▪️Sunday, November 29th, 2017▪️

▪️Nashville, TN▪️

Bridgestone Arena—that says it all. How did I get so lucky? It's not the Carnegie Hall of my childhood dreams, but I'm on my way. The soundcheck goes well. Maybe a little too well, because after playing through my set twice, I'm still the only one on stage, and The Whats haven't arrived yet. When I toured before, occasionally a band member I was on good terms with would accompany me on the keys or the guitar, but with the time crunch, I'm at the piano for all of my songs. Because of my injury, that's more than I should do on a good day. On a bad day. . . I'll deal with it if that happens. I refuse to live in fear or plan for the outcomes that are as likely to never come to be.

While I wait for the band, I spend the extra time blocking potential movements. The stage is huge and far too large for one person. I know I have a great voice—I've been told enough times to believe it—but I'm used to performing in small venues, with outdoor festivals being the biggest crowds on my record.

To most fans who are here to see The Whats, my keyboard and I will be but a speck. The four giant screens that magnify my image are supposed to bring me closer to them, instead they make me feel like I'm a cell under a microscope we used in high school. Like the sole purpose of them is to expose me as a fraud, as the inexperienced broken wannabe.

My breaths turn rapid and shallow. A cacophony of voices in my ears booing me is almost too real. Three years ago, singing for ten people was cause for trepidation, and signing one autograph made me happy for a month. But that was then. I learned. I got better. I got braver. The me I am today is no longer a prisoner of public opinion.

I bring my attention back to what I can do to prove this is not a fluke. I do the stretching exercises for my wrist my physical therapist insists on to help with the dull ache that's not going away. The soundcheck is over. The lights are set. My timing is impeccable. There is a first for everything, and today my first will be singing to more people in the same spot than I've sung to in the last year. Live. My pinkie throbs. I can't afford for my pain to show up in my voice or to compromise my act. I take my box of mints, pop another one, and shove it back into my pocket.

"Uppers or downers? If you've got any going spare." Neil's voice comes from the audience seats close by. I'm blinded by the lights and can't make him out. How long has he been there?

"I was popping a mint. The breakfast burrito had a bit too many onions in it. Don't want to alienate the crew on my first day." There's nothing illegal about my pills. I have to visit my doctor every quarter to get refills, or sooner if I have to adjust the dose. But answering questions about them leads to questions about the car crash, and that is not an area I discuss with strangers—especially hot, famous, and the definition of a bad-boy strangers like Neil, who might as well have 'trouble' tattooed on his forehead.

"Can I have one?"

I reach into my pocket and take out an identical box filled with mints I carry around for situations like this. I walk over to where Neil sits and toss it his way. He inspects the box, shakes two of them out, and crunches the mints loudly with his teeth.

"You mind if I keep it?" he says.

I don't know what game he's playing today, but he's up to no good.

"I'll get you your own. I can monogram it too: A.H. It'll be my greeting present for you."

He tosses the box back at me without a warning, but I catch it, and his grin slides a little.

"And what, pray tell, does A.H. stand for?"

"Ass Hole."

"Arsehole is one word by the way. Won't work. You've got to come up with a better one, but I'll be looking forward to that precious gift. It'll come in handy."

I can't resist a smile. At least Neil's a good sport. Maybe we can be friends. I come closer and lean over the divider between the arena and the audience seats. I'm a couple of feet away when I extend my hand his way.

"Hi, I'm Angela Fisher. You can call me Angie."

Neil stands up, moves to shake my hand, but pauses.

"There's no shock button or anything else dangerous in your hand, yeah? I can get over a couple of stitches on my forehead, but I can't damage my hands before the concert."

I examine his forehead and note three small stitches are pulling the edges of the cut.

"You're safe. For now," I say.

We shake hands.

"I see you've already met." Poppy walks over to me with two more guys I recognize: Travis Cole, the drummer, and Oliver St. John, who plays the keys and leads the vocals. I turn their way, and we do a round of introductions. The Internet search the night before informed me that the band members range from early to late thirties in age, are natives of Manchester, England, and that only Neil isn't married or linked to a serious girlfriend.

We talk through their expectations, and they ask me to sing my set for them before they begin. My chest prickles with anxiety. These four musicians, who've achieved great fame and recognition in their field, will be scrutinizing my performance. Their eyes are a different variety of a microscope than that of the screens. I take a deep breath and hold it to displace the sharp feeling. I've sung through the set twice, I can do it again. I unfocus my eyes, and pretend they're my fans whose energy I love to bask in.

