Here's to Many More

There were several things in life that Laura Bancroft knew she should have been more cautious about.

For example, the way that she had let her mother cut her hair when she was in primary school. She should have know that she would only get teased for the bowl cut that framed her otherwise flawless face. When she grew older and supposedly wiser about matters of the heart, someone should have reminded Laura to be cautious of the boys that she let into her life. But with Laura her simple problem was that she was too trusting.

She knew when she should have been cautious, inside of her the warning signal always blared up when she found herself in the uncomfortable situations of the heart or otherwise. She let her emotions get ahead of her and they then proceeded to swirl around her causing her way forward to blur and be unrecognisable.

Being lost was something that Laura felt she was far too often in life.

As a young teenager she had never truly felt at ease when she was around her peers, she constantly undermined herself even though she shouldn’t have done so. She was just as bright and witty as all the other girls around her, if not even more so. At university she gradually felt as though she had some place where she could belong, but several incidents of being unlucky in love made way for those old feelings of doubt and frustration to return.

But then during her lost wanderings Laura had bumped into a person that would change all that around.

Josh Franceschi was a surprise in every sense of the word. He had burst into her life like a hurricane and refused to leave it. He had to inviter her to four different shows that he and his band played before she would say yes. Laura was trying to be as cautious as possible, her prior experience with boys acting as a backdrop to her giving Josh a hard time.

Soon she was introduced to almost everyone that had any sort of function on Josh’s life. His parents loved her, his friends thought that she fitted in with them perfectly and Josh himself was head over heels for her. For once it seemed that everything had slotted into place for Laura. With Josh she had been the happiest that she had been in a long time, he made her feel secure and comfortable. He often chose to surprise her with flowers or endless trinkets from all the new places that he visited on tour.

It was with this memory that Laura boarded a plane from London Heathrow to Los Angeles.

Again, Laura knew that with all her decisions she should have been more cautious. All her memories of her and Josh had been sweet and warm, but that old feeling of being lost had risen up in her again. Her own emotions and his hectic touring schedule created a whirlwind around them that neither of them could really weather, she needed him to be at home more but Josh slowly began resenting her for this. They had been fighting more and it was no longer over the petty things.

So Laura decided that the best thing to do was to clear her head.

Two weeks before Christmas.

She had always wanted to go to LA. Something about the vastness of the city and how it was so easy to remain anonymous appealed to her. As she stepped onto the plane she knew she was being reckless and positively neurotic but she needed a break from England.

Nobody knew where she had gone. In fact her sudden disappearance caused panic to spread through the small town of Weybridge in Surrey. It wasn’t until Josh brought in the support from the band to strip search Laura’s apartment that they found the note she had left. It was addressed to Josh and out of respect Dan, who had victoriously found the note, handed it over rather sheepishly.

The note didn’t tell Josh what he wanted to hear. All it said was that she needed to get away to get her head together, she didn’t want anyone coming to get her and she would be back after New Year.

With a sinking feeling Laura put down her suitcase in the grand hall of the rented LA house that she had managed to get at the last minute, because of this it had been a significant strain on her bank balance. But Laura decided it was a small price to pay when her eyes fell on the swimming pool that was in the back garden of the house.

The days slowly began to creep by, punctuated by an increasing sense of loneliness and countless cups of coffee to fight the jet lag. Laura began questioning exactly what she had done, it seemed so wrong to have just left like that, without an explanation to Josh.

Josh himself was almost having a breakdown. He combed through Laura’s apartment searching for anything that could give a clue to where she went, he called her parents in Sheffield and still no sign. It drove him crazy, Christmas was getting closer and the anxious feeling grew. He had tried to call her mobile but no answer, even her best friends had no idea where she could have gone. All they could supply Josh with was the sad words: ‘She needed time alone and she needed to see if you could be fine without her.’

He very obviously wasn’t. Whilst Laura was trying to keep herself occupied in a city that never slept Josh was so close to calling the police and pronouncing her missing. All the minutes of the hours were occupied with thoughts of her, and the white gold earring and necklace set were sitting on his desk at home in a mocking reminder of what was not to be.

He hated that someone so beautiful and vital to him could just disappear without a trace. His band mates often found him sat like a stone in Laura’s apartment, not moving or saying anything. Josh just sat there looking at the countless photos that decorated the walls. So many were of them as a happy and blissful couple. Photos taken unknowing by other friends moments after Josh returned from tour, some featured them in the various exciting places that You Me At Six saw when they toured and when Laura joined them, party photos and family pictures all served as the painful reminder of what Josh was letting slip through his fingers.

“Have you checked her computer yet?” Was the sentence from Max Heyler that changed everything.

Josh initially thought it was a huge invasion of Laura’s privacy. She was very guarded of her computer because of her writing. She dreamed of writing books as part of earning a living, but no one was yet allowed to read what she only trusted the hard drive of a computer with. However, after the coaxing of his band members Josh let the computer light up to life and after several hacking clicks later he drew up the reservation receipt for a plane ticket to Los Angeles and for the rental of a furbished house near Santa Monica.

The lack of snow disturbed Laura. She was sat on a deck chair in the garden of her rented LA home. The birds were tweeting happily and the water in the pool lapped gently against the sides. She was very much alone this morning and could ‘enjoy’ the warmth of the LA sun on her skin.

“Merry Christmas Laura,” she whispered to herself.

The whole point of her coming to LA was the find the answers within herself, she needed some sort of sign that she could come back to England, she needed the reassurance that despite all the things that had been off between her and Josh she was still wanted. She wanted to find the answer herself, but all that her brain had been capable of occupying itself with was how very lonely she was.

Now none of the cheesy Christmas songs that she had put on could so anything to revive any of the Christmas cheer that she was supposed to feel. Christmas was a miserable time to be alone.

Just as she was about to sink into a sad contemplation there was loud banging on the door and Laura could hear shouts. Alarmed she jumped up, unsuccessfully searching for something she could arm herself with, so with slight fear growing in the pit of her stomach she snatched up her phone and typed in the number of the police, ready to press send. Slowly she approached the door and the shouts became clearer.

“Laura open the goddamn door!”

A lump formed in her throat as she froze, how the hell did Josh know she was here?

“I know you’re there so just open the bloody door!”

Slowly she pulled the door open, frightened of the wrath that would meet her. Josh was stood on the doorstep dressed in his usual attire, a beanie on his rumpled hair and looking slightly paler than all the usual people around LA that Laura had seen on a daily basis.

Both of them stood still and just looked at each other, unsure of what to do now. Laura didn’t dare invite him in, and it almost seemed ridiculously ironic to do so.

“What are you doing here? Why did you go?” Josh said, vocalizing only two of many more questions that he had. “I don’t understand Laura.”

Laura looked down at her flip flop clad feet and wished she could give him the answer that he wanted to hear. She stayed quiet for a couple of minutes, causing Josh to be come increasingly antsy and agitated.

“Please say something,” he almost pleaded.

“I got scared and needed to clear my head, I feel like I hold you back and that you don’t need me as much as your music.”

It had been plaguing her mind for such a long time now; it was almost difficult to put into words. But now that she had, those words broke Josh’s heart.

“You will always mean more to me than the music Laura.”

It was the answer she had been waiting for, but then again in some ways it was more than just that. It was the simple fact that Josh had jumped onto a plane to American without so much as packing a suitcase. He had run after her and that was what she had needed, it was the proof of love and affection that she had been searching for.

It was her Christmas gift and she accepted it with a kiss that made fairytales look bad.