Infatuated

It had been exactly one month since that night. Alex’s band, All Time Low, had signed up to be one of the acts for the carnival. It was now the auditions and Alex was getting more and more nervous by the second. This audition would decide what time the band would be playing. The later on in the night, the longer and more memorable the act, everyone always battled for the closing spot because by that time more people were bored of the other attractions and went to enjoy the music.

“Autumn I don’t know if I can do this,” he began to panic.

“Alex, you’re amazing, be confident,” I smiled to reassure him. He bit his lip, looking down at the gap between us.

“But, I don’t want to let you down,” he mumbled.

“Alex,” I began placing my hand to his cheek.

“You won’t let me down, you couldn’t let me down,” was all I said as I picked up his Gibson SG and handed it to him. He stared at it for moment before hesitantly taking it from my hands. I patted him on the pack before letting him go off on stage. This was their first time on stage; they had every right to be nervous.

I made my way down from backstage, and out to my seat and the back of the auditorium. I sat playing with the hem of my shirt as the woman in charge of the carnival read through some notes, confirmed their names and asked what song they would play.

“Uh, this is a song my friend wrote for us called ‘The Party Scene’” Alex shakily replied into the microphone. My head snapped up to see Alex give me a faint smile and turn to his band to count them in. I grinned wildly to myself to know that my song had been the one they would perform. Okay yeah, it was me who wrote that song for Alex, he’d asked me to give him some rough material so he could work on it and get back into the swing of song writing. Of course, him being my best friend, I complied. But it was only raw material, watching them perform I could see Alex had made changes to the original lyrics. And I was proud of him for that, because the lyrics he replaced them with were so full of meaning like his normally are.

The melodies they’d strung together fit the song perfectly and made me smile the whole way through. When they’d finished they were dismissed and I could see Alex visibly shaking as they made their way off stage. I ran round the back quickly after their song and engulfed Alex in a hug.

“Thought you’d like it,” I could hear the smile in his voice before I pulled away, still grinning.

“Of course I liked it! When do you find out where you’ve been placed?” I asked.

“Well, tomorrow morning I guess,” he shrugged. I smiled and hugged him once more before we started making our way to class. I still hadn’t told Alex about what Taylor had confirmed that night. And I didn’t think I was going to. I haven’t spoken to him about it since the day on my doorstep and I didn’t know whether to bring it up in conversation any time soon. Sure I wanted to find out more about him, just in case there was anything I may have needed to know of course, but until I found the best way of bringing it up it would have to wait. Just as those feelings I’d pushed aside would.