You're All I Need

The bus ride was long and tedious. There were only three people on besides me, and two of them were old and really goth looking. The other one was a boy about my age. I sat next to him because he seemed safer.

"Hey," He smiled at me about two hours into the trip.

"Hi." I nodded back at him.

"Los Angeles?" He raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah."

"What brings you there?" He asked me.

"Oh, I want to be a model... and that's a good place to start, I think," I explained, looking down at the dirty bus floor. "What about you?"

"Visiting my friend Tommy." He said. "He's in the music business. Drummer for some new band. I'm going to one of their gigs in some bar to meet up with them."

"Awesome!"

"You wanna come with me? Ya know- cause we're both new to the city?" He asked. He sounded sincere.

"Sure, thanks." I smiled.

I sighed and rested my head against the ice cold window and fell asleep.

LOS ANGELES BUS STOP 2:36 A.M.

Once we were there, Brandon and I got up, got our stuff, and walked out into Los Angeles.

"Whoa," Brandon's eyes widened.

It was nothing I expected it to look like. You know in movies, where LA is all big and lit up with movie stars crawling around? Well, it's big and lit up, but hobos are crawling around instead of celebrities. Trash littered the ground and drunk people stumbled around in front of us. Brandon and I turned around to get back on, but the bus had closed its doors and was speeding down the road.

"Guess we're stuck here." I sighed.

"Yeah." He nodded. We walked for a while, trying to get to the real city, thinking this was a suburb or something... or we were dropped in the wrong city... but we weren't.

"Alright, looks like this is as good as it's gonna get," I muttered. We found a cheap hotel and got a room together, because we were scared to be alone in this place. The hotel wasn't very appetizing either. The sheets were a dirty brownish color, and the bathroom seemed like it hadn't been cleaned in a while.

"It's okay, we'll deal with it." I put on a fake smile and got ready for bed. Then I realized I had to call my family. I grabbed the hotel phone and dialed our number. Ralph answered on the first ring.

"Hello?" He sounded anxious.

"Ralphie! I'm here." I said.

"Thank God." He sighed of relief. "You wanna come home yet?"

"Kind of." I looked around at my filthy surroundings.

"Mom and Dad are being completely antisocial... they're depressed. And so am I, now that I think about it,"

"Ha- it's alright. I've only been here for two hours, give me a few days!" I laughed. I felt the tears coming on again.

"Okay, I gotta go. Love you, bye."

"Bye!" We hung up and I fell flat on my back on the bed, not caring about germs anymore.

"You okay?" Brandon emerged from the bathroom.

"Yeah, I'm fine. A little homesick, that's all." I grinned.

"I understand. Hey, the concert's tomorrow... just thought I'd let you know." He said, flopping on his bed.

"Okay. I'm going to bed. I'm so tired. Goodnight!" I rolled over and thought about everyone I had left.