FicWad

Chapter Three

Making the decision to take a break turned out to be a great idea, the best idea in fact. After adjusting to the idea, Quinn's outlook started to change a lot, and he was fun to be around again. As expected, he still had the band on his mind alot, but nowhere near as much as before and he was so much more relaxed because of it. We found time to do other things as a couple, like going to the movies, out to dinner, whatever we felt like. I noticed that Quinn had started to put alot more effort into school work too. I didn't like school, but Quinn hated it. I knew there was just five more months to go, and then it would all be over and I would never have to go back to school again. Unless I decided to become ateacher, but that was highly unlikely. Quinn just couldn't see it that way, and he had lost all interest in it. It wasn't that he couldn't do the work, he was intelligent. He just didn't see how it was setting him up for his future. His grades had actually started to slip over the past couple of months, but he was still passing. That's why I was pleased to see he had started to focus more on school, even his homework. Quinn still hated to admit it, but this break was definitely doing him some good. The other guys had noticed the huge improvement in Quinn's mood too and were enjoying the break themselves.
I had a lot of homework to do over the weekend, because exams weren't that far away, so I got up early on the Saturday morning to start my art research assignment. I logged onto the internet and while waiting for the page to load I opened up another window and went to one of my favourite band's website. It loaded quickly and I scanned through the page looking at the latest news. I almost jumped out of my seat when I saw the most recent article. I reached over and turned the printer on to print the web page. Rather than telling Quinn immediately I decided to get Blake's view on it first, so I grabbed my cell phone and quickly dialed the number, my hands were shaking with excitement.
"Hey, I know you're not supposed to be thinking about the band and stuff, but I've found something that you guys have to do. It's a perfect opportunity for you guys, you can't let it go," I said thinking about the possibilities that it could lead to.
"What is it?" Blake mumbled, half asleep.
"Actually," I said, changing my mind, "I want to tell you guys all at once."
"Um okay...you call Quinn, I'll call the rest of the guys and we'll meet at my house as soon as you can?"
I agreed, hung up my phone and called Quinn, "Hey, look I know you're supposed to be having a break from the band, but I've just found something that you guys have to do. Meet at Blake's as quick as you can, okay?" My words were spilling out over each other. I couldn't wait to hear what the guys thought about what I had found.
"What is it?" I heard hope in Quinn's voice, which made me even more excited.
"I'll tell you all when we get to Blake's. I have a really good feeling about this. I'll see you in a minute."
I quickly put my shoes on, not even bothering to check myself in the mirror before racing out the door.
"What's this all about then?" Aaron asked.
He'd obviously just woken up too. In fact, all of the guys appeared half asleep. I looked at the time on my cellphone, and laughed to see it was only nine thirty. They weren't used to being up this early on a Saturday morning. Usually I didn't either, but this news had woken me up better than any coffee ever could.
"Well, I'm sorry to get you all out of bed, but I think it's worth it. I have a really good feeling about this," I smiled, and cleared my throat to read out the piece of paper in my hands, "Calling all budding musicians! An amazing opportunity for you! Unfortunate Lives will be headlining a tour this spring and we want you to open the show in your town. So if you're a musician, whether you're a solo artist or in a band, make sure you enter this competition. It will be an experience you'll never forget and a good way to get known in the music industry in your town. There can only be one winner. Entries close on January twentieth, so get in quick."
I looked at everyone's expressions expectantly and handed the article to Quinn as I sat down beside him. Everyone started to talk at once.
"Whoa, that's awesome."
"I'm in."
"We have to enter."
"Imagine if we won!"
I noticed Quinn was the only one who hadn't said anything, eventually he looked up from the piece of paper.
"We better get a song together then."
In the competition details it said the band needed to write a cover letter and send in a demo of one or two songs. There was no way they could miss out on this so they spent all day together deciding which songs to send away and what they should write in the cover letter. The competition had already been up for two weeks so they only had a week to send everything in. Because of the limited time they had they decided to use a copy of the demo they had made for the last recording company. I kept a close eye on Quinn the whole afternoon, and was pleased to see he looked really enthusiastic about it. It was lucky that I had found the article when I did, just enough time for them to enter. It was an amazing opportunity for them. I knew a lot of musicians would be entering, so the chances of winning weren't huge, but it was still a good experience. I sat down with Kyle because they had asked me to help with the cover letter. Iwasn't sure at first, but in the end I agreed. I had to help them as much as possible, they only had one chance to enter and they needed to make their entry the best it could be. For some reason I had such a strong feeling that this was it for them, that they were going to make it, and win the competition. I couldn't explain why I felt this way, maybe it was just wishful thinking, but I felt like it was so much more than that. I imagined how different our lives would become if they did win. I knew for one thing how much better things for Quinn would be. The majority of stress would be gone, especially if it got them into the music industry. The break had worked even better than we thought it would. They had stuck to their deal and out of it we had found a huge opportunity for them. They hadn't taken a break for nothing, they had stopped for only a week or so and already something had come along. This wasn't going to be another false start into their career, it was something big. I tried to stop from getting a head of myself. They hadn't even entered the competition yet. I couldn't get my hopes up too soon, but it felt so right.

