Stay Seventeen

acey woke up to shouting - it took her less that a second to figure out who it was - Tina, her best friend.

“Lacey Harland. Ass down stairs now.” She was shouting, Lacey groaned, and rolled out of the bed, stumbling over a pair of converse what had been flung across the room the night before. She trudged downstairs to find that Tina had resorted to the couch and was watching MTV playing a familiar band on the TV. That familiar band was called All Time Low.

Tina turned her head and saw she had finally dragged herself out of bed. “I thought I’d put them on, y’know, to celebrate that we have backstage passes for tonight’s show”

“Wait…what? We have All Time Low tickets?” Lacey asked, Tina nodded.

“Backstage, actually” She corrected, pulling them out of her back pocket. “I entered this competition a while back in a magazine, never bought the next issue resulting in me only finding out we had them when they came through the post this morning” she explained, handing Lacey’s ticket to her. “And, since your history with the band and stuff…well, I decided you should come with me” she finished.

Lacey stared at the tickets, and looked up at Tina, and before she could say anything, Lacey hugged her, a bit too tightly “Lacey - Lace…go and get ready” Tina said, longing for breath..

Lacey rushed up the stairs and looked at herself in the mirror, her hair was straight, with a slight wave from sleeping, she quickly put it into a side plait, and then started looking around her room for clothes, picking up the converse that she had previously tripped up over, and put them on her bed so she knew were to find them once she found the only All Time Low shirt she had, still three times too big on her, it was easy enough to find a pair of skinny’s, since she refused to wear anything else - she got changed, and picked one of the first hoodie’s she could grab from the back of her bedroom door, then headed downstairs, running out the front door, quickly locking it, to Tina, who was waiting in her car.

“You got the CD’s?” She asked her best friend, Tina pointed to eight CD’s on the backseat, they were all All Time Low - including, Straight to DVD, Unplugged, and the very first EP. Lacey reached out and grabbed Dirty Work, they’re latest work - it wasn’t her favourite, but it was still brilliant.

It was a three hour drive into the city, and half way there Lacey went quiet, Tina left her for a minute - but when she wouldn’t sing along to her favourite song of the album (Just The Way I'm Not), she had to ask what was up.

“What if they’ve changed?” She said, looking down at her shoes, Tina laughed, eye’s on the road -

“You haven’t seen them for five years, of course they’ve changed” she replied, kind of pointing out the major obvious.

“No, not like that - what if they’ve forgot about me?” Lacey said, Tina looked at her, and saw she was obviously upset about this, and she didn’t have to be.

“You think they would forget they’re first fan, they girl they went through high school with, the one who was at every practice, or sound check - do you think Zack would forget teacher you how to work a camera, or Rian would forget who he would plan pranks with? What about Alex? - you guys used to tell each other everything, and Jack - the boy who would snuggle up with you in his house and watch Home Alone because you were to scared to got home” Tina told her, this was just everything Lacey had told her about her friendship with the guys back in High School - they had parted way’s after Graduation, they didn’t mean to - but All Time Low were ready to tour, and Lacey was ready to move from Baltimore to New York.

Lacey smiled, remembering the memories, they couldn’t have forgotten her, and they wouldn’t off. - She did look different though. No way would she have been able to pull of the bright red hair back in High School.

They pulled up outside they theatre, butterflies started flying around in her stomach, and she got out of the car, to be faced with a mile long line of bleach blonde sluts, and a few people who looked like genuine fans, they smiled at her as they took the shortcut into backstage, the blonde one’s didn’t, it was easy to tell they were murdering her over and over again in their tiny little heads.

They were greeted by Matt, and lead into the dressing room were four boys sat, four familiar boys, who really didn't need an introduction - they all smiled, before coming up and hugging them, Lacey didn’t say anything when they told her and Tina to sit down on the sofa.

“So, do you live round here?” Alex asked them, Lacey couldn’t answer because she was trying to stop tears.

“Yeah - I have all my life, Lacey hasn’t thought have you?” Tina informed them, she knew exactly what Lacey was thinking, and how she was feeling. Lacey swallowed, and answered.

“Nah, I moved up here five years ago, after graduation” She said, she knew what his next question would be, ‘were did you move from?’ and that it was, Lacey made eye contact with Alex for the first time, and she saw it in his eyes, the recognition.

“You moved from Baltimore, Lacey, like you always wanted to” He said, realising who she was, smiling.