The Performance

Don’t cry, whatever you do, don’t cry, Lainey thinks. She felt her heart beat between her thoughts. Even her blinks felt heavy. You’re not going to cry, I swear, you’re not going to cry, don’t do it, don’t you fucking dare.

In the mirror Lainey’s reflection warps as tears fill her eyes. The blue of her eye is now a stormy grey, darker than the depths of an ocean. She grips the side of the sink bowl. A tear drips down her cheek and sits on her quivering jawline.

Lainey stands in the concert venue bathroom, about to get on stage with a microphone and freshly broken heart. The pain hinders her confidence. Martha’s panic attack this morning shattered their love for each other and ended things in the middle of their apartment before breakfast.

Fuck, she hisses.

She wipes away the tears with her free hand. She drowns in a whirlwind of pain that has her blood flow thrashing against her eardrums and rib cage. Usually the thought of performing makes her heart flutter with excitement, but tonight she wants to cut her own heart out and feel nothing at all.

All Lainey ever did was let Martha in. They met at a bar in London two years ago. It was after one of Lainey’s performances, and she was stood at the bar beside this girl who looked at her with a glint in her eye. The first thing Martha asked was you alright? and in that moment Lainey couldn’t remember the last time someone had asked her that.

Lainey replied with yes, I got distracted that’s all.

By what?

You. Lainey had blushed. Her ego boosted by all the alcohol she had drunk in Addison’s studio flat before arriving at the bar.

And from that day on they met up every week for lunch. Martha attended Lainey’s and her band’s performances. They shared their thoughts and opinions with each other. They held hands, they kissed, they moved in together just four weeks later and on occasion they made love.

If Lainey had the guts to scream, she would, but the walls of this bathroom are too thin for her to do so without raising concern. A pang of energy almost pushes the scream out, it lodges, trapped in the back of her throat.

Instead, she grits her teeth together and pushes a curtain of hair out of her face with clammy palms. You can do this, Lainey, and you’re going to do it well, she tells herself before taking a deep, shaky breath.

She’s performed with her friends Rick, Ty, Addison, and McKenna before. She knows what she’s doing. They’ve bonded over music ever since they all started secondary school. They would meet in the music room after hours. They’d write originals and play around with sound, performing what they created at the school talent show. As time went on, the gigs they did at pubs grew into something Lainey found hard to imagine when she was in school, especially after her teacher said, you’re too timid to be a performer.

Now it’s the only thing that gives Lainey freedom to be herself.

She drops her head and stares at her feet. Closes her eyes, and counts.

One…two…three…

She pushes through the bathroom door; her shove is so hard it smashes against the wall beside it with a clatter. It frightens a woman who’s puzzling over stapled papers. Lainey meets her eye, and glides down the long hallway. She passes the men’s bathroom, several dressing rooms, and a lounge before taking a sharp right turn down another hallway. There’s music, and it reverberates out from a slit in the red velvet curtain. It pulses through the venue, seeps through the crevices in the walls, and settles the dark thrum of Lainey’s own palpitating heart. She shudders and places one foot in front of the other towards the stage doors. Time suddenly freezes.

Everything she can hear blurs into one, and everything she can see becomes invisible. The one thing she knows still exists is herself. She’s surrounded by an echo of noise. Why did it have to be her? Why did it have to be today? Why did it have to be at all?

Lainey’s eyes fixate on the floor as she walks. Why does Martha always push me away?

Because I don’t trust people to love me like that, Lainey. I don’t trust you! People leave all the time for reasons I can’t explain and it hurts me. What happens when you do the same? I love you more than I’ve loved anybody in my lifetime and that heartbreak’s gotta be worse than the heartbreak from a friend. I’m sick of people treating me like shit.

Lainey tilts her head, recalling the harsh moments from this morning. And how many people do you have to selfishly remove from your life, Martha, before you realise that not everyone you come into contact with is an arsehole?

Years, Lainey whispers. She exhales slowly with glassy eyes and stops in the open space. The stage is just meters away from her. Lainey’s manager gives her a subtle nod. The sound man hands her the microphone and nudges her to the bottom of the stairs which lead to the stage from behind the curtains. She stands there, blinking.

A look of determination melds onto Lainey’s chinaware-fragile expression. She bites down on her bottom lip, fighting back tears that want to break through her barrier of courage. She clears her throat. You’re stronger than this. Martha’s not worth crying over.

She hears screams of laughter. The crowd jostles and cheers on the other side of the curtain. 

Lainey lets out a sigh and tips her head back. Concentrate on the song, that’s all you have to do. She rolls her shoulders a few times, tilts her head back and forth, and parks her mind in Morose Street before she enters Performance Boulevard.

In her peripheral vision, she can see another woman skid to a halt beside her. The woman holds up a clipboard and says something that Lainey doesn’t hear. The woman’s voice if muffled, but she nods all the same and makes note of the three fingers this woman waves before her.

From behind McKenna gives Lainey a slap on the shoulder; runs past her and up the stairs. She’s bitten by the curtains and swallowed by the light. Rick wags his brows at her and twirls his drumsticks between confident fingers. Two more pass her by, but all Lainey does is provide them with a timid smile that feels almost impossible to give. It makes her dimples ache; they’re too tight with chagrin to hold the expression.

She hypes herself up and peers back at the lady who held those fingers up at her in the first place, but that lady is nowhere to be seen. So she slips her earpiece in, glances around, and finds her manager. He mouths ‘go,’ and the world melts into the heat of the music. The melody is like molten lava. Lainey’s body bounces to the beat, and the lyrics come gushing through the floodgates. Her memories are melted away by the sound of the music.

Rick, Ty, Addison, and McKenna all come into view as Lainey runs onto the stage. McKenna gives her a friendly smile as Lainey passes her. The keys play in time with the tick in Lainey’s earpiece. Her voice carries her across the stage. The chords on the guitar create the harmony and rhythm that Lainey’s voice syncs with, as each word spills from the pit of her stomach to the tip of her microphone.

The drums keep the pace that Lainey’s foot taps too when she settles the mic in its stand. She’s front and centre, but the crowd are nothing more than an inky blob in her wavering eyes. It sways to the rhythm of the night. The bar at the back of the venue is bustling with people.

Before Lainey can scan the crowd for her parents and sister, she spots Martha.

Martha stands on the balcony watching the band intently. Her face is so calm, it’s like she’s not hurting at all. Her presence is so unwanted it physically pushes Lainey back, towards the drum kit. She tips back on her heels, mumbling the words as they get blurry in her mind. Martha’s gaze is rubbing out every lyric Lainey ever wrote and learnt.

Lainey's face crumbles at the sight of her.

She turns to her bandmates and shakes her head. They look at her, confused.

I can’t do this, she mouths.

Her breathing becomes heavy. The mic hits the floor, and she runs off the stage, throwing herself down the stairs back towards the bathroom. A tidal wave of anger propels her round the bend. Her feet thud against the floor, and they keep moving until she reaches a stool in the bathroom where she screams and cries like nobody is listening.