Celebrity Status
Chapter Eight
(Laura's p.o.v.)
After lunch with Ross, he dropped me back off at school. And since classes had been canceled for the rest of the day, he decided to stay and hang out.
I didn't figure anyone would care seeing as how everyone was busy practicing for Show Choir. But even if anyone did care, I wouldn't.
Ross and I head to one of the music rooms in the back of the school. No one really spends anytime in those rooms which I why I like it so much. It's reserved and quiet and a good place to sit around and think, or write. One of the music rooms is completely empty except for a grand piano that sits in one of the corners of the room by a big window. The room itself its ugly. The wood floor haven't been swept in years so they've had time to gather a plethora of dust and dirt. The faded blue color on the walls is starting to peel and there are spots on the wall were a new minty green color had started to be painted, but then abandoned altogether with.
It even smells weird. Like when you walk into a really, really old house and you can just smell how old it is. But despite all it's idiosyncrasies and flaws, the room was special to me. Me and the room had a lot in common. It was almost completely disregarded by all of the other students and faculty, but it still held a sort of charm that could only be appreciated by certain individuals.
Basically, if I was a room, I would be this one.
I sat down at the piano bench and lifted the lid open to reveal its beautiful black and white keys. As if on instinct, my fingers found their way to the keys. I couldn't help but want to play this piano every time I was around it.
I started on a simple melody, forgetting my surroundings and getting washed away by the sounds of the music. When I play the piano nothing else mattered. It was me and my instrument. The piano became a part of me. We were one whole being.
I quit playing and sigh peacefully, a content smile graces my lips.
"This is why we're best friends," Ross speaks up. I had forgotten he was even there, honestly. "We both understand the kind of effect music can have on people. We both get lost in it so easy. And it's the best feeling in the world." He says all this with a goofy, dazed smile on his face. I only shake my head at him.
"You can be so corny sometimes, Ross." I don't bother to inform him I had been thinking something along the same lines as him. Instead I go back to playing. This time it's a faster pace. All in all, I like the slower more soulful melodies that you can really pull all your emotions into, but sometimes it was fun to just see what you could come up with.
"Whatever, dude." Ross hops up on the top of piano since there's really no where else to sit.
I roll my eyes at him and continue playing.
"Is there a guitar around here?" He asks.
"I don't know, Ross. Do you see a guitar in here?" I quip sarcastically.
He glares at me. "What have your parents been feeding you, and do they know that it makes you this sassy?" I snort at him, because sometimes he can be extremely ridiculous. "What I meant was, where can I find a guitar? This is a music school so I'm sure there's one around here somewhere. Geez, Laura, I can obviously see that the only thing in this room is this big ass piano."
'And he think I'm sassy.' "Check one of the rooms down the hall. I can't promise they'll be good guitars, but I'm sure you'll find one."
He hops off the piano and walks out of the room, muttering something incoherent to me and leaving me to my own devices.
I sigh, grabbing my notebook out of my book bag. It's a really old notebook. Seriously, I've had it since I was at least eight and a lot of the pages have fallen out from it so I've tucked them away into the front pocket because even if the lyrics on them were shitty and juvenile I didn't want to loose. I'm very nostalgic (though most people would just classify me as obsessive) and this notebook is the very essence of my childhood, or rather, my whole life.
The front is brown leather with a giant "L" (obviously for Laura) Also, it adorns three worn away pony stickers that I stuck onto it back when I was ten and going through my "I wanna be a cowgirl" phase.
I open up the book, to the very first page where a very interesting inscription is written:
I HATE ROSS LYNCH
Right there, in big bold handwriting. Although the sparkly purple gel pen I used to write it takes away from hatred, my stomach still twists in a painful knot at the sight of it. Seeing those four words brings back a lot of memories because I know just how much emotion was attached to them when I wrote it. Even though it seems silly now to think about (or at least it should) I can remember the very heartbreak I was feeling when I wrote that.
Underneath those words are a song, composed by me, that accompany them. I had honestly forgotten I'd ever written the song because after I did, I refused to admit I had wasted any creative genius on that idiot. Even at fourteen I was a pretty good songwriter and the words were the final blow that my heart needed.
"It took me awhile, but I finally found one thats kind of in tune."
By now I'm in tears. Everything from that say comes back to me in an instant. Memories race through my mind like high-quality photographs. All the crap that I ha to deal with for those four years falls back on top of me. I'm trapped beneath all of them like some sort of avalanche of horrible memories.
"Laura?" Ross says softly behind me.
I turn around to face him, eyes red and stinging.
"Laura!" He jumps quickly to my side, sought after guitar is hastily thrown to the ground and forgotten about.