"Imagine if by some miracle, we actually won?" Quinn said to me a couple of days after they had sent away their entry. He hadn't been able to stop talking about it from the moment I showed it to them. I expected him to return to thinking negatively about it, but so far his attitude had remained positive. It was only three days until they found out if they got into the final audition stage. Only five bands would get through to that stage. Thinking about how many musicians must have entered made me feel slightly negative about the idea of them getting through, but whenever I was with Quinn I tried to keep those sorts of thoughts out of my mind.
"I don't know if it would be a miracle. You've worked pretty damn hard for it," I reminded him.
"Yeah, but some of it's gotta be luck right?" Quinn said, lighting up a smoke.
"What are you doing?" I asked, frowning. We were home alone in his backyard but his family could be home at any minute. I didn't want to be near Quinn's dad if he ever caught him smoking, I didn't even want to imagine the fight that would bring.
"Relax, no ones going to be home for hours," he smiled and took a drag.
"I wish you wouldn't have them so much," I sighed. I wasn't going to take this conversation further. I just didn't think that now was a good time to become addicted to smoking, not that there ever was a good time.
"I was stressed for a long time," he said, and blew the smoke away from me, "I had them a lot, so now it's just a habit. And before you start, I know it's not good on my voice. I promise I'll try to stop soon, it just might take a while."
It felt to me like he had no intentions on giving up, but I didn't want to get into an argument. We hadn't had good outcomes on conversations about this before. He would usually just shrug it off, saying it was no big deal. There was nothing I could do about it right now anyway, he was the sort of person who would give up in his own time, and I would have to be patient. As it drew closer to the closing date of the competition he would be under a lot of stress, so I would have to ignore it for a while.
Quinn had insisted they put his number as the contact number. If they didn't get into the auditions they wouldn't get a call at all. I went around to Quinn's house on the day they were supposed to call. It was going to be a very long day and I wasn't sure I was up for it, but of course Iwould be there as his support. I knew Quinn would spend most of the day anxiously staring at his phone and a lot of smoking would be involved.
It had just gone midday and we were sitting outside, the sun was shining but it was still cold. The guys had been texting Quinn often, seeing if they had called but so far we had heard nothing. Watching Quinn smoke cigarette after cigarette had made me think about addiction and Idecided to ask him something. I knew it was stupid but I had to ask just to make sure, the conversation today had been limited.
"You know, now its cigarettes, but if, I mean when you get into the music industry and everything, what if you get into...other stuff?"
"Give me a break Kate, you know why I'm smoking today," he said impatiently and rolled his eyes. I did know, but it seemed there was always some excuse to be smoking.
"Yes, I know why you're smoking today. I just want you to promise me that you won't start...serious drugs or something," I said.
I wasn't sure why I was bringing this up now, but it was something that had been on my mind recently. I knew he'd tried marijuana a couple of times before. I had seen him doing it after his father remarried, and he told me he had done it for a while after his mother died. It had been well over a year since he'd last taken it, and with the stress he was under recently he would have had it by now if he was going to again. That was another reason why I knew I could let the smoking go, chances are it was just a phase. That was all I could hope for.
"I'm not stupid. I won't. Believe me," he said, clearly not understanding why I was bringing it up either.
"Just making sure," I smiled.
Of course I believed him. We'd both seen what happened to famous people, even ordinary people, when they dabbled in drugs and it certainly wasn't pretty. I'd read so many stories about people who had taken drugs and how badly it had effected, if not ruined, their lives. My parents weren't even happy with me drinking alcohol. In the end I had convinced them I was mature enough to know my limits and they'd reluctantly let it go, but they still weren't impressed that I did it. However, if Quinn or anyone I was friends with started taking drugs my parents would probably ban me from seeing them ever again. It was pointless of me to have even brought it up with Quinn but it seemed to be what the celebrities were doing a lot of lately. And I was sure that fame wasn't far off for Quinn and the band and there was no way I wanted them to get into that scene. I trusted that they were all sensible and knew they would never even consider doing that.
