Categories > Celebrities > Fall Out Boy > What a match, I am half-doomed and you're semi-sweet.
Chapter 2.
I took a shot, and didn’t even come close
At trust and love and hope.
And the poets are just kids who didn’t make it
And never had it at all.
Rose sat on a little table alone in the nearest Starbucks, having scrabbled together enough of the loose change from her guitar case to buy a skinny latte, which she was now drinking thoughtfully. Just like every other day, she had the choice of finding somewhere else to set up and sing, or head home and have an early night. She couldn’t return to her favourite spot because, as nice as Rob and David were to her – yes, they’d spoken to her enough times for them to be on first name terms – they did have a job to do, and she didn’t exactly make it easy for them. There was an allocated spot for buskers and street performers and the sort, but Rose couldn’t even tell you where it was. She much preferred to play where she usually did, where people walking back to the office from lunch break would shoot her a smile and drop a couple of coins into her case, sometimes more if they were feeling extra generous. It was, overall, a good spot, even if she wasn’t supposed to be there.
She glanced out of the window at the already-darkening street. It was busy by now, people heading home from work or people setting out for the late shift. It’d take her a while to get to another half-decent spot, and by then it would be dark. She finished her drink and rose to her feet, grabbing the case and shifting it onto her shoulder. She almost wished she had thought to bring a jacket or something, even LA got slightly nippy in January.
She waved bye to the barista behind the bar and left the café, heading in the direction of the bus stop a couple of blocks down. Her little flat was three stops away by bus, something she could probably walk but couldn’t really be bothered. She’d rather spend a couple of dollars on a bus ticket and be done with it. Rose stood at the back of the growing queue, earning herself the usual dirty looks. Apparently her every day getup of old faded jeans, baggy t-shirts and boots didn’t meet the LA standard of tank tops, short-shorts and flip-flops, something she’d never be caught dead in. She grinned cheesily at the people that shot her scathing looks. It usually worked – they’d normally just turn their noses up and look away, but Rose was used to it. She’d been through some bad times in the past few years, and was used to being treated like, well, scum by people who thought they were superior to her.
As usual, she gave her seat up to the parents with children or older people, preferring to stand clinging on to one of the bars. Buses weren’t exactly her favourite places – how could they be? Full of people who were either downright rude or snobby, kids stuffing their faces with greasy fried food, or babies screaming, not to mention that stale smell of sweat that always seemed to linger in the air. As the bus jolted to a start, Rose fixed her gaze outside, on the busy street full of cars, people, noise and movement, trying to ignore the guy pressed up against her behind, who she suspected may-or-may-not have been trying to feel her ass.
It had been a weird day. Sometimes people stopped to speak to her, usually older people who called her names like ‘pet’ and commented on ‘what a lovely voice’ she had, and occasionally – very occasionally – guys a couple of years younger than her that looked like they’d never even been near a girl dropping their phone number into her case. But usually, she was just invisible. Busking did that to you – apparently you weren’t a person anymore once you were sitting on the sidewalk singing for money. Sometimes, especially on a bad day, Rose would have appreciated a kind word or a smile, but half the time she never even got that. It was as if she didn’t exist. People just skirted round her, not even bothering to stop and listen, even for a split second.
But a band member had never stopped to talk to her before. Hell, as far as she knew, no band members were aware of her existence. It had hit her as she’d been winding her way through the mass of people – he was in a band, in fact, the exact band whose song she’d been singing when he’d came up to her. Of course, it made sense. That was his song, he had every right to come up and talk to her – him with his eyes ringed in black and toothy grin. It’s funny how you don’t recognize a person when they’re right in front of you, even though you could probably pick them out instantly in a photograph. It’s just something you never expect to happen. But somehow she’d ended up having a conversation – if you could even call it that – with the bass player from one of her favourite bands, Fall Out Boy. Pete Wentz. Rose had liked them for quite a while, but she didn’t know every single little detail about their lives like some of the die-hard fans apparently did. She just liked the music. She did, however, know that the man that had approached her, Pete, was the one who wrote all the lyrics for the band. It was weird to think that the lyrics and words that Rose felt sometimes could have been written just for her, had been written by – belonged to – a man she’d met only an hour ago.
She was shaken from her thoughts by the bus pulling to its third stop. Untangling herself from the man’s wandering hands, Rose hopped off the bus and turned immediately down a side street that led to her building. Her little flat was right on the top floor. Of course, the elevator had stopped working about three months ago, and still hadn’t been fixed. It didn’t surprise her – the entire building was lived in by people who could barely scrape by with the little money they had, people just like her.
