“Alex, can you go into my office, and make sure that your guitar is tuned properly. I‘ll be there in a minute to help you once I send this lot back to class.”

Jack walked away from where he stood in front of me, and walked over to the group of students that were standing at the top of the music corridor. I smiled as I watched Jack snap into teacher mode in order to clear the group of students. However, I still couldn’t shift the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach. I was the last student to go and perform for the examiners. The examiners had decided to take a half an hour break and I just wanted to get it over and done with. I made my way into what had now become the familiar surroundings of Jack’s office. I took a seat in Jack’s chair behind his desk as I picked up my guitar which I had checked to make sure that it had been tuned, at least a hundred times today. I think that if I did anything more to it, I’d just drive myself crazy. I lay it down on Jack’s desk as he entered his office, shutting his door behind him. He smiled reassuringly at me as he walked over to his seat and sat on me.

“Get off me,” I protested. “Jack, you’re squishing me.”

Instead of moving, Jack just wiggled around on my lap making himself comfy, wrapping his arms around my neck.

“What, you saying that I‘m fat now, huh?” Jack asked, grinning as he jabbed at my sides, tickling me. “I feel so unloved.”

“Jack, stop! Please?” I laughed as he continued to attack my sides. “It tickles.”

I wasn’t expecting him to stop straight away, but he did. He stood up from my lap, grinning from ear to ear.

“There‘s my Alex, back.” He grinned, leaning down to place a kiss on my cheek. “I really hate it when you don‘t smile. Your smile makes me smile. Now stop worrying, you‘ll do amazing, Lex. You are by far the best performer in your class.”

I blushed, ducking my head down slightly.

“You‘re just being biased. I‘m your boyfriend, you are supposed to say nice things to me.”

“Am not,” Jack replied childishly, sticking his tongue out at me. He reached behind him and placed my guitar in my hands. “I‘ll prove it to you. I‘m not saying this stuff to you because I have to, I‘m saying it because I believe it. Do you want to do one last song before you go in? You‘ve been playing piano all afternoon so your fingers should be warmed up.”

I nodded as I took my acoustic guitar off of him and began playing ‘Therapy’. It was the toughest song for me to play emotionally, and I wanted to make sure that I’d be okay playing it. I got really into the song that I didn’t hear the knock on the door and I certainly didn’t notice Jack go and answer it until I heard clapping when I brought the song to a close.

I looked up and a blush immediately formed on my cheeks when I saw one of the three examiners standing in the doorway beside Jack.

“Impressive,” she noted, causing me to grow redder by the second. “I look forward to hearing the rest of that song later on, but for now if you could follow me, we can begin your examination.”

I stood up taking my guitar with me, trying to control my nerves as I followed her out of the office. Jack caught my eye and winked at me and as I passed him, I heard him wish me luck.

“Good Afternoon, Mr. Gaskarth, sorry to have kept you waiting but we are ready to commence your examination,” one of the men sitting behind the desk started as I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. “I see from your file that you‘ll be performing some original pieces. We look forward to hearing them. Would you like to begin with your piano pieces?”

I nodded in response as I took my seat at the piano and began playing a lullaby. From there, I played my other three pieces and by the time I finished them, I felt calm and at ease. My nerves had all but disappeared and I felt confident that my exam was going well. The questions that followed these pieces were relatively easy, which I’d expected. They always started off easy.

Then, they motioned for me to begin my guitar pieces. I leaned against the stool in the centre of the room, half sitting, half standing, as I began to play ‘Miss You’ and then playing the other three pieces which grabbed their attention, immediately.

“Well done, I commend you on your song writing ability. Your original pieces were very well composed and very well performed. Perhaps, you’d like to tell us the back story behind these songs or, explain to us what your inspiration for these songs were.”

I couldn’t have asked for a nicer question.

“I suppose that I draw upon my own experiences when I write songs. I write what I know but I don‘t sit down with the intention of writing a song. It just comes to me. The story behind the song ‘Six Feet Under The Stars‘, is just about a date that I was on. I‘d been having a bad day until I went out and we spent the night just chilling, lying back and talking. Then, for the other two songs, ‘Remembering Sunday‘ and ‘Therapy‘, they were written after my mom died. It affected me and writing those songs gave me some sort of closure.”

The examiners nodded in response before thinking of another question.

“So, did music become your form of therapy?” The woman from earlier asked. “Your lyrics suggest that you had a very rough time. Can you explain what you mean when you said ‘my lungs gave out, as I faced the crowd‘?”

