Next chapter :) Back doing my practical side of my course, so updates might be all over the place again. Sorry!

Chapter Seven

The prospect of doing an interview still sends me rattling nervous and my stomach will start contracting into tiny knots. It's a thrill I've become to love, sort of like enjoying a scary roller coaster ride. It's nice feeling like you're the most important person in the room, but there's still a looming fear of what'll happen if you stuff up on a live shoot in front of a curious audience would could make your mistake viral in a matter of seconds.

I've only really just managed to get myself accustomed to the whole gig of being famous. In fact, I'm still trying to find my feet in some areas, but interviews aren't too bad anymore. People have moved away from asking about the mask, and rather focused their attention on my music career and where it's heading to next, which is amazing.

The interview Ava arranged for me is today, it's supposed to help promote my in-the-works album along with boosting my presence for the music awards coming up soon. I haven't looked, but I hear whispers that I'm smashing through my categories, and Ava holds this to the fact I'm being active in promoting good work.

I had to wake up early this morning so I could get to the show. We tend to do a few car swaps to get people confused before I'm able to change into clothing to arrive on set, only to then change into something appealing for the interview. By the time I get somewhere, it feels like I've worn half my wardrobe.

Over the years, Ava has loosened her grip on managing my wardrobe when she realised my lack of fashion sense has sort of grown from her knowledgeable teachings. However, she still insists on hiring undiscovered fashion designers to use their latest work in my wardrobe rather than endorsing bigger brands. I still love my designer brands though.

The concept of waiting hasn't changed. When I arrive at an interview, I still have to wait before I'm able to come out for my section. Which, in respect, it's sort of like being in the audience, you have to wait until things get rolling. But this time around, they have given me a comfortable couch and free Wi-Fi to fill my amusement.

My phone buzzes in my hand, so I flick out of my game and open the message app. My heart begins to quickly contract at the sight of Nathan's name.

'What's up?' – Nathan.

'Waiting for my live interview to start!' – Riley

'Coffee after?' – Nathan.

I quickly lock the phone screen before I can contemplate it any further. Do I really want to hang out with Nathan later? Yes. But should I? No. After the declaration he made last time, the normal thing would be to give us space so we don't weird out and things go bad. But as always, when do I ever follow the right thing to do?

'Ava has me doing promo work today, sorry :(' – Riley.

A swirl of emotions flush through my system. I don't get a chance to touch on them individually because theses a knock at the door and someone pokes their head inside.

"You're wanted," the stage manager explains.

"Okay." I slowly nod my head.

Sluggishly, I stand up and walk towards the door. The stage manager opens it wider, and I slip out and follow him down the corridor and towards the stage where the magic happens. I only have to wait in the side wings for a couple of minutes until the host is calling out my name, and the stage manager is waving his clipboard to get me walking.

I take a second to pull on a composed façade before walking out into the masses, and the questions to come.

The crowd cheers loudly, and I drink in their excitement and enthusiasm. I smile widely and wave as I make my way towards the couch near the interviewer's desk.

As I get comfortable, the interviewer quickly hands me a microphone with a blinking yellow light on it.

"Hello," I say. The crowd cheers and claps.

"It's nice to have you back on the show Sienna, how are you?" he asks.

"It's been a couple of months, hasn't it? I'm good Jackson, thank you for asking." I smile.

"That's good. One thing I've never asked is, why the name Sienna? How did you come up with it?" he shoots off with the first question.

"I didn't, Alex Bray actually did, which is probably a good thing. I can't name a goldfish let along giving myself a second name." I laugh.

"How do you feel about the name?"

"Sometimes I shiver," I admit, "but I do like it, sounds, different? Certainly fancier than my name. Truth be told, perhaps I like them equally," I respond.

The interviewer nods his head, then looks at his prompt card before responding with his next line.

"Come from Italy," Jackson starts to say, but is cut off by the cheering of the crowd. Before he can continue explaining, I chuck in my own two cents.

"The illusion is broken when you realise it means reddish brown. You'd probably expect a beautiful, young Italian girl, but you get an extra n and a pasty white American girl." I laugh.

When the crowd bursts into laughter alongside the host, I relax in my chair and start to enjoy myself. Sometimes people don't always understand my humour, and it leaves a few things a slight bit awkward.