"Laura? Laura, what's wrong? What happened?"
I'm at a loss for words. Maybe because my throat is tight from my sobbing. Maybe because I don't even know what to say. What excuse can I even come up with for my behavior when I'm not sure what has happened to myself in last couple of minutes?
"You left me!" I scream out all of a sudden.
Ross steps back, he looks confused and very worried. "I-I'm sorry... I only stepped out of the room for a minute and I told you were I was going."
"No! Not that!" I don't know why but I just keep yelling at him. It's like I'm incapable of speaking any other way than yelling. "You left, Ross! You left me and you- you said horrible things and I said horrible things and... and.. and..."
"And?"
"And... I know I've forgiven you. I really have. I'm not mad at you anymore. I'm past all that, but..." I look up at him, even though my vision is blurry I can see the concern and intrigue on his face, he's waiting for me to continue. "But it still hurts. When I think about it, it brings up so many bad memories and feelings. And, I don't think I'm ever gonna not feel that why when I think about it. It's like when you get a scab and you mess with it so much that it doesn't heal properly and it leaves a scar. And it's there forever."
Ross's eyes are sad and heavy. "Are you saying that I scarred you? Is that what you're trying to tell me?"
I shook my head, hanging it low so I would no longer have to look into those damn pleading eyes anymore. "No, Ross, I scarred myself. I let it get to me too much." I started shaking, but I wasn't cold. "Our friendship was the scab and I let myself keep picking at it and letting it bother me and now... now it'll never heal properly..." My voice comes out in a ghostly whisper. I feel a tear slide down my cheek.
Ross cups my face gently and makes me look at him.
"It's true. Scars don't heal, but sometimes over time they fade away, they become unimportant. And sometimes all you have to do is cover them up. Start over and put the past in the past." I begin to relax as he continues to talk to me. "Maybe our friendship won't be what it was before. Maybe we've been through too much for it to go back to normal. But maybe we can start over again and all that will one day become unimportant."
He lets go of me and just looks at me for awhile, probably trying to figure out if I'm okay or not.
I think I'm trying to figure that out myself honestly. I had basically had an emotional meltdown there for a minute and now I was breathing heavily trying to stop my rapid heartbeat.
I let out a deep breathe, calming down and breathing normally. Then I look up at him again. I turn my body toward the piano and place my hands on the keys.
"Can I play something for you?"
He nods, and then sits on the piano top again.
"It's my song for the Show Choir. I just figured you could help me out if you listened to me play it."
"Okay," Ross says and I begin to play the chords for the opening.
My songs starts out as a slow build up. I pour myself into the song until finally the words come into play. Ross sits back and watches me with a smile on his face. Piano music always soothed him. He use to just sit and listen to me play when we were younger.
Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start
They tell me I am too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream.
Life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me.
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older.
All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost.
After the first verse comes a long melody of notes. I play them intensely, my fingers slam back down on the keys meaningfully. Every note holds a purpose.
I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
Hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don't have any plans
Wish that I could stay forget this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life's a game made for everyone
And love is the prize
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost
So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself and I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
I didn't know I was lost
"So," I say softly, grabbing his attention, "what do you think?" I bite my lip gently. I won't lie. I'm kind of nervous about what he had to say.
Ross just sits there, looking at him. His feet swing back and forth, the back of his legs hitting the piano as they do so. His expression is unreadable. He doesn't say anything and I have no idea what he's thinking. The anxiety is building up in my chest and I think if we stand here in silence anymore I'm gonna explode.
"Ross! Say something!"
A smile eases its way onto his face. "I think that with that song, there's no way you can loose."
My face lights up like a Christmas tree. "Really?" I squeal and then quickly cough and change my expression, trying to act nonchalant about it. "I- I mean, really?"
He chuckles. "Yes, really."
"Well, thanks."
"Well, you're welcome."
I sit down on the piano bench an sigh happily, a wide smile spread across my face.
…
Burning air
You lit a fire feel like millionaires
Blacktop to tires
Lets get out of here
And you make it brighter when we can't see the road
Where does this go?
God only knows
But baby were gone
Baby were gone, come on
Ain't no way were going home
So lets stay on the run forever
Lets go nowhere that we know
And get strange with the stars together
We can do what you wanna do, what you wanna do
Baby we can do better
Ain't no way were going home, yeah
So lets go, yeah
Lets go
We had pretty much spent the rest of our time goofing around playing songs on the piano and guitar. And I had to admit, it was actually nice. For the first time in what felt like forever I was actually enjoying myself and I wasn't worrying about what I was doing or who was watching. I didn't have to put up an act.
Things with Ross were finally starting to fall into place and it felt like it was just us again. Like we were those two thirteen year olds again who were ignorant to what life was going to throw at them.
