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Mibba

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Back to The Beginning

Chapter Two

I was extremely nervous as I stood in front of the arena, along with the other three hundred or so acts that had been put through to Bootcamp. Soon, a person with a megaphone came out and got us all to shut up as they explained what was about to happen.

“Okay, you're all going to go inside and pick a song off of the wall after you check in,” he said. “After you pick your song, it'll have an area of the arena to go to on the slip. Everyone you find there are the people you have to work with.”

After he said that, he went back inside and the mass of people started moving. Fairly soon, I had my contestant number sticker and was browsing songs on the wall. As my eyes scanned the titles, I saw one that I loved - Shape of You by Ed Sheeran. I grabbed it quickly, and saw that it said to go to the “Main hallway, area 145.”

I had seen that on my way from check-in, so I headed back. Once I got there, I was thrilled to see that there were two boys there. “Hey!” I said as I walked up. “I'm Kayla.”

“I guess you're our team member now!” one of them said. “Nice to meet you, I'm James.”

“And I'm Taylor,” the other one said. “So, I have a question. Do you play guitar?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I do. Do either of you?” I asked, and they both nodded.

“Yeah, we were hoping that our third team member would so we could do a guitar trio with it,” Taylor said.

“I'm down for that,” I said. “We have to perform this tomorrow, right?”

James nodded. “Yeah. Hope you weren't planning on getting a lot of sleep.”

“Let's go ahead and get started,” Taylor chipped in. “We've only got so much time.”

We spent the rest of the day and a good portion of the night working out harmonies, parts, and the guitar trio. We had to borrow guitars from the X Factor people, and so we were also having to get used to new, unfamiliar guitars.

At around 3:00 am, we decided to crash out for a little bit, and five hours later, we were hitting up the breakfast bar, stuffing our faces with muffins and drinking coffee like it was our lifeblood. The same guy from yesterday came out with his megaphone and announced that the performance schedule had just been posted, and that we were free to go check it.

James, Taylor, and I all decided that we would wait a few minutes and let the crowd clear before we checked. So, as we sat sipping our coffee, I decided to drop the bomb on them. “So, there's something kind of important that I haven't told you guys yet,” I said.

James looked intrigued as he took another sip of his coffee. “Do tell, Kayla,” he responded.

“Yes please,” Taylor added, putting the spotlight on me.

“So, you know Liam Payne, right?” I asked, holding out on the news about myself just yet.

“Judge Liam, yeah? Who doesn't?” Taylor replied.

“Well...I'm kinda his little sister,” I said hesitantly, bracing myself for their reactions.

Their faces were so similar to Simon’s when he found out that I couldn't help but laugh. “You look exactly like Simon did when he found out at my Room Audition,” I remarked.

“This isn't funny, Kayla!” James exclaimed. After I had given him the Seriously? look, he added, “Okay, it is a little bit. But NOT COOL, girl, not cool.”

“Well, I just didn't want you to go in there and be completely blindsided,” I said, defending my choice to tell them. “Speaking of going in, do you want to go check our time?”

They nodded, and we stood from our comfortable place on the floor and walked over to the performance schedule that had been posted. As we searched for our names among the pages, Taylor called out from my left that he had found us, and that we were at roughly 12:30, right after a group of two girls singing Closer by The Chainsmokers.

We spent the remaining few hours smoothing over our performance, and when it was time for us to perform, we climbed the stairs from backstage and went to stand behind the microphones that were set up. “Hello,” Tulisa said.

“Hi,” we all managed to say at once before bursting out into laughter. I guess the many hours we'd spent in the last two days had managed to merge our personalities a bit.

“So, what will you be singing for us today?” Tulisa continued.

“We’ll be singing Shape of You by Ed Sheeran,” James said.

“Well then, whenever you're ready,” she said, smiling, and we all let our fingers find our first notes before starting.

James took the first verse and when the higher line came in at “Boy, let's not talk too much” I joined in. Then Taylor took the majority of the lead in the chorus, with James and I falling to the “oh I” part. The three of us traded off on which guitar part we played, with all of us sampling the lead guitar, percussive line, and synth line that we'd transposed to guitar.

When we finished, there was a rather awkward group hug that made us all laugh and then we turned to face our fates. “Well,” Louis started, “that was a great arrangement of that song, and I think that you all did very well both individually and as a group. However, I felt that maybe Kayla and Taylor put in a little bit more passion and effort than you, James, and I think that might've been because you were maybe the most comfortable with the song? Either way, great job to all three of you.”

“Thank you,” we all said as Liam began his comments.

“Hi Kayla,” he said. “Um, Happy Birthday. Hope you enjoy being seventeen. Right now, onto the performance. I have to agree with Louis, I don't think that James was giving everything as much as the other two of you were. I don't know why, it just...didn't come off as strong. I loved the guitar parts, really ingenious you guys, but yeah...It was really great.”

“Simon?” Tulisa prompted, causing him to clear his throat.

“So, I thought that the arrangement was really ambitious, and I liked that you took that risk. However, the parts without Kayla on vocal felt really flat to me. You two could be there singing, but I would just be looking at her over there playing her guitar. It sounded great, and it would sell if you released it, but live it was just a bit too flat for me,” Simon said, which caused us all to look at each other with worried looks in our eyes.

“Yeah, I have to agree with the guys,” Tulisa said sadly. “It would sell, and girls would go crazy, but it was flat from the two of you, James especially. Kayla stealing the performance didn't really have anything to do with her, it was just that you two were a bit stiffer and not as relaxed as she was, so our eyes just kind of...gravitated.”

Then they whispered among themselves and pointed at some pictures on the table before turning back to us. “Well, we've made our decision,” Simon said. “And I honestly can't believe I have to say this to you, but...you're all through.”

I turned to James and Taylor and there was a much less awkward group hug.
“We did it,” I whispered. “We did it.” As we opened out of the hug, we thanked the judges and then walked offstage, arms wrapped around each other.

We spent the rest of the day just kind of walking around and hanging out with each other. Plenty of people went into the room, and after we had been put through and were able to relax, we began to realize just how lucky we were, all three of us going through. Some groups would come out and only one person would be through, or nobody.

At the end of the day, there were only 115 acts left, and the majority of us were reeling from the quick, brutal eliminations that had taken place. Our number had been more than halved in one day, and this wasn't the last time it would happen. The guy from this morning came out with his megaphone again.

“Okay, can I get everyone's attention please? Can I please have everyone's attention?” he asked, and we got quiet so that we could hear what he had to say. “So, you're going to sleep where you did last night, and then tomorrow the judges are going to deliberate and you'll be free to just kind of do whatever. Day after tomorrow, the judges will call you in by category and then tell you who they're putting through to six chair challenge, okay? Great. You can go back to doing whatever you were doing now.”

We all seemed to turn back to our conversations, and James leaned back into his seat. “I love how this is supposed to change our lives, yet they act like they don't care. I mean, the judges do, and we do, but I'm not getting it from the production staff just yet,” he commented.

“I get it. I think they're just saving their energy for the live shows, though, since there are only going to be twelve of us that make it to those. Trying to put a ton of effort into, what, a hundred acts? Not gonna happen,” Taylor defended.

“I see both of your points, but I've gotta go with Taylor on this one,” I said. “It makes a lot of sense.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright,” James replied, sighing in defeat. “So, what would you guys be doing if you weren't on X Factor?”

“Playing gigs in bars and going to university,” Taylor said. “I deferred a term to come audition.”

“Probably starting college to get my A-levels,” I said. “In what, I don't know. I was going to pick them this summer.”

“Nerds,” James muttered, snorting.

“How do you call playing gigs in bars being a nerd?” Taylor asked. “Please, explain.”

“I don't,” James defended. “I call going to school being a nerd.”

“So what, you weren't going to go to school?” Taylor fired back.

“Nope, I was going to submit demos to record labels until one of them signed me,” James admitted. “And I was going to play gigs in bars and travel the world.”

“Wait, how old are you guys? I just realized we never said our ages,” I exclaimed.

“I'm twenty two,” James offered.

“I'm twenty,” Taylor followed.

“And you guys know I'm seventeen,” I finished. “Sorry, just...tangents, I guess.”

“It's fine, Kayla,” James said, and then he got a kind of evil glint in his eye. “There is this box of streamers over there, it's open, and nobody's doing anything with it.”

The three of us exchanged glances before getting up and sneaking over to the box before grabbing it and bringing it back over to where we were sitting. “Okay, we've got the streamers, now what do we do with them?” I asked.

“Hit up the bathrooms, then start randomly throwing them around the room,” James ordered. “Generally, cause mass chaos.”

I saw the glint appear in Taylor’s eyes, and then I knew mine were carrying it as well. “We got this,” he said as we began grabbing rolls of streamers out of the box.

“Of course we do,” I confirmed with a hair flip. “Now let's go.”

We ran off in different directions and started to cause the mass chaos we'd decided to. I knew the cameras were getting this, and I knew it would be hilarious television. People were running around and shrieking when they got hit, and nobody seemed to be able to pinpoint that it was us.