"I feel like it's true as well," Jackson says in-between fits of laughter.

"Best thing about the name, makes for an even better signature for autographs." I nod my head proudly.

"I don't think I've seen your autograph before, which is weird, right?" Jackson leans under his desk and then places a piece of paper and a pen in front of me.

"Are you trying to steal my identity, or do you want to see it?" I ask.

"No." He shakes his head, "I just want to see what it looks like." I give him a wearily glare and then reach for the pen and paper. I take this opportunity as a chance to give back to one of the audience members in the crowd who's probably spent a lot of money getting at seat and time waiting to get here.

"Okay, but I'm giving it away afterwards." I look towards the crowd and single out a young teenage girl with a soft pink shirt that has my face and name printed across it. She's screaming, almost crying and her arms are waving through the air. I just can't get over how excited she is. So I point towards her and ask for her name.

One of the crew members from the show comes running towards her with a microphone. He hands it to her, and with shaking hands, accepts the microphone and says her name.

"Anna?" I ask, just to be sure.

The girl, now in tears, nods to confirm her name.

"To or dear?" I ask Jackson. I ask him to bring the process of writing the note as a collaboration, which sort of clues in the other members of the audience so they don't feel left out.

"Do you even need that?" he asks.

"Uh, yes?" I look towards the audience and they scream and nod their heads in agreement.

"Fine, by fancy with your words."

Background music turns on and Fancy by Iggy Azalea begins to play. The crowd cheer and start grooving along to the music. The music is cut off and I return to writing my letter. I scribble down 'to Anna' and then try to think up something original. I feel pressure, so I slip to writing something basic, 'Never stop dreaming. Never stop believing.' And then I sign my name along the bottom along with adding the 'xoxo' under the name.

As I hand it back to him, I add, "They've probably here for you, so you better sign it as well."

Jackson takes the page and looks over it, then adds his name along besides mine, then hands it back to me. I take the paper and walk towards the girl sitting on the crowd. She jumps up screaming and the security crew start walking towards her.

I hand her the page, and then lean in for a hug. She holds me tightly and I rub her back. When a few seconds pass, I try to move away. I don't want to take up too much time because I'm at a job, and I have to consider everyone else here too.

I wave to the girl and sit back down.

"How is it like for your family? Knowing someone famous but not being able to use it?" he asks the next question.

"Good for me." I laugh. "I like to tease my sister with it by posting snapchats to her – especially when I'm with people she adores."

"Like Nolan Finder?"

I beam with excitement to tell this story. "So my sister has this obsession with Nolan Finder, right?"

Jackson nods his head excitedly for this story.

"She's watched all of the movies a gazillion times and so I got the meet him. We were both back stage for an interview and I brought three posters with me, Nolan was amazing and he signed them with different names I provided," I explain. "But before she got the posters, we sent heaps of snapchat's to her and I kind of teased her for a bit." The crowd booms with laughter. I bet they'd do the same.

"How does your family feel about your career choice?"

"Happy? They're probably glad they didn't need to worry about sending me away to college. However, there's always the worry about my tour schedule and missing me. But that comes with the territory of growing up."

"How was your trip to Australia?"

"Spending time with Alex in Australia was awesome. He took me to all the cool places in Sydney, like Bondi Beach. I always wore my mask around his family, so that was a bit of work there," I say.

"Will you ever reveal your identity?" The crowd goes silent as they all carefully wait for my response.

"When I'm ready to do so, I will. I have certain goals in mind before anything like that happens."

"Care to shed some light?"

"I'd much rather tease and prolong it." I giggle.

We move to an ad break, and Jackson offers me a bottle of water for refreshments. I gladly take the bottle from his hands and open the lid. I take a quick gulp of water and then turn back towards the audience.

Within a few minutes, we're back online and Jackson fires off into the next segment of my interview; the competition. He explains that there are two girls back stage wearing masks and I'll make up the third girl. We'll go into another room and meet The Masked Singer. The game is to see which one figures out who is the real one while playing another game on stage.

"Are you up for the task?" he asks.

"Yes." I nod my head confidently.

"Then let's get you back stage." I get up from my seat and walk backstage. The stage manager snaps to my side and begins to usher me down the hallway to a marked out room. He opens the door and waves for the other two girls to come out.