For the first time in a while, I was happy. Not just "things are okay" and "I have nothing to complain about" kind of happy. But genuinely happy.
Ross stops playing the guitar. He sets it down beside him. Yes, he is still sitting on the piano, but now his legs are crossed and he's sitting in the middle of it.
"I actually really liked that song, Ross," I told him, commenting on the song he'd just been playing.
"See, I told you we played good music. It wasn't all just that pop crap bullshitty nonsense."
"No, those are only the songs you wrote, right?" I teased, good-naturedly.
"Very funny." He stuck his tongue out at me.
I laughed and shook my head. Sometimes I refused to believe he was actually eighteen going on nineteen.
"That's the part that I liked about L.A. Being a performer." His eyes shone bright with happiness. "Music was the one thing that I had always loved and I knew that I was suppose to be on stage. Being up there on stage, performing for fans. Laura, I felt like a legend. I felt like Paul McCartney and Elvis and... and all the other great ones. Even though I knew I wasn't them... It was amazing."
"It sounds amazing," I tell him.
He nods, his shoulder slump and his eyes loose their sheen. "It was," he replies quietly, sadly.
"Ross, what happened in L. A.?" I was very blunt about it, but hey, I was curious. And I didn't really know how to bring up the subject any other way.
Ross laughs humorlessly. "You really wanna know?"
"Yeah, that's kind of why I asked."
"What happened? My family got destroyed that what happened. My siblings are constantly bitching at each other and always at each other throats that what happened. My mom is clinically depressed and takes medicine everyday thats suppose to treat it, but she still has to smile through the tears thats what happened." He swallows thickly. I can tell that he wants to break down and cry, but he remains emotionless. "My parents are probably gonna get a divorce in the near future and that will be the final breaking point before everything falls apart."
"Woah, wait, are you serious? Your parents are getting a divorce?" I spring up from my chair at this alarming news.
"I wish I wasn't."
I found it so absurd. That couldn't be really happening right?
I'd known a lot of married couples in my life and the last one that I'd expect to call off their marriage had to be Mark and Stormie. I expected my own parents to split way before Mark and Stormie ever did. Hearing this news broke my heart. I could only imagine how that made Ross feel.
I say back down, saddened by this new information. But sad or not, I realized that I never got my answer. I knew that talking about this was hard for Ross, but I couldn't help but keep prying him to tell me more. I think I was slowly killing him. I was unraveling the past that he had tried to put off telling me for as long as he could. But I wouldn't let him keep quiet anymore.
"What happened that was so horrible that it caused all of this?"
Ross just sighs. He looks down at the floor and I can feel his heart breaking just by the look in his eyes.
"So, we'd been in L.A. for like three years, maybe a little longer," Ross fiddles with the ring on his finger, his eyes are trained on that one thing and nothing else. His voice is heavy, weighed down by all kinds of emotions. I listen intently to his story. "At the time, everything was fine. Riker started dating this girl, Hannah, and he loved her. In fact, my whole family did. One day, he sat all of us boys down and said he had something really important to share with us. He was gonna ask Hannah to marry him. I guess that's when I should have figured it out, because after Riker told us that, Rocky was acting really weird, but I was just so happy for Riker that I didn't pay any attention.
"So, a few months later- after Riker proposed to Hannah and she said yes- that's pretty much when everything exploded. Especially Rocky. I guess the guilt just got to him because he finally confessed to Riker that he'd been sleeping with Hannah. Riker was completely pissed at him and they got into this huge physical fight. Riker ended up in the hospital. I remember mom had spent the entire night just crying and dad was yelling at both of them. It was awful.
"After Riker was released from the hospital, he broke it off with Hannah. For a while after that, he started distancing himself from not only Rocky, but the whole family. He would leave some days and not come back for hours or sometimes not even until the next morning. We have no idea where he ever went. Eventually, due to dad bullying them into it, Rocky and Riker patched things up. By that time, mom had been going to the hospital quite frequently. The kids and dad didn't know why. She always told us that it was just "personal issues"
"Things were still really tense even after my brothers made up. We started to drift away from our music more and more each day. Every time we tried to practice it ended up with everyone yelling at each other. We were just worried about the press finding out about all of it. One day, by now it had been like, six months since Rocky had first told Riker and this shit started, Hannah dropped by our house to tell Riker she was pregnant," Ross finally looks up at me for the first time during his story, "with Rocky's kid."
"No way!" I practically shout at him.
He nods his head. I just stare back at him, my jaw drop and eyes wide. Honestly, it didn't surprise me to find out Rocky knocked up a girl before he was even eighteen, but his brothers (at the time) girlfriend?
