My Sister Set Me Up To Fail On Stage — She Had No Idea What I Prepared In The Dark

Part 2

I turned swiftly on my heel and walked out of the massive auditorium before she could catch my eye and gloat.

The long, empty hallway felt significantly colder now, the stale air biting sharp against my flushed cheeks.

I kept walking at a brisk pace until I found the secluded back bleachers positioned by the empty outdoor practice field.

Even from out there in the damp air, I could still clearly hear the heavy, artificial bass thumping aggressively from inside the building.

They were actively playing my song, but they had completely dressed it up in synthetic, cheap beats and obnoxious echoing claps.

My absolute favorite, delicate line was being belted out with exaggerated, fake flair by someone who couldn’t even sing in key.

The beautiful, meaningful words hit me entirely differently now that they had been mocked, stolen, and completely rewritten.

I firmly pressed my trembling, cold fingers to my throbbing temples, trying desperately to breathe through the sharp ache building quickly behind my eyes.

I absolutely and entirely refused to cry over this.

If I started letting the hot tears fall, I was genuinely terrified I might never actually find a way to stop.

Instead, I carefully opened my battered, trusted notebook and flipped past the ruined lyrics to the next completely blank page.

My hand was trembling slightly as I firmly pressed the ballpoint pen to the thin paper.

In the small, lined space beneath my last entry, I wrote that if they wouldn’t let me sing, I would just speak so incredibly loud that it sounded exactly like a song.

It wasn’t outright, loud defiance just yet, but it certainly wasn’t quiet surrender, either.

When I finally got back to the dark house, it smelled strongly of reheated, cheap takeout food and stale perfume.

I completely ignored the set dinner table and walked straight past Megan, who was aggressively video chatting her loud friends in the living room.

I securely shut my bedroom door and immediately reached for my mother’s old, smudged cassette tape sitting on the dusty shelf.

I sat heavily on the carpeted floor, pulled my knees tightly up to my chest, and let her soft, static-filled voice fill the quiet, lonely room.

She always sounded so much softer on tape, her gentle voice wrapping around me like a warm, protective shield.

I carefully taped the original printed lyrics I had written weeks ago to the inside of my dark, wooden closet door.

For the very first time in days, I whispered out loud to the empty room that I was still going to perform, no matter what.

It wasn’t a loud, boastful declaration, but it belonged entirely and completely to me.

They had forcefully and cruelly taken my solo, but they couldn’t possibly take my actual voice.

The very next morning, I bypassed the main office and walked straight to the dilapidated bulletin board located near the cramped choir room.

I didn’t bother asking for anyone’s permission or approval.

I picked up a stray, red pen and wrote my name in bold, unflinching letters at the very bottom of the alternate sign-up sheet.

I requested absolutely no microphone, no theatrical stage lights, and certainly no grand, mocking announcement.

They thought taking my microphone would silence me, but they had no idea what I was preparing in the dark.

Have you ever let them think they won, right before you changed the game?