The Fueled By Ramen Analysis

New reader? Start from the beginning .
_________________________________________

“Wake up sunshine. Today’s a new day,” Ashlee’s voice cooed into my ear, waking me up. I groaned quietly and opened my eyes slowly.

“Hey sweetie,” Ashlee smiled. “You feeling better? The boys told me that something might have happened last night and maybe you might need a girl to talk with about it.”

“Honestly Ash, I feel like shit,” I said, sitting up. “But I’ll explain that all to you later. Where are the boys?”

“Oh they had this photoshoot or something to go to. It’s just you and me today. Ryan and Spencer told me to tell you sorry for not being able to make it to the quote unquote ‘one-on-one meals’ you guys had planned,” she explained. “Now go get ready! We need to go find your dress for my wedding and you’re going to accompany me to confirm everything for the big day.”

Dressed and ready to go, Ashlee and I set out on our quest to find me ‘the perfect dress’. For the first time since I got my car, I was finally graced with being the passenger of another vehicle. Ashlee had probably guessed that I was sick of the new car smell and needed a change so we took her black land rover. The whole ride over, Ash wouldn’t tell me where she planned on looking for the dress, as if it were that important.

As we exited the freeway I knew the surroundings to be none other then the infamous Rodeo Drive, the place where paparazzi littered every corner in hopes of catching famous people blowing off hundreds to thousands of dollars for a single article of clothing.

“Put on some sunglasses,” she murmured, following her own advice.

I dug through my huge bag and found my pair of aviators before turning to face her.

“Are you serious Ashlee? I don’t have enough money for this place! And if I did I wouldn’t blow it off here,” I said, seeing all the boutiques of famous designers from all over the world.

“Just give it a chance,” Ashlee said, driving up to the parking structure. “Plus, don’t worry about the cost. Pete’s paying for it. Just watch.”

She dug through her purse with one hand while steering with the other and got out her SideKick LX. She pressed one on speed dial and put it on speakerphone as it began to ring.

“Hey babe,” Pete’s voice rang out. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, not really. Just wanted to let you know that you’re buying Chelsea May’s dress for our big day. Okay, thanks bye! Oh and I love you,” she said quickly, flipping the screen and ending the call.

“Three… two… one…” Ashlee counted down right before my phone began to sing out Pete’s ringtone.

“I have to change that soon,” I mumbled as I pressed the green button. “Yes Pete?”

“Is Ashlee telling the truth that I’m buying you a dress and not her?” Pete asked.

“I guess,” I answered meekly. “But you don’t have to. I mean we’re on Rodeo Drive! It’s not needed best friend.”

“Nonsense! Get whatever you want and tell Ashlee the same goes for her. Just make sure I’m not bankrupt after the day’s over,” he joked. “Just have a good time, okay? Bye best friend and tell Ash I love her too.”

“What’d he say?” Ashlee asked while turning off the engine.

“He loves you and that it’s fine for us to get whatever as long as it doesn’t cost too much,” I said, taking off my seatbelt.

“Let’s go then!” she beamed, getting out of the car. I followed suit as a smile dawned on my face; Ashlee’s smiles were always infectious. We linked arms and skipped our way out of the parking structure, not caring about the horrified looks we would get from the parking attendants. Our frolicking was cut short when we were hit with a wave of flashes going off from various professional cameras.

“Ashlee! Ashlee! Who is this?!” one of the photographers asked, getting right in front of us and taking a picture.

“Yeah, Ashlee who is she?!”

“My good friend Chelsea, now can you please move? We’re on a tight schedule,” Ashlee said sweetly.

The sea of paparazzi parted and they continued to fire questions at Ashlee and I from behind us.

“Don’t mind them, don’t answer any question that makes you feel uncomfortable, and just follow along with anything I do or say,” Ashlee whispered into my ear.

I nodded and let her lead the way to our first stop, Dolce & Gabbana.

