I know nobody cares but today marks my 4 year anniversary as a writer!! July 22nd will always be a special day for me. I started out writing a very awful fanfic but now I'm writing completely original books and I'm genuinely proud of them. I hope you guys love my stories just as much as I do.

Sky

"Oh my god, I'm gonna die!" Anna panics and I place my hands on her shoulders firmly and shake her.

"You're not going to die!" I exclaim with wide eyes.

"Yeah, girl, you're literally the most talented one of us!" Nat agrees.

"No." She points at her and I let go of her shoulders. "But you guys know how I get in front of crowds."

"Look, we all hate the stage-"

"Not me!" Laura interjects.

"Most of us," I glance at Laura "Hate the stage. Sure, our anxiety isn't as bad as yours, but we're going to be up there with you the whole time."

"I'm going to fall and embarrass myself!"

"You're not going to fall!" Nat chuckles.

"Worst case scenario; we don't win." I shrug.

"Actually the worst case scenario is falling off stage and dying, or a stage prop falling on you-"

"Not helping, Laura." Nat puts her hand on her mouth to stop her from freaking out Anna more. "I have to admit tho, I wish Peter was here; he had an important part in this performance."

"Well he's gone." I sigh sadly but cover it up with a look of determination. "But we don't need him; you're all amazing and talented, and we're going to rock this!"

"Yeah but Peter-"

"Peter walked out on us." My voice strains as my heart aches. "And I'll be damned if I let that stop us."

"You're hurting." Nat states, staring at me sadly.

"What?" I furrow my eyebrows, my ears tinting red and I shake my head. "I'm not hurt, I don't care about him."

"Yes, you do." Anna says. "Because that's who you are, Sky; you care about people."

"And we could tell you're hurting; you're heartbroken." Laura says crossing her arms.

"Bold of you to assume I have a heart." I joke with a laugh, but they just stare at me with the famous look of 'Really bro?', it's a real expression, I swear. 

"You know you don't have to hide anything from us, right?"

"Yeah." I sigh with a smile. "Fine, I am hurt; a lot actually. But there's nothing I can do."

"You guys are next." One of the teachers tell us and we get ready to go up and perform our little song and dance number.

We all put our hands out and place it on top of each other before we exchange smiles and nods.

"On three." I say.

1

2

"LET'S GO POTATOES!"

We laugh and walk onto the stage, getting in position. I don't dare to look at the crowd, but something tells me to look up, and when I do, my eyes meet Peter's, who sends me a soft smile. I take a deep breath and mentally prepare myself.

The music starts, and we wait for our cue to 'bust out our moves' as teens say. God I sound like I'm 70 or something...

Actually I'd love to be 70, I wrote about it in my essay about what our perfect age would be. 

I snap out of my thoughts as I move my arms and legs accordingly to what Anna had taught us. We all move swiftly around the stage, and Nat and Laura are hitting every note perfectly, making me grin in happiness as adrenaline pumps through my veins. 

Peter and Tim have been assigned to take pictures and videos of every performance in the talent show, so no doubt both of their attention is on us.

Peter's attention is on us.

Anna and I are about to twirl and switch places, so we nod at each other with smiles and get into position to twirl and switch. However, Anna falls down, and the second I hear the thump, I pretend to fall as well, making it seem like it's all part of the choreography.

I send her a smile and she smiles back gratefully as we both start crawling back and stand up, continuing with the dance how we planned it.

Soon enough, Nat and Laura sing the last lyric and we get into our finale stance, breathing heavily as we look down to the crowd, who start cheering and clapping.

We walk off the stage and I feel the world spinning around me. I feel a strong pain in my stomach, as if there's a million elephants stacked on it. My breaths are coming out in wheezes and I tap on one of the girls' shoulders.

"I feel dizzy..." I say weakly and they quickly hold onto me as I take deep breaths to stop myself from fainting.  I suddenly feel the familiar feeling of food coming up my throat, so I run to the bathroom, with the girls following me.

I quickly go over to the cleanest toilet available after taking off my glasses and giving it to one of the girls and throw up as I make sure my baby hairs don't get in the way. I don't touch the toilet, nor do I sit on the floor, because I am a germ freak, and throwing up here already makes me very uncomfortable. 

I feel tears stinging my eyes as I throw up more. For some reason, I always cry when I throw up, because I feel weak, and I hate being weak.

