Love In Lights

“Tune in to Good Morning America tomorrow to watch girl band Purity take the stage with their number one hit song ‘Open Up’ as well as debuting a new surprise song of theirs. We’re looking forward to having them and the message they want to deliver to young girls all over the world.” - June 2016

I was shocked out of my trance when the van pulled to a sudden stop and the door was flung open. Geoffrey our security guard waved us out in a hurry.

I quickly unbuckled and grabbed onto Annalisa’s hand as all six of us piled out of the van. We could hear screams and it took a moment to look around before the gate that sectioned off the back of the studio was rattled and the piles of screaming girls pressed against the grails could be seen. They screamed louder and I gave a short wave before being ushered inside.

“This is so cool.” Annalisa whispered from beside me, her hands both holding tightly onto one of mine. I had picked her up from the airport late last night and we had barely had three hours of sleep but it barely showed across her face.

“Are you nervous?” She asked. “I would be nervous if I was you.” She continued.

I laughed and tugged her closer when she began to slow, staring at the space around her. Frankie stumbled along behind her, her drooping eyes and nose almost succumbed inside her coffee cup. Her bedroom light had been on all night; I made a mental note to check on her later.

“You know this is actually really great. So much time has been cut out since we don’t need hair and make up. We should do this more often.” Lucinda stretched her arms over her head and shook out her long mane of red hair as it sprawled wildly across her back.

“We don’t want to put Mia and Johnson out of a job.” Kate piped up, her brown hair stuffed messily under a white beanie; possibly the beanie that I had bought the other week.

I reached out to make a grab for it but she dodged my hand and shot me a smirk. I flipped her off but was too tired to try to grab it again.

We were led to a private room to wait. There was a table set up in the corner full of breakfast foods and drinks. Frankie immediately headed for the coffee, dumping the cup she had and grabbing a new one. Annalisa bounded over to where a pile of bacon and eggs sat, her eyes wide with hunger. Lucinda joined her, aiming for the pancakes not far away. I watched closely as Gracie debated before grabbing a banana and took a seat on one of the large couches.

I followed over to Annalisa and took a plate, loading it with whatever types of food that I knew Gracie liked and drowning everything in honey, everything including the eggs and bacon. It was her favourite topping.

I walked over to where she sat and without a word placed the plate in her lap with a fork and headed back to the table to grab my own plate. Nothing was said but by the time I took a seat with my own food across from her she was moodily taking a bite out of a piece of bacon. I smiled, pleased.

I watched out of the corner of my eye as Annalisa reached over, carefully and slowly towards Lucinda and her pile of bacon only to be slapped away and grunted at. I laughed at Annalisa’s offended look. Lucinda didn’t share bacon.

“I’m really proud of what you’re doing today.” Annalisa turned to me, her smile wide. She seemed insistent on filling the room with talking. The rest of us found it too early to function but I forced through the sleep haze to try and converse with her.

“Lets see how well everyone takes the performance before you start getting proud.” I responded halfway through one of my pancakes.

“It will be amazing and ‘I Say Ok’ is one of my favourite songs on your album, so I know I’m going to love watching your perform it.” Annalisa gushed; her eyes alight with excitement.

-

It was five minutes until we would start heading towards the stage and I began to panic while staring at myself in the mirror. This may have been my idea but there was no way that I was confident with doing this.

The more I stared the more I could pick every single flaw that I hated on my face. I hated how pale my face looked and every acne scar. There was a slight dark circle under my eyes from no sleep last night and my lips looked too pale. I hated it but the more I stared the more I hated how much it all bothered me.

“We can do this.” Lucinda said from next to me, her own eyes locked in their own battle as she scanned her face. “We’re doing this as an example to show that we don’t need make up to feel confident or to be beautiful or to have talent. We’re going to show millions of girls that it’s okay to wear make-up as long as they know that they can be whoever they want to be with or without it.” Lucinda’s pep grew stronger as she talked until all of us were listening intently, nodding along. Allowing her courage to fill us so we could turn from the mirrors and head to the door.

“To wearing what we want, whenever we want.” Frankie jokingly lifted her coffee cup in the air.

“To people being able to look however they want without being judged.” Gracie added with a nod, her eyes hard and ready. We were all ready.

I took a deep breath, smiled at Annalisa and moved to the door. This was going to be scary, and the hardest part was going to be having the guts to watch this back on TV where your faults screamed out in high definition. But we could do this; I needed to do this. I needed to do this for my own confidence too.

Geoffrey nodded to us when we reached side stage and Annalisa pressed a kiss to my cheek, wished us luck before heading over to join him. I stood patiently and listened to the screaming crowd outside while we were fitted with everything. Plugs for our ears, microphone in our hands and then finally our introduction began.