“Okay, so it definitely shouldn’t be too formal, yet something you don’t wear everyday,” Ashlee said, searching through a rack of dresses. “But I do want you to get a dress that can be worn at another party or event. It’s ridiculous how some people wear these kinds of dresses one time only and then forget about it.”

“I get what you mean, but to be honest. I don’t think I’ll find anything I’ll like here,” I said, quickly scanning the whole store with nothing catching my eye. “Do you think we could try somewhere else?”

“Definitely,” she said, putting back a blue dress she had been examining.

We then went to Chanel, Guess, Versace, and almost every other famous design label’s boutique on those three blocks but our attempts were fruitless. I tried on so many dresses yet none of them seemed right. Some were too short, others too long, and then there were those that were just plain ugly. Ashlee and I were about to return to her car empty handed when a small dress store caught my eye. It was sandwiched in between a small café and an upscale male shoe store.

“Ash, let’s go in there,” I said, pointing at the shop. It’s sign read ‘La Boutique’ simple and to the point. It didn’t scream out stuck up with small fortune price tags or anything of the sort. It seemed like a breath of fresh air compared to all the other stores we had browsed in.

“Sure why not,” Ashlee smiled. “It looks cute.”

We hurried inside the store to escape all the crazy photographers trying to get a ‘money shot’. We were instantly greeted by a woman in her mid forties. “Welcome to La Boutique,” she said with a French accent. “I’m Marie and if you have any questions or need help with anything please don’t hesitate to ask.”

I smiled at her and began to browse through the racks of dresses. This place was absolutely perfect. They had dresses for all occasions in all shapes and sizes and the price tag was something to look at too. Dress after dress had landed on my right arm just waiting to be tried on. I even gathered some pretty sundresses that had caught my eye.

“Marie, these dresses are amazing! Did you make these yourself?” I asked in awe.

“Yes actually, I did,” she answered. “I take it you like them?”

“Yes, I love them. I’m surprised to see no one else in here,” I said, looking around the place.

“Others aren’t impressed by the fact that this isn’t full of designer clothes,” she replied. “But once in a while young women like yourself decide to come in here and give it a chance.”

“Trust me, Marie. This won’t be the last time you see us,” laughed Ashlee, having a stack of dresses in her own arm.

I agreed with her and went back to piling dresses on my arms and decided that I had quite enough to try on. I went into the small dressing room and began to try on the sundresses first. I fell in love with a few of them and decided that Pete could definitely buy me them for sure seeing how none of the prices went over $45 and anything I would have bought at the other shops would have come close to a thousand for a single dress. I then went on to try a few of the more formal dresses when I couldn’t decide between two of them.

“Ash?” I called out, hoping she’d hear me through the dressing room door.

“Yes sweetie?” she replied

“I need your help,” I said, getting out of the stall and showing myself in one of the dresses I couldn’t decide on.

“You look gorgeous, May,” she gasped. “You should definitely get that one!”

“Wait though, there’s another one that I tried on that I also really liked and I can’t decide which is better,” I said, going back into the dressing room and changing into the other dress. “How about this one?”

“Get both,” she said quickly. “You don’t find dresses like these just anywhere. Get both of them and anything else you want here but you have to wear this one to my wedding. This is thedress.”

“You really think so?” I asked, a smile spreading on my face.

“Think? I know so, now go and change back into the clothes you came here in so we can buy these babies!” she said, rushing me back into the dressing room.

Ashlee had been surprised at the total of our fifteen dresses coming out to only seven hundred and eleven dollars and eleven cents and had gladly handed the shiny plastic over to Marie. “Please come again soon,” Marie smiled, giving both Ashlee and I a huge shopping bag filled with the dresses that Pete’s pretty little credit card had boughten us.

“Thank you Pete,” I beamed, walking out of the store with Ashlee.

“Thank you Marie!” Ashlee interjected. “Cute dresses at amazing prices. Next time we’re both in the area, we’re going there!”

“Agreed!” I exclaimed as we walked back to the parking structure. “So since your fiancé bought us clothes, I think it’s only fair I buy you lunch.”

