Dressed up in Faded Costumes

“Damn, they’re loaded,” Jared said as he was walking through Matt’s house so we could go into the studio where Matt was waiting.
“Oh, hello, Michelle! Liam!” Matt’s mother said before we could reach the glass door that lead to the backyard. “New friend?”
“Oh, yes, Aunt Heather. This is Jared, Jared, this is Aunt Heather, Matt’s mom,” I said as I introduced them to each other.
“Nice to meet you, dearie,” she said as reached up and tried to hug Jared, who was just as tall as Matt and Liam.
Jared just smiled as he didn’t know how to respond to her. The three of us walked on ahead to the studio.
“Hey!” Matt said from behind the main recording booth playing with the drums. He walked to us and he extended a hand for a handshake, which Jared immediately accepted. “Nice meeting you, man.”
“Nice place you have,” he said. “Epic studio…”
“Thanks,” he said.
Everything was a bit awkward with the introductions, until Liam broke the ice and said, “Let’s jam?”
I smiled and ran towards the booth and went on to grabbing the microphone and called the three. The first song ever that we had jammed to was ‘Time Bomb’ by All Time Low; because it was the one song that all of us knew well. Jared was amazing; he played well just like Matt and Liam. God, somebody tell them how talented they are!
“Is it just me or are we looking like a real band, now?” I said when we were done.
“Why? What did we look like the last time we performed?” Matt laughed.
Jared was a real good sport; although he was quiet most of the time after that. I understood that he might’ve been feeling out-of-place, but I knew there was something more to it.
2pm, when the two boys were in the main house getting some food from the kitchen, I looked at Jared, who was playing with the vintage guitar in the main recording booth.
“Hey,” I said, calling to him.
He looked up, faced me, and smiled. “Hmm?”
“What’s wrong?” I asked walking over to him and sitting on an amplifier.
“What do you mean ‘what’s wrong?’”
“I know it when somebody’s lying about how they feel… I’m quite an expert of doing the same…”
“…Have you ever been so jealous of the life of another person’s…” he said as he distracted himself by playing a random riff.
“Actually yeah,” I said. “I’m not at all the person you think I am—“ I looked at him. “—I didn’t always live life as happy as I’m living it now.”
He finally looked back at me and looked more confused.
“I didn’t grow up here, I just moved from Minnesota a year and a half ago; I had a horrible life where people lied to me…”
“I’m not originally from Washington, myself,” he said. “I’m from Maine; I moved in with my aunt who had an apartment in Vancouver; I was 10. I left my parents with the happiness they wished for… they didn’t want me.
“You know Michelle, my aunt wasn’t rich… she was actually having money troubles the time I moved in; but still she made me finish High School in flying colors, paying for every trip and every school supply and every single thing I selfishly wanted as if nothing wrong was going on…”
I knew the rest… he didn’t want his aunt to suffer anymore with him too… that was probably why he started backpacking. I held back a tear and looked at him. I could see that he loved his aunt, and that he had hatred for his parents. It was their lost; who would disown such a guy like Jared…
“If you don’t mind me asking,” I looked at him and turned my voice into a softer one. “Why is it that they didn’t want you?”
He laughed softly. “They were young when they had me; my mother, 15, and my father, 16. Their parents disowned them for that, and my parents did the same to me.
“I have nothing more to lose… and a whole other life to gain.”
I weakly smiled at him.
“FOOD COMING YOUR WAY!” Matt shouted as he and Liam walked into the studio with trays of chips and dip, sodas and more junk food.
Jared immediately looks back to his guitar as I stood up to meet ‘em and help get the food to the table topped with mine and Liam’s bags.
We were all eating and working on a song Liam had previously written, when Maria and Leila entered the studio, with Garrett beside them. The three of them, during that summer, seemed to go everywhere together, while Matt, Liam and I—and now Jared with us—seemed to have a group of our own since we were so busy with making our dream a reality.
“Hey!” Maria announced.
I rushed over to meet them and Leila shot me an ‘oh-my-god-I-can’t-believe-this’ kind of look. I assumed that that was the time that they, Garrett and Leila, started going out and have this certain thing in between them.
I walked over to Leila and whispered in her ear, “Are you…”, and before I even had the chance to finish the question she nodded, and started to walk away, glancing at me with every step she took, with an awkward grin.
“How are you guys?” I asked their group. “It’s been a while since we’ve been like this…”
“We’ve been fine, as you can see,” Maria said as she smiled and pointed at Leila and Garrett.
Liam laughed softly as Leila shied away, covering her face. Garrett smiled awkwardly, and Matt gave a look of fake disgust. I laughed.
“What about you Maria?” Leila asked. “How are you and Alex?”
Maria obviously blushed. “We’ve been doing quite well; he’s been busy with the new album, but we’re okay.”
We continued talking about what we had missed from each other’s lives. I introduced Jared to everybody and he fit right in with us. Jared was confused at first as to which ‘Alex’ we were talking about. He was super shocked when he found out that it was Alex Gaskarth. He never did expect that.
The next 20 days was filled with writing songs, making covers and YouTube videos, and laughing with the band. Jared was feeling more and more comfortable and close with us, and so was Leila with Matt’s family. Maria took two weeks away from LA to come with Alex on his tour, before she would enter college in the fall. Everything was working out for everybody, and we were actually enjoying life as it was.
It was at 2 something in the morning when we had one of the most shocking calls we ever had. Liam, Matt, Jared and I were still in the studio working on the song Liam had composed with Jared, and we were all planning that we all spend the night until we finished it. It was never a problem with our parents that we didn’t come home for days, since we usually did it a lot then.
“Can I take a power nap,” I told the Liam as he took off the headphones he was wearing, was editing some stuff on the computer. My eyes were closing involuntarily already and I was just tired.
Matt was redoing the track for the drums until he would find the right beat pattern and Jared was writing more songs in a corner when I asked Liam.
“Yeah, of course,” he said as he stood up and left his place momentarily and led me to the sofa across the main recording booth where he handed me a small pillow. I lied down and he kissed me on the forehead with a smile.
“You’ll wake up to a finished track,” he said.
I sleepily smiled at him and closed my eyes. Next thing I knew, I was being woken up by three dudes with ecstatic faces.
Matt was shaking my shoulder while he was sitting on the floor, Liam was sitting beside Matt, beside my head, and Jared was on the foot of the sofa shaking my feet to wake me up.
“Macadamia!!!” Matt kept repeating.
“What?” I asked my voice a bit hoarse, a bit annoyed, and a bit sleepy.
“What do you think of a recording contract?” Liam said with a huge smile upon his face.
“What?” I asked, my face slightly waking up and slowly smiling to the news they were bringing me.
“We were offered a contract!” Liam said.
“A recording contract?” I said excitedly.
All of them nodded and the ecstatic smiles on their faces made me wake up even more.
I jumped off the sofa and gave Liam a huge embrace. My eyes brimmed with tears as I relaxed my head on his chest, making a blot of tears on his shirt.
“GROUP HUG!” Matt shouted as both he and Jared opened their arms and joined our hug.
We were crazy, stupid even, to believe that this would be real; that this would be what they said it would. Of course, we were young, gullible people who wanted an easy way of getting there…