“My heart is where the steel is,” I sang, and all my favourite bits of Sheffield flooded back. The water fountains outside the town hall, which I ran through on a rare, hot summer’s day; the looming skyscraper of the university arts tower you used as a guiding beacon; the surrounding heather-laden cliffs of the Peak District. “My heart is steel since I left.” I choked. Oh god, I was losing it. I couldn’t lose it, not up here. Not with a whole new college of people watching.
I managed to make it through the first verse and chorus but, halfway through the second verse, I came to the line, “And I can’t go back because home isn’t even home any more.”
I started crying, right there onstage. The tears couldn’t fall quick enough. My voice wavered. My hands shook on the mike. I couldn’t believe it. I was crying openly onstage while trying to win a talent show. I was hijacked by humiliation. Yet somehow I kept singing. I tried to put all my emotion into the song, which was pretty easy what with all the bawling. I allowed myself to remember how awful it was saying goodbye to Alfie, to remember standing in my empty bedroom, looking around and knowing I’d never set foot in there again. I remembered the choking feeling in my throat on the drive down the M1, where all the overhead signs said THE SOUTH in aggressive block capitals and how I couldn’t even comment because it would make Dad feel even more guilty. I pumped it all into my singing, and the tears fell and fell until I finished on a large sob and a D minor chord.
There was total silence. I wiped under my eyes and looked out at the mass of people, feeling that surreal jolt back to reality I always get when I finish a set. The silence stayed silent for five whole terrible seconds, and then the applause started.
It was louder than it had been for anyone else. I blinked and my mouth fell open and my astonishment spurred everyone to clap harder. I stumbled off the stage, almost crying again at the response, where Alistair greeted me with a grin carved through his freckles. “You’re not supposed to come offstage yet,” he told me. “You’ve not even waited for your score!”
“Oh…whoops.”
I whipped back to the judges just as they revealed their cards. Two nines and two tens. I was winning! I’d just publicly burst into tears, but somehow that had put me in the lead. I wasn’t sure the winning was worth the humiliation of crying, but still. Alistair clapped me on the back, ecstatic. “I’ve got my eye on you, Miss Talented. She’s in my form, everyone. MINE!” he called out to no one. I was almost too embarrassed to return to the crowd. I rubbed my eyes, glad I wasn’t wearing any make-up to smudge, handed back my guitar and tried to find my friends. People congratulated me on the way back to them. Darla ran up and gave me a giant hug like we were besties.
“That was amazing,” she screeched. “Wow, it’s always the quiet ones, isn’t it?”
“Thank you,” I muttered, desperately searching for the security of Jack and Hannah and Liv. I found them at the back and they all greeted me like I was a war hero – piling onto me for a hug.
“Oh my god,” Hannah kept saying. “I’m just in shock. You’re so…timid usually. Oh my god. You were amazing.”
“I cried!” I replied – still wishing the universe would delete me. “I’m so embarrassed. I literally just cried in public.”
“That’s what made it so good,” she reassured me, pulling me in for another hug. “It was so moving. Sorry you’re so homesick, Amelie. I can’t imagine how hard it’s been.”
The next half-hour was a bit of a blur, to be honest. The last act – some gymnasts – finished, and, when their scores were revealed, everyone worked out pretty quickly that I’d won. My name got called and everyone cheered, and I wanted to die but also savour every moment because I won I won I won! I think people expected me to do a speech but I could hardly even walk. I took the little metal trophy and went to leave the stage as fast as I could. I stopped as I spotted him at the bottom of the stairs with his band, waiting to pick up his award for second place.
“Here, let me help you,” he said, holding out his hand to help me down. I met his eyes and I swear to god something very strange and powerful happened. The rest of the refectory turned to smudge. I became aware of every pinprick of my skin. I took his hand and the surge of chemistry was so potent that I couldn’t even say thank you. I just sort of let him gently pull me down. He didn’t break eye contact and we just stared at one another in a weird, shared chemical wonder. My body felt like it had released a thousand opera singers shooting into my blood.
“You’re amazing,” Reese Davies whispered into my plaited hair, before dropping my hand and beckoning the rest of his band onstage.
And I was left standing there, breathless, wondering what the hell had just happened.
You’ve not made eye contact once since I’ve been sat here – your eyes are only for her. The jealousy is like nothing I’ve ever known before. I feel like I could actually vomit with envy and it would come out cartoon-green. Why don’t you look at me like that any more? You used to stare at my face like it was the only thing in your life you trusted to give you the answers. And now, nothing. Like none of it happened, or mattered. I’m sat only metres from where you first touched my hand to help me offstage, and it wasn’t long after you whispered to me, “That was the moment I knew you were the one, Amelie.”
Were you lying? I mean, you can’t have more than one “one”, so what the hell was I?
This is just one of the many, many questions I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to.
There was much more blur after Reese helped me offstage. Some of it was the vodka catching up on me, some of it was the overwhelmingness of everyone trying to talk to me. Most of it was down to him. I was trying to figure out where he’d gone, because even though I had no idea who he really was, I suddenly felt like every face that wasn’t his was a waste. I lost Hannah and Jack in the crush of congratulations. Everyone patted my back and called “Go, Amelie!” and I had no one to absorb the attention. My chest started to tighten and so I muttered my excuses about looking for them and backed out of the refectory.
My new college glowed orange against the blue of the falling night. I walked around a corner and leaned against the wall, feeling the coldness of the brick seep through my cardigan. I closed my eyes to recharge – on full introvert burnout by this point. I decided to pick up my guitar and maturely run away home and hope no one noticed. I took a few deep breaths and pictured collapsing in the brilliant emptiness of my bedroom. I smiled at the simple pleasure of the thought, and opened my eyes, expecting to find nothing but the start of my route home. But when they flickered open, I jumped in shock. Reese was standing right in front of me.
“What are you doing all on your own out here?” he asked, tilting his hat-bedecked head.
We locked eyes again and breath deserted my body. It seemed to run out of his too. The pull to this stranger was instantaneous, the chemistry fizzing.
“Just…um…getting some air,” I said. “I need to get my guitar.”
“I’m heading to the music block too. Will you walk me?”