Living on the top floor meant she had to climb five flights of stairs on a daily basis, which sometimes could be a real pain. As she neared the top of the second flight, Rose waved wearily at an eastern-European woman that lived in one of the apartments with what seemed like ten of her kids, ranging from the age of one to twenty-something. She was jiggling her youngest on her hip whilst smoking a roll-up cigarette, and nodded curtly at Rose as she scurried past.
The block of apartments would never have been Rose’s first choice, or even last choice of a place to live, but when you had very little money and very little resources, you take what you can get. She’d come to LA a couple of years back, with dreams of making it big in the music industry, but it didn’t look like that was ever going to happen. At first, she’d shared an apartment with a guy named Joshua, a guy who, if slightly off the rails when she’d first met him, had spiralled lower and lower into drug addiction, into a whole world that Rose had participated in, but really wanted nothing to do with. So she’d set out on her own to find someplace to live, with a small amount of cash in the bank and loose change in her pockets. In a way, she’d been lucky to find this place. The previous tenant had been a single mother with a young child, but apparently she’d found a man or something and had gone to live with him, leaving the little apartment available for Rose.
Finally, she was at the top of the stairs. Scrabbling around in her pocket, she dragged her key out, putting it into the lock and twisting twice. She pushed lightly on the door, hoping for it to open. But no, it was stuck once again. Sighing, Rose rested the guitar case on the ground and rammed into the door with her shoulder, stumbling forward into the apartment as it gave way and flew open. She should really get that fixed.
Collecting the guitar case, she headed inside and locked the door behind her, chucking the key on a little table next to the door. It was cold indoors, just as it usually was. Unlacing her boots and kicking them off, Rose crouched down and plugged the electric heater into the wall. There was no way she could afford to have the heating on all day, and it wasn’t unbearably cold, just a little chilly. You couldn’t exactly say that her apartment was decorated or had any sort of theme, it was mainly just a mish-mash of things Rose had collected over the years from various thrift markets or second-hand furniture stores, or bits and pieces people had given her. She wandered over to the fridge and grabbed herself a can of coke, then hopped over the back of the sofa and switched the TV on. It was the smallest television set you could ever imagine, and she only had the free channels her provider offered, but still, it was better than nothing.
After a while of sort-of-not-really paying attention to some stupid program, Rose figured it was time to have something to eat. Rose actually liked to cook, and considered herself fairly good at it, but most of the time, she couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t as if she had a proper kitchen to cook in anyway, only a small oven and two gas rings, and a microwave that only worked when it felt like it. She counted out some of the notes and coins that were resting on the counter, deciding she had enough for take-out, even if it was just this once. Grabbing her crappy second-hand Nokia off the side, Rose typed out the number she had memorized for the closest pizza place, praying she had enough credit left to make the call. She ordered a small pepperoni and a side of garlic bread, then sat down at the table to wait.
She opened the door about fifteen minutes later to a tired-looking delivery boy, obviously exhausted from all the stairs. She handed over the money and in exchange received a steaming hot pizza. Before curling up on the sofa with her food and some crappy reality TV show, Rose went into the kitchen to get herself another drink of coke. As she reached into the cupboard to grab a fresh glass, the glint of a bottle caught her eye. Should she, or shouldn’t she? Of course, she really shouldn’t, but grabbed it anyway, pouring a generous measure of the clear liquid into the glass, then added about the same amount of coke.
Rose probably drank more than she should. It was just something that helped her keep her mind off things. The bad thoughts, both of her past and of her present, appeared to flood her mind when she was alone in her apartment at night. It had started when she lived with Josh. Most nights, she’d sit on her uncomfortable second-hand sofa and wonder if she’d completely fucked her life up. Was that it? Was her existence reduced to those four walls, her guitar and a bottle of cheap vodka? Her mother had wanted her to be a lawyer, for God’s sake. If maybe she’d tried harder at school, joined the cheerleading squad, gone out partying with all the other jocks, got herself a nice boyfriend, gone to a good college, she wouldn’t have ended up like she was, with nothing to speak of but a blurry, messed-up couple of years behind her and a box of a flat. Besides, Rose tended to have trouble sleeping, and being slightly – or more than slightly – drunk always helped with falling asleep. Sure, she still had the weird dreams and occasionally she would wake up and not be able to get back to sleep, but it made it slightly better.
Once seated on the sofa, food in her lap, Rose contemplated the glass one last time, debating whether to actually drink it or not. She sighed, and then put the glass to her lips anyway. If it wasn’t tonight, it would be tomorrow, so whatever. So she sat there, eating her pizza and drinking her vodka and coke, and generally thinking about her singing and her life and well, the mysterious stranger who had actually turned out not to be a stranger, or at least, not really.
