A Performance To All

I threw my arms into the air as the crowd in front of me erupted into applause. My head tilted back and I exhaled, breathlessly laughing at the absurdity that had become my life. My name was being chanted through the stands, and the deafening sound forced me to push my earplugs back inside my ears. 

“Thank you so much Chicago!” I yelled into the lights. Another swell of applause and screams followed as I waved goodbye and walked towards the back of the stage, where a door was waiting for me. 

Ten steps. Nine steps. Eight. Five. Three. 

The door opened for me, and I took one final step in, letting the door shut behind me before sliding down it. I heaved in the air, burying my face in my hands.

“One hell of a show, Ivy,” 

“I hate it when you call me that,” I sighed, unwilling to lift my head.

“A whole stadium of people just chanted it, I didn’t see you complaining,” 

“That’s a terrible argument to make,” 

“Is it really? Or does my flawless logic scare you?”

“It is a terrible argument, and your logic is nowhere near flawless,” with this, I raised my eyes from my hands, “Sit next to me, I gotta lay my head on someone’s shoulder,”

“With pleasure,” he said. He threw his back to the door and dramatically slid down it, pressing his palm to his forehead and groaning.

“I can’t believe you’re mocking me right now. Do you have any idea how hard that was?”

“I have no idea, and I have no intention of finding out. Now,” he patted his shoulder, “lay her on it,”

I obeyed and rested my throbbing head on his shoulder. He reached for my hair and pulled out the bobby pins that were penetrating my scalp. I let out a soft hum as he rested his head on top of mine, letting my heavy eyelids fall. 

“Did you at least have fun?” He asked.

I snorted, “Do I ever?”

Though I couldn’t see him, I could hear his frown as he said, “How much longer then, Ivy?”

“Don’t call me that,” My voice sounded more stern than I intended, “Sienna. Just call me by my real goddamn name. Not what those people think my name is,”

“Answer the question, Sienna. How much longer?” He repeated.

“What the hell do you mean, Anthony? I have, like 10 more cities on tour,” 

“You know that’s not what I mean, Ivy,”

“My name is Sienna!” I roared, whipping my head off of his shoulder, “you’re just reinforcing the fake person that was out there,”

“You’re tired. We should get you to the bus,”

“I don’t want to go to the bus!” I shouted, feeling tears prick my eyes, “I want to go home. I want to lay in my bed and have my mom make me hot chocolate while I flip through a People magazine. One that preferably doesn’t have my name in it!” I took a deep inhale and lowered my voice before continuing, “but I can’t do that, can I Anthony? No, I can’t. I have contracts and fans and people who watch my every move.”

“How much longer are you gonna be this robot that just does whatever Pritchett tells you to do? How much longer are you gonna be this manufactured Barbie who takes every step the way the public wants you to?”

The tears that had merely pricked my eyes before were now streaming down my face, “Anthony,” I sobbed. I searched for the words I needed to say on the ceiling, but was interrupted by a knock at the black door on the opposite side of the room. 

“Ivy? You in here?” The familiar, soft voice of Charlotte marginally relaxed my aching body, “I have to take off your makeup,”

“I’ll be there in a sec,”

I stood up, wiping my eyes and facing Anthony, who sat on the floor inspecting his shoes. His curly blonde hair hid his ridiculously colored eyes, “I’ll talk to you on the bus,”

“Alright,”

I opened the door before he could say anything else. Charlotte waited for me with makeup wipes, “Start with these, and make your way to the chair. It’s not gonna take me too long tonight and we gotta get you on the bus,”

“Okay. Thanks,” I said, rubbing my face with the wet wipes and collapsing in the chair.

“You did great Ivy,” Charlotte said, making her way to me with three colorful bottles and a large bag of cotton balls.

“Thanks Charlotte,” I sighed, “I need to rest,”

“I bet. No time for that though. On Wednesday night you’re performing in Indianapolis,”

I stared at her blankly, “Charlotte,”

“Yes, Ivy?”

“What day of the week is it? Also, is it August yet?”

Charlotte let out a laugh that sounded like it came straight from her stomach, “It’s Monday,” I groaned in response, “and yes, it is August 1st today,”

“My story is a tale as old as time. A young singer gets overworked on her first tour,”

“You’re doing great.”

It was a lie, both of us were aware. It was evident because of the bags under my eyes, the weight that had been lost in the past weeks, and my strange inability to carry myself up any flight of stairs. It was a lie I needed to hear. 

— 

I gasped back to consciousness, the road next to me passing by in a blur. Anthony lay in the bed across from me, his feet poking out from underneath his sheets. The lights of the bus were all turned off, and the serene scene helped slow my breathing. I checked my phone on the floor next to me. A thousand Instagram notifications waited for me, but at the top, a blurry 3:29AM shone. Anthony groaned, “Ivy, are you awake?”

He called me that stupid name, even when just regaining consciousness.

“What’s my name?” I asked him.

