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Chapter 1
Jordan Matthews
***
Amarillo, Texas
Early October
A few weeks ago, I won some concert tickets on a radio station, and now I found myself in the middle of a whirlwind of new experiences. A Friday night that would have otherwise been ordinary was now completely surreal.
I left work early today and made a two-hour drive to the concert with a friend of mine, Monique. Tonight, the two of us were VIP guests at a sold-out show at the Civic Center in Amarillo, Texas.
The trip was all my doing. We were seeing Micah Lacey in concert, and he happened to be my favorite singer-songwriter in the whole world. I was a true fan. I would have traveled much farther to see him live, so when he released the dates for his tour and Amarillo was one of them, it was a no-brainer that I was going. I bought tickets before I ever won them, but the ones I won were much better so I turned around and sold the ones I had previously bought.
I had left Monique out of all that. She had no idea what I went through to get the tickets. She didn't like Micah Lacey nearly as much as I did and was just along for the ride.
Not much happened in the small Oklahoma town where we lived, so the trip to Amarillo was a big deal to both of us. Monique worked all the time, and she was a creature of habit who hung out at the same places and with the same people after work. She was six years older than me, and she had done her fair share of partying, but she never left town. This whole experience was even more overwhelming to her than it was to me. I wasn't necessarily an old pro at traveling, but I was determined when it came to seeing Micah Lacey.
This afternoon and evening had been a lot, even for me, though. We were two girls from the middle of nowhere on the open plains of Oklahoma, and now we were thrust into a crowd of five thousand people. Taylorsville only had about ten thousand residents in the whole town, and there was never a time when half of them converged in one place. We had a park or two, a Walmart, two grocery stores, and several restaurants, but Taylorsville was the absolute middle of nowhere compared to Amarillo.
I was the one who had spearheaded this trip. I was desperate to see Micah Lacey in person, so the process of making it here, even though it had been complicated and intense, seemed like nothing to me. Today, I would get to see Micah perform live and even meet him.
I worked until noon at the bank, and then I drove over to Monique's house to pick her up. She was nowhere near the Micah Lacey fan that I was, and she drug her feet getting out of the door which bugged me. I had a one-track mind to see that we made it to the radio station on time to ride with a DJ and the other contest winners to the show. I didn't want to miss a thing.
There were eight of us who won tickets from the radio station. I got to the station first and was really friendly with the DJ, so our seats were the best—front and center.
It was surreal to finally be at the show. I found myself gazing at the amazing Micah Lacey from what must have been only ten or fifteen feet away. I could see the mole on his cheek. I could make out the specks of his facial hair. I could see with my own two eyes the way his mouth moved when he sang and spoke. I had fallen in love with his lyrics and music before I ever knew how very handsome he was. He was amazing. The feelings I had for him—they were an official crush.
For the last two hours, I had sat in this audience, mesmerized. Monique got up to use the restroom once, and I laughed when she asked me if I wanted to go with her. I intentionally had nothing to drink specifically so I could avoid the restroom during this show. It was Micah Lacey. His music was mellow and cool, and so was he. Seeing him live was like nothing I'd ever experienced.
Micah always played an acoustic guitar, and he had used about five different ones during the show. He took off his guitar after he played one of his biggest hits, and I had to face the fact that the concert was over.
"He hasn't played Madeline yet!" someone shrieked. The girl sitting behind me made her statement loudly enough to be heard over the sound of the crowd. "Whooooooo!" she added, yelling right in my ear. "Playyyy Madeline!"
I was so thrown off by her that I didn't yell for Micah even though I wanted to. I just clapped and stared at the stage as he handed his acoustic to an assistant before giving a little wave to the crowd and walking behind the curtains. The whole band followed him, leaving the stage empty.
"Madeliiiine!" the woman behind me yelled at the top of her lungs.
Everyone in the audience began yelling for it. Even Monique, who was clueless about all of the songs he had played, was cupping her hands around her mouth and calling out for, "Madeline!"
The woman behind me took a breath and continued yelling, screeching in my ear. I was annoyed by her, and maybe it was because someone was even more excited than me.
"Madeline!" Monique called again, clapping vigorously. I glanced over at her, and she smiled and shrugged at me. The whole crowd was erupting, begging for another song. I had never been to a live concert of this magnitude, but I had read enough books and seen enough movies to know that we were calling for an encore.
I wondered if an encore was given every time it was called for.
It seemed to be taking forever.
We clapped and yelled to an empty stage.
"At least we still get to go backstage!" I said, leaning over to yell near Monique's ear.
"He'll come back out, don't worry!" It was the woman on the other side of Monique who leaned in and said it to me. "I've seen him four times, and healwayscomes out for an encore."
I continued clapping as I looked behind me, at the gigantic group of fans. I wondered what it would be like to stand on that stage and have all these people screaming for you. The audience carried on like this for another ten seconds of straight clapping and screaming. And then suddenly, we saw Micah come back onto the stage, followed by the four members of his band.
"Thank you so much, I really appreciate it," he said, coming over to the microphone. "You can go ahead and have a seat, and we'll play one more song for you." He gave us a moment to sit down as he strapped on his guitar and strummed it, making the notes I recognized as the beginning of Madeline, his first and biggest hit.