Their questions were bringing back some memories that I didn’t want to relive but nonetheless, I had to answer the question. Some of her comments surprised me. I just said that the song was written after my mom’s death, of course I’d been going through a rough time.

“Umm, those lyrics refer to when I had to speak at her funeral. It was a daunting experience for me.”

They all smiled at me before one of the men stood up and announced that it was the end of the exam. I went and shook their hands before exiting the room. Jack was waiting for me outside the classroom.

“Hey, how’d it go?” He asked once I came close enough to him.

“Fine,” I muttered, desperately trying to push thoughts out of my mind. “Can I go sit in your office for a few moments? I need some time to myself.”

Jack frowned and he looked concerned. “Sure, you go on in. I’ll be with you in a few minutes. I just need to escort the examiners to the main entrance.”

I curled up on Jack’s chair as the memories I’d been trying to hold in, came flooding back.

~*~*~*~

“Alex, I‘m going to run to the grocery store and just pick up a few things for dinner. Do you want to come with me?” My mom asked, sticking her head around the door to my bedroom. “Your dad said that he‘d be home around seven pm. He‘s a lunatic, going to work in his condition.”

I glanced outside to see rain pelting against the window. It was stormy, cold and windy outside and the thought of going outside, did not seem too appealing at all.

“I think that I’ll give this trip a miss, mom.” I answered.

My mom smiled knowingly at me. “I wouldn‘t blame you, sweetheart. The weather is terrible. If you need anything just send me a text and I‘ll pick it up for you. I‘ll be back in about half an hour.”

With that, she walked out of my room, and a few minutes later I heard the car reverse out of the driveway and I settled back into the book that I had been reading. School had just started back up and I already had a tonne to do. I guess that was to be expected with my final year. I was already playing catch up from last year because of the sheer amount of school that I’d missed when my dad got diagnosed with cancer.

Half an hour came and went, and there was still no sign of my mom returning. I didn’t take much notice of it. No doubt, she’d been shopping and bumped into a friend and they would be spending ages chatting, losing track of time. An hour and then two passed and she still wasn’t home. The storm outside was worsening and I’ll admit that I was growing to be a little bit worried about her. I tried calling her cell but got no response. She’d probably left it in the car or, if she was driving, she couldn’t answer it. When I heard a car pull up into our drive, I presumed that it was her and began walking downstairs to meet her. I’d just reached the foot of the stairs when my dad walked through the door. His jacket and clothes were drenched from the rain and he carried a briefcase and a laptop case.

“Woah, that storm is getting pretty rough out there,” he exclaimed as he walked through the door. “Hey, Alex. You have a good day? Where’s your mother? I didn’t see her car in the drive.”

I followed my dad into the kitchen, turning on the kettle as I passed it so that I could make him a cup of tea.

“I‘m not sure. She said that she was going to the store about two hours ago. She said that she‘d only be half an hour but I haven‘t heard from her since. I tried ringing her cell but I got no response.”

My dad rolled his eyes and smiled at this comment.

“That‘s typical of your mother. She‘s probably meeting up with one of the girls and is having a major gossip. She‘s more than likely forgotten when she said that she‘d be home or what she even went there for, and as for her cell, I‘d guess that it‘s in the bottom of her bag. You know how things are with that bag. You or I could spend hours rooting through the thing and still not find it.”

My dad had a point and there was probably a logical reason as to why she wasn’t home yet. I poured out two cups of tea and joined my dad at the table. I heard car doors close outside the house, and I knew that had to be my mother. Who else would be calling in this kind of weather?

“I‘ll just run and see if she has groceries that need to be brought in,” I announced standing from the table and walking towards the door. I opened the door expecting to see my mom but my face dropped when instead of my mother standing on the porch with her arms laden with grocery bags, there was two police officers stood there.

“Is this the Gaskarth residence?” The tallest of the pair asked and I nodded in shock. I didn’t understand what they were doing here. “May we come in for a moment? Are you on your own?”

“Sure, come on in. Can I get you anything? Tea? Coffee?” I stuttered, moving aside to let them step into the entrance hall. “Dad, you might want to come here too.”

The last thing that my father expected to see was two police officers and the look of shock on his face, showed this very clearly. “Officers, what can I do for you? Please come on in and sit down.” My dad lead them into the living room and I followed cluelessly behind them.

“Mr. Gaskarth, I’m Detective White and this is my colleague, Officer Burns. We are here in relation to a Lilly Gaskarth. I understand that this is your wife, correct?”

Panic overtook my body as my dad’s face grew paler than it already was and he nodded. “Yes, is everything okay? Has something happened?”