“I’m still full from breakfast,” she said, scrunching up her nose. “But you can buy me Jamba Juice and tell me everything that happened last night. We can forget about all that wedding stuff for today. That can wait another day.”

“You sure?” I asked as she unlocked the car and we got in.

“Of course silly. I mean if worse comes to worse I can probably get my mom or Jessica to go and confirm the stuff,” she smiled. “So how about that Jamba Juice?”

“Mmm, this white gummi bear is good,” Ashlee said, sipping on her drink.

“Not as good as this orchard oasis,” I disagreed.

“Whatever,” she laughed, putting her sunglasses back on before driving away from the Jamba Juice. “So are you ready to talk about what happened last night or…?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Now is as good a time as any. Well first of all he took me to Pink’s Hot Dogs and we held hands for a few moments.”

“Really?” she asked, sounding surprised. “You didn’t do anything to stop him?”

“Come on Ash, It’s me. I would rather make myself feel awkward than say no or reject someone. Well yeah after we ate he took me to this beautiful lookout point where you could probably see every single light in Los Angeles. It was just so wow… it really made me speechless,” I began. “So we were sitting on the hood of my car when he confesses that he’s starting to develop feelings for me. I of course got scared when I saw him close his eyes and lean towards me so I did the only think I could without plain out saying no, I turned so he ended up pecking my cheek. And then Ash, I told him I couldn’t do this. And that me and him couldn’t happen. I… I… I just don’t know what to do.”

“Well what are your feelings towards him?” she asked, taking her eyes off the road for a quick second to look at me before going back to looking at the road ahead of her.

“That’s the thing. I don’t know, I’m so confused. I just met him and then there’s Sisky and all the other guys. What if I unintentionally hurt one of them by hooking up with Will? There’s just so many factors that play into all of this and it makes it so much harder. Maybe in the future, but right now with my life constantly throwing new things at me… I don’t need something like that happening. At least not yet,” I explained.

“I see Chelsea,” she nodded. “Just do what you think is right. But keep in mind that you’re trying to make everyone around you happy when what you should be doing is also trying to make yourself happy above everyone else.”

“You really think so?” I asked quietly.

“Yeah, I do,” she replied. “So I guess this is a bad time to ask you who you think’s going to be your date for my big day huh?”

“You guess?” I joked. “I don’t know… we’ll see. Whoever asks me first I guess.”

“Nice approach,” she said as she pulled into the driveway of Pete’s house. “You know what I just realized? We have the whole house to ourselves for the rest of the day. We can do whatever we want.”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” I asked.

“Chelsea May Ashlee pool dance party?!” she exclaimed.

“Umm no! But that’ll work too,” I laughed.

After five minutes of being in the pool, Ashlee and I decided that it wasn’t as fun without all the other guys seeing as we couldn’t really do anything with just the two of us.

“What are we going to do now?” I asked as we dried ourselves off with huge, bright beach towels.

“Well I don’t know about you but I’m going to sunbathe. I don’t want to look pale on my wedding day,” Ashlee said, walking over to one of the lounge chairs Pete had placed around the pool. “And I don’t want to use one of those fake spray-on tans when I can get the natural stuff for free right here.” She laid on her stomach and maneuvered her head so that she was facing me and patted one of the lounge chairs next to her.

“Hold on, I’ma go get something,” I said, running into the house and right to my luggage. I stuck my hand into the large zippered pocket of my black suitcase and felt around until my fingers grazed against cold metal wire. I took the item out and smiled slightly to myself as my eyes fell upon the sight of my journal. It was really just a small black durable spiral notebook that I had decorated with random quotes and pictures all over it on the cover. I then dug my hand into the pocket once more and uncovered my favorite kind of pen to write with a Pilot G-2 inky blue one. I then made my way back outside and sat crosslegged on the lounge chair next to Ashlee.

“What’cha got there?” she asked curiously, still lying on her stomach.