I took a shot, and didn’t even come close
At trust and love and hope.
And the poets are just kids who didn’t make it
And never had it at all.
Rose sat on a little table alone in the nearest Starbucks, having scrabbled together enough of the loose change from her guitar case to buy a skinny latte, which she was now drinking thoughtfully. Just like every other day, she had the choice of finding somewhere else to set up and sing, or head home and have an early night. She couldn’t return to her favourite spot because, as nice as Rob and David were to her – yes, they’d spoken to her enough times for them to be on first name terms – they did have a job to do, and she didn’t exactly make it easy for them. There was an allocated spot for buskers and street performers and the sort, but Rose couldn’t even tell you where it was. She much preferred to play where she usually did, where people walking back to the office from lunch break would shoot her a smile and drop a couple of coins into her case, sometimes more if they were feeling extra generous. It was, overall, a good spot, even if she wasn’t supposed to be there.
She glanced out of the window at the already-darkening street. It was busy by now, people heading home from work or people setting out for the late shift. It’d take her a while to get to another half-decent spot, and by then it would be dark. She finished her drink and rose to her feet, grabbing the case and shifting it onto her shoulder. She almost wished she had thought to bring a jacket or something, even LA got slightly nippy in January.
She waved bye to the barista behind the bar and left the café, heading in the direction of the bus stop a couple of blocks down. Her little flat was three stops away by bus, something she could probably walk but couldn’t really be bothered. She’d rather spend a couple of dollars on a bus ticket and be done with it. Rose stood at the back of the growing queue, earning herself the usual dirty looks. Apparently her every day getup of old faded jeans, baggy t-shirts and boots didn’t meet the LA standard of tank tops, short-shorts and flip-flops, something she’d never be caught dead in. She grinned cheesily at the people that shot her scathing looks. It usually worked – they’d normally just turn their noses up and look away, but Rose was used to it. She’d been through some bad times in the past few years, and was used to being treated like, well, scum by people who thought they were superior to her.
As usual, she gave her seat up to the parents with children or older people, preferring to stand clinging on to one of the bars. Buses weren’t exactly her favourite places – how could they be? Full of people who were either downright rude or snobby, kids stuffing their faces with greasy fried food, or babies screaming, not to mention that stale smell of sweat that always seemed to linger in the air. As the bus jolted to a start, Rose fixed her gaze outside, on the busy street full of cars, people, noise and movement, trying to ignore the guy pressed up against her behind, who she suspected may-or-may-not have been trying to feel her ass.
It had been a weird day. Sometimes people stopped to speak to her, usually older people who called her names like ‘pet’ and commented on ‘what a lovely voice’ she had, and occasionally – very occasionally – guys a couple of years younger than her that looked like they’d never even been near a girl dropping their phone number into her case. But usually, she was just invisible. Busking did that to you – apparently you weren’t a person anymore once you were sitting on the sidewalk singing for money. Sometimes, especially on a bad day, Rose would have appreciated a kind word or a smile, but half the time she never even got that. It was as if she didn’t exist. People just skirted round her, not even bothering to stop and listen, even for a split second.
But a band member had never stopped to talk to her before. Hell, as far as she knew, no band members were aware of her existence. It had hit her as she’d been winding her way through the mass of people – he was in a band, in fact, the exact band whose song she’d been singing when he’d came up to her. Of course, it made sense. That was his song, he had every right to come up and talk to her – him with his eyes ringed in black and toothy grin. It’s funny how you don’t recognize a person when they’re right in front of you, even though you could probably pick them out instantly in a photograph. It’s just something you never expect to happen. But somehow she’d ended up having a conversation – if you could even call it that – with the bass player from one of her favourite bands, Fall Out Boy. Pete Wentz. Rose had liked them for quite a while, but she didn’t know every single little detail about their lives like some of the die-hard fans apparently did. She just liked the music. She did, however, know that the man that had approached her, Pete, was the one who wrote all the lyrics for the band. It was weird to think that the lyrics and words that Rose felt sometimes could have been written just for her, had been written by – belonged to – a man she’d met only an hour ago.
She was shaken from her thoughts by the bus pulling to its third stop. Untangling herself from the man’s wandering hands, Rose hopped off the bus and turned immediately down a side street that led to her building. Her little flat was right on the top floor. Of course, the elevator had stopped working about three months ago, and still hadn’t been fixed. It didn’t surprise her – the entire building was lived in by people who could barely scrape by with the little money they had, people just like her.