The Detective shared a look with his colleague and I could tell that the news wasn’t good.

“I‘m afraid not. At approximately six pm this evening, your wife‘s vehicle was involved in a collision on the corner of 3rd St. She had made her way out onto a junction, when another driver who was under the influence of alcohol, ran a red light and hit into her. I‘m very sorry but there was nothing that we could do. Your wife died before the paramedics could get to her.”

That was when life as I knew it crashed and burned. I’d never before seen my father cry. Not even, when he had found out that the cancer had spread. Not even, after the roughest of treatments but, here he was; clinging onto me, crying freely into my shoulder. I couldn’t believe it. My mom couldn’t have been dead. It wasn’t possible. My dad and I sat there crying for a long time before the Detective informed us that my dad would need to go and identify her body.

My dad looked up at me and I could tell that he was anxious about leaving me but I motioned for him to go, assuring him that I would be okay. As soon as he left, I pulled out my phone, breaking down a little more as I saw my mother’s number on my recent contacts list. I forced myself to scroll down the contacts until I found Zack’s number. He’d just arrived home from California earlier that day.

“Zacky,” I cried when he answered the phone. “I need you.”

~*~*~*~

It hadn’t taken long for Zack to get to my house and I’m pretty sure that he’d broken some speed limits to get there as fast as he did. I didn’t need to say anything to him on the phone to make him come. He knew from the fact that I was ringing him on the phone in tears that something had to be up. I don’t think that he was expecting to see me in the state that I was in when he let himself into my house. I was a mess. I hadn’t moved from my spot on the couch and I was sat there with my head in my hands crying freely.

Zack scooped me up into his arms and I felt so small in them. He’d grown and all the working out that he had been doing had certainly paid off. He was all muscle. He didn’t question me. He just comforted me as I cried, giving me the time to cry and tell him what was up in my own time.

“Zacky, she’s gone.” I managed to spit out when I felt like it wasn’t possible to cry anymore.

“Alex, who’s gone?” He asked, a look of confusion taking over his face. Zack had seen me at my worst and even then I had never been this bad.

“My mom, she got into an accident, another car hit her and she’s dead. Dad’s gone to identify the body now. Zack, what am I going to do? I can’t do all of this on my own. I need her. She knew how to keep it all together. She made everything okay, and now she’s gone.”

Zack was speechless and for a few minutes we just sat in silence as he rocked me back and forth.

“You are not on your own,” he started, breaking the silence between us. “Alex, you will never be on your own. You‘ve got me, Danny and your dad. We won‘t let you down. We‘ll be there whenever you need us. You can count on us to help get you through this. You are the strongest person that I know. If anyone can get through this, you can.”

The days that followed were a complete blur, and that was mainly all my fault. There was only so many times that I could take hearing the words ‘I’m sorry for your loss’. My house was always filled with people calling around to offer their condolences, and to offer their help. Danny had jumped on the next flight back home as soon as he heard. He didn’t care that he was leaving in the middle of a tour. I was grateful for their support but that still didn’t stop me from withdrawing completely from everything that was going on around me. I refused to talk to anyone about what was going on in my head. I had completely abandoned music. I had refused to pick up my guitar or sit at the piano since I’d found out. It hurt too much to play. The only time that music came in handy was to blast it through my headphones to block out everything that was going on around me. Zack and Danny hadn’t left my side once and were more than content to sit in silence with me for hours or get drunk with me as I searched for something to numb my aching head.

They didn’t agree with my methods of coping but they did what any true friend would do. They didn’t try and deny me of what I thought that I had wanted. Instead, they let me try to sort my head out on my own while they kept a watchful eye over things, making sure that I didn’t go too far or do something to harm myself.

As the funeral came closer and closer, I withdrew more and more. I couldn’t talk to my dad without snapping at him and saying something hurtful. He had his own way of coping and it was totally different to mine. I wasn’t ready to accept the fact that she was dead yet, and I certainly wasn’t ready to try and move on. I know that my dad was trying to hold everything in for my sake but I just couldn’t see that at the time.

~*~*~*~

“You won’t find the answer at the bottom of a bottle Alex,” my dad remarked as I stumbled bleary-eyed from my room in search of something to help my throbbing head. “Look at yourself, you‘re a mess. Drink is not the answer. You can keep searching for the answer, but you won‘t find it.”

“What would you know?” I snapped back, my voice drenched in venom. “Don‘t even try to deny it; if you weren‘t on medication, you would be doing the exact same thing as me. How can you act so calm? Don‘t you even care that she‘s gone?”

