The retina burning ring light set before me highlighted the professionally applied makeup which cast shimmering gold across my dark features, a matte pink dancing along my plump lips and deep neutrals and glittering metallics across my eyelids, an artful black eyeliner wing and long fake lashes pulling it all together making me seem like a completely different person.
I didn't want to see Eli like this. I'd take it all off before going to him because, while the effect made me look beautiful and almost otherworldly, I wasn't me, but a caricature of what my music industry manager wanted me to be.
Countless staff with headsets and clipboards dressed in all black shirts and dress pants scattered about all around me, talking to one another on their closed channels, but I couldn't have felt more alone.
Sure, my grandparents were in the stands above, as well as my new friend Sierra from work and even my bitchy manager Bree, but the person that I needed to have close-the person that I would give the air out of my lungs to see one more time, was out there somewhere and I couldn't stop the raging butterflies in my stomach from attacking one another.
The fading sunset cast a glinting magenta hue through the windows of the green room and I sipped lukewarm water through a straw before practicing my vocal exercises one more time, desperate to make sure that I didn't crack on a single note in practice before the big event.
If only I knew where Eli would be sitting, so that way I could focus on him and not on the countless strangers watching me, waiting for me to fail.
The fact that I still felt so strongly for him after so long without seeing him was not lost on me; I knew without a doubt in my mind that I was still in love with him, desperately so. I just needed to make sure he felt the same about me...
"Two minutes, Miss Bruins."
"Thank you," I responded to the tech who had been stationed beside my chair the entire time, the one specific worker tasked with keeping an eye on me and making sure I was at my mark by the time the cameras dipped down from the inside of the stadium to the court below, catching every blink and eye twitch, every tremble in my bones and bead of sweat rolling on my forehead.
A few phones began chirping close by, but just as I was about to grab my own to see what the news was, it was suddenly snatched from my hands.
"Your manager said no distractions. Sorry."
Of course, she did. I shot a tight lipped smile to the tech who was only doing her job and asked her name to keep my mind off things.
Her name was Shawna, and she was a huge fan of Eli's. So. That wasn't awkward at all.
I self consciously touched the top of my hair, smoothing down imaginary bumps that my mind created to give my idle hands something to do.
One more vocal run up and down the scale, one more double checking of the lyrics, and then I didn't have two minutes anymore.
Instead, I was being ushered down the hallway and into the stadium carousel, passing the rope that cordoned off the public from the private sections. Large men wearing all black accompanied us, though I doubted I needed security.
The basketball players were already on the court, but the roar of the crowd made it seem as if the game were already in full swing.
Suddenly, the sound blotted out everything and I almost tripped in the expensive heels that had been loaned out to me by a designer wanting to show off their new pieces before the collection dropped.
Needless to say, I had big shoes to fill.
My slick hands trembled in the tight fists they were balled up in, but I refused to show fear on my face. On the outside, I was the picture of perfect calm and no one had any idea that I'd never performed in front of a crowd so large before.
My mind strayed to my mother and the suffocating, overwhelming and booming rush of voices and applause ceased to exist.
It was only me and my mom, two peas in a pod. Her bright golden light outshone the dark that tired to take me down.
My heels clicked against the concrete until suddenly the floor turned into the waxed and polished court. Shawna gave me a reassuring smile and handed me a black microphone.
I still hadn't looked up, but a few of the ridiculously tall and grotesquely rich basketball players had given me head nods, and I recognized a few of them as old friends of my father. They were showing me respect because of his death, but they didn't know that I was only sad he'd died while not in prison paying for his sins.
"Alright, here's your mark. Try not to take any steps, just keep your feet firmly planted and when you're done, stand still, look at the flag with a smile and after thirty seconds, walk off to your left and we'll usher you back to the green room. Good luck."
Why did it feel like she was sending me off to war?
"Cameras will be on you the second the announcers start speaking."
My stomach was in a mess of knots, my heart doing somersaults in my chest, but still I gripped tight to that golden shimmering memory of my mother, images of her holding my hand somehow getting me through this, one step at a time.
I looked up.
Obviously I couldn't see Eli, but I pretended he was right in front of me, watching me hold the mic in one hand and my mother's in another.
My grandparents were up there somewhere, Yona cheering me on no doubt. I pictured myself doing this, but with Eli's father still alive and it was Eli's first All Star game.
Maybe his dad had found someone better than his mom, and my mom had left my dad for someone better, too. They were all in the stands cheering for me before Eli took to the court, but not before giving me a kiss before I was taken to the stands to watch him play.
Maybe there'd even be a ring on my finger.
The announcer's voice boomed through the stadium and there was a light spattering of applause before the classic rendition of the national anthem began ringing out all around me.
It wasn't hard to remember the lyrics, and I hit my cue immediately, voice traipsing through notes and sticking closer to the original version to not cause any controversy.
A swelling began in my chest, the emotion lacing through the words as the power came out in my voice, and I found myself changing my delivery of the vocal halfway through, pushing out my long belting notes where previously I'd switched them to soft falsetto.
By the time the rockets red glared, I was officially an octave higher than I'd practiced, but I wouldn't know if it was a good or bad decision until the final note, so I went all in. I gave it my absolute all, no holding back.
My mother squeezed my hand as I threw my head back and tilted the microphone up, and Eli's imaginary new parents screamed so loud I could hear them.
The engagement ring glinted against the harsh, blinding lights as I soared through the land of the free, and by the time I was in the home of the brave, my mind almost made me believe that it was all real.
That my mother was really there by my side, smile bright as her golden energy flowed around her and pulsed her dark hair in waves on her shoulders. That Eli's family was intact, that he was with me and happy, that we were engaged and everything was as it should have been.
I was pulled out of my reverie by the shocked silence of the crowd that suddenly roared to life, the thunderous and booming applause possibly the loudest thing I had ever heard in my life.
I couldn't do anything but stare, and thankfully the flag was directly in front of me so I hoped I looked like I was doing as I was instructed but by the time my thirty seconds was up, my feet still wouldn't move.
The staff member from earlier had to come and usher me off the mark, nudging me with her hip.
"Well, that was different than practice."
"Did I suck?"
Panic seized me. Maybe the raucous applause was out of pity.
"You kidding? Can I have your autograph now? I want to be able to tell my kids I actually met you in real life."
I laughed at Shawna's reaction, assuming she was only joking, but once we returned to the green room she handed me a pen and paper that I gladly signed.
We were joking around when suddenly her behavior grew somber.
"Here's your phone. Sorry I had to keep it from you before the performance, but if you had it before, I don't think there would've been an anthem."
I furrowed my eyebrows at her words, stepping out of the green room for more privacy but as soon as I was outside, a group of journalists and photographers were waiting for me calmly, ready to get my reaction and ask me questions about my first big performance ever.
"Virginia, great job. I'm Alyssa from Vanity Fair. A few words about how you think you did before we tell you what people are actually saying?"
"Um," I said awkwardly, looking back and forth from them gathered around the door to my phone which had been blowing up with good luck wishes and congratulations on doing a good job, but there were a few that were concerning.
Texts about Eli, not from him.
Pin pricks formed on my skin, gathering in bumps that flitted up and down my arms. Something wasn't right.
"I just feel really grateful to have been chosen to sing tonight. I went out and tried my best."
My distracted answer didn't seem to phase the reporters, however.
"Hi, I'm Lisa from Cosmo. Do you have any comments on your ex, Eli Shepherd, and his car wreck? Do you have any updates?"
The world tilted on its axis and the breath in my lungs turned into acrid fog, choking me from the inside out as I tried to breathe through it but failing to succeed.
"Car wreck?"
Spots blurred my vision and my legs gave way just as a picture article finally popped up on my phone, a shot of Eli on a stretcher with his neck in a brace and cuts on his face, blood pouring from his skin.
It's not a body bag. It's not a body bag. It's not a body bag.
Visions of the night of my accident flooded my mind, and I could only hope to whatever higher power there was out there that it was Shawna behind me, catching me as the weight of what I was learning crushed me like a two ton brick upon my chest.
No. No, this wasn't happening. Eli wasn't like my mom, he was in one piece and he was alive. He was at the hospital.
I recovered my balance quickly, immediately walking away from the awaiting journalists and photographers and dialed Vanessa's phone number faster than any other number I'd ever dialed in my life.
"V, I'm so sorry-"
"What hospital is he at? I know you have connections with media outlets, so I know you can find out his location a hell of a lot faster than I could. So where is he?"
My manager sighed on the other end of the line.
"I already know where he's at, but are you sure you should go there right now? You just had the performance of a lifetime, you should be doing press tours and-"
"Where is he, Vanessa?"
She must've understood the frantic and steeled edge to my voice, because as I started picking up speed to escape the photographers following me and recording my every word and move.
"He's at Mount Sinai."
I hung up on her immediately and was grateful that there were still people being dropped off in taxi's at the entrance to the stadium by the will-call and ticket stands.
Using my hand to avoid the flashing of cameras, I waved down one taxi just as its passenger hopped out, clearly late for the game, and startled the driver.
"Mount Sinai hospital, now please."
"It'll be a little under an hour with the traffic."
"That's fine."
It really wasn't, but as the lights of Yankee Stadium bled into the blinding mix of the rest of the city, I couldn't help but agonize over the fact that Eli was in the exact position that I had been in nearly six years ago.
I didn't care if he couldn't play basketball anymore. I didn't care if he had been paralyzed like my father had, I wouldn't let him go.
No matter what, I was never letting go, not even if he pushed me away the moment he saw me. I was going to fight for him with everything within me, and there was nothing he could do about that.
There was no contemplation of if he would make it. That was a given. He would make it. He had to.
I only had to make it to him first to make sure of that fact.
***
A/N:
Phew. Well...that was a doozy to write.
What did you guys think of this chapter?
What do you think will happen next with V and Eli?
What do you WANT to happen next?
Only a few chapters left until the epilogue and BONUS SCENES
What kind of scenes do you guys want to see?
Until next time my lovely readers,
-Kristen :)