“Journal,” I mumbled, opening it up to a fresh page.

She nodded her head and laid her head back down on the chair, leaving me be. I took a deep breath and began to write.

After re-reading the quotes on your cover I was reminded of why I’m even doing this in the first place by one in particular that I remembered modifying. “The purpose of writing is to keep civilization from destroying itself” – Albert Camus and in my own writing I had put “And in your case, the purpose of writing is to keep from destroying yourself.” So here I am ready to spill everything that’s been eating at me lately in hopes that when I’m done, I’ll feel much better and less destroyed…

What a whirlwind these past few days have been. I mean, seeing old friends again, being offered an amazing job, becoming friends with bands that I listen to on a daily basis, and so much more. Yet I think the honeymoon stage is over. I’m so confused about everything and I keep second guessing my abilities. I’ve been told countless times by the people who’ve been surrounding me lately that I’m going to make a great psychologist but for some reason something inside of me is telling me that they could be wrong. And then there’s the whole Will situation. I don’t know how I feel about him or any of the other guys that seem to show interest in me like Adam and Brendon. Could it be that their hormones are just off the wall right now and I’m just the girl who can give them a quick fix? Or were they just messing with me the entire time? I honestly don’t know what to think. But then the thought of them sincerely beginning to develop feelings for me just keeps popping up at the back of my mind and it scares the crap out of me. I don’t know if the feeling’s mutual and even if I’m allowed to develop a romantic relationship with any of them. I’ve said it many times before and I’m going to say it again. I’m so fucking confused right now. What am I supposed to be feeling? How am I supposed to react? What can I do to make them stop from hurting themselves by liking me [if they actually do]. I’m not sure of Brendon and Adam’s feelings towards me but something tells me that they’re at least attracted to me and I think it’s almost certain that Will likes me judging by his actions last night. I don’t want any of these things to affect any friendships I have made or ruin the job opportunity I currently have. Not to mention I don’t want to come in between two band mates and a friend if it ever came down to it. I feel like such a whore even though I didn’t mean to lead them on in the first place if that is what I did. But even the boys of FOB and Ashlee know that I have the most difficult time saying no to someone and it’s gotten me into some pretty shitty situations before but nothing like this. If I were to tell anyone this they would just ask me how I feel about them, but that’s just the thing. I don’t know how I feel about them! I’ve been attracted to all three boys at one point in time but then that’s when I didn’t actually know them. And as of now I just don’t know. Brendon… he’s gotten on my bad side one too many times. Adam… he’s been nothing but sweet to me and Will… I can relate to him a lot. So I guess I don’t have to worry about Brendon too much unless he does something that attracts me to him extremely and I’ll just have to make it clear with him that I see him as a friend and a friend only. But as for the other two… my feelings for them are unclear and I don’t want to hurt anyone more than I already have. I can’t even begin to imagine what I’d do to myself if any of the other guys started to develop feelings for me.

I stopped writing and tried to calm myself down. Tears were about to fall down my face but I didn’t want to give Ashlee any reason to question anything that’s been going on with me lately. She has enough to worry about. But I guess I did a bad job at covering up because upon looking at me her facial expression morphed from curiosity to worry.

“Chelsea, what’s wrong?” she asked quietly, getting up from her chair and giving me a hug.

“It’s nothing,” I said as my voice cracked.

“It doesn’t sound like nothing. You know I’m here if you need to talk,” she said soothingly, rubbing my arm.

I squeezed my eyes shut and handed her the notebook. She hesitantly took it and began to read the freshly dried ink. When she was finished she looked up at me with an even more worried expression.

“Oh sweetie,” she sighed, giving me another hug. “I didn’t know you were going through all this! I honestly don’t know what I can say to help you but in the end it’s your heart that’s on the line and no one can tell you how to feel and what to do but yourself. If you end up realizing you like one of them then go for it! But if days / weeks / months pass and you feel nothing then there’s nothing you can do about it. Toss their feelings aside and concentrate on your own.”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “I really needed to hear something like that.”