When we ran out of streamers, we returned to our spot on the floor, laughing so hard we were crying. The production staff quickly noticed and came over and grabbed us before taking us over to a bench and sitting us on it. “Were you guys the ones that pulled that little stunt?” a man asked, and we nodded. “Okay, when the red light comes on, feel free to tell the story.” Seconds later, the light was on, and James kicked us off, recounting how he'd seen the open box.

We filled in the parts he left out, or that only we knew, and ten minutes later, the camera had the entire story, complete with all the tiny little details that made the prank work. “You're free to go,” the man said, and we got up and returned to our area.

We went to the buffet that had been set up and ate dinner, before returning to our spot on the floor and talking until we fell asleep.

We woke up the next morning and then remembered we had nothing to do. That illusion was quickly shattered when production began grabbing us at random to do introductions for auditions. So that's how they pick the people that do them, I thought.

I was grabbed around three in the afternoon after randomly wandering around all day, eating and talking to some of the other contestants that weren't being interviewed by the production people, and led to a bench. “So, Kayla,” the production girl started. “Introduce yourself to the camera.

I looked at the camera and said, “Hi, my name is Kayla Payne, and I'm sixteen years old.”

She looked at me, seemingly to try to decide what questions she should be asking. “So, why did you audition for the X Factor?”

“I auditioned for the X Factor because I believe it can truly change lives,” I answered. “I love music, and I've seen X Factor winners get to live lives full of it. I really, really want that.”

“You're doing great. Now, how long have you been singing?” she continued.

“I've been singing for a couple of years now, but I've never played any gigs. I just sing around my house and stuff,” I answered.

“I think we've got enough,” she said. “Thanks, and now just go back to what you were doing before we called you over.”

I got up and walked over to where James and Taylor were. “That was weird,” I said.

“What was weird?” James replied.

“Filming the little audition intro thing,” I clarified. “It was like an interrogation, not a ‘Hi, I'm so and so and this is my life story!’ thing.”

“Once again, I don't think production cares,” James said. He'd been talking a lot today. “If they did, we wouldn't be sleeping on floors in the O2. We'd be in hotels, or at least on mats. They just want their paychecks.”

“Hey, Taylor, you're quiet,” I said, segueing into a new conversation. “What's up?”

“I'm just thinking about this,” he said. “How much I want it, why I want it. Might as well do it while I've got the time, right?” He laughed humorlessly, and an ominous mood settled over us.

“So...what's the answer to those questions? Like, why do you want it?” I asked.

“Most I can come up with is that I'm slowly going crazy in my very monotonous life, and I love music,” he answered.

“Well, if you're looking for an escape from monotony, you've come to the right place,” I replied. “Trust me, I'd know.”

“You would, wouldn't you?” James responded. “You've got a brother who's been through this. But you know, when I first saw you, it didn't seem like you'd have a famous brother or an amazing voice or be fucking awesome at guitar or want this so much. I thought you'd be quiet, shy, and get sent home because you wouldn't put anything in.”

“I have to agree with James,” Taylor said. “You're probably the biggest surprise here. And I know that even now, when it looks like you're sitting there relaxed, you're fighting with everything in you to stay.”

“Okay, you two are officially my new best friends,” I said, wiping my eyes to keep tears from falling. “Nobody except my family’s ever said something like that to me.”

“Aww, don't cry!” Taylor said. “Group hug!” They immediately engulfed me in a hug, and I smiled. I stood at 5’9”, and they were both taller than me, so I was about level with their shoulders. It was really nice.

“You guys are more affectionate than my boyfriend, I swear,” I laughed, enjoying the warmth in the slightly cool arena.

Letting go, they sat back down before Taylor said, “You've got a boyfriend?” I nodded, and he spoke again. “Well, when this entire thing is over, I want to meet him!”

“You can, if we're still together at that point,” I assured them.

“What? You don't know if you'll still be together? Kay, any guy crazy enough to let you go needs to be committed,” Taylor joked.

“Yeah, take it from a guy: if I weren't five years older than you and very happily single, I'd be interested in you, definitely,” James confirmed.

“Wow, high praise, you guys,” I returned, in my way of thanking them.

“So, why might you not be together when this is over?” James demanded.

“I don't know, it's just that the last few times I've seen him, he's been really distant,” I explained. “It scares me, because I don't even know why. This might sound silly, but...I'm scared to lose him.”

Taylor wrapped his arm around me. “Trust me, it doesn't sound silly. I see why you're scared, though. Just...give him some time, yeah? He's probably going through something at home, he'll come around. Don't worry about it,” he advised.

I leaned into his side. “I won't, and thanks for listening, you guys,” I said.

“Anytime, girl,” James said.

Notes

Awwww cute little friends moment at the end. I want friends like J & T for real tho

Comments

@YouLoveWhoYouLove
awww thanks :) it's getting so much better soon

I’m intrigued