SHOW 4 - State Theater, Portland, Maine
October 7th

I never thought TLC would make me feel like a different person. But here we are.

Shortly after we'd gotten to the venue for sound check, Jeremy pulled me aside as we passed each other in the old musty back hallways of the theater. I was taller than him by at least a few inches, but there was something about standing beside one of the first people you ever heard normalizing screaming vocals that makes you feel small.

"I didn't get a chance to tell you the other night after your set, but that No Scrubs cover was really something." He gave my shoulder a little jostle.

I'd just preached to Sienna about not giving a fuck about what people thought about you or what you were doing, but here I was, giving a fuck.

I swallowed the little anxious knot in my throat. "Thanks."

"Yeah no problem." He rubbed at the beard on his chin, where patches of gray were starting to appear. It was weird watching people you looked up to get older. "Looking forward to seeing what you guys are gonna do tonight."

If there was a moment in my life for the record-scratch sound effect, this was it.

"O-oh, yeah...me too," I stuttered out with a grimace. If he'd sensed my completely pathetic unease, he didn't show it. He gave me one more pedestrian pat on the shoulder before walking away, and I went stalking back to our green room with my heart in my throat.

"We can't do No Scrubs again," I blurted out the moment I burst through the door, and suddenly there were five pairs of very concerned eyes on me.

Evie sat up from the old leather couch in the corner and threw her hands out. "What do you mean we can't?" 

"Yeah, what do you have against No Scrubs all of a sudden?" Gareth added with his mouth half-full. "Don't be a hater."

He had been next to Evie on the couch, munching on a Kit-Kat (where the hell did he get candy from? I wanted chocolate too), but instead of splitting them like a normal person, he just bit into both of them conjoined, like a regular chocolate bar. I stopped being shocked about the way Gareth operated from the moment he showed up to mine and Evie's open tryouts for drummers, still wearing his uniform from KFC while effortlessly banging out the drum solo from Avenged Sevenfold's the Beast and the Harlot. He then gave us chicken and left. Evie called him the next day.

Clark reached across the couch and smacked Gareth with the book he was reading. I couldn't see the title, but the cover looked different than the one he had yesterday.

"We just can't, okay?" I felt myself getting desperate, and I could hear it in my voice.

Raf came over to me and put a reassuring hand to my shoulder. "Okay, slow down Dev. What's this all about?"

I wished I didn't come undone at the way he called me Dev. Like he actually fucking cared.

"Number one," I held a finger up as I sidestepped him. "It gets real repetitive, which means it gets real boring real quick. And two," I held up another finger. "We don't want people thinking this is all we can do."

I didn't want Jeremy thinking this was all we could do.

"What's your suggestion then?" Evie leaned forward to rest her elbows on her knees.

I blew out a breath. "I'm...working on it."

Sienna, who'd been pacing around the green room with her phone in her hand since we got there, perked up.

"We could do a poll on Instagram," she suggested. "I mean, now that you guys have upwards of 35,000 followers, might as well leverage it. Pick two or three songs that you'd consider, and have people vote on it."

The thought of being visible to that many people made me wanna puke.

Evie had stood up now and made her way to the center of the room. "You know, I was roaming around out there earlier. There's definitely been more people out there at this time than there has been the last three shows. Someone even said hi to me."

"Which means there's people actually here for you guys," Sienna added, a smile starting to tug at her pink lips. She had started pacing again, her baggy jeans making a swishing sound with every step she took. There were big heart-shaped air holes all up and down the legs, and the sight of the heart-shaped skin on her thighs had my own heart thumping.

"Don't say that, I'm nervous now," Gareth chimed in, unwrapping a mini Snickers now. My stomach groaned, and it was enough for me to stalk over to him with my hand out.

"Give me some or you're sleeping outside."  

He gave me a guilty chuckle and dug through the cargo pockets on his army-printed jeans, pulling out two more mini Snickers and dropping them in my hand.

"Where did you even get these?" I asked as I ripped one open with my teeth.

"I bought a bag of Halloween candy at the CVS down the street," he shrugged. "Or three."

"I'm not even gonna ask." I rolled my eyes.

"Now that you have your chocolate fix, can we refocus?" Evie snapped her fingers in my face. "This is your self-made catastrophe."

"Yeah, I can think now," I grumbled as I took a bite of the Snickers, all too aware of how right she was. If I didn't care so much, it wouldn't even be an issue. But here I was again, fucking caring. How much of a god damn hypocrite was I?

I also didn't need anyone else knowing I was weak for chocolate. I liked mostly all candy, but enough chocolate turned me into agreeable mush. 

"Look, it's 3:00. You guys go on at 7." Sienna slapped her phone against her palm when she spoke. "If we post it now, it makes people feel involved and gets them excited, while you guys still maintain control."

She sounded more assured than I'd ever heard her, and hearing her take charge made my insides get all warm, like I was being cooked. She was taking charge like she cared.

"We still need to pick songs, Polly Pocket," I drawled, rolling my eyes at her.

"So pick them," she stated plainly, keeping her blue eyes on me as she folded her arms over her chest. She wore another fuzzy pink sweater, and even though I was sure it looked exactly like the one she had on the other day, she didn't strike me as the kind of girl who wore the same thing twice. I could just hear her berating me about how different they actually were.