“Of course I care,” my dad replied as he instinctively went to run his hand through his hair - except that thanks to his treatment, there was no hair there. “I‘m hurting too, Alex. It hurts me so much to see you do this to yourself. This isn‘t what she would have wanted. She wouldn‘t want us to be arguing and you know it. Alex, we could get you some help. There are people that you could talk to if you don‘t want to talk to myself, Danny or Zack.”

“I don‘t need help,” I shouted. “This is my way of coping! I‘m not some nutcase who needs therapy!”

~*~*~*~

Sober me would have seen the hurt look on his face and felt the sincerity of his words. Drunk me, however, was a different story. Instead of doing the right thing, hugging my dad and telling him that I was sorry and that it hurt, I turned my back on him and scrubbed at my cheeks, willing the tears to go away as I walked back into my room and into Zack’s arms who’d been standing in the doorway, waiting for me.

He didn’t say anything as he placed me in my bed, pulling the blankets up around me as he and Danny lay beside me trying to get me to sleep for a while. I hadn’t slept much since it happened but there, in my hung-over state and with Danny’s voice singing softly in my ear, I found myself lulled into a restless slumber.

While Danny and Zack had been content with letting me drink myself into oblivion, the one place that they drew the line at was the night before the funeral. They knew that once I’d gone back to my normal self, that I would have regretted being drunk for the funeral. They forced me to sober up for it and while at the time, I had hated every single moment of that night, looking back at it now, it was the best thing that they had ever done for me and I appreciated it now.

~*~*~*~

“And now, Lilly’s son Alexander is going to say a few words,” the priest announced from his place at the altar. This was the last thing that I wanted to do. I felt Zack ad my dad both squeeze my hand in support as I stood up and made my way to the altar. I felt so weird in a black suit and tie, and my eyes stung from holding back tears. It broke my heart to see my mother lying there in a coffin and hearing all of the nice things that people had to say about her, had upset me. I didn’t like people talking about all of the things that she had done, they should have been talking about all of the things that she would do but, her life had been cut short.

I cleared my throat awkwardly as I took in all of the people sat before me in the packed church.

“My mom was something different to every single person here. She was a wife, a friend, a colleague, a sister and an aunt. She wasn‘t any of those things to me. I had an extra special relationship with her. To me, she was more than my best friend, she was my mother. I still can‘t believe that she‘s not here with us today. If I‘m honest, I don‘t know what I‘m going to do without her. She‘s always been there for me. She was the one who picked me up from the ground when I fell and cut my knee. She was the one who came and cuddled me in the middle of the night if I‘d had a bad dream. She was the one who knew me better than I knew myself, she could always tell when I was up to something. All she had to do, was give me the ‘look‘ and I‘d know that I‘d been caught out. There wasn‘t anything that I didn‘t love about my mom. I loved her with all my heart and it‘s a pleasure to be able to call myself her son.”

With that, I saw her coffin out of the corner of my eyes, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t say anything else. My body wouldn’t let me, and my voice wouldn’t work as I became choked up with grief. All of the tears that I had been holding back for days now, spilled and I felt myself being taken into the arms of Danny and Zack as they led me back to my seat.

~*~*~*~

Danny and Zack had really been my rock during that week of hell. I don’t know what I would have done without them. At that moment, it all made sense. Everything that my dad had said, had been right and I knew that my mom would have been disappointed in me if she’d seen the way that I had acted. I needed to find some way to get over this and I knew that it wasn’t going to be in the form of a therapist. I had my own form of therapy and it was music. I needed to make everything right with my dad. I needed to let him know that I didn’t hate him or blame him. More now than ever, we needed each other.

~*~*~*~

“Okay, I have the rest of the afternoon off, do you want to go back to mine?” Jack announced as he entered his office. He stopped short when he saw me curled up on his chair, crying. “Lex, what‘s up? Are you worried about how your exam went? They loved you! All they could talk about the whole walk to the entrance was about how great you were, and how touching your songs were. I‘ve never been so proud to have you as my boyfriend when I heard them talking like that about you. Why are you crying?”

Jack crouched down in front of me, wiping away my tears, a worried look painted on his face. I knew that he didn’t like to see me upset.

“I’m sorry,” I started, trying my best to stop crying. “I just miss her so much. Why did she have to go?”

Jack didn’t need me to explain anymore. He knew exactly what was wrong. He hugged me tightly as he reassured me that everything was okay. His touch was comforting and as soon as I was okay to leave the room, he announced that he was taking me back to his so that he could look after me and cheer me up.