I walk over to the sink and wash my mouth out with water thoroughly and splash my face with water as I take more breaths. I start to chuckle, holding onto my stomach, wishing the weight would get off.

"Sorry you had to see that." I laugh. "Amoeba sucks."

"It's okay girl." Nat rubs my back as Anna hands me my glasses back. 

"You should probably wear a jacket though, your veins are showing." Laura tells me and I look down at my uncovered arms, seeing every little vein showing.

I swear I'm a disco ball; when it's cold I turn blue, when I'm sick I turn yellow and green, when I'm hot I turn bright red.

And apparently my skin is also so pale that it's transparent.

Doctors are always confused, which makes me suspect that I really am an alien after all. Yet even with my veins being visible, no one can take my blood on the first try, I always have to get multiple needles pierce my skin until they finally find a vein that gives out blood; hence why I have a huge bruise on both my forearms, almost looking like the dark mark from Harry Potter.

"No, it's too hot." I whine.

"Sky, we don't need you to get worse." Nat scolds me and I groan, knowing she's right.

"Alright fine, let's just go back to the stage." I slowly walk out of the bathroom. "Do you think they're done with the acts?"

"Supposedly, there were only two more acts after us." I nod and we make our way back to the stage area, where the last act was still going on.

We clap for the acapella group loudly, because they were amazing. Tim came over and said we did awesome on stage before he went back to doing his job.

"Hey, guys!" Peter walks over to us and I could feel my heart beating faster. I clench my jaw to stop myself from smiling or frowning. "You all did amazing up there! I got some great shots of you all."

"Thank you, Peter!" Nat smiles and I nod, smiling a little as well. He looks at me, guilt flashing through his eyes before he gives me another smile and leaves.

"You okay?" Anna asks me and I nod, a little too quickly. "For real?"

"Not really..." I sigh. "I kinda wanna cry, but I hate crying, so I'm probably gonna spend the rest of my day painting and listening to music."

"Well, we're always here for you." I smile gratefully, it turning into a bright grin.

"I love you guys." I laugh. "Now enough emotions, I think they're about to announce the winners."

"In third place we have..." A teacher speaks into the microphone and we all sit on the edge of our seats. "The...uhh...The Potatoes!"

We start yelling loudly, hearing our group name being called out. We didn't expect to win at all, so this is more than perfect! We also laugh at the teacher's confused expression as he read our name.

What can I say? Potatoes are the best.

Anna; the couch potato. Natalie; the sweet potato. Laura; the Laura potato, it's a thing, I searched it up once. And then me; the loaded potato.

Because I was fat, get it?

Don't tell my friends I thought this, they will murder me if I make fun of myself again.

We walk up to get our trophy, which we decided that Nat would keep, because she and Laura were the true stars this evening.

I hum along to the song that came on shuffle as I gently apply the acrylic paint to my canvas. The door to my room is closed, because I like keeping my art works a surprise until I finish them.

The current song ends, and my eyes widen as I recognize the very first note of the song.

"Nope, nope, nope." I say to myself out loud as I scramble over to my phone to change the song. This is not the day to hear songs that remind me of Peter.

I press the next button, and the next song is even sadder than the first. I groan and glare at my phone, poking my tongue out to it.

My playlist hates me today. 

I decide to let the songs play, it might help me deal with the hurt, I don't know. People listen to sad songs all the time when they're sad, so I might as well.

"Not this one!" I whisper yell as a very specific song that I love and hate at the same time comes on. This song feels like it's written by me, and it's not about Peter; it's about a lot of memories I have, and the thought of leaving it all behind one day kills me.

I always cry at this song, and I really don't want to cry right now.

My tears might ruin my painting.

I change the song for the last time and go back to my painting, not caring what song comes next, even if it would remind me of Peter. Why do songs do this? I just want to paint in peace!

I mutter the lyrics as I slowly dance to it as I continue to apply the paint. Eventually, a very energetic song comes on and I grin.

"About time..." I chuckle to myself. "Been a while since I listened to Persian songs."

I dance with it and sing along, until I realize what the lyrics are. Of course it's a cute ass love song that gives me butterflies. 

The more I listen to the lyrics the more I start to miss Peter. I really liked him, so it really hurt when he didn't believe me.

I shake my head and let go as I sing a little louder and move around more, deciding that I should enjoy the song rather than reminisce memories; I'll leave that for bed. I glance at the charm bracelet on my hand and I smile at it.

I continue to dance and draw, not noticing the pair of brown eyes staring at me with adoration.