"So wait- what happened after that?"
"Dad about killed Rocky. And Riker was devastated. He wasn't even angry. It's like he didn't even have the strength to be angry anymore. He'd used up all his anger in the past several months. Now, he was just upset."
That made sense. I could understand why he would feel that way. His ex-girlfriend who he was planning on marrying had just come to tell him that she was pregnant with his brother's baby. He was gonna be the uncle of his ex-finance's kid. That was fucked up.
"Naturally, because of her motherly instincts, my mom offered for Hannah to stay with us. Hannah said that after finding out the news, her parents had kicked her out and she had nowhere to stay. Riker probably could have lived with that, but it was when Rocky and Hannah got together that nearly broke him. Riker was freaking out at him, and dad was telling him that he couldn't throw his life away by being a father at seventeen, and, like usual, mom was crying. By now it was all too much for my poor mom. My parents told Hannah she had to leave. Rocky was pissed at them for kicking her out when she was pregnant with his baby. Riker was pissed at Rocky for everything he'd done. Slowly, my family was starting to fall apart. After my parents kicked her out, Hannah told the press everything; cheating on Riker, being pregnant, being with Rocky. It was just too much, and parents decide that we had to leave."
I covered my mouth with my hand. I had no response to his story. What do you even say to someone after they tell you something like that? I was speechless. I just sat there quietly.
"That's why we moved back here. Remember when I tried talking to me in the coffee shop and yelled at me. You said you didn't know why I would ever come back here. And then you told me that you didn't want me here. That's why I came back! I don't have a choice! That's the reason I came back to Littleton! That's the reason I left L.A.!"
I was shocked. Not by his story anymore, but by the anger in his voice. The rage. I didn't know whether he was directing it at me or it was anger toward his siblings, but it was definitely there. And it scared me. I'd never heard him sound so angry before. Ross was usually a very easy going person, but not this Ross that was right in front of me.
"I'm sorry," I say, and my apology seems kind of pathetic. "I had no idea, or I wouldn't have said those things..."
Ross visibly relaxes. His demeanor completely changes in one instant. "I know. It's okay."
We both just sit in silence. Our thoughts distract us from each other. Ross seems especially distracted, while I absent-mindedly play notes on the piano until I find a melody that I actually really like.
Ross, picking up on my piano playing, finds a tune on his guitar that suits my little ditty quite nicely. No words are exchanged between us, just him plucking his guitar strings and me poking at the keys. But maybe we are having a conversation; a conversation with our music. Maybe this is my way of consoling him; letting him know that I'm sorry and I'm here for him. And maybe this is his response; he understand that and is happy about it.
That's how our day continues, until the bell rings signaling the end of the school day.
Ross and I stop playing. We walk in silence to the entrance of the school that leads to the parking lot.
He turns to me. "You sure you don't want me to drive you back home?"
I shake my head. "That's okay. The bus station isn't that far. Besides, I could use the walk."
Ross nods. I thought that maybe he'd try to convince me to let him drive me, but he didn't. He quietly slipped away from me. Walking back to his car. I feel bad, guilty actually. I shouldn't have brought up that subject.
I feel like Ross and I will never make any progress in our friendship. Just when I think like things are going to be fine between the two of us, one of us does something that ruins everything. We keep talking one step forward and two steps backward. He was right when he said that we'd been through way too much to go back to how we used to be. I just didn't know exactly how much each of us had been through.
I sigh, pulling the hood on my jacket up over my head and zipping it all the way up. The snow was now dancing all around me, falling to the ground like buckets and buckets of it were being dumped from the sky. Colorado weather was a bitch in the winter, and had I not just upset my friend, I wouldn't be walking through it to get to my bus.
But I did, so I am.
A/N
Whoop whoop! Update! And it only took, what? Two weeks? I'm doing pretty good I think.
Thank you to Dont-Stop-Believin, Citylights at Midnight, xXSmileYoureBeautifulXx, Scittore Ombra, writermeAL, and the guest who reviewed! :) you guys rock!
Hopefully, I'm gonna try to update Moving In With R5 tonight, but I'm not sure if I'll get around to it. If not today, then tomorrow.
Songs used in this chapter- Wake Me Up by Avicii and Ain't No Way Were Going Home by R5 (two of my personal favorite songs)
I don't really have anything to say other than there ya go! That's what happened in L.A. You finally found out! Are you happy? Is it what you thought happened? Okay guys I'm tired so I'm going to wrap up this authors note, publish this chapter and then just lie down and get ready for Princesses & Prizes! So excited! I'm in desperate need of some Austin & Ally! Alright my lives, thats all I have for you.
Kthanxbai!
Morgan :)