Violet Sunshine

Chapter 27: Just Me, My Piano, and My Fear

Only once Danny and Ryder join in do I stand from the piano, grab my bass slinging the strap around my shoulder, and head back over to center stage to face the crowd.

A moment before I reached the second microphone in front of me, I forced myself to take it all in, to let my safe little bubble expand until it encompassed everything and everyone before me. My heart pumped erratically as I scanned the faces, varying expressions on their faces, from mild interest to those beginning to sway to the beat, to those looking away. Something in my chest began to sink, and thoughts began to whirl in my head, thoughts I had refused to let cross my mind before ECHO took the stage. What if it's not good enough? What if I fail miserably? It wouldn't be the first time...

And then I spot him.

Near the back, making his way through a few people milling at the edge of the crowd, who shoot him looks as he passed them. I almost thought I must've been seeing things; that by imagining him next to me, my imagination had surpassed my sense of reality. But then he smiled up at me, his blonde hair tousled this way and that, his eyes crinkling at the corners, just as I remembered they did, just as they did that night on the balcony.

When Will smiled at me, sunshine burst through my heart, and I made a decision.

It doesn't matter whether I succeed or fail. I started playing the bass, the notes reverberating through my body, shaking my bones and the stage itself through the amplifiers behind me. It doesn't matter whether the crowd loves us or not.

Because as Danny, Ryder, and Olivia played, the music building to the chorus, a fleeting thought turned into a realization, growing more and more solid by the second.

The only thing that mattered was that I was proud of what I'd done.

And so I let everything go, falling away from me like the ocean at low tide, rushing back to the sea.

I poured everything I had out on that stage.

The chorus hit like a bolt of lightning. My hands strummed the bass of their own accord. My voice filled that stage, and I let it ring out louder and clearer than ever before. Each note, each breath, was a melody in itself. Ryder pounded away on the drums, the beat faster and faster, and my feet bounced on their own to the rhythm. When I turned around, Danny's fingers were flying at the keyboard as he worked his magic, his hair swaying in the wind, eyes lit up as they met mine. My heart soared. Never had I seen Danny enthused that way. So enthused that despite the immense pressure of the current situation, he was having fun.

And it only electrified me more.

I was all over the stage, taking the microphone from its stand as we jumped into the next chorus, leaving my bass strapped around my neck. I joined Olivia at the right of the stage, admiring the way she shredded her guitar, her blonde hair swishing to the beat. When it's time for me to chime in with the bass again, I put the microphone back on the nearest stand, standing right next to Olivia as we both played right across from each other. We had a conversation right there on the stage, our feet and hands moving in time with each other, our instruments synced. I heard a loud cheer from somewhere in the crowd as I turned back to the microphone, yanking it from its stand, letting Olivia's voice join me on the next chorus, her face just as radiant as Danny's had been.

And of course, when I turned to Ryder, he was having the time of his life — pouring all of his half-crazed energy into pounding the drums as hard as he could, still maintaining precision in each and every hit. I went over to him from the bridge of the song, and despite his head bobbing along to the beat he kept with immaculate accuracy, he gave me a little nod, a wide grin on his face.

I barely even realized what I was doing before I did it, stepping up onto an amplifier by Ryder, and even his eyes widened slightly as I straightened myself to my new height. More cheers sounded from the crowd of people below, and I let myself scan over the faces again, only to land back on the head of tousled blonde hair, sky-blue eyes staring back at me. As I looked at him, I could suddenly feel my heart again. Because he gave me the same look as he did twice before.