CHAPTER 5

Aria

“So you finally decided to make good use of your talents eh?” Steven says to me when I get to his cafe. I get there early, just before the night customers start to troop in and the place turns lively.

“It’s just a one time thing Steven,” I reply, bringing out my guitar from the box to tune the strings. 

Steven smiles at me. “Well, I hope to see you more often, you have a gift that a lot of people would give anything to have, I’ll never understand how you just want it to be a hobby.”

I got my first guitar at the age of five as a gift from dad. I’ve always loved music growing up and dad found that I had an exceptional talent for it and as reluctant as I was at a young age to develop it, he hired a music coach and bought me a guitar so I could really become good at it.

At Steven’s Cafe, he only serves his customers live music, mostly covers of popular songs and sometimes original songs too. Depending on the reception of the crowd, the singers get paid handsomely, especially if they keep returning.

Ever since I sang at a friend's birthday party that Steven was present at, he’s been adamant about me entertaining his customers, promising to reward me handsomely but I always turned him down, never feeling the need to sing for money but here I am today.

“So how much are you paying me?” 

“A thousand dollars is my basic payment for a night but don’t worry, if you make the crowd go crazy, these rich kids will open their coffers on you and you could make ten times that,” Steven replies, winking at me.

The mention of rich kids makes my stomach sink and I feel very nervous, knowing at least a dozen of them are people that I know and the last thing I want is for them to recognize me, singing for money.

Steven leaves me alone in the back room and after I finish tuning my guitar, I proceed to do my makeup, trying to use it to conceal my identity as much as possible by making it really heavy and somewhat hideous.

“You’re up next,” Steven’s head pops into the room after a while and the nervous butterflies settle in my stomach.

I take a deep breath, grab my guitar and make my way to the stage and thankfully, no one is paying attention to me with everyone just doing their own thing as I set up on stage.

I spot a few familiar faces and I keep my head down, letting my hair cover a portion of my face. The moment I strum my guitar and start singing, it’s like I cast a spell on the entire cafe as everyone turns their attention to me.

I pour my heart and soul into the lyrics of the song, singing with passion and everyone starts singing along to the cover of John Legend’s ‘All of Me’ which I am singing.

Suddenly, I stop hearing myself over the speakers and the lights on the stage come on, blinding me temporarily and when my vision clears, I see Vanessa and her gang climbing up on stage.

I quickly stand up from the stool but two of them are quick to grab me and pin against the stool. Vanessa comes in front of me, grabbing the mic from its stand.

“Let me go,” I snarl, struggling to break free from their hands.

The crowd starts to boo and yell for Vanessa to get off the stage and even Steven runs up, but he hesitates when he sees her.

“I know you all are mad and want to keep listening to this bitch sing but if she wants to entertain us, why can’t she do it as her real self?” Vanessa says, giving me a mean glare. 

I don’t know how she recognized me but it’s obvious what she’s about to do and I can’t let her. I thrust my legs as hard and as far as I can, kicking her forward and she falls off the stage.

Her minions let me go to help her up and that’s when I take the chance to bolt off the stage, grabbing my guitar but before I can even take two steps forward, a huge man steps in front of me and slaps me hard across the face, making me see stars as I collapse to the floor and hot tears stream out of my eyes.

He grabs me by my hair and pulls me up just as Vanessa climbs back up on stage. I look to Steven for help but he looks away, obviously scared of Vanessa’s family and the repercussions of going against her.

“You bitch,” Vanessa says, slapping me hard across the face.

“Fuck you,” I reply in a venomous tone, feeling my face sting as I try to free myself from the man’s grip to no avail. 

“Hold her tight,” Vanessa instructs him and in a flash, he has my hands behind me, tightly pressed against my back.

She lifts my shirt up, exposing my body to the crowd and wipes my face roughly with it before pulling my hair and throwing me forward.

A loud gasp ripples through the crowd as they recognize me and instead of the pity I expect to see in their eyes as I raise my head up, it’s a look of disdain I see.

“How art the mighty fallen,” Vanessa says, “the father is a criminal and the precious Princess who used to look down on us all is now nothing but a hustler.”

I try hard to keep the tears at bay but I can’t. The humiliation from her is too much and the support the crowd gives her as they start to boo me and throw stuff at me only makes it worse, calling me all sorts of names.

Vanessa crouches and whispers into my ear. “Stay away from Ethan or I swear, I’ll make the rest of your miserable existence a living hell.”

I don’t know how I managed the courage to get off the stage but it was in tears and in shame and even now as I’m walking down the road with my makeup stained shirt, dragging my guitar box, I can’t stop crying.

A familiar car suddenly screeches to a halt in front of me. 

“It’s not safe for you to be walking out here this late, get in Aria.”