“No problem cutie.” She smiled at me. “Now let’s stop moping and start dancing!”

She then grabbed me by the hands and pulled me up from the chair. She then led the way back inside the house and went over to the living room’s iHome and looked through some playlists.

“I have just the thing for a time like this,” she said, pressing play on the iHome and turning up the volume. In a matter of seconds Spice Girls flowed through the speakers causing Ashlee and me to dance like crazy, PG of course. We busted out the cabbage patch, the sprinkler, the shopping cart, and even attempted doing the moonwalk in our bathing suits and bare feet.

“It can’t be!” I gasped, looking at Ashlee as the bridge to Bye, Bye, Bye by *NSYNC began to play after a few Spice Girls songs. She nodded her head excitedly.

“I know that I can’t take no more, it ain’t no lie! I wanna see you out that door baby bye, bye, bye!” Ashlee and I belted out as we began to do the unforgettable dance moves from the video.

Just as we were regaining our breath from the insane dancing and singing Christina Aguilera’s Come On Over began to play. “Here we go again,” I giggled.

Ashlee and I faced each other as we serenaded the other bouncing on our toes from side to side and singing every word like we meant it. We then did hand motions to go along with the song lyrics just like we would have done if we were younger.

“All I want is you!” I belted out.

“Come over here baby!” joined Ashlee.

“All I want is you!”

“You make me go crazy!”

“Now baby don’t be shy! You better cross the line, I’m gonna love you right. Cause all I want is you!” Ashlee and I half sang, half giggled together.

“You were right,” I grinned. “This was just the thing to make me forget about it all.”

We continued to sing and dance to a mixture of pop songs from the 90’s. We got so into it we hadn’t even realized that all the guys had walked in and were watching us with amused looks on their faces. As soon as I noticed them I stopped dancing and nudged Ash.

“Awkward!” I said, remembering what Ashlee and I were wearing as the boys kept staring at us just standing there.

“Why’d you stop?” asked Alex Deleon. “I was just going to join in on the singing and dancing.”

“Me too!” agreed Alex Marshall. “This seems fun.”

Ashlee and I gave each other a look before I said, “Are you serious?”

All of the boys nodded and I looked at the boys suspiciously before I turned to the iHome and turned the volume near its maximum. Suprisingly they started dancing, using the old school moves Ashlee and I had used previously. I looked to her and shrugged before going back to dancing and forgetting about all the problems swimming around.

“You guys look what I found!” Pete exclaimed, running inside the house with my journal in hand. “It looks juicy!” He opened up to the newest entry as everyone stopped from fooling around to look at him. Pete then cleared his throat as he began to read it to himself. His face grew pale and he looked right at my fear stricken face. “Umm false alarm you guys. Sorry for bothering you. Go back to dancing, yeeeah!”

I stood there expressionless as Pete ran off to escape the death glare Ashlee was sending him. In a flash someone had tossed me over their shoulder and ran out to the backyard, jumping into the pool with me still attached to said person.

“What was that for?!” I sputtered, shaking my head this way and that to get my hair away from my face so I could look at the culprit.

“Umm you look like you saw a ghost?” shrugged a soaking wet Sisky.

“What does that have to do with throwing me in a pool?” I asked.

“To wake you up silly,” he grinned. The furious look on my face was soon replaced with a small smile. I couldn’t help it; his smiles were contagious.

“Well if you don’t mind, I’ma get out of here. I have a lot on my mind and I need to clear it out,” I said, climbing up the steps and getting out of the pool.

“If you need me I'm always here,” he waved then began to swim laps around the pool in his jeans and tee.

I dried off once again and wrapped the towel around my shoulders as I went back into the house. The spontaneous ‘dance party’ was still going on but I chose instead to keep to myself and made my way to the den but just as I was about to go through the doorless entry way I stopped myself short upon hearing a distinctive voice have a heated argument with someone on the phone.