Never Regret

We’d done our gig in Denver, Colorado, and we’d travelled for 8 and a half hours to Salt Lake City, Utah. I’ve actually fallen in love with this place, although the only day we’ve been here we’ve spent in signings and DecayDance stuff. But Pete gave us a complete day off while he sorted out some business things, so I was looking forward to it. Especially since it’s Jasmine’s 5th birthday today. I’d phoned my sister Lisa when I woke up to organise a video call on my laptop between mine and her laptop, so I’d get to talk to Jasmine. So after I was washed and dressed and had a mug of mocha, I was all set.

“Okay, can you hear me?” I spoke to the laptop.

“Yeah! And I can see you!” Jasmine giggled.

“I can see you too, baby girl. I’m so sorry I can’t be there for your birthday,” I said sadly.

“It’s okay mommy. I know you would be here if you could be,” Jasmine smiled.

“You sound way too smart for a 5 year old,” I chuckled.

Jasmine giggled again, covering her face with her pudgy hands as she blushed. I grinned, running my fingers through my fringe.

“Did you open your present yet?” I asked hesitantly.

“No, Auntie Lisa said I had to wait till we did this,” Jasmine pouted.

“Then what are you waiting for now?” I laughed.

Jasmine clapped her hands together excitedly, reaching for the large present beside her. As she started to unwrap it, JC walked out from the bunks, pulling a clean t-shirt over his head. He’d just had a shower while everyone else was outside.

“Shit, it’s Jazz’s birthday today isn’t it?” he gasped.

I just nodded, pointing to my laptop screen.

“Wow mommy, a Barbie dream townhouse! There’s a bedroom, a balcony, a living room, a bathroom, a kitchen, a dining room and an elevator! And it’s all pink!” Jasmine squealed.

“Do you like it?” I asked hopefully.

“I love it! Ah, hey Uncle JC!” Jasmine said excitedly.

“Hey kid. Happy birthday!” JC said warmly.

“Are you going to stay with mommy for the video?” Jasmine asked.

“Nah, I’ll give you two some alone time. But I’ll see you soon, yeah?” JC explained.

“Okay, bye bye!” Jasmine grinned, waving.

“Bye,” JC chuckled.

He waved back to Jasmine, standing up straight again.

“Come outside when you’re done, yeah? It’s a beautiful day,” JC smiled.

“Will do,” I nodded.

JC waved one last time and left me on the bus, walking outside into the dying summer air.

“So what are you doing for your birthday?” I asked my daughter.

*

Being early September in Utah meant that it was still warm, but not unbearable; a definite contrast to August.

“Where’s Kenzie?” Michael asked JC as he joined the group outside the buses.

But everyone else heard and snickered.

“She’s making a video call to Jasmine. It’s Jazz’s 5th birthday today,” JC explained with a small smirk.

Michael blushed lightly, but nodded. JC sat on the ground next to Logan and Reece, with Michael on his right. Everyone was in a circle actually. L to R: Taylor, Reece, Logan, JC, Michael, Mike, Adam, Alex, Nate, Gabe, Andy, William, Ryland and Victoria. So Victoria was sitting next to Taylor.

“Another article saying you guys are vague and mysterious,” Pete chuckled, waving a magazine in the air as he joined the bands, sitting next to Ryland.

“Again?” Reece chuckled.

“You’d think they’d give up by now,” JC mused.

“Why don’t you guys ever tell the truth about your band name?” Gabe asked curiously.

“Our ‘regrets’ are very personal. They have a lot of emotional weight behind them,” Logan explained softly.

“As much as Mack’s?” Victoria asked curiously.

“Extremely,” JC nodded.

“Would you tell us?” William asked hesitantly.

All three of the Never Regret boys chewed their bottom lips in thought. They’d never told anyone about their pasts, only family and very close friends, but seeing as Mackenzie’s story had spread among the three bands, they realised they should support her in telling their stories too.

“We’ll tell you if you promise never to tell anyone. No friends, no family, no lovers. And definitely no-one in the media,” Reece said gravely.

Pete, TAI and the Cobras all nodded. JC sighed before nodding at his bandmates.

“I’ll start,” JC said softly.

Logan squeezed his shoulder for reassurance.

“I’m half-French, half-American. My Maman is the American half, and I never knew my dad. He died not long after I was born. Anyway, for as long as I remember I was bullied for not knowing my dad and for having a non-French Maman. Stupid I know, but that’s how the kids were. I was bullied so bad that I ended up in hospital quite a few times. So I did the stupid thing of turning to drugs to cope. I met one of the local dealers when I was in hospital once and he started hooking me up out of sympathy. At 14 I snorted, injected or swallowed something every day, whatever I could get my hands on. My Maman didn’t know what to do with me. But when I was 15, the dealer turned against me and beat me practically to death in an alleyway. I was in hospital for 2 months and I started detoxing. My Maman took the worst of my mood swings and she hated it. I hated what I became. So when she got the opportunity through work to move back to America, I convinced her to take it. I used a local boxing club for therapy to beat the cravings and to bulk up so if I was ever attacked I could fight back. That’s how I met Logan and Reece. My ‘regret’ is my drug addiction,”

Everyone stayed silent. They would never have guessed that JC was a drug addict let alone a severe bullying victim.

“And you’ve never gone back to drugs?” Pete asked.

“No, not once. And I never will. Unless you count nicotine as a drug,” JC said proudly.

This raised smiles. Logan cleared his throat, earning a sympathetic smile from his half-sister. After all, she was involved in the majority of his story.

“I had a lot of anger issues as a kid. Round about the age of 14, I was a complete dickhead. Literally, I had such anger swings that as a mere freshman, kids either feared me or stayed as far away from me as they could. I got into a lot of fights about it too, unable to control my temper at all. When I was 15, my parents divorced. It turned out that my dad had been having an affair for over eleven years and he had a kid. Taylor. My mom ran off and left me with him, and he married the other woman, Taylor’s mom. My anger issues got worse and worse. I stumbled across an illegal underground fight one day, and decided to get involved. I quickly grew addicted to the victories and the power I felt from kicking the shit out of people. I was unbeatable. And I was unstable. Because I’d been in a lot of fights, I had a lot of training and skill, but I was an animal. I was blood-thirsty and cruel, and I had no mercy. I thrived off making people feel pain. People flocked around me because I got so well known in the illegal fighting circles, and I loved it. For two years, I was supreme. An animalistic asshole. But one night when I was 17 I was walking my half-sister home from her ballet class, Taylor, some little shitty kid that I’d beaten in a fight a few days before jumped out of nowhere, pulled out a gun and shot me. Taylor witnessed the whole thing, and I nearly died in her arms, but she called an ambulance on my cell. When I woke up in hospital the first thing I saw was Taylor crying, and I vowed that day never to make her feel like that again. So I joined a boxing club to vent my anger and become less of a monster. It made me a lot calmer. I met JC, who’d been there a year and his friend Reece. My ‘regret’ is the illegal fights and getting shot in front of Taylor,”

“But you’re so peaceful,” Alex blurted.

Reece, JC and Taylor snorted, earning a chuckle from Logan.

“I have to be. But I still have my moments of anger. So if I disappear for a few hours, I’m either at a boxing club or on a run,” Logan said with a small smile.

“I can’t believe you got shot,” Adam said softly.

Logan just pulled his tank top to the side, revealing a puckered white scar.

“The shot was so deep that the scar will never got away,” Logan sighed.

Everyone fell silent. It was only Reece left now. But his fists were clenched and he was looking down at the floor.

“You don’t have to say, baby,” Taylor soothed.

But Reece lifted his head, his eyes glistening with tears of anger and sadness.

“My story’s pretty simple. When I was 16 I had an argument with my parents about something stupid, I can’t remember what it was. I stormed out the house with my iPod on as loud as it would go. My only brother, my baby brother Liam, he was 7, ran out after me, begging me to come back, but I ignored him. Liam kept following me and I didn’t realise. We used to have a stream behind our house and I jumped across it. My brother must’ve tried to follow. But I didn’t hear anything because of the music. I stormed around for about 5 minutes before I turned around. The first thing I saw was Liam’s unconscious body under the water. I immediately got him out of the water and tried to do CPR but it was no use. He’d fallen unconscious by hitting his head on a rock and he drowned straight after. I screamed for my parents and they came running. They’d realised what had happened and broke down in grief, just like I did. But as much as they told me not to blame myself, I did. I was the reason he died. He followed me out and I ignored him. After a few months my therapist told me to go to a boxing club to work through my depression. I met JC and a year later we met Logan. Not long after that I met Taylor and I fell in love at first sight, even though we didn’t start dating for another year and a bit. She has my brother’s hazel eyes and every time I look at her I know that he’s watching over me from heaven. So yeah, my ‘regret’ is not being able to save my brother from drowning,”

No-one said anything.

“Fuck,” Pete said finally.

“Mm,” Reece said with a weak smile.

“This is why Never Regret is a message. Everyone makes mistakes but we’ve got to learn from them and move on. You can’t live in the past. We can’t live in the past. Because if we did, we sure as fuck wouldn’t be living right now,”

Everyone turned their heads to see me standing in the doorway of the Never Regret bus.

“I can’t believe how much all of you have gone through. It’s insane,” Michael commented.

I walked over and sat between him and JC.

“Yeah, it is. But we’ve got each other. And our music is our way of giving kids the inspiration to be better than what we were, even though they don’t know our stories. Maybe one day we’ll say. But that won’t be any time soon,” Logan said firmly.

“Just don’t think of us any differently. We know we’ve had rough pasts but we’re completely opposite to what we were then,” JC said softly, almost pleading.

“There’s no way we could think of you differently. Hell, the only thing you’ll get that’s different is more respect for surviving all that shit,” Gabe said honestly.

Me and my bandmates all smiled at each other, all of us relieved that we weren’t shunned for the pasts we’re all ashamed of. Because fuck knows we suffered enough not to need more crap piled on top.