Eli Borrelli

43: The Stage loves Me

Eli had told me all about their little thing, and I had to calm them down about all their doubts and guilt with Mia and shit. It was nice to see who it was all about.

"This is Ms. Williams, she takes care of Diego," Eli introduced the old woman, who was on her fourth drink.

"Just Ida for you, dear," she said with her signature smile.

After a while, Eli changed into their concert outfit, and then we were brought to the side-stage, where we could see the whole show. They wore loose straight pants and a light t-shirt. They had covered all their scars with their movie-level makeup. 

We waited for about ten minutes for Eli to go on stage, just gawking at the huge audience, that was screaming for them to come out. Those people had paid good money to come here and some had waited for the whole day in line to get the best places in the house. When the lights flashed past the people I could see their grinning faces as they talked with their friends and gushed over what was about to happen.

When Eli finally walked on stage with the band, the entire hall went crazy. They kept on screaming and I could see Eli chuckling a bit as they just took it all in. They didn't wait for the cheers to die down before starting the show. 

As soon as the first chords played through the hall, everyone started jumping around and screaming. When the lyrics started, Eli actually stuttered a bit, as they were shocked by all the people singing along. After a few seconds, I could see the grin growing on their face as they started jumping with the people and controlling the crowd with their hands.

On the side-stage was us, and a few assistants and other people, who were keeping the show together, and we had the best party right there. Ida was at first shocked but slowly grew to like the music after we got her a pair of strong earbuds. She even mentioned, how she had been to a lot of rock concerts, when she was young and started listing names, that I couldn't recognize even if I could've heard her well.

"This next song," Eli said out of breath. We were around halfway through the consert.

"This next song is for my brothers. They're actually here with us tonight," they called, which got a huge round of cheers from the crowd.

"All except one," Eli said looking up.

"This one is for all the family I found on my insane journey and all the family I lost on the way," they said and gave the drummer the cue.

Right before starting to sing, Eli looked at us on the side and gave us a smile, before turning back around and starting the song.

The song was called Family, and it told the story of finding people just to lose them again. By the end the song got a lot lighter, as it went:

"I found you all with me, not despite, but because of this. Even if you're not still with me, you'll always be my family."

Eli POV.

I wrote Family a long time ago, but I felt like singing it that night. When I wrote it, I felt like I didn't have anyone, but suddenly I had everything I needed. I had a family.

I know it sounds like bullshit, but I never had that, or I could never see it, so when I can finally look around and say, I truly have people, who care about me, I felt like I had everything I could ever want.

I had a few ballads, that I did to calm down after a while of really energetic songs. Most of them were about Mia, but for the first time ever, when I sang, Don't Forget Me, I didn't see her face. 

I was sitting on a stool, that I stole from backstage, as my guitarist stood next to me, backing me up. I looked around the hall, as people had their flashlights out lighting the place up like a night sky. I know, I mainly did rock, but the people, who listen to my music know, that my genre varies from moment to moment.