Teenage Dirtbag

Haley and I got out of Alex’s car, and waved him goodbye. We just had our first band practice, which went pretty great. I insisted on Haley staying at my house for the night. I didn’t want her to go home right now and I could tell she didn’t really want to either. I knew my mum wouldn’t mind it, she had always been fond of Haley. We went inside.
“Mom, Haley is staying for dinner” I exclaimed after I hung my jacket, and kicked off my worn Vans.
“Okay” my mom replied. “Do you guys want a drink?”
I looked at Haley who nodded. “Yeah”.
Haley and I walked to the kitchen, where my mom was already cooking.
“It smells great, Joyce” Haley said.
Haley had been coming over here since we were about 5 years old, and was therefore on first name terms with my mom. Especially after her mom’s death she’d spent a lot of time here.
“Why thank you, sweety. It’s so nice to see you again” my mom replied. “Jack, make you two a drink will you?”
I got us drinks and sat down at the kitchen table while Haley continued talking to my mom. She purposely did not mention what happened today, so I wouldn’t either. I was pretty sure my mom would agree with me that Haley and her sister had to get out of their house. Our parents had been friends for a long time, but their friendship faded when Haley’s father started to drink so much. For years they had even forbidden me to go over to their house because they didn’t trust Haley’s father, but I didn’t let that stop me.
“So how was band practice?” my mom asked when she and Haley were done talking about how she had been.
“It was pretty cool. We played some covers. Haley recorded one for us that Alex will upload to our MySpace page. I’ll show it to your later” I said.
“Okay” she said. “Will you call Joe and May? Dinner is ready”
I nodded, and went upstairs. I first went into May’s room to tell her dinner was ready, and then into my brother Joe’s room. I went back downstairs, with the two of them right behind me.
“Haley!” May exclaimed when she walked into the kitchen, and she went to hug Haley.
The two of them had always gotten along well. Haley was like the little sister May never had.
“Where’s dad?” Joe asked.
“He had a meeting, but he’ll be home soon” my mom said. “But we’re just gonna eat now.”
We all sat down at the table and my mom served dinner.
“Can Haley stay the night?” I asked carefully when we all sat down. “Her dad…”
Haley gave me a warning look
“Isn’t home tonight” I finished.
“Sure. In May’s room, that is” my mom answered.
“Jeez mom, what do you expect us to do?” I asked irritated.
“That’s fine, thanks” Haley said thankfully.

15 minutes later we had finished dinner, and Haley and I went up to my room to watch a movie or something. As soon as we entered my room, my cell phone rang. I took it out of my pocket while Haley sat down on my bed. It was Alex. I answered.
“Hey” I said.
Alex was very excited about something. Apparently we were asked to perform at a bar in Baltimore.
“What’s so awesome?” Haley asked. “Who is it anyway?”
“Alex” I replied. “We get to play some bar in Baltimore!”
“Cool, tell Alex I said hi” Haley said.
While I continued my phone call with Alex, Haley got up, and took my acoustic guitar from its standard. I hung up on Alex after he said he was gonna call Zack and Rian.
“You should probably tune that first” I told Haley. “It hasn’t been tuned for quite some time”.
I usually played on my electric guitar, because it sounded a lot cooler. Haley was more of an acoustic player though. She started tuning my guitar. Not a lot of people knew it, but Haley was actually a much better guitar player than I was. In fact, she taught me everything I knew. Her father taught her to play when she was little, and though she would never play around anyone else but me and Rachel she was a really great player.
“This sounds better” Haley said, after she tuned the guitar. She started playing Wonderwall by Oasis. I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I loved listening to her play, and sing in fact, because she was a great singer as well. Haley just didn’t like being in the center of the attention, which is why she never told anyone she was such a good guitar player. She still practiced every single day though, not because she had to please anyone else, but because she loved it so much. She knew she had potential, but she didn’t want the fame I was hoping All Time Low would have one day. She didn’t want to feel pressured by fans and labels to make new and better music. I guess it made sense in some way. The song ended too soon. I sat up and started yelling “we want more!” Haley shook her head laughing, but did start playing Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana.

Alex’s POV
After I got home, I went straight to my room to make my homework. Or well, not a lot of homework was done: I couldn’t stop thinking about all of the shit Haley had gone through today, and to think this wasn’t even the first time this happened. I couldn’t blame her for not being able to let her guard down. As I usually did when I couldn’t focus or when I had too much on my mind, I got out my guitar and my writing pad, and tried writing a song to put my thoughts on paper. I had written dozens of songs that would probably never see the light of day. Some were just plain bad and others way too personal. As soon as I found out I was going to be in All Time Low, I went through all of my written lyrics to see if there was anything we could use for the band. I only found a couple I considered good enough. Now I just had to pick up the courage to sing them in front of the guys. No one had ever heard these songs.

No matter how full of thoughts my head was, nothing came to mind to write down. I turned on my computer, and opened MySpace. As soon as we had our name, we created a MySpace page for our band. Earlier, we had Haley record us play with my videocamera, and I wanted to upload the video to our MySpace video. When people could actually hear us play, we might get more people to check out our page. Sometime after I uploaded the video I looked at the screen and noticed someone messaged us. I opened the message curiously, and read it in awe. This guy wanted us to play at his bar in Baltimore sometime. He saw our video, and thought we had potential. He wanted to give us a chance to prove that to the world, or at least the visitors of his bar. The message didn’t say when. We still needed to practice a lot, and we probably couldn’t even play enough songs to fill an evening, but I got really excited. I got up and grabbed my phone from my bed. I dialled Jack’s number. He answered pretty quickly.
“Hey” I heard Jack’s voice say.
“Dude, did you look at our MySpace page?” I exclaimed.
“Uhm.. no.. why would-“ Jack started, but I cut him off.
“This guy wants us to play at a bar in Baltimore!”
“No way! That’s fucking awesome!” Jack exclaimed.
“What’s so awesome?” I heard Haley ask distantly. “Who is it anyway?”
“Alex. We get to play some bar in Baltimore!” I heard Jack tell her.
“Cool! Say hi to Alex for me, will you?” Haley said.
“Haley says..-“ Jack started.
“Hi, yeah so I’ve heard” I replied. “So you agree we should take this chance?”
“Heck yeah” Jack replied.
“Okay, then I’ll call Zack and Rian to see what they think.

After I called Zack and Rian who both agreed we should do it, I answered the message, saying we were interested, and when he wanted us to preform there. He quickly replied and we set a date two weeks from now. Our first real performance! Fuck yes.
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