We travel back towards the stage and Jackson welcomes us out. The stage has been transformed into a game show setting with three buzzers on the stage for us. We all stand behind one and look towards Jackson for out next cue.

"Welcome," says Jackson. "Are you ready to battle it out for some concert tickets?"

"Yes," we all scream.

Another masked figure appears on the stage and Jackson greats her as Sienna, The Masked Singer which gets the two girls next to me going nuts.

"With Sienna as my co-host, we're going to ask the girls a few questions. At the end of the round, the person with the most points is the winner," he explains to the audience.

Jackson makes us test our buzzers before moving onto our first question card.

"What name does The Masked Singer go by?" Before I have a chance to slam my hand on the buzzer, the girl on the end gets the question correct. Bummer, but I still have heaps of questions left.

"How many twitter followers does The Masked Singer have?" Buzzer goes over. 43 Million.

"What colour mask did she originally wear?" Buzzer goes off. Purple.

"Where did The Masked Singer recently vacation to?" Buzzer goes off, but it's my own. I answer Australia and Jackson nods his head in approval.

"What was her second tour called?" My buzzer and the girl next to me go off at the same time, but the question is awarded to her. She answers incorrectly with Clouds, and I steal the points with answering Paper Clouds.

"Last question," Jackson announces, which sends the girls bouncing. Anyone can get this question right and still win. "Sing the next line of this song." Instead of Jackson reading out the lyrics, an audio plays above and cuts off. The girl on the very end tries to sing the lyrics, but mucks them up and I end up answering the question.

"So let's run away, baby take me with you,

We don't have to wait, we'll go right ahead," I sing.

Looking towards me right, the two girls stand in total shock before letting loud screams pierce the air. The two girls come running and wrap their arms around my body, squeezing me tightly.

Jackson hands me a microphone, which I hold in one hand, and my other arm I wrap around one of them as I address the cameras to hand out their prizes.

"For playing the game, you'll be receiving two vip tickets to my concert and the winner will receive an awesome goodie pack which includes not only spending money, flights and accommodation, but also the chance to come back stage with me and get ready for the music awards as my plus one," I announce.

The girls are in tears. One of the cameras zooms in to capture the complete look of shock on her face, while they quickly wrap up the end of this segment. The stage manage runs on stage when it's time for us to leave.

I walk back stage with them and follow them into their dressing room so we get the chance to take pictures and sign a few things. They are still screaming and crying inside the dressing room which makes my heart race – it's nice to know people can be as passionate about my music as I am.

"Photo time?" I ask.

I take the phone from her trembling hands and take a few cute selfies with each one of them before pulling out mine and suggesting we take a group photo so I can upload it to my twitter account. I ask for their twitter names so that I can tag them in the post.

"We love you so much," they keep saying.

"Thank you, I really appreciate your support and love!" I smile back.

This sends her off in another round of tears and snot. I grab a tissue from the coffee table and hand it to her.

"I look forwards to seeing you at my concert later on, and of course getting ready at the awards show."

I don't have to try and escape, someone else breaks me out. There's a familiar knock to the door and Archer pokes his head inside.

"Sienna, the cars waiting," he prompts.

"Bye!" They say. I exchange one more hug before slipping out of the door and walking down the hall with Archer.

"Everything okay?" He looks over his shoulder and back at the closed dressing room door.

"I just feel awkward when people are crying and screaming. I understand it, but it's hard to have a conversation," I explain.

"Fair enough." He nods his head.

We return to the dressing room and I begin to collect my belongings. Before I leave the room, I check my phone for messages. There's one from Alex.

'Good afternoon beautiful, I miss you. Can't wait to hear your voice tonight.' – Alex.

My insides light up with happiness. Alex can be completely adorable sometimes. I quickly type him a response back and then start gathering my stuff together so that I can leave.

My phone chimes again, but it's another message from Nathan displayed across my screen. I don't want to deal with another one of his messages, so I flick the notification away, and then shove my phone inside my bag so I can deal with it later. I slide my bag over my shoulder and walk out of the room and head towards the car with Archer flaking me.

I climb into the car and we head towards the record label to sort out more business. I need give them something to get them off my back with the contract, and satisfied with the album so I can be done with it.