My Only One

~Alex~

“Jack.” I poked and prodded his side and he still wouldn’t wake up. “Jack. Jack. Wake the hell up man.” I punched him in the stomach as hard as I possibly could. He woke up with an Oomph noise coming out of his mouth. “Good afternoon sleeping beauty.” He glared at and I smiled and turned away.

“I can feel your eyes boring into the back of my head, dude.” I turned around and smiled at him one more time. “The reason I had to wake you up was because I came up with an amazing song idea and I thought we could go brainstorm at our spot.”
My name is Alex and I am in a band called All Time Low. My friends and I formed it when we first met in freshman year of high school. I am the lead singer, my best friend Jack plays guitar, Zach plays bass, and Rian plays drums. We had recently showed our CD we made to a couple of record labels but we had been denied by all of them.
“Fuck you. Couldn’t you do it yourself?” I shook my head and walked into Rian’s room. I was grateful that Rian let us sleep at his house. We practically lived there now. My house is almost twenty minutes away from the park which is where I do my writing and thinking, and his house is across the street. Very convenient I would say. I found out Rian was just as hard as Jack was to get up.

“Rian, me and Jack are going to the hill, alright?” He gave me a sort of groan and a nod so I decided to just leave it at that and walk away. When I went back into the living room, Jack was already dressed and on the couch, eating a bowl of cereal and watching SpongeBob. “Let’s go.”
“Why the sudden rush? I thought we were going to take this one slow. They rejected our last album because it was not thought out enough. Let’s take it slow.” I looked at him and shook my head.

“I haven’t written a song in a month. This is a real good idea and I just can’t seem to shake it or get it out of my mind. I have a feeling that I need to go to the hill with my song book and it’s a good feeling, not a bad one.” He shook his head. “Whatever you say; you go ahead. I want to finish eating. I’ll meet you when I’m done.”

I nodded and took my leave. I walked out the door, across the street to the park. I looked around the park and noticed there were only a few kids there. It was way less crowded than it usually was. The day was beautiful and I could feel the wind blowing against my face. I could smell the flowers and people nearby cooking outside. I felt really good at that moment.
I stride toward the hill and started to make my way up. When I was about halfway up, I distinctly heard someone singing at the top. When I was just about at the top, I peeked over the edge and saw a girl sitting up against the tree, ear buds in ears and listening to music. She was pretty. She had long, flowing brown hair and she was wearing a blink-182 T-shirt which is always a good sign. You know best band ever and all besides All Time Low of course.
I decided to walk over by her and say hi because I know she didn’t live around here because if she did, trust me, I would have remembered her. As I approached her, she looked up and took her ear buds out of her ears.

“Hello.” She said. I smiled at her. “It seems you are sitting by my tree.” I didn’t know what else to say. I’ve never seen anyone else on this hill. It was just that tall and it was kind of dangerous and no one ever really came up here. I was just about the only one up until now.

“Got your name on it?” She was kind of cute and I could tell by the tone of her voice that she had a sense of humor. I nodded and walked to the other side of the tree, beckoning for her to follow. On the other end of the tree, there was a giant square engraved into it and in it said Alex Gaskarth.

I did this a year and a half ago. I did this with the knife that I cut myself with. That was the last time I ever did that. It was a long time ago, so don’t worry. My brother had committed suicide and it was very hard on me because beside my band, he was the only one that I had to talk to. The last people that I ever wanted to talk to was my parents. They didn’t care about me. The only person the cared about was Tom and when he died, the blamed it on me and practically had me disowned. It wasn’t my fault and I would never take blame for that. What he did was his own choice, his own mistake.

The point is, I was so tired of going through the same things and I looked down at my wrists and realized how pathetic I was and couldn’t cut anymore. I decided to carve my name into a tree and tell the world that I had been here and this is it, I wasn’t doing this anymore. And I did. I stopped right there and then and never looked at my wrists the same way again. “I see. So you’re Alex Gaskarth then?”

“Yes, ma’am. And you are…?”

“My name is Megan.” I smiled at her. “You’re new right? I haven’t seen you around before. And I know everyone.” She nodded. “I just actually got here a couple of hours ago. I moved on to Mars Street about twenty minutes from here.” My eyes lit up. “No way, that’s my street. Ah, what’s your address?”

“8974, I want to say.”

“That’s right next to my house; oh my God. How awesome.” Megan gave a half smile like she wasn’t really interested in talking. Oh well, I tried my best. “So Alex, what grade are you in?”
“I’m a freshman, you?” She smiled. “Me too. You are going to Dulaney right? Because I really don’t want to be the only one I know in that school.” I nodded my head. “Yep, that’s where I’m going. Now you know one person.” I held up one finger as I spoke.

“Alex, I’m here! Sorry I was…..Oh. Hi.” Here comes Jack. The boy’s got to ruin everything, doesn’t he? I gave him a quick shake of my head and mouthed for him to go away when Megan stood up.

“Hi, I’m Megan. I just moved in the house next to Alex.” They shook hands. Who does that? I think Jack was just trying to be nice. He’d screw anyone. “Oh, hi. My name is Jack. I’m in Alex’s band.”

She looked questioningly at me. “You’re in a band?” I gave Jack a look. I didn’t want her to know. Girls like to be friends with me because I’m in a band a lot and it’s kind of annoying, you know?

“Yeah, I didn’t really have a lot of time to tell you. Jack and I were actually up here to write but we can go somewhere else.”

She shook her head and put her IPod in her pocket. “I have to go anyway. My mom will freak out on me if I’m not home. I’ll see you later then, Alex?”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll stop by later. You should meet the rest of the band. You could use some more friends in a new neighborhood.” She smiled, waved goodbye to me and Jack and walked off.

“She seemed pretty nice.” Jack commented.

“Yep, she was really nice. She’s cool too. She had on a Blink shirt.”

He laughed. That’s something I always looked at in a person. The kind of music a person listens to really tells you something about them. I don’t how, it just does. “So are we going to write, or what? I’m tired as hell.” I rolled my eyes. “Shut up, Jack. I have some really good ideas.” He nodded and we got to work.

We actually ended up getting a lot accomplished in a half hour. Got part of the first verse and the chorus. “Nice job, Alex. Your ideas were actually good for a change. A round of applause.” He clapped for me and I punched him in the stomach. “Fuck you.” He laughed. “I’ll take you up on that offer.” I cringed. “Ew.”

I had figured we did enough for that day because I was tired too so we left the park and headed to our homes. As we reached Jack’s block, I realized I didn’t really want to go home. “Jack, can I come over?” He shook his head. “My mom wants to take me and everyone else out for dinner. Uck.” I groaned. “Fine. See you later.” I walked the whole five blocks to my house by myself and it was so boring.

I could see my house now and I could also see that there was a moving van next door. So she did live there. Cool. “Hey Alex.” I looked over to see Megan sitting on the front porch. “Oh, hey Megan. How’s the new house?” She shrugged. It alright. Have you ever been inside?”
Surprisingly, no. I’ve lived next to the house for my whole life and I’ve never been inside. “No, I haven’t. It looks nice though.” She waved me over. “You can come look. Come on.” She started to get up when my front door opened. My mom peeked her head out the door. “Alex, honey, dinner is ready. Come on in.” She looked at Megan and smiled. “Hi, I’m Mrs. Gaskarth. I’m so happy we have new neighbors.”

She smiled at my mom and looked back at me. “Later then?” I nodded. “Later.” I walked into the house and I closed the door behind me.