Chapter 16 - Contract

At night when I go to the centre to do my job, I still can’t wipe out the smile from my face. I remember talking to Niall and Harry and I burst into a fit of giggles. I look like an idiot, I know it, but I couldn’t care less. And I owe Mare for this big time. She pushed me to do it and even if it was hard, it made me so happy. So I’m really grateful to her and that’s the reason why when I see her in the music room, waiting for me, I run towards her, jumping on her. Pretty much like I did with Timmy today.

“Woah! Aren’t you happy tonight?” she asks hugging me back and I giggle again. “Did something happen?” she asks next, breaking the embrace and pulling back.

“I did it!” I blurt out and Mare raises her eyebrows. “I talked to someone. Two people! Not just hello, I actually had a conversation!”

Her eyes widen in surprise before a big smile comes to her lips. “That’s incredible! I knew you could do it, Ariel. I told you, didn’t I? You have the confidence inside of you, you just have to reach it.”

“It was so hard,” I confess taking a deep breath. “I almost fainted but I managed. I could hear you in my head telling me I could do it. I also talked to a squirrel.”

Mare laughs at my last input and pats my head like you pat a little dog. I don’t mind that she does, it kind of reminds me of Suzanne, one of my sisters. She used to do that to me when she still lived here with Father and I.

“Practice makes perfect, so you have to keep working. With time it won’t be as hard,” she says and I nod enthusiastically. I believe everything she says. She did what many teachers and even a therapist tried to accomplish. I’m pretty sure she’s magical, she has some power that can make people do the impossible. “And we’ll keep working on this. I’ll be here all the time for you.” I smile when she does that, Mare’s smile is already making me believe that she’s right. “Now, will you tell me whom you talked to?”

“Two guests,” I say, feeling heat in my cheeks so I look down, putting a lock of hair behind my ear. “I had seen them before but I could never talk to them. I was always hiding,” I carry on in a whisper still avoiding her eyes. “One of them is… he’s pretty much the reason why I… why I… not the reason, more like… uh… he’s why I want to… to overcome my shyness,” I manage to say, rambling and stuttering so much.

“He’s your motivation?” Mare suggests and my head snaps to meet her eyes. I nod frantically and she chuckles. “I see. Well, I’m sure that if you keep working hard you’ll talk to him again and more easily and you’ll become friends. And who knows,” she says wiggling her eyebrows. “Maybe more.”

I feel my guts twisting when she says that and I’m sure I’m blushing like a tomato at the mere thought of Harry and I being something more than friends. I honestly thing that he’s way out of my league and it’s impossible. Being friends seems impossible enough. But still, Mare says that and my heart flutters and I feel something so weird inside of me, like a tingling feeling that makes me want to giggle.

When I meet Mare’s eyes again she is staring at me with a funny look, a knowing grin and that makes me so self-conscious that I have to look away again, playing with my hair, pulling it behind my ear and trying to calm myself down.

“Well, I won’t torment you with this topic so let’s get down to business,” she says and I can’t help it. I swear I can’t.

“To defeat, the Huns!” I sing and instead of looking me like a weirdo, Mare chuckles. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay. Anyways, my dad is a lawyer so he always told me that things had to be specific and clear to avoid any kind of misunderstanding. That’s why I’ve come with this today. I asked for some help from my aunt.” I cock my head to the side, a bit confused as I see Mare grabbing a folder she had on the piano. “My aunt is the owner of this place.” My eyes widen in shock even when Mare sounds so nonchalant about it. “Anyways, I asked her for help so I have this now.”

Mare hands me the folder and I take it slowly, still a bit confused. When I open it and see what’s inside I frown. “This… this looks like a contract.” I say and look up to meet her eyes, she’s smiling.

“That’s because it is a contract. If this works I can get my chance to be a star, so we need to keep things clear. It’s just in case. It says that I help you in exchange for you to sing for me. If we get a deal, you’ll be paid, of course. It has many points and you can read them all. My dad always said ‘get it on paper and you’ll avoid people stabbing you in the back. Be always one step ahead’. I’ve lived all my life with that. I trust you, but it’s still for the best.”

I’m surprised because I never saw this coming. This makes all this so real, it’s like I’m actually selling my voice in exchange of her help to be able to have a chance to overcome my social anxiety. Of course, it may not work, but it may work and this would be my job.

I start reading the contract, point by point and I’m even more impressed. It’s so detailed, it almost covers every possibility. What happens if Mare doesn’t get a deal, what happens if she does, what happens according to what kind of deal she can get and how that affects me. It even says that if she gets a deal I get twenty per cent of her profits and that even can change to thirty —or more— per cent depending on the success of her career.

