Your Melody Sounds As Sweet As the First Time It Was Sung

Three days later, I saw Jon at uni. Maybe it was because I’d been looking out for him, but he seemed to stand out to me now. He didn’t see me, but I saw him walking around campus with his girlfriend… Meghan, was it? They were both smiling infectiously, receiving some weird looks because they didn’t look like a perfect couple; a girl with rainbow hair and a guy who wears mostly black and white. Their smiles begged otherwise. They looked so damn happy together. I could have watched their smiles all day, but I didn’t want Kiah to see and start questioning me.

Instead, I found my way back to Starbucks that night and found him again. We talked again, and he dropped me home again. After that, I guess it became routine for Mondays and Thursdays. It was nice. I don’t know what it was about Jon, but he was different from my other friends. Same with Sebastian. They were both different to everyone else, but in completely different ways themselves. I used to never think that there were so many good people in the world, but I seem to meet them all the time.

Maybe it’s to make up for my lack of anything more than friendship.

I guess I’ve come to the realization that I’m the girl who’s always a friend. One of the boys. That’s why I’m eighteen years old and have never had a boyfriend, but have about twenty close friends who are boys. I guess I’m okay with it; I love being a friend, but sometimes I just wish that someone could see me as more than that.

A few weeks after I met Jon, I was sitting with Kiah and a few of her friends that I didn’t know very well. Seb was still in a lecture, and I was wasting time until he got out. I was mindlessly picking at my nails, wishing that there was something I could lean on by this flat bench, when I heard my name being called.

“Charlie! Charlie!”

My head flipped up to see Jon waving wildly, grinning, as his girl held his arm. Kiah and the couple of friends she was chatting with all looked up promptly as I waved timidly back. Meghan let go of Jon’s arm and the two of them jogged over.

“Hey Char!” Jon grinned, face just a little pink as he gave me a quick hug and kissed my cheek.

“Hey Starbucks,” I smiled back, pecking his cheek in return.

Before anyone asks, it was a nickname I’d given him the night before. I know it sucks, but all my nicknames do. At least it’s better than Pete’s ‘Chardonnay’.

“Charlotte,” he started, bringing his girlfriend forward. “This is my girlfriend, Megz. Megz, this is my friend Charlotte.”

“Hey,” I smiled and gave the rainbow girl an awkward wave.

“Hi,” she said back shyly, trying not to make it obvious that she grasped for Jon’s hand.

We stood awkwardly for a few moments until Kiah cleared her throat rather obviously. It was kind of frustrating; this wasn’t really any of her business, or her giggly friends. No wonder Meghan was looking so uncomfortable.

You see, Kiah and her friends don’t exactly seem like the kinds of people Jon or Megz would be friends with. I know that this will seem incredibly shallow, but people do judge, even just a little bit, according to how people look. Jon wears skinny jeans, plain button-up shirts, and for some reason he’s always wearing flip flops on his feet. Megz, from the photos I’ve seen and what she’s wearing now, is the band tee and converse kind of girl. Kiah, Mel and Hannah are quite up to date in fashion trends, and if it’s not too outrageous they like to dress accordingly. Kiah usually liked to try and make me wear these things too. She never used to care so much…

Anyway, the point is that I can understand Meghan’s discomfort.

“Oh, right,” I mumbled. “This is Kiah, Mel and Hannah. This is Jon and Megz.”

Yeah, I suck at introductions. Sue me.

Melissa giggled and batted her eyelids at Jon, making me want to punch her. Like I said, she was Kiah’s friend, not mine. I gave her a disgusted, disbelieving look; who is so low that they would flirt with someone else’s boyfriend when they’re right in front of them? Jon looked kind of scared, Kiah rolled her eyes in annoyance, Hannah was kind of bored and twirling a long strand of caramel coloured hair around her finger, but I was surprised to see Meghan trying to hold back a laugh. I shot her a confused look and she simply gave me a little smirk before standing on her toes to give Jon an impressive kiss on the lips. I wanted to hi-five her, even though I was a little jealous that she got to kiss those lips.

Don’t get ahead of yourself; I’m not falling for Jon or anything, but damn if that boy isn’t cute.

“Hey, I’ll see you guys a bit later,” I told Kiah, who nodded. The others didn’t care too much about me if I wasn’t being their Barbie doll to dress so they gave a quick ‘whatever’ before launching back into their conversation.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered to Jon and Meghan, grabbing both of their hands and leading them away to another courtyard where we all took a seat.

“So… those are your friends, huh?” Jon asked, clearly trying to hold back a stronger display of emotion.

“Not really,” I answered, looking down. “Kiah’s my friend. The other two are more her friends than mine.”

“Thank god!” Jon laughed. “So we don’t have to hang around them too much? They were scary.”

“I totally agree,” I mumbled, before turning to Meghan. “Sorry about them. Probably didn’t make the best first impression of me, right?”

She laughed a little.

“No, that’s okay. I just honestly can’t believe that the one with the light brown hair had the nerve to try and flirt with Jon right in front of me!”

We all laughed a little, and talked a bit more before I was cut off mid-sentence by a pair of strong arms wrapping around my waist from behind.

