Colton

"Ow-LOW!"

With a gasp that brought her back curving off of her bed, Harlow's eyes opened. A concerned Viviana looked down at her, restraining her arms. A quick survey of her room told Harlow that it hadn't been real. It had been a dream. It wasn't real. No one had snuck into her room, no one was threatening her.

"You okay?" Harlow looked up at Viviana. Unable to speak, she slowly nodded her yes at first- but decided to change her mind and shook her head no. Viviana released Harlow's arms, gently grabbing her hands. "Do you want me to stay?" Harlow nodded her head again, tears forming in her eyes. Viviana let Harlow go and climbed over her. Viviana took the free space on the bed, crawling under the covers. Vivana wrapped her arms around Harlow as her friend leaned into her chest. Harlow clung to her friend, weakly sobbing, "It was Emilio. He found me." Harlow shook in her friend's hold as she tried to shake the image from her head. Viviana shushed and cooed at her. As she petted Harlow's head, Viviana gently whispered to her. "He's not here, you're safe. Let's try to get some sleep." Harlow, having calmed down slightly, looked up to her friend. "Okay," Viviana turned off the light as Lady Luck found a new spot to rest. Laying there in the dark, the two women watched the other. "Thanks for staying Viv."

"Of course Low, I love you."

"I love you too."

~~~

"So, what are you going to do on your day off?" Viviana poured herself a cup of coffee, stirring in some sugar. Harlow sat at their small dining table, moving her cereal puffs around her bowl with her spoon. Her nightmares had progressed over the past week, getting worse despite her full avoidance of the diner. She had even started looking into getting connected to a therapist. "Well, I have an audition today with the local theatre. I'm looking forward to that. Then, I got invited by Danielle, my coworker, to go with her and a few of the others to this Karaoke place in the next town over for dinner. Apparently they have a real size stage for you to stand on, with a band. What's different is that the song you sing is picked from a list of songs that everyone in the joint chose. So you never really know what you could get."

Viviana took a seat across from Harlow, having a sip of coffee as she did. "Sounds really cool, you gonna go?" Harlow nodded her head, finally taking a bite of cereal. "Yeah, I think it'll be good for me." Viviana gave a small smile, taking another sip of coffee. "I'm really happy to see you making friends and, you know, going out." Harlow took another bite of cereal, shrugging as she refused to make eye contact. "I need to try to be normal. This is my life now. " Harlow shrugged, " Who knows, maybe it'll end up help with everything. You know?" Viviana looked at her friend, a small smile curled on her face. "Yeah, that's good thinking Low."

The truth was, Viviana didn't know if it was good for her. Viviana's whole life had never been thrown up into the air, left to land in a heap just to be tossed into a blender and turned into mush. She knew Harlow hadn't asked for anything that had happened to actually occur. But it did happen, and Harlow was living with it. Viviana was living with, and she felt that her friend was handling it better than Viviana would be in Harlow's spot.

For Viviana, her mother had ditched her when she was four. Her mother drove her to her Aunt's, dropped her off at the front door with a single bag and never looked back. It was the last tie Viviana ever saw her mother. Because of her young age, though, any long term emotional damage had been dealt with in her childhood. Her Aunt and Uncle saw Viviana getting any treatment needed to cope with the abandonment. With Harlow, her emotional, and physical, trauma occurred later in life. Harlow also lacked the support system that Viviana had been given. Viviana pitied her, as much as she loved her, she couldn't help but feel sorry for Harlow. Harlow was the sister Viviana never had, and she loved her as so. She simply wished something would play into Harlow's court.

Viviana's phone suddenly vibrated against the table. Picking it up, she opened the text from Colton. Fighting the urge to roll her eyes, Viviana took a final swing of coffee. Standing, she placed her mug in the sink, "Look, Low, I gotta get going. I need to go run an errand. See you later?" Harlow nodded, waving goodbye.

~~~

Ten minutes later, Viviana found herself sitting in a chair along a long , empty hallway. She suddenly got the worst flashback to grade school.