Quickly we pulled each other into a quick hug, Heads moving in so we were temple-to-temple, silent but our thoughts almost vibrating through our heads. There were things between us that didn’t need to be physically said, but this was our way of understanding, of taking those words and performing because we could do this.

“Please welcome the world’s favourite girl band Purity!” The screams got louder and I quickly pulled the plugs from my shoulders to press into my ear. Everyone seemed to converge around us after that. Rushing us forward towards the outside stage until the sun hit us and there were suddenly thousands of people in front of the stage, screaming and jumping and going absolutely mental.

I waved happily as Lucinda greeted the crowd. The music for “Open Up” began playing almost instantly and the nervous bubble floating in my stomach burst open to be filled with the beat of the music, the energy of my girls and the excitement of the crowd. This, this is what I was born to do.

Lucinda sung first, her voice rising over the crowd while we all fell into the usual formation

“I didn’t say but I meant to tell you
I didn’t call but I was just about too
I know your mad and think you know where I’ve been
I know it’s 5am but I can explain”

I moved forward to replace Lucinda and grinned, pulling the microphone up towards my mouth.

“I lost my jacked, had no credit on my phone
I was worried about you here alone
I tried to babe, I couldn’t get a taxi
I’m really tired, just wanna crawl in next to you.”

I moved back preparing for the bridge, my eyes trailing over the thousands of fans in front of us, moving and yelling the lyrics with us, their faces were excited and I grinned happily bouncing to the chorus and singing my heart out. All my worries about what I looked like long gone.

We finished “Open Up” in what felt like barely any time then we would lead onto “I Say Ok”.

I pulled my earplugs out once the music cut out and Frankie stepped forward to introduce the next song. We hadn’t sung “I Say Ok” live and it was only known through the album so this was the first time it would be aired on TV.

“We have a surprise for you all today.” Frankie called out over the crowd and was rewarded with louder screams. I grinned at Gracie in excitement.

“We’ve decided in honor of today’s no make-up performance to perform the song “I Say Ok” which if you’ve heard it before is basically a big stuff you to anyone who ever said that you weren’t pretty or that you couldn’t dress or act a certain way. So sing along and scream out, we wanna hear you.” Frankie yelled as the intro music played and Kate moved to the center of the stage.

“As I walk into club at night
I can feel the burn of hungry eyes
They love to look me up and down like”

We only had small choreography for this and it was only as we moved from side to side of the stage. This song was upbeat and was meant to have no cares so that’s what we did. We jumped and spun and moved however the beat wanted to take us. Together or separately and always including the crowd. They were screaming wildly back and I laughed in enjoyment, one of my earplugs flopping on my shoulder so I could hear them all better. Enjoy the feeling of their screams rattling through my head and down to my toes.

“And the whipsers around with a frown
Saying girl that ain’t pretty

Hey, then I’d rather be ugly
Baby I say ok, just as long as I love me
Baby I say ok.”

The chorus was shouted with us, and I bent down reaching forward to grab onto as many hands as possible. There were a few tugs but security was there keeping them all behind the fence.

The beat of the music slowed and I backed away from the crowd moving towards the center of the stage and using the grip on my boots to step up onto one of the tall speakers placed in front of us. I was glad that I had wore boots today, I would not have been game to climb on top of this in heels.

“Cause I can feel the kick drum in
My body, like a heart beat
And it’s somewhere deep inside
That dirty bass, I lose me

In the corner of my eye I saw someone
Falling of their seat
And the whispers around with a frown
Saying girl that ain’t pretty.” I held the note at the end before the rest joined in singing the chorus one last time.

Kate appeared by my side, hand up to help me down and off the speaker before we centered to the front again, grabbing hands and pulling faces into cameras as we moved.

We reached the other three girls before falling into the last end pose. I bent over and bared my teeth into the camera. I could feel the panting laughter from the other four girls as we clung tightly to each other and pulled a face at the camera.

My head was pounding, my face hurt from smiling and my heart felt like it was doing jumping jacks. This adrenalin would never get old. We stepped back from the edge and took a bow together waving and blowing kisses to the crowd before stepping to the sides for the shows hosts to walk up. I couldn’t wipe the grin from my face.

We were guided back to our room after we had finished on stage. My ears were still ringing and everything was slightly muffled but by now my body had become accustomed to the after feeling of a performance. What it would never get used to is the rush and constant buzz under your skin throughout and after the show. It made you want to move, run and jump. Sometimes it would become unbearable and I couldn’t even sit without needing to bob my head or wave my arms, some nights when we were on tour only a drink could calm it down. After awhile it ended up being the only thing that would calm me down. And now, now I needed to find a new way to slow my world down, to keep it in tune with everything around me.

