My eyes felt heavy with sleep as I turned over and turned off my alarm. I slowly got up, turned on my light, grabbed my bathrobe, and headed down the hallway of our tiny apartment. One more day...I thought to myself. Only one more day in that hell-hole. It was my last day of high school. Thank God I had enough credits to graduate early. It was only January of my senior year, but by doubling up on my classes since my sophomore year, I had managed to be able to finish school already. I took a very quick, cold shower thanks to my sister, who had already used up the hot water this morning. Brian had probably stayed the night with her and I guess he had to go to work this morning. I shivered, dripping wet, as I grabbed two towels. I wrapped my hair in one, dried off my body with the other, and shrugged into my warm fleece bathrobe. I opened the door and walked back to my room. I looked at the clock. Shit. It was already 7:40. I had 15 minutes to finish getting ready or else I'd be late. I grabbed my favorite jeans, a t-shirt, and my NYU hoodie and put them on as fast as I could. I threw my hair up into a messy, still wet bun and gracefully slapped on some black eyeliner and mascara. I grabbed my backpack and purse, slid on a pair of flip-flops and headed towards the kitchen. My sister Chelsey was sitting at the table with Brian, her boyfriend. I walked in, grabbed a cup of coffee, filled it with creamer and was about to walk out the front door when Chels stopped me.

"Spencer, I'm working late tonight again so if anyone calls take a message." she reminded as she eyed what I was wearing. "Flip-flops in January?" she questioned, her eyes narrowing at me.

"Ok, whatever." I answered hurriedly, while rolling my eyes. She knew I wore flip-flops all year long. I hate it when my toes are cooped up. "But I won't be home till a little after five. Me, Kylie, and Nicole are going to Auburn, to eat at China Wok, after school. Which reminds me I have to go NOW to pick Kylie up. She'll get pissed if we're late."

"Ok,ok" said Chelsey. "Go. Have a good last day!"

I turned around and headed out the door towards my car. I walked towards the driver's side and threw my backpack and purse in the backseat right before I slid in behind the steering wheel. I stuck my keys in the ignition and the stereo blared loudly as the music from one of my favorite bands, Fall Out Boy, filled the car. I drove quickly towards Kylie's house. It was only a 3 or 4 minute drive but I was already late. She was sitting on the porch when I arrived. She had an annoyed look on her face as she swung open the door to my orange Honda Element.

"Finally.", she scoffed, her long almost platinum blonde hair blowing in her face as she threw her stuff in the back with mine and hopped up in the passenger seat beside of me.

"Sorry." I said as apologetic as I could sound. Truly the only thing I cared about right now was getting this day over with.

"So, I asked Bret if he wanted to come eat with us today after school. Is that okay with you?" she asked while fixing her hair in my mirror. "I mean it is sorta like your going away dinner so I figured I'd better ask."

"Sure, I don't care." I said, still sleepy from this morning. "Have you decided if you're gonna date him or not?"

My eyes wandered over to hers curiously.

"I doubt it.", she giggled. "I mean, I guess he's ok but it couldn't turn in to anything long term..."

"Ky, you don't even know the definition of a long term relationship." I said, correcting her.

"True. Very true actually. But I don't care." she added with a smile. Just then her phone rang.

"It's Bret. Hold on a sec." She flipped open her phone and put it quickly to her ear. That girl couldn't keep from flirting even over the phone. I giggled to myself as I listened to her talk to Bret.

I had known Kylie since the beginning of 7th grade. She had been my best friend since I moved to small-town Aurora, New York almost six years ago. Since then we had spent almost every moment of our lives together. It was weird because we were almost total opposites. I was shy and quiet and spent a lot of time alone. Kylie was not and had about a million friends. The first week of school I had her pegged in my mind as prep. With her long blonde hair, tan skin and perfect blue eyes, she always had guys hanging all over her. But the weird thing was, she seemed not to notice. We became friends through a project that we were assigned partners on in science class and immediately clicked. With her help I met all sorts of people and we became best friends. We went everywhere and did everything together. Pretty soon, I felt at home in Aurora. Hanging out with Kylie certainly had its perks. We were both always invited to parties. If one of us wasn't invited, the other one most likely wasn't either. Our friends knew we were inseparable. Most of the time, they thought of us as one person. I often didn't know how they could manage that one, as different as we are. Kylie was beautiful, tall, perky, loud, and a flirt. And me...well...I was just average.

There was absolutely nothing special about me. I was short and kind of pale with brownish-blonde or blondish-brown hair. (I couldn't really decide what color it actually was.) I didn't think I was ugly or anything, just...average. I mean, I had boyfriends, so evidently guys find me attractive, but not nearly as many as Kylie. She could never just pick one. I saw her hang up the phone. I giggled again and then felt sad for a moment. I thought about how much I was going to miss her. Not seeing her everyday I mean. As if she was reading my mind, she reached over and grabbed me in a hug.

"I'm gonna miss you so much, Spencer." she said sticking out her bottom lip into a pout.

"Aww." I answered. "I'm gonna miss you too." I hugged her back with one arm, keeping the other on the wheel.

"Now I'll have to ride the bus to school until my car gets fixed." she whined, her real pout turning into a fake one. She was trying not to smile.

"Oh, poor baby" I laughed. Just then we pulled into the parking lot of Aurora High.

I pulled into space 83, my assigned parking space and turned off the car, pulling the keys out of the ignition. Kylie was already out of the car before I had a chance to look over.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know." she answered back sarcastically. "Maybe it's because we only have 3 minutes to get to first period."