He paused for a second before answering, “Sienna Reed,”

“You were gonna say Ivy Brooke,”

“I wasn’t,”

“You were,”

“It’s too goddamn early for this. Go back to bed. You never get to sleep,”

“I want to talk to you. I don’t want to leave this unresolved,” I push.

“It will be resolved in the morning, but right now, you need to sleep,”

“You always do that, you just postpone the fight. You can’t run from it forever, Anthony,”

“I can and I will run from it, so I don’t say something I regret,”

I gritted my teeth, “What would you say that you would regret, Anthony?”

“Go to bed,” he mumbled, shutting his eyes.

“No,”

He sighed, rubbing his eyes with his hands before sitting up and facing me, “Jesus Christ. Fine, Sienna. We can talk about this now,” he ran his hands through his tousled hair before beginning, “I can’t deal with your life anymore. The photos and the lights and all of these people praising someone who doesn’t even exist. Who the hell is Ivy Brooke?”

My mouth went dry; I feared I opened a door to a room with contents I shouldn’t see. 

“It’s like I don’t even recognize my girlfriend. Your face,” he stared at me, “it’s like it remains in the stage makeup even after you’re not on a stage. I don’t mean to be dramatic or whatever and I know you have a lot to deal with, but I didn’t sign up for this shit a year and a half ago. The public gets this girl who is always bubbly and bright and happy to be surrounded by fans, and I get this zombie who is worn out and can’t function properly.”

I wanted so desperately to be upset. I wanted tears to run down my face as they often did, and I wanted my body to crumble under his words. But instead, I just stared at him, unblinking.

“I’m gonna go to sleep,” he murmured, heaving in a breath of air, as if to say something else, but then sighing it out.

“You’re being so selfish,” I muttered, “I can’t believe we’re arguing over this. You’re upset that you don’t get Ivy Brooke? The girl that the public gets?”

“That’s not at all what I said,”

“It seems like it is exactly what you said, Anthony,” I said, my trembling voice rising. 

“You unnecessarily exhaust yourself out there, and for what? For a fake smile and a million likes on your Instagram post?”

“For a job, Anthony,” I said, exasperated.

“You have enough money now. You can just try a little harder to live a normal life, instead of devoting all of your time to building the perfect public figure.”

I swallowed the excessive amounts of bile, or maybe venom, that had flooded my mouth, “I’ll ask Christian to get you a car. We’ll drop you off in Indianapolis and you can go to the airport. I don’t care where you go from there.”

“Oh God Ivy, don’t be-”

“Sienna,” I tried my hardest to keep my voice even. 

“Fine, Sienna. Don’t be so goddamn dramatic. Can you make this kind of irrational decision in the morning?”

“No. You can be gone whenever you want, but you won’t be joining me on the bus after my show tomorrow night. I’ll pay for your flight if you need it,”

“You’ll regret this, so I’m gonna save you from yourself and not say anything until tomorrow morning. Which is now in 4 hours,”

He turned his back towards me and shut his eyes, breathing evenly until eventually losing consciousness. I crept onto his bed, looming over his face to ensure he was actually asleep. His face resembled that of a small child who spent an entire day at a baseball field and was deeply sleeping in the car on the ride home. I let my head fall forward, my blonde hair falling in front of my eyes and filling my nose with the sweet scent of hairspray that I wasn’t able to scrub out. The tears that seeped through my eyes burned, and had to be quickly wiped away so as to not agitate my skin per Charlotte’s directions. I sniffled, pulling my hair back into a tight bun and gazing over Anthony. He didn’t ask for this, it was true, but if I told myself I wanted him to leave, I would be lying. Perhaps he was right, my mind needed to be cleared of the fog that the nighttime brought. 

— 

Morning greeted me with screaming fans, posters, cameras, and a sun in the center of the sky.

“It’s almost noon,” Anthony said, “sleep well?”

“Yep,” I said. I wondered if he was going to pretend as if last night never happened, “the windows are tinted, right? Also, are we in Indianapolis?” 

“Yes to both.”

A long silence followed. My morning mind wasn’t equipped with the ability to decide whether or not to speak to him. 

“Latte?”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” I said.

I slowly sipped from the Starbucks cup that he gave me, letting the warmth run through my veins and give me the courage to meet his eyes.

“Any thoughts from last night?” He asked.

I shrugged, swallowing the warmth and staring at my cup.

“You need me, Sienna,” he said earnestly, “you can’t do this without me. So I’ll stay, for your sake. I can deal with…” his voice trailed off as he gestured to the crowd outside of my bus. He opened up his arms, motioning for me to fall inside them. It was all I wanted, to be comforted and cared for. For him to scratch my back and say encouraging things while providing me with the warmth that I lacked. 

Yet as I stood in his arms, I felt tense. My arms prickled with goosebumps while I wondered how it was possible that he was the one who I wanted to send away last night, and this morning he managed to make it seem like staying was a favor to me.