“Holy shit that was amazing.” Annalisa jumped on us the moment we were through the door. Her eyes were wild and she was still jumping pulling me in with her. I couldn’t help it her energy matched the buzz under my fingertips and I grabbed on tightly needed someone else to share, to spread.

But it never helped. The buzz would stay until my heart slowed to it’s normal beat and until then I had to figure out a new way to ignore it.

“You guys really were amazing.”

I looked, shocked, towards Louis who stood in the middle of the room, Harry standing not that far behind him talking with Kate and Gracie. Lucinda and Frankie were grabbing drinks.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him honestly confused. They were supposed to be in LA at Simon’s where we would be flying out to in a few days for the party he was throwing.

“The others are. We thought we would fly here and support you.” Harry said, appearing next to Louis with a wide smile. “This one was going wild by herself so we had to join.” He gestured to Annalisa who instead of blushing like she used to when the boys paid attention to her, merely waved him away. She no longer cared how they saw here; she knew they didn’t judge.

“Thank you.” I said sincerely, moving forward to pull Louis into a hug. Wrapping my arms around his neck and pulling forward until my nose was buried against his collarbone. His hands were tentative brushing along my waist before wrapping around to squeeze me tighter.

I waited until he took a step back, allowing myself to take what I could as the buzz died down by his touch, the silence in my ear almost deafening as my senses dialed themselves down.

I pulled Harry in next, a kiss to either of his cheeks but not the same numbness that Louis provided. I trust Harry but I trusted Louis with my whole being, my body understood that.

-

“Eat,”

I smiled into my mouth full of potato as Gracie’s grandmother piled extra food onto her plate. Gracie took it without complaint and avoided the hard stare from her Grandma.

“This is really good Grammy.” Frankie said sweetly taking a large bit of the chicken.

“Don’t sweet talk me Francesca. Now eat your food, I saw you five up there dancing this morning, I expect all this food gone.” I eyed the piles of plates in front of us filled with so many vegetables, salads and chicken.

“Then I have some pie and ice cream for desert.” She continued.

I widened my eyes at Kate from across the table; I was already filling up fast. Gracie’s mum Rachel stayed quiet and continued to eat the food, Ryan her son was shoveling food onto his own plate while whispering with Annalisa about something. I debated whether I could fork more food onto his plate so we didn’t have to eat as much.

“Your performance this morning was lovely girls.” Rachel smiled while Grammy took a seat next to Gracie, her eyes constantly flickering to her granddaughter as she watched her eat.

“Thanks Mum.” Gracie mumbled through a mouth of corn. Her plate was piled high, higher then ours and I knew Grammy would make her sit there and eat until she deemed it was enough.

“I hope this means you girls have finally grown up and stopped being so childish.” I widened my eyes at Katie, feeling the lecture coming on.

“Ryan, why don’t you and Annalisa go into the living room and watch some TV.” Rachel said quickly, her eyes scanning between her mother and her daughter.

I grabbed my glass of water and took a large gulp, Lucinda shifted uncomfortably from next to me.

“Now that you girls have had your fun I don’t want to hear anymore of this, these wild partying ways do you hear me? You went and got wild or something that you kids find fun but no more of that do you hear me?” Grammy’s eyes burned through all of us while she stared around the table.

“My daughter almost killed herself with no eating and don’t think I don’t know what each of you got addicted to doing. If I ever hear or see any of you five girls hurting yourselves or your parents like that again I will not hesitate to fly over and ground you all within an instant, no parties, no drinking, no performances I don’t care what that Simon has to say. Any more problems and none of you will perform ever again do I make myself clear.”

“Yes Grammy,” was sounded around the table from all five of us.

“You do no want to make me fly to you all, my arthritis has been a bitch on those long flights.”

“Grammy!” Gracie gasped at the word use.

“Oh like you five haven’t heard worse language.” Grammy waved her off before motioning back to the food. The scolding was over and I hurriedly dished more food on top of the food that I hadn’t finished yet. I never wanted to disappoint Grammy.

Notes

I'm back my lovely people! And missed you all so much :) My exams are all done and dusted and I'm officially on one month holiday before Uni decides to torture me again :D
I love all the feedback I've been getting about how much you enjoy the make-up/photoshop message that I've had in the last couple of chapters which means a lot to me guys!! xx
Also just to let you know that I've roughly finished planning everything out for this story and I'm almost halfway through, I'm aiming for about 30 chapters like the prequel to this. That could change as I go along since I tend to add stuff and take out stuff but roughly that is the plan! 30 chapters :D
And one last thing, just a reminder all music within this story is from songs by The Saturdays - i suck at poetry and therefore writing music.

Song Title: Shake by Walk Off the Earth - everyone should totally listen if you're feeling like shit, this is the song to dance around your room too! ;P

Anyway, glad to be back guys and enjoy! xx