The pills hit my empty stomach soon after I begin, because the breakfast burrito was a lie. I'm invincible, as I play and bellow the lyrics to Latitude that Poppy requested I include in my set but most likely I rock because I'm doing it: I'm pouring my heart out at an arena in front of one of the most popular pop-rock groups int the world.

'When back is forward,

All direction lost."

I mean every word I sing. From the age of six I lived and breathed the piano. My life was planned out for years ahead: graduate from Julliard, book smaller performances, expand to international venues, have a five-year schedule of performances set like the best pianists of the world do. I had every step, every year, every possibility accounted for.

Apart from the accident.

'Lines on the map mean nothing to your mind.

Move up or down the latitudes of life.'

Like every time I perform Latitude, I'm transported to my first and only New Year's Eve in New York. Four months into Julliard, instead of greeting the festive first day of January with my new friends, I woke up in a hospital bed to pins in three fingers and everyone's relief that my brain swelling had gone down enough for me to regain consciousness. For weeks, with my eyes closed, the cries and the screech of the car's roof against the highway haunted me. With my eyes open, I stared at the ceiling of my hospital room, unable to move my left hand, unsure when I could touch the piano again.

The doctors' prognosis was unanimous: never. They were vague on how much function I'd regain in my left wrist and fingers but were certain I won't be able to play. I didn't believe them. I didn't believe my parents either when they said it was not the end of the world, that I'd figure it out, that I had a whole life ahead of me. A life? Maybe. But not the life I planned for, not the future I so desperately worked toward for twelve years.

Mom and Dad packed my room and drove me from New York back to Chicago, a U-Haul trailer with my belongings dragging behind. We were retracing the way we had arrived in August, a different U-Haul behind us then, full of hopes and dreams.

Latitude was the first song I ever recorded. It poured out of me in the rear seat of my dad's old truck, my hand still in a cast. With one thumb on my phone's note app, I typed the words that wouldn't cease ramming against my skull. I hummed the melody into the rectangle of light in my hand. The noises of the road, the murmured conversations between my parents in the front seat, and my muffled sobs were there in this four-year-old piece of music.

When I wrote the lyrics that day the final line of the song was, "Fight for your life and prove the doctors wrong." In my second month of my new life, I couldn't listen to everyone around me hitting the nails on the coffin of my career. They didn't know how strong and persistent I could be. I became my own advocate: I did physical therapy, massages, acupuncture, creams, shots, energy work, herbal remedies. The only option I could live with was to prove the doctors wrong.

I didn't.

It took me six months to accept that I would not be what I'd dreamed of-it was an impossibility. Living meant flying across the keyboard, mastering new and challenging passages, and making Mom and Dad cry listening to a piece I'd learned. The crash robbed me not only of the full dexterity in my left hand. The future I wanted was dead. The Angela Fisher I'd been for nineteen years was dead. It was both too early and too late to realize that what my life had been before could not be. Yet, what my life would become from then on was unfathomable.

I stop singing, and I don't look at the band. I stand up. That's when I hear loud slow claps. Oliver St. John, the eight-time Grammy-winning lead singer of The Whats, is giving me a standing ovation in Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm doing what millions of musicians dream of.

"Not just a pretty face then." Neil's still sitting when I get over to them. I want to give him the finger, but I don't. I'm a professional. Everyone else is on their feet.

Jason told me I could chose the songs for my set, as long as Latitude is on it. The angst and rawness of it fits well with the image The Whats have worked to portray: troubled, overcoming difficulties, living through the pain, and following your path. The Whats are about finding the "whats" in your life that make anything it throws at you doable.

My "what" has always been music.

"Wow—gotta say, we were hesitant at first. We're used to Poppy's fascination with finding fresh talent, but this time she's outdid herself." Oliver pats me on the back, as a big brother would. "You've got the voice. No auto-tune necessary."

Jason also warned me that Kiera, the singer who got kicked off this tour and a much bigger name, struggled to perform live, more used to auto-tuning and lip-sinking, which came out when they had a technical issue. Me singing and playing live and doing it well was what got me the job.

