Empire Academy

Chapter 10: Stage Fright

“Don’t be nervous.” Lia pats me at the back.

“Thanks.” I slightly nod. I felt really tense as I watched everyone busy themselves.

“Don’t worry Frey. We still have more time to practice through it all and besides, Chrissa understands. You just got back.” Lia tells me trying to comfort me out of my nervousness.

To be honest, I never really showed her that I was nervous but she was still assuring me and telling me not to be, which was a bit surprising since I didn’t actually think she’d notice anything was wrong with me actually.

“Alright, we’re up!” Chrissa says excitedly and both Lia and I looked at each other.

“We can do this. Just like we practiced.” Chrissa adds more encouraging words and by the time I knew it.

It was my turn to go out of the stage and meet Jace there.

I hadn’t really talked to him since we were all busy with our own roles and this was like the general rehearsal, even though we still had yesterday to pile everything up.

I see Chrissa giving me an encouraging nod as I walked out and I gave her a slight smile.

When I went out, I decided not to look at the crowd. It would only reck what was left of my courage just to be standing there and saying my lines to Jace.

“I’d like to play you a song, dear.” I tell Jace who was playing as my husband and we both walked to where the piano was located.

As my fingers brushed the keys, I couldn’t help but not to start playing. Memories kept flooding back to me. Memories from where everything all started.

“Don’t worry Frey, I’m  sure you’ll do great!” My best friend Andrea enourages me.

“I don’t know Drey, I feel so nervous, I mean their all good and most of them are from the 6th grade. Their older than me and more..”

“Hush! Don’t say that! You wouldn’t be chosen to represent our school if you weren’t good.” She says this half smiling.

Andrea and I both auditioned. Originally it was only supposed to be her who auditioned but Mrs. Bailey our Music teacher asked me to play a piece. I did refuse numerous of times and was even thinking about just leaving but I couldn’t leave Andrea alone and Mrs. Bailey wouldn’t stop bothering me about it.

“You should play. It’s okay, she just wants to hear you play.” Andrea smiles but I could tell that she wasn’t entirely happy about it.

“You sure? I mean, I could just-“

“It’s really fine, Frey. Besides, everyone knows how good you are.” She tells me and I nod not really sure of what to say to her.

“It’s alright. I understand.” Andrea says to me forcing out a smile when I apologized to her.

“I’m really sorry Drey. I mean, I didn’t think that it would be considered as an audition. I just thought that..”

“Really Frey. It’s alright. There’s still more auditions out there.” She doesn’t look at me while she says this and I couldn’t explain any further because I knew by the look Andrea had that she didn’t want to talk any further.

“Freya, start playing.” I could hear Jace whisper as he snapped me out of my thoughts.

“Oh.” I could only say and breathed in.