"Shit!" I almost yelled looking at the clock on the front of the school. I realized she was right and quickly grabbed my stuff out of the back. We ran into the school up to the second floor where she turned left for English and I turned right for my Pre-Cal final. I had three last finals to take today and then I was done forever. "See you after school. Meet me at the car." I called over my shoulder to her and she hurriedly made her way down the hall.

"Okay, see ya." she called back.

The day inched by as slowly as it could. By lunch I was ready to bang my head into a wall. I walked through the line and grabbed a tray, not even thinking about what I was doing. I sat down with Nicole, my second best friend, Sara, Rose and her boyfriend Shawn.

"How goes the finals?" asked Nicole curiously, not noticing that her red-blonde hair was dragging itself through the pile of brown mush on her tray that was supposed to be tacos.

"Ok, I guess." I answered with a smile. "Only one more to go and it's an easy one."

"Good!" she said cheerfully. "So, China Wok after school?"

"Yep"

"Oh my gosh, I absolutely LOVE that place!" said Rose a grin spreading across her face. "Who all is going?"

"So far only me, Kylie, Brent, and Nicole, but we have room for more. You wanna come?" I asked politely. I didn't know Rose very well but from what I knew she was nice.

"Sure! Right after school?" she answered back.

"Uh-huh."

"Ok, I'll be there." she said cheerfully.

The rest of lunch, in fact the rest of the day passed quickly. Finally the bell rang and I headed out to my car. Kylie was already waiting.

"Ready to eat?" she asked.

"I'm starving." I groaned, just now realizing I hadn't eaten very much at lunch. "By the way, Rose Johnson is coming, okay?"

"Sure, no problem.", she said with a shrug of her shoulders.

We hopped in to the car to make the 30 minute or so drive to the nearby town of Auburn to eat at China Wok, my favorite Chinese restaurant of all time. When we got there I pulled in the empty space beside Nicole's car and went in. Everyone was already there and had a table. This surprised me because the place tended to get crowded and I wasn't entirely sure we would be able to get in at all. We sat down and waited for the waitress to take our drink orders and then headed to the buffet. I was the last one back to the table and I could tell something we up by Nicole and Kylie's attempts to hide their smiles. I looked at them suspiciously until they finally spoke.

"So..." started Kylie. "Since you won't get to graduate with the rest of us, me and Nicole put our heads together and thought of a sort of graduation present we could give you." The smile on both of their faces turned into a huge grin. "Now you can't be mad..."

"Uh-oh...this doesn't sound good." I remarked.

"No, it IS!" shouted Nicole. "You're gonna love it...after we get past the first part."

"Ok, what is it?" I took a deep breath, not knowing at all what this was going to be.

"Well, first things first, I thought you might want this back." Kylie fumbled around in her oversized purse for a minute and pulled out a composition book with the word LYRICS scrawled across the front of it. I knew immediately it was mine. I had been writing song lyrics for years and all of them had ended up in that book. I hadn't seen it for about a month though and I had figured I lost it.

"You found it!" I screamed, overjoyed.

"You left it at my house when we were working on physics homework." announced Kylie. "Now, here's the part you might be mad about." she started again, picking at her nails nervously. I shifted back against the seat figuring I had better get comfortable. "See there was this lyric writing contest. I found your book and I thought you should enter, but I knew you never would. I talked to Nicole about it and she thought you had a good chance of winning. So we sent in a couple of songs."

"Ky-lie!" I groaned.

"Wait, before you say anything else." interrupted Nicole. "Kylie got an e-mail two days ago from the contest people. It has been so hard keeping this a secret but...YOU WON!..."

"No way!" I gasped.

"You did!" she answered back. "And you'll never guess what your prize is..." She handed me a copy of the e-mail she had printed off. "This is the good part." she added.

My jaw dropped and I almost passed out as I read what it said:

Spencer,

Thank you for entering your wonderful lyrics in our competition. We are happy to inform you that you have won. Your lyrics will be featured in February 10th's issue of Music Scene Magazine. Your lyrics are great and you deserve this honor very much.

"Oh my gosh!" I almost whispered. "My lyrics are going to be published in Music Scene!"

"That's not even the part you should be excited about. Keep reading!" Kylie urged.

My eyes fell back to where I had left off.

As promised in the contest rules, also included are plane tickets to Chicago, IL where Fall Out Boy's next tour is kicking off. A limo will be sent to pick you and one friend up at the airport and to take you to the show. You will have the opportunity to tour with the one and only Fall Out Boy for two months on their own personal tour bus, tickets to all shows and backstage passes included. Thank you for participating in our contest and we hope you enjoy your prize.

My brain froze right then, preventing me from even reading the signature at the bottom.

"Spencer, what else does it say?" asked Rose curiously. Evidently she hadn't been let in on this little scheme.

"I-I-I..." I stammered unable to speak. "I'm...going on tour with...Fall Out Boy!"

I screamed ecstatically while Kylie, Nicole, and Brent laughed, and Rose's jaw dropped to the floor. Just then the manager shot us a dirty look and whispered something in Chinese to a worker. I tried my best to calm down but it wasn't working.

"I don't know how to thank you guys!" I squealed pulling them both into a hug at the same time. Just then a thought sunk in. "But I'm only allowed to bring one friend. How am I gonna choose?" I said with a frown.

"Don't worry about it!" laughed Nicole. "You should take Kylie. It was mostly her idea anyway and I'll be gone to Europe for 3 or 4 weeks of that time."

"Awwww! You guys are the best!" I screamed. I couldn't help bouncing up and down in my seat a little. We chattered non-stop the rest of the meal and I couldn't stop thinking about it even after I dropped Kylie off and pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex.