Carpe Diem

As we sat outside in a space of grass wedged between two of the tour buses in Albany two hours later, I felt like I was nearing a decision, well pretty certain, really. I don’t know, I guess there was the feeling of how much I enjoyed spending time with Alex, Logan and Jake, they felt like a big part of my life even though considering the lack of time we’d known each other I had a feeling it wasn’t going to change anytime soon. Obviously if I did end up joining the band my main and number one priority was Kade and who’d take care of him when I couldn’t, but I’d be able to cross that bridge if it came to it, depending on my decision. I had to say, something felt right about it, all of it, I didn’t know what it was, but it felt right.
For the first time since I’d been on tour I felt like I needed the internet to keep me sane and help keep my mind at bay, because it was definitely working over time whilst I attempted to come to a decision. It was strange though, I normally relied on the internet for everything when I was at home, my laptop was stuck to me like glue, it had become a way of life, and needless to say, I felt like I owed it for the rest of my life. I bet you’re thinking what the fuck is she going on about, right? Well, you’ll see.
I was currently sat in my bunk with the curtain closed, indicating that it was “me” time, yeah I did it a lot, but everyone knew not to disturb me when my curtain was closed. I sat crossed legged in my bunk, my Mac laptop placed in my lap with the earphones wedged in my ears. I sighed as I led back a little, moving around slightly to get comfortable. I opened up Safari as I contemplated what to do first. I decided with the most efficient thing, checking my emails. I typed in my email address and password quickly as I impatiently waited for the page to load.

20 New Messages. I sighed once more as I studied the list of emails, thankfully a few of them weren’t important but one caught my eye. I glanced at the name once more before opening it, my eyes flickering across the words.

Hey Taylor,
It’s been a long time, I hope you’re good. Anyway, I know we’ve not spoken in a while, infact, we’ve not spoken that much since you left Los Angeles, but this was the perfect opportunity to email you.
You see, Blake (I don’t know if you remember him, it’s been a while, but he used to work in the Starbucks on Frompton we always used to call into when you lived here.) and I, well not too long after you left, and believe me when I say I didn‘t expect it to happen but we got together, and as a six month anniversary present he bought tickets for us to see Hit The Lights, A Rocket To The Moon and Taking Back Sunday in Manhattan. I know what you’re thinking, why not wait for the L.A show, right? I don’t know the answer to that myself. Anyway, moving on. I saw you perform and truth be told you’re incredible. I never imagined you doing something like that, not in a million years. Heck, I didn’t even know you could sing, you definitely kept that a secret, ha-ha. You’ve got some real talent, Taylor. I’m not even just saying that, not that I was expecting to see you perform on stage, but I was truly amazed. You looked like you were enjoying yourself so much, like you were meant for the stage. I don’t know why you’ve never considered doing something professionally with music. I know with Kade it would’ve been difficult (I hope he’s okay, tell him I miss him.) but it would’ve been incredible nonetheless. I didn’t get a chance to tell you in person as I couldn’t find you amongst all the crowds after, and I remembered I still had your email so here I am. Anyway this is starting to turn into a ramble, but I just wanted to let you know that you were great, and I’ll hopefully see you soon? Maybe I could come and visit you again when the tour’s over as I’ve been informed you’re on tour for the whole thing, I hope it’s all cracked up to be!
I still have your number, so I’ll drop you a text in the next few weeks.
Stay sane, Taylor.
- Jess.

I bit my lip as I read over the email once more. Jess had been the first friend, well, other than Hayden that I’d made from Los Angeles. It was one of those ‘instant click’ relationships, the best ones, if I do say so myself. I felt a pang of guilt inside me suddenly, I felt guilty that I hadn’t made that much of an effort to stay in contact after I moved to Lima, I knew that email was the first one she’d sent since she visited just under a year ago, but that was still more of an effort than I’d made. My eyes couldn’t help but keep glancing over the lines “You looked like you were enjoying yourself so much, like you were meant for the stage.” It wasn’t just Hayden, Alex, Nick, Logan and Jake who believed it, it was pretty much everyone I knew, except me. I kept thinking to myself, how could so many people be so wrong? But maybe they weren’t, maybe it was me, maybe I was wrong. I sat up right as it was beginning to become more clear each second, despite all of my doubts, fears and worries, I had a feeling of what I had to do.
I closed my email down and opened up a new tab and typed in Google. I knew which website I was headed for, yet I had no idea why. I typed in the words and clicked enter, clicking on the first link that appeared.

FUELEDBYRAMEN

I bit my lip once more as I clicked into the ‘blog’ section of the website. I wanted to see how everyone was rating Hit The Lights, A Rocket To The Moon and Taking Back Sunday’s performances on the tour so far, though it’d only nearly been a week, I was curious. Although, as I scanned the blog posts and found myself smiling at the positive reviews of the shows so far, something else caught my eye in the current post I was reading.

“I went to the Manhattan show and I was completely blown away. All the bands were truly amazing. I have to say though, I was mainly going to see Hit The Lights as they’re pretty much my favourite band and words can’t describe how disappointed I was that Collin wasn’t performing (p.s if by any chance you’re reading this Collin, I hope you‘re feeling better!) and I assumed they weren’t going to play or something along those lines because what can you really do without a singer? Improvise maybe? I don’t know, but they didn’t improvise, one of their close friends, Taylor I think her name was filled in for Collin. I have to take this moment to say she was incredible! Much better than I could’ve ever expected, I’m so glad they got her to fill in because she was pretty much the best choice for it, better than anyone else I could imagine doing it, anyway as her voice fitted so well with the songs, it was actually uncanny. So, if you’re seeing them in the next few weeks that they’re touring and you meet Hit The Lights you should ask them to try and get her to perform again with them, because believe me, wow. Look out for her, maybe one day she’ll end up storming into the music scene in some way, who knows, guess we’ll just have to wait and see. It‘s a long shot, but anything‘s possible I guess.”

I smiled as I read over the post once more, anything was possible.

I began to contemplate on what would happen if I did join the band, and if we did get somewhere in the music industry, would I be able to handle it? It wouldn’t be as bad as being insanely famous I knew that, but could I handle rumours and bullshit that spread around like disease? Could I handle the comments and snide remarks? Of course I could, there’d always be people out there who dislike you for no reason whatsoever and that wouldn’t both me, but what if I liked the attention too much? What if it went to my head? I shook my head at that thought and shut my Mac. Matt had been dealing with this since Taking Back Sunday officially took off a few years ago, and he’s not changed one little bit, and I couldn’t imagine him ever turning a fan away or not taking the time to talk to someone, and it’s with these thoughts that I knew it would be a big risk, but I couldn’t ever see myself becoming stuck up and big-headed because it just wasn’t me, sure I didn’t take anyone’s shit, but I’d never intentionally hurt someone verbally or physically, well, unless they swung for me first, that’d be a different story.
I placed my Mac on my pillow and pulled back the curtain, climbing out quickly before closing it once more. I’d finally reached a decision. I just hoped it was one I could live with.
I made my way towards the spiral staircase quickly as I took the steps two at a time, I needed to reach my destination and announce my decision before I ended up changing my mind, which with me was all too possible, especially when I began to think a little too much, which I did very often, believe me.
I hurried through the different sections of the bus, it was strange as everyone were still off doing their “fun activities” as Nathan VanDame put it. As I neared the front of the bus though, the sound of hurried footsteps could be heard as I was met with the sight of Alex running towards me hurriedly.

“Taylor! Taylor I need to talk to you!” She exclaimed as she breathed heavily, clutching her stomach to try and catch her breath.

“What’s wrong?” I laughed, an amused expression finding it’s way to my face.

“Stop laughing at me!” She wheezed, “It’s important.”

I raised an eyebrow and nodded, “You can sit down, you know! It might stop you from having a heart attack considering how unfit you are.” I smirked as she flipped me off and breathed in deeply once more before standing up straight.

“I know you said you need time to consider joining the band, but the head, as in the head, as in the head head of Fueled By Ramen just called as one of the bands who were meant to play the smaller stage over the next couple of weeks on the tour have dropped out due to medical reasons, and they need a replacement as soon as possible,” She said before she began rambling loads of words at once, tripping over what she was saying. “I know you said you need more time and-”

“Alex, chill!” I laughed as I placed both hands on her shoulders as she stopped talking,” I was coming to talk to you myself, actually.”

She looked at me worriedly, “What is it? Oh god I know what it is, you-”

“Alex! Shut up, I’ll join the band.” I said biting my lip as her eyes widened.

“W-what?” She questioned in disbelief.

“I said-”

“I know what you said! But holy shit! Seriously?!” She exclaimed.

“Seriously.” I grinned as she jumped on me.

I really hoped I wasn’t going to regret my decision, but all things considered, I doubted that very much.

“I fucking love you!” She said as she hugged me tightly.

“I love you too, you loser.” I laughed as I hugged her back. She pulled back quickly as a grin spread across her face. “Come on! We have to go and tell Jake and Logan and EVERYONE!” She shrieked as she grabbed my hand, literally dragging me to the front of the bus and down the steps hurriedly.

“Alex calm down, the news isn’t going to just disappear!” I yelled as she dragged me in the direction of A Rocket To The Moon’s bus.

“You might change your mind and if we hurry you won’t have a chance to! Plus, this way I get to say it sooner!” She exclaimed once more as she ran the last few steps over to the bus and pulled me along with her. I had to attempt not to trip over my own feet let alone the steps as she continued to pull me up the steps of the bus, but as she was pulling me so fast it was all a blur, it was insane.

“I have news!” She yelled as Nick and Justin peeled their eyes away from the Xbox to look at Alex.

“Come on, Alex! We’re in the middle of a game here!” Justin whined.

“Shut up! Jake, Logan GET IN HERE!” She screamed once more as they ran into the “lounge” section of the bus quickly.

“Where’s the fire?!” Jake laughed as he caught his breath.

“Taylor has said yes to joining the band!” She said as she began jumping up and down, finally letting go of my arm. Nick, Justin, Logan and Jake all looked at me expectantly, waiting for my confirmation as I nodded in response.

“TAYLOR I LOVE YOU!” Jake exclaimed as he ran over to me and picked me up before spinning me around.

Jake continued to spin me around for a few moments before setting me down and cupping my cheeks in his hands before pressing his lips to mine for a short second, not in a romantic way of course, but I think that was made clear by the response he gave after it, “Yeah I kissed you, you mad bro?!” He scoffed as he began jumping up and down excitedly. I couldn’t help but roll my eyes and smile.

“Taylor you’re the best!” Logan grinned as he high-fived me happily.

“This calls for a celebration!” Justin announced as he tossed his Xbox controller to the side as he stood up and quickly ran into the Kitchen area as Jake, Logan and Alex followed.

“So, you finally realised where your heart lies?” Nick asked, standing up.

I nodded and pushed my hair out of my face once more, “It took a lot of consideration believe me, but I figured it out.”

“Well considering I helped you, surely this means I should get a kiss too?” He smirked playfully.

I scoffed, “Like I had any say in the matter with Jake. Although, he’s such a good kisser I could pass out,” I joked as I flung my hand across my head dramatically.

He chuckled, an amused smile making its across his face before he spoke again, “So I guess you’re a real rockstar, congratulations.”

“Oh you bet, you better watch out.” I joked as I crossed my arms playfully.

“You’ll never be as much of a rockstar as me.” He said smugly.

I raised an eyebrow, “Oh we’ll see about that.”

“Up top, rockstar!” He laughed as he stuck his hand up for a high-five which I accepted, “You’re not going to regret this, you know.” He said seriously.

Somewhere deep down, I didn’t believe I would either.