About a Girl

Another month has gone by and a lot of things have happened since the call about my mother. First and foremost, I have discovered a new friend in Hugo. At first I tried to stay away from him. He was just too loud and energetic for me to handle. I like to save that kind of energy for the stage and only the stage, but there was something about Hugo that enticed me to let him in. I think it started when he first offered me some pills.

I was beginning to run low and I no longer had my supply of weed because I let Erik and Emil's cousin Krist, the guy who I thought hated me, have the rest of my baggy as a type of thank you and peace offering. He gladly took it and I was left with about 20 pills; which really wouldn't last long. So one day while I was just lounging around with Erik and Emil, Hugo came over saying he wanted to go pick up some new CD's and was wondering if any of us would like to tag along.

I really wanted to go, but I was running so low on pills that I just wanted to save them. It was almost two days since I took a pill and I felt like I was dying and it was getting harder to be comfortable around the guys without that numbing feeling. There was no way I was going out and when I declined they kept pestering me about it saying that it would be good for me to go out and familiarize myself with the city. I kept saying no until I just snapped and yelled at them about how it would be impossible for me to go out in the condition I was. That I was more than likely to get a panic attack if I just stepped one foot out the door.

When I realized how loud I yelled and how red I was and how Hugo saw it all I almost had an actual panic attack. Once Erik managed to calm me down he asked me why I couldn't just take a pill. I hated myself when he asked that. I hated myself for becoming so dependent on pills, but I couldn't stop. I needed them to keep me sane. That's when Hugo stepped up and said he could give me pills.

I was shocked at first when he said he would offer me pills. Why would he even have pills in the first place? After the initial shock, I told him that I couldn't just take pills from him. There'd be no way for me to pay him and I just wasn't all that comfortable with the idea of getting my pills from a stranger. In turn, he just said as long as I help the band reach the top, that'd be my payment to him. I could only stare at him in disbelief. Was he actually serious? Was he just gonna give me free pills just for being in the band? I kept denying his offer and telling him that I couldn't take the pills from him without some sort of payment. He sat down on a couch as he just stared me tapping his chin as if he was deep in thought.

I felt myself start to warm up and I knew my cheeks were turning a crimson color. I don't like it when people just stare at me, it makes me feel uncomfortable and I start to get self conscious. I felt a thundering thump pound against my head as I tried to forget about the eyes that were staring at me so intently. All of the sudden he jumped up causing me and Erik to jump about a foot into the air from the sudden movement. He said that my payment for the pills would be free bass lessons.

"Bass lessons?" I said uncertain.

"Yeah, why not," he said shrugging his shoulders. "Mika was too much of an asshole to teach me when I asked and you seem like a better bass player than he ever was, so you can teach me now."

I was a little confused as first not recognizing the name he mentioned. When i finally realized that he was talking about the guys former bass player I couldn't help but smile at the complement, but I still felt cautious about paying him in bass lessons. But the thought of getting pills just for playing bass, it was too much of a good offer to pass up. So I agreed and that's how are friendship started. Each month he'd give me about 20 pills and every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday I'd give him bass lessons.

Over the bass lessons I began to know Hugo better and know the guys better. I learned that all of them grew up together in a little town of Sweden that I can't pronounce let alone remember. It was Hugo and Bo, Erik and Emil, and Alex. I felt a little bad knowing that Alex was an only child, but Hugo reassured me that all of them were like the brothers he never had. I wonder if they'd be like the brothers I never had? He told me how all their parents would always have play dates set up and they were always together. He told me stories of how they would hide in the forest playing hide-n-seek till dark and pretending they were all knights slaying the dragon, which in reality was a 20 foot something tree.

Then he went on to how they all started picking up instruments. Bo and Hugo were first when they asked for guitars. They both tried learning, but they both got frustrated so easily that they just gave the guitars to the twins. Alex was already getting piano lesson's from his mom and one day when he started singing along to Journey's 'Don't Stop Believing' he knew he wanted to sing. A few months later Bo had got a drum set for his birthday and he was a natural. Hugo tried picking up bass, but he never could seem to learn. So the others began playing together doing cover songs of AC/DC, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, and every other metal and rock band they could think of. By their late teens they began writing their own music and within five months they had their first gig. And as Hugo said, "The rest is history."

