My alarm woke me up so i punched it repeatedly until it fell of my bedside table and fell onto my floor. It continued to beep so I just got up, placed it on the bedside table again and turned it off. Great. It’s six in the morning and I have to go to school. The only good thing about today is the fact that I get to drive myself to school so I won’t be a total loser.

I slowly got out of bed and headed upstairs to the bathroom to have a shower. Once I came out i looked at myself in the mirror. My shortish, bright red hair was slowly starting to fade and my brown eyes had turned black, I don’t know why, they just change from time to time. My skin was slightly red in colour because of the temperature I have my showers. I quickly dried off my hair and got dressed ready for school because as much as I hated school I didn’t want to start my first proper week being late.

Once I had put on the usual skinny jeans and a band t-shirt I grabbed my boring usual bowl of cornflakes and poured myself an apple juice. Today had started off well and it had put me in a good mood. No-one else in the house was up because they knew I could drive myself to school and my mum doesn’t start work for another week so they had all decided to have a lay in. I felt nice to just sit in silence without my little sister crying or the TV blaring.

Once I had done I got my bag and got into my car. I remembered the way to school because I remembered how my mum had taken me. I pulled into the schools car park and I saw that there were quite a few cars already with their owners standing around them. I pulled into the closest one I could find with no cars or people standing in the way and just sat in my car looking around at everyone. Since I was in quite a small car not many people noticed me which was quite nice not to be noticed or laughed at was always a good thing. I quickly checked my timetable to see what I had first. Music. I liked music so I didn’t mind it was something easy for first thing on a Monday morning.

When I walked into music everyone was just sitting on tables and chairs or standing talking to each other and just was I was looking round for a place to sit Jack caught my eye. As I walked over to him he noticed me,

“Hey English girl! You take Music?”

“Hey Jack you can call me Charlie you know and yeah I do obviously” I said as a laughed.

“Fine then, Charlie” He said mockingly. “So what can you do musically?”

“I’ve been told I can sing and I play a bit of guitar” I looked at the floor. “I just took it to pass the time really, what about you?” When I said that Jack’s eyes lit up,

“I play lead guitar awesomely, I’m in a band you know, with these guys” He tapped a guy on the shoulder who just turned round and just stared at me, “This is Zack he’s the bassist, Zack this is the new English girl Charlie”

“Umm, h-hey Charlie” He smiled

“Hey Zack nice to meet you” I smiled back he seemed so sweet.

“Aaaand this is Rian” Jack punched a guy in the arm just as he said that

"Ouch, do you mind Jack, Jesus” Then he noticed me “Oh hey yeah I’m Rian the drummer that is the most awesome part of the band” I laughed


“Fair enough are you guys in A-”

“Yeah they’re in MY band” Alex wandered into the room and the other guys started arguing against the idea.

“Morning Alex” I said with a hint of sarcasm in my voice

“Hey Charlie, I see you’ve met the rest of All Time Low, what do ya think?”

“I can’t think anything until I’ve heard you, can I? BUT based on personalities I think you’re all pretty cool” They all laughed Zack piped up,

“Well it’s a presentation thing today and we’re up first. Everyone in the class had to either use a song they’ve already made, make one up or cover another song to show what you want to work on throughout the rest of the year.” I froze.

“Are you alright?” everyone asked in unison

“Zack what did you say to her?” Alex jokingly asked

“Guys h-he’s f-fine he d-didn’t say anyth-thing bad” I replied. Everyone just stared at me I coughed

“honestly guys I’m fine” I just smiled to reassure them. Then the teacher walked in so they all sat down. I sat on the end of their table next to Jack just as I sat down he said,

“Is it about performing? You nervous?”

“You could say that I guess” I half smiled at him

“Just pick a song you know really well on guitar and do that one.”

“I will I’ll be fine it’s just I don’t really do singing in front of people”

“I’ll help you pick a song after we’ve gone up, yeah?”

“If you want, thanks” He smiled and then got up and stood with the others at the front of the class. Alex coughed to get everyone’s attention,

“As we’re a band we’ve worked on the project together if you don’t mind miss” The teacher just nodded and told them to get on with it, “Okay umm, this songs called The Party Scene it’s an original song of ours of course” Then Rian tapped his drumsticks together

“1...2...3...Hey kid you’ve got a lot of potential but i think it’s time to move on....”

