A Dream is a Wish You Can't Make All on Your Own

“Thank you.” Jordan smiled as she blew the candles out.

“That’s ok, it’s your birthday. We’re now legal to drink in England, well kind of.” I laughed.

“The only problem is we’re in LA and not England.” Claire laughed.

“Never mind, we’ll go out for a weekend before tour or something.” I smiled as the door was knocked.

Jordan jumped up and ran to the door, instantly hugging Nick tightly. I laughed as I grabbed the rubbish and took it into the kitchen while Claire sorted out the DVD.

“Im not even ready.” I heard Jordan sigh as I came back inside.

“You look great like that.” Nick commented.

“Yeah but I don’t know where we’re going.” Jordan retaliated.

“Jordan, trust me, the place Nick’s taking you, and you don’t need to be wearing fancy clothes, why do you think Nick’s wearing a t-shirt and not a shirt.” I heard Joe’s very familiar voice say.

“Fine. But don’t blame me if I don’t look right in the place we’re going.” I heard Jordan complain again.

“Where’s Lauren?” Kevin’s voice rang through to the kitchen.

“Kitchen probably.” Claire said.

A few moments later, Kevin’s head popped around the door to the kitchen. Smiling, he walked over to me.

“Hello dear.” I smiled as I hugged him.

“Hey.”

“Do you wanna drink?”

“Nah, im good thanks.”

“Sure, once the fridge is closed, it’s closed for good.” I laughed as I slowly shut the fridge door.

“Yeah im sure.”

“Good because it’s closed now.” I laughed, turning to face Kevin.

“That’s fine.” He said, wrapping his arms around me.

“Where’s Nick taking Jordan then?” I asked quietly.

“I can’t tell you until they’ve left because you’ll probably tell her.” Kevin laughed.

“That’s not fair. I promise to keep it a secret.” I said with my fingers crossed behind his back.

“I know you’ve crossed your fingers. Nice try though.” He laughed as he kissed my head and left me standing in the kitchen in shock.

“Lauren! What are you doing, come on, we’re gunna go out for some ice cream.” Claire said, coming into the kitchen.

“We’ve been spending way too much time with the guys.” I said, putting my bottle of water onto the side and following Claire out of the kitchen.

“Whatever.” Claire laughed as she grabbed her keys and bag.

I followed her actions, picking my bag up from the floor. I walked out of the apartment, swinging my keys on my finger as Kevin walked beside me; his hand on the small of my back while I smirk dominated his face.

“Don’t get cocky Jonas.” I said, getting into the passenger seat of his car while Claire and Joe got in the back and Jordan and Nick got into Nick’s car.

“Im not Friend.” He smirked before starting the engine and backing out of the space he was parked in.

We went to the ice cream parlour and ordered our usual ice creams, taking a seat in the corner with our baseball caps on and our sunglasses on, we ate while laughing and joking around.

“So, you’ve all done your GCSE’s and you’ve all passed and could go to college now if you wanted to. But you don’t?” Joe asked for the tenth time.

“Your turn to answer Lauren.” Claire laughed.

“Yes Joe. We have done our GCSE exams back in England when we were 16. We all passed the exams and went onto college but when I got signed to the label, I had to drop out of college because I was hardly ever there. Now that Claire and Jordan are both signed to the label as well they’ve had to drop out of college. Im gunna be doing a course next year though and I think Claire and Jordan are as well.” I said, clearing it up again.

“You girls make no sense to me.” Joe muttered as he put ice cream into his mouth.

“Never mind.” I laughed as I passed Kevin a napkin.

“What’s this for?” Kevin quizzed.

“You have a little ice cream on your face.” I laughed, pointing to his face.

“Never mind.” He smirked before kissing me, making me have ice cream on my face too.

“Un called for Jonas, Un called for.” I said, wiping my face with a napkin.

“Funny though.” Claire smirked.

“Shush.” I said, poking her in the side.

“Right, I think its time to wind the press up.” I smirked.

“What do you mean?” Joe asked confused.

“Im gunna walk outside with my hat and sunglasses off and they aren’t gunna realise that I even came in here because no one was following me in. piece of cake. You lot can leave after me.” I smiled.

“No, don’t do that.” Claire said.

“Too late.” I smirked as I got out of our booth and walked to the queue, taking off my hat and sunglasses.

Ordering another chocolate ice cream, but on a cone this time, I left the parlour, eating the ice cream. Walking along the road, paparazzi were soon snapping pictures of me, completely confused how I had managed to slip by them so easily to get some ice cream.

My phone started buzzing in my pocket as I walked the short distance back to mine and the girl’s apartment.

“Hello?” I said, putting on a voice.

“Lauren! Where are you?” Claire demanded.

“Chill, im walking back into the apartment, just hop in Kevin’s car and get him to drop you off down the road and walk back if you want or even better, get him to drop you off at ours just to annoy the press a bit.” I smirked as I closed the door behind me.

“Lauren, I can’t believe you would do something like that. Kevin is like freaking out right now.” Claire sighed.

“Tell him im sorry but it has to be done, they annoy me so I thought id annoy them for a change. Ill talk to you in a bit.” I said slumping down onto the sofa.

“Ok, we’re leaving now. Kevin and Joe are going to come over and wait with us until Jordan gets back.” Claire said.

“Alright, in a bit.”

“Bye.” And with that, Claire hung up.

I sat on the sofa, my legs curled under me and I flicked through the numerous channels trying to find something to watch that wasn’t either depressing or something overly happy that would annoy me. In the end I settled on re runs of The Hills.

Ten minutes later, Claire, Joe and Kevin walked in. Claire’s and Kevin’s faces looked like they had just sucked on sour lemons because of my antics but Joe looked completely amused by it all.

“Im sorry.” I said, holding my hands up.

“Lauren, why did you do that? What if something happened to you? Don’t you realise that the more you act like a complete idiot the more bad press you’re going to get and the more people are going to get hurt?” Claire said, her voice rising.

“Im sorry Claire, seriously, I just needed to go for a walk and I didn’t want to be in disguise all of the time. Big deal they got a couple of pictures of me eating ice cream and skipping along the road. I don’t want this anymore; I want to be normal again. Joe just made me realise how bad I wanna be like everyone else from back at Henbury. Working crappy jobs and going to college is what I want Claire.” I said before storming out onto the balcony.

Sitting on the floor on the balcony, my legs pulled up to my chest, I waited for Claire to either come out and shout at me again or for her to come out and we would talk through everything. Neither of those happened. I sat there, tears forming in my eyes as I realised that was the first proper argument Claire's and I had, had for a long time.

With my head resting on my knees, I listened to the sounds of the world passing me by. I didn’t want to move and I wasn’t going to move. Today was supposed to be fun, time spent with Jordan and then some boring DVD when she got back taking us to 3 in the morning before we finally went upstairs to collapse into bed. That didn’t happen though and all because I don’t want the life style I live anymore.