"I don't know what I'll do if they don't ring," Quinn said, having yet another smoke, almost two hours later. His mood had deteriorated over the course of the day and he was sick of waiting for them to ring.
"You've just got to be positive," I said again, I'd said it so many times that day, but I wanted them to call just as much as he did.
"Did you tell your dad about entering?" I asked, knowing he wouldn't have, I didn't think he and his dad had a lot of conversation. I asked anyway because I had to keep the conversation going with him today, and it slowed down the smoking too.
"No, he wouldn't care," he said indifferently, though I could tell it was hard for him to talk about.
I was glad I didn't have a relationship like that with my parents. I felt sorry for Quinn, not having anyone he could talk to around home. I couldn't understand how a father wouldn't want to know everything about his son, and how he could play favourites with his children. The more I thought about it the more I admired Quinn for managing to cope, most of the time, with his father. It was a lot more than I would have been able to do.
It was nearing dinnertime and Quinn still hadn't had a phone call.
"Well I take it their not ringing," he said irritably, through his last cigarette in the pack. We moved inside, it was starting to get dark already.
"Imagine all the bands that entered, they had to listen to all of them, it would have taken a long time to pick just five," I said.
I didn't know why I was still trying to remain positive, I had put so much hope in them getting the call and even winning the competition, now everything I said about it was sounding like a lie.
"But I wanted to win. No, we needed to win this," his voice was raspy from all the smokes he'd had during the day.
"I know you did. Look there's still a chance-"
Quinn cut me off, "No there's not. How can you be so positive about this, still? Face it Kate, we suck. You should go. I'll talk to you later."
I knew he was just taking out his frustration on me, and that he wasn't actually angry with me, but I couldn't stop my eyes from filling up with tears. I grabbed my bag and left the house without looking back at Quinn. I knew he just needed space. I ran most of the way home, I was over-reacting but I couldn't help it. My parents were doing the dishes in the kitchen, and I mumbled 'hi' to them. I told them not to bother me, because Iwasn't feeling good and just needed to sleep. That's exactly what I did, and thankfully my parents left me alone. I curled up into a ball under my blankets and cried myself to sleep.

I woke to someone tapping on my window. I was half-asleep, so I couldn't quite take hold of what was going on. I opened my eyes to see my alarm clock flashing that it was just past ten at night. I had only been asleep for a couple of hours. Itried to roll over and ignore the tapping at my window. I couldn't be bothered dealing with Quinn and his attitude right now and I just wanted to go back to sleep. But the tapping didn't stop so in the end I hopped out of bed, almost tripping over my shoes as I made my way to the window. I flung it open and gave a tired look at Quinn as I got back into bed and under the covers.
"You won't believe it," he said in a whisper and sat down on my bed.
I still wasn't completely awake, and I wasn't paying my full attention to what Quinn was saying.
"Kate, they fucking rang me. We got an interview!" He spoke louder, and turned on my bedside light so he could see my face.
"What?"I blinked in the sudden bright light. He was right, I couldn't believe it. I wondered if I was dreaming, I had to ask just to make sure.
"No, you're not dreaming," he laughed. He hadn't stopped smiling since the moment he had climbed through my window. I sat up and hugged him.
"So what did they say? Tell me everything," I said happily. It still hadn't completely sunk in and I needed more details if I was going to believe it.
"It was about half an hour after you left and my phone rang. I thought my heart was going to fall out of my chest. I answered and they said they were sorry it had taken so long, but they got more entries than they had been expecting and congratulations your band has made it through. I thought I was going to cry actually," he laughed again.
"Oh, I'm so happy for you! What did the guys say?"
"I went round to Blake's house and as expected, he couldn't believe it either. We rang the other guys and they came around, of course they were excited too."
"I knew you'd get in!" I sat for a moment, smiling at the turn of events. "So what happens now?"
"The interview is the day after tomorrow."
"I'm so proud of you guys," I whispered and lay down, still struggling to take it all in. Finally, something had worked out for us. Quinn lay down beside me and kissed me. The kiss was passionate and lasted for a long time. I was so pleased for the band, for Quinn. They had put everything into this band, and now it was paying off. Out of almost all of America their band had gotten into the top five to open for one of the most popular American bands right now. That was ahuge achievement, no matter if they won or not.
"I love you," I whispered in between kisses.
"I love you too," he whispered back, turning off the bedside light.