Ivy Grows

Heart of Gold.

The subway screeches to a halt and I hop up, making my through the doors before anyone else even has time to get over to them. At this point I'm lightly jogging up the stairs and out on to the sidewalk. I can see the bright sign that read "Radio City" on the front. Finally making my way up to the ticket booth, I feel as if I'm in a movie when I see the girl at the booth is packing everything up.

"Wait, I need a ticket!" I rush the counter and give my most convincing smile.

"We're sold out, sorry.." she mumbles and continues to pack everything up, grabbing her jacket from the back of the chair.

"Well, actually that's the thing. I have a ticket already, or at least I should. It should be under the name Ivy Tyler.." I tell her and she pops her gum before finally looking up and meeting my eye-line.

"You're on the list?" she reiterated, sitting her jacket back down on the chair, pulling out a clipboard from a brown tote bag.

"Yes.." I nod, hoping the boys kept their end of the deal and left me a ticket at the front. I glance at the clock above her head that read 8:15 PM meaning their set had started fifteen minutes ago.

She takes her sweet time running through the list of names, licking her finger to turn the pages, until finally she seems to find it.

"Ivy Tyler, right?" she asks again, and I only nod in response, "Can I see an ID?"

I huff and pop my phone case off, pulling my license from the back, handing it to her through the sliding glass window. She once again scans it for seemingly hours before slowly sliding it back to me.

"Usually our VIP guests don't show up late so forgive me if I'm a bit skeptical.." she says, pulling out a roll of tickets from the same tote bag. All of them just say 'admit one' on them in red print.

"No, yeah-, I get it. I'm sorry," she slides the ticket across and I grab it, taking off into the building before she can reply, yelling a chaste "thank you!"

When I enter the grand lobby, it's mostly empty other than a few security guards and a few patrons who are on phone calls or just waiting on someone. I show my admit one ticket to the man at the double doors and he nods, opening the door for me.

"The VIP section is right up those stairs.." he gestured to the staircase immediately to the right when you enter the auditorium. I could hear a song playing, quickly recognizing it as Lover, Leaver. I head up the stairs that are rather dark other than a red string of lights along the bottom of the walls. When I reach the top, there's yet another security guard standing at a black door.

"Ticket?" he asks, a stony expression covering his face.

I show it to him and he takes it, pulling out a void stamp and rendering the ticket useless. I took a deep breath as the man turned the doorknob, pulling it towards us. I was mainly nervous because I assumed Jude was there and I wasn't ready to face her yet. If I could just avoid her, everything would be fine. There's no way I can look at her pretty face and pretend like everything is fine.

"Ivy, you're here!" I hear Mackenzie's voice in the small, dimly lit room. Her bright smile welcoming me into the small space.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry I'm late. I got here as fast as I could," I had no idea the extent of what everyone knew, so I played it cool as if nothing was going on. I seen Jita sitting down on a small loveseat by the balcony that overlooked the entire auditorium. Mackenzie filled the space beside her. I look over at the other couch where of course, Jude is perched.