By the second chorus I knew the lyrics and sung along quietly and tapped along with my hands on the table. Once they’d finished a few people clapped, me being one of them, and they returned to their seats. All of them turned to me and said “So what did you think?”

“I think you guys are pretty awesome”

“You’re just saying that” Rian said

“Nope I’m telling the honest truth!”

“We have more songs” Alex spoke up

“Really? You guys will have to show me one day”

“We have band practice today after school, if the guys want you to you could come and watch” Zack suggested. Everyone else started nodding in agreement.

“So it’s settled! The English girl is coming to band practice.” Jack laughed

“That’d be awesome, where is it and how do I get there?” I asked

“It’s straight after school and we all have cars, apart from Jack who gets a ride with anyone who’s offering, so you could meet me in the car park you follow me to Rian’s house but we’ll have to stop off at mine first for a bit though so I can pick up my guitar.” Alex just smiled at me.

“Yeah sure that’d be awesome” I then turned to Jack “Who are you getting a ride with?”

“Zack bought me to school so he’s my driver for the day” Everyone laughed

“That’s fair enough”

Several people got picked randomly off of the register to perform their song. The teacher was just about to read out my name when the bell went for next lesson. I breathed as sigh of relief as the teacher said we’d continue the performances tomorrow in our lesson. At least it gave me time to think of a song to perform.
I quickly got out my timetable and glanced at what I had next. Maths. This was the lesson I sat next to Alex in which made maths better because I wasn’t just cast out and alone, working by myself. It also gave me a chance to ask him a few questions and talk to him about what happened on Friday. I wasn’t going to interrogate him, just ask him whether he had a girlfriend and if I needed to just forget about the whole thing. As I walked out of Music Alex grabbed my arm and said,

“C’mon we have Maths next you have to endure a whole hour of sitting next to me” He laughed and we both said bye to Jack, Zack and Rian. We walked to Maths side by side in silence but when we got in to the lesson and sat down Alex was the first to speak, “Are you okay? You seem quite quiet”

“Yeah I’m just worried about what song I’m going to be doing for Music” I lied. I couldn’t tell him what I was really thinking about. I was one kiss I needed to get over it. He just looked at me dead in the eyes and said,

“You’ll just have to pick something good, what do you do anyway, I mean I know you play a bit of guitar but do you sing as well or is it just the guitar?” I thought I was going to be the one who would be answering the questions. I guess not,

“I do sing a bit, yeah” I looked at the floor the same as I did before when I was speaking to Jack about it. His eyes followed mine and I could feel him staring at me as I tried to shake the nervousness out of me,
“That’s pretty cool, you’ll have to sing for me at some point I know you have to do it tomorrow but maybe you could choose a song when we’re at band practice and show me afterwards that’d be awesome.” I looked up and smiled at him,

“Yeah I could do that. If I had a clue as to what I’m going to be singing tomorrow.”

“I’ll help you with that. If it’s okay with the rest of the band you could use one of our songs” He smiled as he rubbed my shoulder in comfort,

“That would be awesome; I’d say that it’s your song of course but if you guys wouldn’t mind that would be cool. I’d have to turn it into an acoustic though because at the moment that’s all I play”

“That would be fine, this was a great idea. Am I a genius or am I a genius” We both laughed.

The rest of the lesson was spent getting confused over adding algebraic fractions and laughing when the teacher told us we had failed miserably. It was then break and Alex took me to where everyone ate and I got introduced to Matt who was one of their best mates. The rest of the day went on fairly quickly I ended up eating lunch by myself because I didn’t know where they ate lunch and I didn’t want to bug them.

When the final bell rang I walked over and just sat on my car bonnet waiting for the others to come out. I saw that Alex had parked next to me. Maybe intentionally, maybe not. I’d have to find that out. While I was waiting I decided to call my mum to tell her I wouldn’t be home until quite later and I might be having dinner at home but not to wait for me. She agreed that it was a good idea to spend time with my newly made friends. Just as I hung up the phone I saw Alex walking towards me,

“Hey Alex, are you stalking me or was this just coincidental?” I said trying to keep a straight face but failing miserably.

“Yeah I was totally stalking you” He said sarcastically “Nahh It’s just because I knew it was yours because it’s the newest car here and it was one I haven’t seen before so I thought I could park next to you”

“Oh fair enough” I said understandably “So, to yours?” I suggested

“Yep”

“Lets do this” We laughed and got in our cars.