When she was eight and chased Dave Glen for stealing her lunch cookies. She followed him around the playground with passion and up the center playground set. It was then she dramatically pushed him down the slide. Dave ended up with a broken finger, from when Viviana snatched what was left of her cookies back from his hands.

Shaking the thought from her head, she looked towards the door across from her as it opened. "Come on in." She stood and lightly brushed past Jess without a second glance. Pausing in the doorway, she took a moment to take the room in. Nothing had changed- each book was still perfectly placed on the wall-long bookshelf, and the wooden floor was shining in the early morning light that streamed from the windows opposite of the bookshelf.

"Viviana." Her eyes shot from the breath-taking view to the man sitting behind the large, mahogany desk. Without thinking, Viviana found herself bending her head slightly, "Colton."

She hated that she had completed the action, after the fact. Wishing she could do something to defy him, she silently moved to sit at the seat his hand waved to. She had been broken away for nearly three years. There was no tie, no bond that she felt for them. She had always been on to orders from no one- a trait she shared with her mother. Yet, when he simply said her name, she found herself falling into the same old habit.

"Haven't seen you in a while, Viviana." She leaned back into the stiff-back chair, crossing her legs as she shrugged, "Haven't been around in a while." Colton gave her a once over, his eyes scanning over her. It was simply to evaluate her, nothing more or less. "You look like you're in fair health, nothing wrong there?" She shook her head, glancing at her phone. "Nope, look, not to get all rude and disrespectful but I gotta be at work by nine. Can we skip the small talk, can you just spit it out, get this over with?" His eyes hardened and the soft features of his face turned sharp. "What the hell are you doing back here?"

"It's called 'I finished school and moved back to my hometown'- it's not illegal." He cut her sharp tone with a wave of his hand. "No, when you left us you said- and I quote- 'God forbid I leave this town just to come back and waste away my life in some dink-shit back-woods stiff-neck hell of a place.'"

She blinked once, refusing to break eye contact with him. It was a silent power struggle that she fought as she responded, "A friend, the one person I connected with in California, got into some deep, deep, up to the ears crap. She just needed a chance to start off. I figured St. Dalton would be a good, safe, place." She glanced away, looking at her phone as she finished her statement, "Sue me for hating the place that will always be home to me. I gotta get to work." With that she stood, bowing her head towards Colton once more before leaving the office.

~~

That afternoon, Harlow found herself sitting in a small waiting room. From behind the door a few feet from her, she could hear the music. Mixing in, was a beautiful voice that belted out the climax to Memory. Closing her eyes, Harlow tuned out the noise as she entered into her audition ritual. Three positive affirmations, a full body roll and five minutes of whale sounds later; she felt ready.

"Harlow Write?" Her eyes popped open and she stood from her chair, "I'm right here!" The aid waved her into the audition room. She moved silently in, handing the aid all the correct paperwork. The aid positioned her in the center of the small room, handing the music sheets to the piano player and the rest of the papers to the two men sitting behind a plastic foldout table. Harlow felt that she had entered into a small-town version of American Idol. It made her smile.

"Hello, my name is Harlow Write and today I will be singing Heart of Stone from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. For this, I request help." She looked to the piano player, "If you would be kind enough to read the red words, I would greatly appreciate it."

"Of course!" With a thankful smile, Harlow nodded for him to begin playing. Harlow took a long blink, and suddenly she was no longer herself. As she began to sing, she was now a deformed human who had been deprived the privilege of human comfort and basic rights. Her voice rang of raw emotion as she displayed the pain of utter helplessness. She held each note as it was called for, showing off her control of her breath and ability to belt. When it came towards the end of the song, and the true strength of her voice was about to be displayed, she was unable to stop the tears from forming. The final line of the song called for a crescendo that ended in a 20 second long powerful belt.

