at a preschool. I really love it because I get to perform Taylor Swift songs in front of a bunch of happy preschoolers... but about two weeks ago, one of those happy preschoolers actually passed away."

It felt like my throat was closing up and I had to stop and take a deep breath. My eyes were also getting teary, and I already knew I would be crying soon.

"His name was Mason, and he was just the sweetest kid. He never forgot to give me a goodbye hug and he was always smilin'. Uhm, so like I said, I had planned to sing Change — because my life is a bit of a mess right now and I just wanted to sing somethin' that would make me feel better — but I actually changed my mind, like, right before I went out here. So instead of Change, I'll sing another song, also by Taylor. It's called Ronan, and this song goes out to anyone who knew and lost Mason like I did."

Yup, I was crying, but I knew I had to do this. I really wanted to do it, for Mason. Taking a deep breath, I positioned the guitar and started playing the intro.

"I remember your bare feet down the hallway, I remember your little laugh. Race cars on the kitchen floor, plastic dinosaurs, I love you to the moon and back."

I felt tears streaming down my face but, somehow, my voice still came out clear which I was really thankful for.

"I remember the drive home, when the blind hope turned to crying and screaming 'why?'. Flowers pile up in the worst way, no one knows what to say, about a beautiful boy who died..." This was the part that always got to me, no matter where I was or what I was feeling prior to listening to it. I continued to sing but my voice was now a little shaky and I had to force myself to make the words understandable. "And it's about to be Halloween, you could be anything you wanted if you were still here..."

After finishing the song, I broke down completely and ran off the stage, not caring about saying anything else. I was glad that I hadn't been able to see the audience's pitying faces because I didn't think I would've made it through the whole song if I had.

While the next person got onto the stage, I made my way over to an armchair and sat down, letting myself calm down and eventually stop crying. Only a few minutes after I'd stopped crying and was feeling better, Thomas walked over and looked at me as if he was afraid to talk.

"Hi?" I said, looking up at him questioningly.

"Hi... are you okay?" he asked gingerly, and I nodded. "Okay, so Maia was going to perform next, but I just found out that she's sick. If you want to, you could take her place? You could sing that other song that you had planned?"

I furrowed my eyebrows looking up at him for a moment, thinking it through. "... sure, why not," I replied finally and gave him a small smile that he returned.

"Great! Then you're up after William. Good luck!"

This time when I walked up in front of everyone I wasn't half as nervous as before, even though the lights weren't as bright anymore and I could see the faces of the people in the audience. I gave them a warm smile and went to sit down in the chair that someone had placed in the middle of the stage.

I laughed nervously through my nose as I sat down and smiled at everyone. "Hi again. So, apparently Maia who was up next is sick and they asked if I could take her place. I promise it won't be sad this time, but I felt it really important that I sang Ronan, so I hope you don't hate me for making it all sad in here earlier. Anyway, I'm gonna sing Change for y'all and hopefully someone else in here might relate to this song too."