Should Have Known (Camren)

Chapter 1

"What's gotten into you? You're usually so confident..." she trailed off, careful not to disturb my so-called confidence more than it already was.

"I'm nervous, mom. That's a lot of people. I'm just one person...the odds aren't exactly in my favor," I pointed out.

"Think about it though," Taylor chimed in from next to me, "there are probably two-thousand people in that line, and out of all of them, I guarantee only like ninety-nine of them can actually sing well enough to go through, and you're one of them."

"That's still a one out of ninety-nine percent chance that I'll make it through," I observed sheepishly.

"Better than one out of two-thousand," Chris mumbled, staring down at his phone and pretending like he didn't just console me.

As much as I hated to admit it, Chris and Taylor were right. Not everyone in line would be able to sing, and not everyone would get to audition. I had a chance. A small chance, but a chance all the same, and why let it go to waste? I sat up straighter, removing my hand from my Mom's and wiping my palms on my jeans.

I cleared my throat and made sure my voice and intentions were loud and clear. "Let's do this."

...

I walked with my family in a congregation to the line where we would stand and wait for God knows how long to audition. I stood up on my toes and craned my neck to scan the crowd, trying to see how thick it actually was. I could only see a few yards in front of me, but even within that small space there had to be several dozen people. I heard Chris snicker and Taylor slap his arm in response from behind me and turned around to see what was going on.

"What's so funny?" I demanded.

Chris's cheeks turned red and Taylor tried her best to control her laughter, but answered in his place anyway. "Chris sees a cute girl and he's too shy to go and talk to her," she informed me.

"Where?" I asked both of them.

Taylor lifted her index finger and pointed over my shoulder. "There, that one in the blue shirt and white pants. The short one."

I whipped around in the direction of Taylor's pointer finger and looked around the vicinity until my eyes landed on the apparent "cute girl." She was a little short in stature but had a curvy body which was accented by her tight pants. Her hair cascaded down her back and shoulders in long, dark waves that accented her deep chocolate eyes of nearly the same color. She smiled as she spoke to the young man in front of her, flashing her white but noticeably crooked teeth.

"She seems approachable enough," I promised Chris as I turned back towards him.

"Yeah, but I don't want to flirt with your competitors," he said, trying to think of any excuse not to go and talk to her.

"How do you know she's a competitor? Maybe she's here to support someone else," Taylor suggested.

"Oh, come on. Look at her," Chris insisted, lifting up his hand and motioning up and down the girl's body for emphasis. "She's cute, she's talking to other competitors, the people she's here with are either too young or too old to audition. She just looks like a singer to me."

"That doesn't mean she'll be any good," my Dad reminded us all. "She's cute, sure, but how far will cute get her in a singing competition? She doesn't look as though she'd be any good. She'll be average at most."

I turned my head slightly to look over my right shoulder at the girl. She seemed friendly to me. She was making small talk with anyone who was willing to converse with her and smiling every chance she got. She seemed warm and inviting, and definitely not average.