I'd be lying if I said that I didn't enjoy Hugo's presence. He was just so easy going and easy to talk to. He knew how to keep me laughing and made teaching him bass one of the most fun things I've ever done. I truly felt like Hugo may just be able to fill the hole that buried itself in me when I left Adam, but enough about Hugo, there's other things that have happened too.

We have all been spending a lot of time at Alex's writing new music. At first I was scared when we had our first writing session. The only thing I ever wrote were poems and stories that I had to write for English. I mean sure my teachers would always gush about how I had such a way with words and sometimes even made them cry with a sentence that I wrote or how a phrase from a poem made them choke up, but I never believed them. I believed they were putting me on the spot to purposely watch me squirm as all eyes in the class would turn to stare at me.

Of course she can make you cry, she makes us all want to cry by living.

Leave it to the emo to make her own suicide note into a poem.

Pretty soon I just stopped writing all together. I figured if I didn't write, no one would have a way to judge me for my thoughts. If I didn't speak, no one would have a way to hurt me. I was wrong, but at least the teachers stopped putting me on the spot and I just became another delinquent in their eyes.

I was terrified when Erik, Emil and I walked into Alex's apartment. Bo was already sitting on Alex's red couch. Anyone could tell that a girl lived here. It just didn't have that bachelor pad feel like Erik and Emil's place had. It was blatantly obvious that Astrid had redecorated his whole apartment. It started with all of us just sitting around with our instruments in hand and shouting out ideas. Erik and Emil would show Alex some riffs they were thinking of, Bo would play a rhythm he's been working on, and Alex would sing random lyrics that he had written. I kept shut throughout the entire time holding tightly onto my bass. I felt so awkward listening to them and not having anything to say. I felt useless.

For a week it went on like this. They would all talk non-stop coming with all these amazing ideas and I'll be sitting awkwardly with my mouth shut. The only time I ever talked was when they asked for my opinion on something to which I was just stutter out something like, "Yeah..sure," and burying my head behind my bass trying to hide from the embarrassment.

One day Alex asked me to go with him to pick up some takeout. About halfway into the car trip Alex reached over to turn down the radio and quickly glanced at me. "We need to talk," he said.

"Bout what?" I was nervous now. I was begging in my head that he didn't ask about why I've been so quite during the writing sessions.

"You do realize that you're apart of this band and that you're input is just as important as anyone else's, right." He kept his eyes straight on the road as he spoke making me even more nervous.

"Y-yeah...I-I do," I stuttered.

"We know that you're probably new to writing music and, well, being in a band in general." He paused for a second as we stopped at a red light. He looked over at me. "I know that you're scared about opening up to us. That music can be a very personal thing for anyone and the worst feeling ever is when someone says that something you wrote is stupid or crap." He looked forward to see if the light changed. It was still red. "But you don't have to be scared. I can promise you right now that anything you come up with we will not make fun of you about it," the light turned green and be began driving again, "We will not question about it, and most importantly, we will not judge you about it." He pulled into a parking lot and parked the car. "We care about you and just want you to know that you are a member of this band and we want you to give it all to it, understand," he spoke as he looked over at me. I nodded my head. "Kay, let's get some food," he smiled.

"I'm just scared," I said as we were driving back from the pizza place we just went to.

"Why?" he spoke with sincerity.

"Last time I wrote something I was sent to the counselor's office and was almost put on suicide watch."

"Wow..I..uh," I know he didn't know what to say. Not even Adam knew what to say when I told him about it and he was there when it happened.

"You don't have to say anything," I spoke as I played with the edges of the pizza box. "I..just..my writhing sometimes got me into trouble."

"Well then you're in luck," he smirked, "The whole point of being in a rock band is to piss people off." I laughed as he turned to give me a goofy grin. "Do you feel better know?" he asked becoming serious again.

I thought for a second. It may take me a bit more time, but I know that sooner or later I'll start to open up to them. But I had one question on my mind. "So how much did Adam tell you about my school days," I questioned with a smirk.

"Not enough," he laughed.