His house wasn’t too far away and it was easy to get to so that wasn’t too bad. He quickly ran in and I saw him put both his electric and acoustic guitar in the boot of his car before saluting to me and getting in and driving off again. We drove for about five minutes until Alex parked in front of, what I guessed was Rian’s house. We both cut our engines at the same time and I helped carry his electric guitar to the house. When Alex knocked on the door Rian answered and took us downstairs to the basement of his house. I understood exactly why band practice was held at Rian’s house because his drum kit was so big and would be an arse to carry to someone else’s house on a regular basis.

In the basement were the drum kit and three microphone stands with colour coded microphones in them. A load of guitars were leaning up against one side of the room and a pool table was at the opposite end of the room.

I found a stool near the pool table and sat down, still with Alex’s guitar in hand, while they all had a little chat about what song they should practice first. After that Alex came over to me,

“Okay, we know what song you should perform for Music tomorrow so we’re going to play it how it should sound then after band practice you can learn it on acoustic guitar. Sound alright?”

“That would be awesome!” I stood up and gave Alex his guitar and the leaned against the pool table.

“1...2...1, 2, 3, 4 luck loves me not tonight, I'm running out this four leaf clover's all but useless now...”

Once they finished I clapped enthusiastically,

“That was amazing!”

“You think so?” Alex asked

“Defiantly!”

“Good thing you’re singing it then” They all smiled at me so I smiled in return. This was the happiest I’d been in ages.

Someone started coming down the stairs,

“Do you boys want a drink or anything?” I guessed it was Rians mum she then noticed I was in the room

“Oh hello...”

“Hi I’m Charlie” I smiled politely at her

“Are you going out with any of the boys here?” she asked before Rian decided to butt in,

“Mum she’s just a friend of ours, you know none of us have girlfriends anyway” Well at least I now knew that Alex was single and so was everyone else. I laughed to myself at that thought. I looked up and saw that everyone was looking at me as if I had gone insane,

“Sorry I was just thinking of something and it made me laugh. I’m not crazy, honest!” Then they all started laughing.

They played a few more songs and once they’d practiced them all together they sat separately to work on their own parts. Jack wandered over to me with his and Alex’s acoustic guitar in his hands smiling,

“Time to learn that song” I took Alex’s guitar from him,

“Yep, but go easy on me I’m not fantastic”

“Charlie you’ll pick it up easily, trust me” Jack reassured me “I’ll play it through and you just watch and then I’ll break it down for you”

Once he had finished I just stared at his guitar where his hands had stopped strumming “That was beautiful”

“You think so?”

“I know so” we both laughed “Now c’mon teach me!”

It seemed like he had spent hours teaching me that song but in the end I played it all the way through with no pauses that weren’t meant to be here. I was quite proud of myself to be honest. Once I had finished the song with no vocal with it everyone stopped what they were doing and clapped.

Suddenly Zack announced that he needed to leave and go and buy himself a dinner since he had missed it with his parents. Jack was getting a lift with him so they both left after giving me a hug and saying bye,

“I guess I better go” I said and Alex decided to agree with me

“Yeah I’ll leave too, see ya later Rian” I went over and gave Rian a hug and said goodbye and Alex and I walked out of the house. We had both parked next to each other on the side of the road so we walked side by side to our cars until he turned to face me and said,

“You still haven’t sung in front of me yet” I chuckled

“That’s because it’s already dark and I should be getting home, I think”

“Yeah but you saaiiiiid” Alex moaned

“Fine, where shall I sing then because I’m not singing outside of Rian’s house”

“Get in your car and follow me I know the perfect spot where no-one else can hear you” I laughed maybe a bit too loudly “you know I’m not going to take you there to kill you” he started laughing then as well.

“Yeah alright then, it better not be too far away though”

“Nahh it’s just round the corner really”

“Okay” I still had Alex’s acoustic guitar in my hand so I just put it on the seat next to me and followed Alex down the road.

We stopped at the edge of what looked like a field but as my eyes adjusted I noticed a play area a few meters away. I saw Alex get out and so I did the same and I just sat on my car’s bonnet cross-legged and started to play and sing as Alex sat on his car.

Once the song had ended Alex just stayed silent,

“Was I that bad?” I said looking at the floor

Alex got off of his car and walked up to me so our faces were centimetres apart. My breathing started to escalate until out lips met.