Evie wondered if her stage fright would ever go away, but looking out into the crowd at the Hoi Polloi Event Centre it was impossible not to be nervous. The venue dwarfed any other she'd performed at and the seats seemed to be nearly full. It was crazy to think that so many people had shown up to watch her, she wasn't that good, was she? At least her family was in the audience, she couldn't see all of them amongst the crowd but just knowing they were there helped. She tried to pretend that it was only her family there as she pulled out her guitar.
It worked long enough that she got lost in the music and didn't matter anymore. People in the crowd danced and sang along. Evie even thought she saw some cameras go off but it was hard to tell for sure under all the flashy lights of the venue. And way too soon it was over, she'd had such a great time performing there, and judging by the cheering and applause everybody enjoyed watching.
It almost seemed weird when she went back to selling albums herself around town the next day.
And performing her weekly gigs and the Karaoke bar. Not that she didn't enjoy them, or though she was above them suddenly, she just missed the thrill of the big venue already. She could definitely get used to performing there and based on the reviews after the concert it didn't seem crazy to think that she'd get to do it again.
But she'd have to wait until after the summer as the venue was booked solid, though they'd called her to book her for a concert when the schedule opened up in the fall. So Evie just stuck to her gig at the Karaoke bar and picked up a couple at the club. She stopped selling CD's herself around town after a few as they were selling enough in stores.
So she spent time hanging out with her friends and siblings. Nolan had started learning piano, Evie had been helping him but he seemed to be picking up on it faster than she was and would likely soon be the one teaching her. She enjoyed listening either way and some times sang along to whatever he was playing. Some day maybe they could perform on stage together.
Though it was mostly her siblings she hung out with. Julianne had started acting weird, always looking to argue over something and even throwing around insults for no reason. Evie didn't really know why, though during a fight one day she'd accused Julianne of being jealous and did wonder if it was actually true.
They'd imagined for a long time that they'd sing together and be famous together. Evie had tried to assure Julianne few times that she wasn't forgetting about that and it could happen someday but she didn't want to sit around waiting and miss the chance to be a singer at all, but it seemed she hadn't believed her. They hadn't really spoken since then, just a "hey" in passing sometimes as she was still going out with Mae.
It made summer a bit difficult, it really hurt to be fighting with Julianne and to feel like they wouldn't be able to salvage their friendship. Evie still hoped they could, if she just gave Julianne her space to calm down from whatever was bugging her. But by the time school started again Julianne was still being difficult, Evie had tried a couple times to talk to her again but she didn't seem interested. But with the start of the school year Evie had found a new friend, some guy named Jules MacDuff. He replaced Julianne basically, if anybody could do that. He hung out with Evie before her gigs whenever she had one and they often studied together. They were almost always together.
He wasn't the most attractive guy in school and people found him a bit weird but Evie enjoyed his company and developed a bit of crush on him. However, as she discovered when he told her after a couple months of hanging out, Jules had a crush on her brother. Of course, she finally found somebody she liked and he liked somebody else, she may have had a lot of luck in her music but she didn't seem to have any in love.