Have You Ever Felt Alone In A Crowded Room?

Just Keep Your Head Above, Swim

“Hi Jackie, It’s Dahlia.” She answered.

“Dahlia, I’m assuming you just got my letter?” I sounded worried, even though I tried not to.

“Yeah, I just read it. I want to tell you to follow your dreams. I know that this is something that you’ve always hoped for. You need to go for it. You don’t get opportunities like this every day,” She said it like there was no room for me to doubt what she was telling me. And there really wasn’t any doubt that this was the opportunity of a life time.

“Dahlia, I think I’ve figured it out though!” I said, suddenly coming up with an idea.

“Oh?”

“Yeah!”

“Well, what is it?” She laughed slightly.

“Well, I could come up for the summer. We’ll see how things are going. If I decide that I just made a huge mistake, well, then I’ll just come home. It’s not like I don’t have any showing experience and need everything I can get. I’ll show my ass off until I get up there. Then, once I’m there we’ll go on some kind of epic adventure that we’ll be able to tell our children about when we’re old and cranky!” I laughed at that.

“But then what are you going to do if you feel like you’ve made a mistake in coming here?”

“Then, after the summer, I’ll come home. I’ll start showing again and hope that I miraculously make it into the next Summer Olympics. I’ve got time. And if I don’t have enough time then at least I know that I’ve tried and I’ll try for the next ones. I’ll get more than just this one chance. But, I’ll never get another chance to spend my summer with my best friend. If I don’t spend this summer with you then I’ll be breaking a promise and that’s not something I’ve ever done to you and that I ever plan on doing,” I said that as definitively as I could.

“Well, then, you have to promise me that you’ll go home after the summer and our epic adventure, as you call it, and go for it with everything you’ve got. Promise me right now that you’ll go for it, or I’m not going to let you come up here.”

“I promise, I promise that I’ll go for it with everything that I’ve got so long as you go for your band with everything that you’ve got. I won’t make my promise official until you promise me,” I said slightly teary.

“I promise,” She said just as teary.

“HEY! CAN I HEAT UP THIS LEFT OVER CHINESE!?!” I heard someone shout in the background.

“JUST DON”T BLOW ANYTHING UP!!!” Dahlia shouted back.

“Uh… what?” I asked utterly confused as to what was going on in her apartment.

“Uh… Haha, funny story…”

“Dahlia… You’re stalling…”

“Ha… Well… Ya know how I told you that I met Frank when I was at work that one day?”

“Yeah…” I said not knowing what that had to do with someone shouting about Chinese leftovers.

“Well, the next night, at the concert, I kinda fell and hit my head pretty bad. He jumped off stage and brought me into the dressing room.”

I cut her off, “Are you telling me that you’ve been holding this information from me for the past however many months?” I asked completely shocked.

“Yeah… Kinda…”

“You’ve been friends with them and hanging out with them and never told me!?!? Please tell me that you’ve said nothing embarrassing about me… How trivial of me to say at a time like this… But seriously…” I laughed.

“No, don’t worry. I figured you’d be able to embarrass yourself enough once you’re here,” She laughed.

I heard a loud popping sound, “I take it a certain Mikey Way just blew up the Chinese food…”

“MICHAEL JAMES WAY!!! I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU JUST BROKE MY MICROWAVE I WILL KILL YOU!!!” Dahlia screamed away from the phone while I laughed.

“Haha, I’ll let you go kill Mikey, and I’ll tell my mom and Ted my decision.”

“Okay, I’ll talk to you later,” She said quietly.

“Just keep smiling, Dahlia,” I said quietly as well.

“You too,” And with that we hung up the phone.

I took a deep breath and walked down into the living room where my mom and Ted were watching TV and prepared my speech. This may take a great deal of convincing…