The two men sitting behind the table had been taking in the performance, writing quick notes as they did. They thanks Harlow for her time, and informed her when the casting would be decided.

~~~

"How many?" The hostess looked at the group, the smile on her face not fully meeting her eyes. "I have a reservation, it's for Danielle Welsh." The hostess looked down at the tablet on the podium, scrolling through before stopping and nodding her head. "Ah, here you are- Danielle Welsh, a party of six for seven pm. Okay, follow me." The group was then led into the heart of the round tables, and seated near front and center stage. They each took their seats, the hostess handing out the menus. "How many of you have been here before?"

"All of us, minus this chick- right here!" Danielle pointed to Harlow, the whole group cheering her on. Harlow gave an award small smile as the hostess gave a smile similar to her previous one, "Well then, here's how Karaoke Roulette works- everyone writes their name and a song down down using this tablet here," the hostess swun the small machine around to face them, "it then gets entered into a our system. After the choosing of a name at random- and your name will come up- you go on to sing. When you go on stage to sing- and it's your first time you have to- there's no other option, you are given a ransom song to sing along to that was chosen by someone here tonight! I hope you don't get nervous in front of people- but if you do its okay, our band is here to support you" The hostess then left the group to figure out what drink to start off with.

~~~

An hour later the group was laughing and smiling- caused by a classic mixture of good food, alcohol- minus the designated driver- and company. Harlow even found herself in tears a few times from laughing so hard. At one point her cheeks were even starting to hurt from smiling so much. She really had needed a good night out more than she had thought.

"Next up to sing, from Table Forty-Three; Harlow!" Her smile suddenly dropped, along with her stomach. She looked towards the group, shaking her head no in horror as they cheered for her to go on. Though performing was her true passion, the sudden thought about singing a song at random frightened her. Suddenly, she was pulled up to her feet- Luke, one of her male coworkers who had come tonight, was pulling her to the stage. His ultimate goal was to help the restaurant worker who had come to get her for her song. She protested the whole way, the color draining from her face. The hostess had made it clear earlier in the night that she would have to sing, but a piece of Harlow had hoped that her name wouldn't be called before the group left.

Luke and the worker stopped her at the large screen which showed a rolling raffle. Luke forced her hand onto the screen, pressing the button to pick her sound. Fumbling up the steps, Harlow stood on the edge of the stage. Backup singers to the house band coaxed her towards the center of the stage, where a microphone was sitting in its stand. She turned, and watched as the band struck the first notes for her song. The chosen song's music was sent to their tablets. By some sort of luck, the song picked for her was something she knew. It was a classic 2000's pop-rock P!nk tune. She had grown up singing it, it was something she knew. Yet Harlow still felt like throwing up. Closing her eyes briefly, she had a few cords to get her nerves together before she had to start the first lyric. Harlow stared out into the crowd, the stage lights hurting her eyes as she did. She didn't need the scrolling lyrics, but she looked at them in order to avoid any possible eye contact with anyone.

As she entered into the first round of the chorus, she decided to be brave and look up. Harlow quickly noticed that people in the crowd were getting into her performance- if you call standing like a tree in the middle of the stage a performance. Glancing around to the closest tables, she noticed that some stopped eating, or talking, to watch while others swayed in their seats. Someone even started to clap to the beat. Coming into the second verse, she felt her body relax a bit. Reaching up, she held the microphone in one hand, as she swayed herself to the beat. When the chorus returned for a second time, she threw her right fist up- gaining a few yells from the crowd- and removed the microphone with her left hand. There was a small break in the music, where she turned and found herself strutting to the guitar player. HArlow looked him dead in the eyes; "You know you are, high five and talking shit, but you are going home alone; aren't ya? Cause-" Turning in a hop, she went back into the chorus, moving back to the center of the stage. And as she sang the last note, the room broke out into applause. Feeling her cheeks coloring, she thanked the crowd, and gave a small bow before rushing back to her table. Once she was safely back in her seat, her table mates all gushed about her amazing, hidden talent. As Danielleput it; "We knew you could sing, but you didn't tell us that you could sing!"