"You did before," I retorted. "Out of clever ideas already?"

"I just gave you one." She bit back. "Your turn, genius."

I stiffened up, and not just because she was unfortunately right, but she'd never called me genius before. There was an intentional sharpness to it, like I should know exactly why she was calling me that.

Oh god.

Thankfully, Gareth clumsily snapped the tension. "I have an idea," he held his hand up. "Whatcha Say, Jason Derulo."

"Okay no." I shook my head. "I'm not singing Jason fucking Derulo."

"Then what do you want to sing?" Sienna chimed in again, arms still folded and eyes still on me like she was just waiting. For what, I wasn't sure. "Something fun, remember? As hard as that might be for you."

I narrowed my eyes at her, and she responded with a beaming grin. The kind designed to induce heart palpitations.

I heaved out another sigh. "Okay, my sister was team Backstreet Boys growing up. So I was subjected to an unfortunate amount of boy band when I was younger. She even forced me to go see them once with her at the Garden."

"Oh my god, that's it!" She playfully smacked my chest. "Do the Backstreet's Back song. You remember, the music video where it was kind of supposed to be like Thriller, and they all dressed as different monsters, and..." she paused and took a breath when she realized she'd been doing that annoyingly endearing yapping thing she did. "That's the winner."

"Easy," I grumbled, rubbing at the warm spot on my chest. "My lungs are in there, I need those."

"I'll contribute Too Little Too Late by JoJo," Evie added, now frisking Gareth for more chocolate. She grabbed another Kit-Kat and handed it to me, having been well aware for a long time and thereby taking advantage of the fact that chocolate stifled my resolve. I was weak. "You can definitely sing JoJo."

Sienna, now with the excitement of a puppy, squealed as she jumped up and down. "This is going to be great. I'll post the poll now."

And just like she guessed, pretty much everyone voted for the Backstreet Boys option. In the few hours the poll was up, over 7,000 people had voted on it. This whole viral social media thing didn't even feel real to me. Maybe it hadn't set in because I barely looked at or got involved with our Instagram (because that required too much cooperation with Sienna), and maybe because despite the growth in the crowd, it still didn't feel like people were there to see us.

I tried to inject as much power and vigor as I had in our opening songs, and even though the energy from the crowd was feeding me in a way I'd been hungry for for so long, I wasn't satisfied.

When it came time for our close, I lifted the microphone out of the stand for the first time all night, taking a deep inhale before addressing the crowd and hoping I didn't sound as timid as I felt.

"Alright, how many of you guys voted on our Instagram poll this afternoon?"

To my surprise, the crowd cheered in response.

"Alright then, you guys better help me out."

Then came a collective chuckle, and some fleeting validation that I was actually funny.

Let's face it, I was not exactly boy band material, and between that and the fact that we had only about an hour to put together the song, I felt myself fumbling through the opening of the song. There were too many layers to it, and boy band lyrics weren't exactly for me either.

Am I original? Am I the only one? Am I sexual?

No, definitely not.

Suddenly this feeling gripped my chest, an anticipatory dread that this whole thing would come crashing down, and we'd lose this attention as quickly as we'd gotten it because I sucked at whatever this was.

Somehow Sienna had made her way up to the front of the crowd, pressed against the metal barricade that separated the floor from the stage. She had her phone up, the pink glitter on her case twinkling under the lights, and she smiled up at me.

And because she was smiling up at me in a way that was contagious, like a virus, that I felt myself smiling too. It lit something in me. I felt alive. Human, but not in a vulnerable way. Human in a way that just gives me the self-awareness that I am standing in front of like, 300 something people who are waiting for me to do something great. As if they expect it.

I couldn't take my eyes off of her if I tried, but I tried to play it cool when I realized she actually wanted my attention. Yikes, yikes, yikes.

Sexual, she mouthed at me while motioning for me to take my jacket off. As in, the pre-chorus lines that were in no way aligned with my physical capabilities as a person.

I'd worn my black jacket over an undershirt because I'd run out of clean clothes (I'd packed pathetically light) and wouldn't have access to a washing machine until Burlington at a hotel. I might as well have been topless underneath my jacket.

No way, I mouthed to her.

Yes way, she mouthed back.

I turned away to finish the verse with Evie, who'd slid up beside me and bumped her hip against mine in tune with the music.

"Do it!" this time I heard Sienna yell. "Take it off!"

I tried not to laugh. That feeling welled up in my chest again, and before I knew it I was sliding my jacket off just in time for the pre-chorus to hit again.

Am I original? Am I the only one? Am I sexual?

And even though it was part of the song, everyone yelling yeah in response felt good. Really good.

I tossed it to her immediately, mostly just because I liked my jacket and didn't want some stranger taking it, and the crowd ate it up. My cheeks flared red, but I hoped everyone would assume whatever this was on my face was from the heat and the lights.

The song concluded, and I breathed.

"Thank you guys," I said over the cheers. "We're the Green Inferno, goodnight."

I finally identified the feeling. It was relief.

⋆ ★

i love him, your honor

now 50k words in feels appropriate for our sarcastic metal boi to maybe feel some type of way? yes? will they ever actually kiss? who's to say, really 🤷🏼‍♀️