Living on the top floor meant she had to climb five flights of stairs on a daily basis, which sometimes could be a real pain. As she neared the top of the second flight, Rose waved wearily at an eastern-European woman that lived in one of the apartments with what seemed like ten of her kids, ranging from the age of one to twenty-something. She was jiggling her youngest on her hip whilst smoking a roll-up cigarette, and nodded curtly at Rose as she scurried past.
The block of apartments would never have been Rose’s first choice, or even last choice of a place to live, but when you had very little money and very little resources, you take what you can get. She’d come to LA a couple of years back, with dreams of making it big in the music industry, but it didn’t look like that was ever going to happen. At first, she’d shared an apartment with a guy named Joshua, a guy who, if slightly off the rails when she’d first met him, had spiralled lower and lower into drug addiction, into a whole world that Rose had participated in, but really wanted nothing to do with. So she’d set out on her own to find someplace to live, with a small amount of cash in the bank and loose change in her pockets. In a way, she’d been lucky to find this place. The previous tenant had been a single mother with a young child, but apparently she’d found a man or something and had gone to live with him, leaving the little apartment available for Rose.
Finally, she was at the top of the stairs. Scrabbling around in her pocket, she dragged her key out, putting it into the lock and twisting twice. She pushed lightly on the door, hoping for it to open. But no, it was stuck once again. Sighing, Rose rested the guitar case on the ground and rammed into the door with her shoulder, stumbling forward into the apartment as it gave way and flew open. She should really get that fixed.
Collecting the guitar case, she headed inside and locked the door behind her, chucking the key on a little table next to the door. It was cold indoors, just as it usually was. Unlacing her boots and kicking them off, Rose crouched down and plugged the electric heater into the wall. There was no way she could afford to have the heating on all day, and it wasn’t unbearably cold, just a little chilly. You couldn’t exactly say that her apartment was decorated or had any sort of theme, it was mainly just a mish-mash of things Rose had collected over the years from various thrift markets or second-hand furniture stores, or bits and pieces people had given her. She wandered over to the fridge and grabbed herself a can of coke, then hopped over the back of the sofa and switched the TV on. It was the smallest television set you could ever imagine, and she only had the free channels her provider offered, but still, it was better than nothing.
After a while of sort-of-not-really paying attention to some stupid program, Rose figured it was time to have something to eat. Rose actually liked to cook, and considered herself fairly good at it, but most of the time, she couldn’t be bothered. It wasn’t as if she had a proper kitchen to cook in anyway, only a small oven and two gas rings, and a microwave that only worked when it felt like it. She counted out some of the notes and coins that were resting on the counter, deciding she had enough for take-out, even if it was just this once. Grabbing her crappy second-hand Nokia off the side, Rose typed out the number she had memorized for the closest pizza place, praying she had enough credit left to make the call. She ordered a small pepperoni and a side of garlic bread, then sat down at the table to wait.
She opened the door about fifteen minutes later to a tired-looking delivery boy, obviously exhausted from all the stairs. She handed over the money and in exchange received a steaming hot pizza. Before curling up on the sofa with her food and some crappy reality TV show, Rose went into the kitchen to get herself another drink of coke. As she reached into the cupboard to grab a fresh glass, the glint of a bottle caught her eye. Should she, or shouldn’t she? Of course, she really shouldn’t, but grabbed it anyway, pouring a generous measure of the clear liquid into the glass, then added about the same amount of coke.
Rose probably drank more than she should. It was just something that helped her keep her mind off things. The bad thoughts, both of her past and of her present, appeared to flood her mind when she was alone in her apartment at night. It had started when she lived with Josh. Most nights, she’d sit on her uncomfortable second-hand sofa and wonder if she’d completely fucked her life up. Was that it? Was her existence reduced to those four walls, her guitar and a bottle of cheap vodka? Her mother had wanted her to be a lawyer, for God’s sake. If maybe she’d tried harder at school, joined the cheerleading squad, gone out partying with all the other jocks, got herself a nice boyfriend, gone to a good college, she wouldn’t have ended up like she was, with nothing to speak of but a blurry, messed-up couple of years behind her and a box of a flat. Besides, Rose tended to have trouble sleeping, and being slightly – or more than slightly – drunk always helped with falling asleep. Sure, she still had the weird dreams and occasionally she would wake up and not be able to get back to sleep, but it made it slightly better.
Once seated on the sofa, food in her lap, Rose contemplated the glass one last time, debating whether to actually drink it or not. She sighed, and then put the glass to her lips anyway. If it wasn’t tonight, it would be tomorrow, so whatever. So she sat there, eating her pizza and drinking her vodka and coke, and generally thinking about her singing and her life and well, the mysterious stranger who had actually turned out not to be a stranger, or at least, not really.
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