“Hey babe,” Seb greeted, kissing me softly on the cheek.

“Hey there,” I said, leaning back on his shoulder. “Good lecture?”

“Riveting,” he rolled his eyes sarcastically. “So who’s this?”

“Oh, right, sorry,” I mumbled. Terrible at intros, remember? “Seb, this is Megz and Jon. Jon, Megz, this is my friend Sebastian.”

I could see Jon out the corner of my eye, brow furrowed as I’m sure he was trying to figure out which of my friends Seb was. Like I said, I’d told him pretty much all of my dramas, but kept names to myself. They all exchanged hellos, and when Jon and Seb were in conversation Megz sent me a look with a raised eyebrow and mouthed ‘friend?’ I nodded firmly and she nodded in return before we both returned to the conversation.

“There you are!”

We were all startled out of conversing when someone called out in our direction. Seb and I turned around to see someone that I didn’t know waving at Jon. He was tall – very tall – and pretty skinny. He had long brown hair that fell in waves down to his chin. His chin was quite prominent, attractively so, but the rest of his face was kind of feminine, with a sharp kind of nose. He was removing glasses from the bridge of his nose, revealing lovely muddy brown eyes. Jon gave a grin and waved back.

“Hi William.”

The boy called William jogged over to us, pulling a grey scarf tighter around his neck.

“Hey Jon, Megz,”

“Hey,” Megz said quietly.

“Bill,” Jon started. I was just about sick of introductions. “This is Charlie and Sebastian. Guys, this is my friend William.”

“Hey,” he waved kind of shyly to us. It was cute to see.

“Hey man,” Seb said, shaking his hand. “I think you were just in the same science lecture as me.”

“Oh yeah! Were you about ready to hang yourself after the first ten minutes, too?”

“I don’t think there was a soul in that room who wasn’t,” Seb laughed.

I stood kind of awkwardly by Seb’s side as they talked. William kept glancing at me. I tried to hold eye contact, but he’d turn away every time. My attention was focused on nowhere in particular. Not the situation I was in, nor the past, nor the future. I don’t even know what I was thinking about. I just… was. But my attention was drawn right back into the present when I heard Seb exclaim, “You’re in a band?”

“Yeah,” William scratched his head awkwardly.

“What’s the name of your band?” I asked, suddenly intrigued. His eyes snapped to look at me, this time lingering for more than a second.

“The Academy Is…” he answered softly.

“I knew you seemed familiar!” Seb exclaimed again. “You’re signed, aren’t you? I think I caught one of your shows about a year ago.”

“Yeah,” he answered again. He seemed a bit awkward at discussing it, but I was all the more interested. “We’ve got one record, and we’ve toured twice.”

“What, nationally?” I questioned.

“Yeah. Jon’s our bass tech.”

I looked at Jon, shocked. He just shrugged. I then turned back to William, who was looking at his feet. I never would have pictured him as the rockstar type.

“So dude, why are you here?” Seb asked lightly. “Why are you at college when you’re kind of famous and probably won’t be here for long?”

William shrugged.

“I like to keep my options open. I guess I still think it’s too good to be true.”

“Fair enough. But that’s awesome, man. Charlie, I, and a couple of our friends were thinking about starting a band.”

It’s true. We had been talking about it, as we ‘jammed’ that time. Every time since then that we met up (Seb, Chase, Tyson and I, that is), which has become quite often, we embellished on the idea of starting a band, imagining what it would be like to be famous. I have a few famous friends, now that I think about it, so I guess it wasn’t that much of a brilliant concept to me. But then again, that all depends who you qualify as friends.

“Oh really? You both play instruments?” William asked, seeming genuinely interested.

“Yeah,” I answered, because he’d been looking at me. Again. “We both play guitar, but Seb’s the only one who can sing.”

“Really? I’d love to hear you guys some time.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” I began stuttering. Why did this guy make me nervous? “We’re not even really a band. We’ve just talked about it a bit.”

“I think you should give it a go,” Jon said, joining in. “I mean, there’s nothing to lose, right?”

You mean apart from dignity, confidence, friendship and hopes?

But I didn’t voice my thoughts. I rarely do. Unless it’s with Jon in that Starbucks franchise late at might.

“Uh, I guess…”

“Maybe we should give it a try, Char,” Seb suggested, pulling his arm up around my shoulder. “I know that Chase would love to.”

“Really?” I asked, the doubt probably shining through my every pore.

“Yeah. I mean, if it doesn’t work or if anyone wants out then we can end it. But don’t you think it would be fun to make our own songs and stuff?”

I’d read Seb and Tyson’s lyrics. They were pretty amazing, and I was sure that if they had strong enough music to back them up, that we could definitely get some small gigs. We didn’t need to try and be anything big. A small, coffee house band might be fun, though. I looked up at Seb and smiled.

“Yeah. Okay, let’s do this.”

“And when you do, you have to let us be your first audience,” Megz grinned, and Jon and William both nodded their agreement.

“Okay,” I laughed. “But don’t hold your breath.”

And I guess that’s how Static Failure began.