After about a month we had written ten new songs and were going into a studio to record them as another demo to send to the record companies. I managed to come up with a lot of music for my bass and even pitched in a couple of riffs, but I was still hesitant about lyrics. Bass was easy for me. Letting my fingers run up and down the neck playing whatever feels right is the best feeling in the world, but lyrics are something completely different. Every time I thought of something I'd think about how it would relate to something in my life; the good and the bad. And I don't think I was ready to let the guys into that kind of intimacy. Here's how I saw it, anything I wrote, no matter how far fetched, held some small truth about myself. But they all seemed to be pleased that I was talking and discussing with them, so they left me alone about lyrics.

After we finished with E.P., we actually managed to snag a spot on a tour with a big upcoming band, Death Esteem. They were a new metal band from Finland that just released their first album. Hugo had bought it and played it for us and I gotta admit, it was fucking awesome. Everything about them was just fucking perfect. The guitars created beautiful melodies that laced perfectly with singer and the bass and drums made your heart pump along with each song. It seriously made me scared that we were gonna be playing with such an amazing band, but at the same time it was a good thing. This was our chance to get out of the clubs and into the arenas. Hopefully with the new E.P. and tour, we'll soon be signed and have our own headlining tour.

Within a week, we were set to meet the other two bands on the tour including Death Esteem. The other two bands were Cosmic Fuck and Twisted Flames, who had been on the one of the bands that were touring with the guys in America. They were the Norway band that had a guy named Lucas who had been sitting with us when I almost had that panic attack in Austin.

We were currently driving up to Finland in Hugo's hippie van. He was gonna be our roadie. Apparently, he was the official roadie, but couldn't make it to the tour in America because he had broken his foot a day before the tour. Bo and Flip were sitting in the very back row, Astrid and Alex in the middle, Erik and I in the first, and Emil and Hugo in the passenger and driver seats. Some song that I didn't know the name of played in the radio as everyone babbled aimlessly about nothing. My eyes were focused on the blurry land outside the window, but my mind was somewhere in space thinking about nothing. I was brought out of my trance when someone kept poking at my head. I turned around to see Alex giving me a goofy grin.

"What," I said a little annoyed.

"We need to talk," he said as he grin turned into a straight line. Everyone had gone silent and the radio had been lowered.

"Go on," I spoke warily.

"You really don't like the fake name we gave you, do you."

"Well, it's not that its' terrible, it's just I'm still not entirely used to it." I really didn't like it when we would go out and they would call me Diane. It just felt so out of place and reminded me of a girl I knew in school who used to make fun of me. The last thing I wanted to remember was school. "Where are you going with this."

"How do feel about a stage name," he spoke with a sense of hope.

"A stage name?" I said a little confused.

"Y'know, like Alice Cooper and Slash," Erik said.

"We think that it'll just be easier for you to adjust to," Alex said.

"Umm....Sure, I guess," I really didn't know what to think about a stage name. Sure I got called a lot of names growing up, but none that I'd like to remember. "What kind of stage name?"

"Well, uh, did you have any nicknames growing up." I couldn't help the look of annoyance that I gave him. He really couldn't be seriously asking that question. "Right," he said with a nervous laugh, "Better way to put it, did Adam ever call you any nicknames?"

"Uhh, there was a time when he wanted to call me concha, but I told him not to."

"What's a concha," Erik asked making a face.

I laughed a little at the face he was making saying, "It means sea shell in Spanish, but could also be used to mean something dirty."

"As is what kind of dirty," Hugo asked sounding suddenly interested.

"Vagina, pussy, it's a terrible nickname," I mumble turning slightly red. What made it worse is that concha is usually used as a term of endearment for little baby girls by using conchita. All the guys started laughing earning hits from Astrid and Flip.

"Did he, ow, know, ow, what it meant?" Erik said between laughs as Astrid slapped him on the back of the head.

"He knew the sea shell part, but not that it could be used as an insult."

"Why did he even come with that in the first place?" Flip asked from the back.

"Because he said my name sounds like sea shell."

"Well that makes sense, right?" Emil asked furrowing his eyebrows a bit. I shrugged my shoulders.

"Well then lets call you Skal," Erik smiled brightly.

"Huh?"

"Skal, it means shell in Swedish," Alex said. I nodded my head. It sounded alright.

"You sure that sounds good," I asked sounding uncertain.

"Of course," Alex said grinning, "It fits perfectly."

"Skal," I let roll of my tongue. There's been weirder stage names.

"Great. From this moment on, you'll now be known as Skal and only Skal," Alex spoke loudly.

I smiled softly. Skal I could get used to that.