It takes me twenty minutes to read it all and I’m really impressed. I mean, I already agreed to this. We even started. I came here a bit earlier because I assumed we were going to do something else. But this contract makes things look a bit different. Maybe I should deny to sign it and just walk away. I should just have to give up on ever overcoming my disorder. I should have to give up on talking to others. I should have to give up on talking to Harry, to be part of his world.

But today I had a taste of what it feels to talk to others, to have a conversation with someone else. How can I give up on that when I already know what it feels like? How can I give up and go back to my kingdom of isolation when I already stepped into the other world, even for a little while?

The odds to actually get a deal are really against us. We most likely won’t even perform in front of someone, but either way I get her help. And she already did something amazing today.

I have to sign.

“D-do you have a pen?” I ask after finally reading the contract and Mare smiles at me so widely.

“Of course,” she replies taking a pen from the pocket of her khaki shorts.

I grab it and walk to the piano where I look for all the places I have to sign. There are three copies of the contract, I don’t know why, but I sign them all. I want her help, I want to overcome this and I already agreed to this so there’s no big difference now. This is just more detailed but it’s the same thing and it’s even better, it’s clearer now. I notice that Mare already signed all the copies and I frown when I see her full name.

 “I thought your name was Mare,” I say, looking at her with a frown once I finished signing.

“That’s my middle name. I don’t like the first one,” she confesses and I can see she really doesn’t like it. “I don’t know what my mother was thinking. Really, Ursula? In school every kid made fun of me. They called me fat octopus, because of the movie, you know? Even when I was in secondary school people made fun of me. I grew to hate the name. I’m not the witch of the Little Mermaid!” she exclaims and my eyes widens. She really hates her name. “It’s not fair that people think you have to be a certain way because you have a certain name. We don’t pick our names,” she insists and I nod, knowing exactly what she means. “Sometimes we just don’t live up to the standards of our names. Sometimes they don’t describe you. Most of the time they are just names our parents liked and have nothing to do with who we really are. That my name is Ursula doesn’t mean I’m a fat octopus. Or that your name is Ariel doesn’t mean you are a mermaid, right?” I nod again because I understand so well what she means.

I’ve always loved Ariel the character and wanted to be her. I wanted to live up to the name, but I could never do it. It’s been a weight on my shoulders all my life, expectations I can’t fulfil because I can’t be like the princess.

Names seem something so trivial and I never thought someone would understand what it feels to have a name that actually weights in on you. But Mare does, she knows exactly how I feel although I think it was worse on her.

“I hated my name so much I had to change schools. When I got into sixth form I started to use Mare instead of Ursula. I even talked to the teachers so they would never call me by my first name. Only my surname or middle name.”

“Names don’t define us,” I say and Mare smiles at me.

“We define our names, but sometimes people’s preconceptions are just too strong to destroy.”

I nod, sad about it. I know my mum named me after the Disney princess, hoping I would be just as special as her. I can’t be like the princess and maybe I should stop comparing myself to her. I can’t live up to the character, I’m my own person and no matter how much I want to be like the little mermaid, I have to be myself first, right?

“Anyways, let’s drop this depressing topic. You signed,” Mare grins. “We’re on this boat, so let’s sail it. I was thinking we should work on a song and record it, then post it on YouTube so we can see how people react to it. If they like it, we can manage to show it to some guests here. What do you think?”

“S-sounds good,” I say and Mare claps her hands in excitement.

“And as we practice we can try to understand your problem better and I’ll give you more exercises for you to finally overcome it.”

I smile, excitedly and not afraid that Mare will make me talk about my fears and insecurities. I’m not scared to talk to her and it’s not even that hard anymore. I’m really getting used to talk to Mare, I feel like she understands me on a weird level.

“So, what do you think?” Mare asks with a big smile.

“Let’s do it,” I say with a smile of my own.

“Do you have a song you wanna get out there?” Mare asks next and I have to think about it.

I have many songs but I never thought of uploading them to the internet. It always seemed so impossible to me that I have no idea what song to use now.

“Wh-what if we try with a cover?” I suggest and Mare cocks her head. “If people like it we show them an original song.”

Mare thinks about it and I know she agrees when she smiles again. “I like it. Don’t show them the best until you know you got their attention. Well thought, Ari.”

I smile widely because she agreed and because she called me Ari. That’s how my sisters call me. It’s almost as if Mare is my seventh sister. I really like this, it makes me so happy.

“Let’s do it then,” she says and that’s when we sit down and start working.

-:-:-

Dedication to @Justlaughoxo. I'm glad to know you had the same reaction as Ariel. It makes me think I did an accurate job.

Bel, xx

NU: Friday