"And the lyrics. And the music." Poppy extols praise like I'm her child, and my accomplishments are hers as well. "If you can help Neil"—Travis glares at the slouching bassist—"come up with even a single song like the one you wrote, it might get him out of his creative slump."

My name on the tracks of the next The Whats' album in addition to opening for them? What do I think? Obvi! is what I think. But I'm a professional. I don't unleash my tween on everyone, no matter what Amelie believes of me.

"Sounds great." I only let my voice jump a third, and not a whole octave.

A muscle ticks on Neil's jaw as he examines the back of the seat in front of him. His pretty face contorts for a second, but a second is enough for me to see that darkness inside. I should stay away from him. That darkness I just caught a flash of, something inside me recognizes it, and I have buried that something deep and refuse to let it surface. "I'll set up some writing sessions." Poppy glances between Neil and me. "What'd you think?"

"I'd love that." I ignore Neil's glare and address the rest of the group. "Can I stay and watch you rehearse?"

"Still all glammed up, luv?" Poppy asks.

"It won't last," says Neil. "You can't polish a turd for too long."

"Don't listen to this sod." Poppy kicks Neil's seat forcing him to get up. "Stay as long as you like."

The Whats playing live are amazing. Even more so when they do it again a few hours later, this time for real, with me walking onto the stage before them. The crowd is more immense that I imagined: a sea of moving lights anywhere I look. I don't dull any of the emotions and force them to go through every up and down with me. I linger in the grandeur of the moment. But I truly fly when the audience shows me they're in love with my lyrics and my melodies, when they echo the chorus from Here.

'So I stay.

I don't run, I don't cry, and I smile.'

I stay, and I play, and don't cry, no matter how much I want to. My hand is on fire. I'm on fire, and I let it burn me to a crisp to light up the biggest performing space of my life. My opening number is over too fast, and I'm rushed backstage while the group makes their entrance, and the noise that I thought was at its highest becomes deafening as the arena can't contain the shrieks of the people.

I find my VIP seat and take in the show. The Whats dazzle. They go from the sounds that cover up the rowdiness, to the stillness that renders the arena quiet, allowing for Oliver's voice to be the sole sound source for the duration of a song. The way they capture the attention and hearts of the people they're performing for resonates, but the way their words and music work in a sneaky duo to create the emotions that pull people in, that is what I want to do. I want my words and my music to be the pipe the listeners will follow anywhere.

The night ends with three encores, before The Whats hurry to a promotional junket and promise to take me out to celebrate my joining the gang on a less hectic day. My body vibrates with the leftover energy, and the luxury hotel room feels more like a cage than an oasis. Am's at work, Mom and Dad are at the movies, so I send them a picture of me with the empty Bridgestone Arena behind in the morning and Bridgestone Arena full of people in the evening, after I finished my first show. I send them to Mike too.

Me: Dreams coming true!!! This is such a great space and my first arena ever!!!!!! I'm pinching myself every hour to make sure this my reality. That it's actually happening to me.

No one answers, so I log into my social media accounts, and a new rush of excitement swallows me.

The Whats' publicist announced me as the opening act this morning, and the video they must've recorded yesterday welcoming me to the tour is reposted across the world wide web. My follower count looks more like a slot machine that's stuck on spinning the numbers. The list of people in my DMs is longer than my parents' Costco receipt.

I get shouted at for stealing Kiera's spot, shouted at for keeping this a secret, shouted at for sleeping my way to the top, shouted at for being their favorite singer-songwriter in the universe. I soak in every shout, because, good or bad, the publicity a single incomplete day has created has moved me into the next tier of musicians, and one step further from the starving variety.

My fans demand hourly updates, Jason reminds me of the NDA I signed, and that all the photography, and the information I share with the public that has anything to do with The Whats must be run by their publicist first. Despite thousands of new followers, and hundreds of new DMs, I only care about the one from @bruceleewannabe where Mike congratulates me on the show. Like a stalker, I open his profile and scroll through the photos of food, random martial arts gear, and not enough selfies.

I'm not sure what Mike is up to, but I wish he were here. I miss his warmth, and his lips, and his hands. But most of all I wish I could share this moment with him. Not my parents or my best friends or even The Whats. My fingers find his number, and I listen to the rings, hoping he picks up; hoping I get to tell him all of this, hoping for the cello of his voice to sooth the delirium of this day.