“Its fricken cold.” I thought to myself as I was walking home from school.
I normally have my mom pick me up but today was an early dismissal and I had forgotten to tell her. My house wasn’t terribly far away; it was only a block or two but in the London winter winds it felt a lot longer then it was.
As I walked around the corner to my house I saw a car I didn’t recognize but I didn’t think much of it. I had assumed it was probably just one of my mom’s friends from work, I was kind of right. Looking back, it’s hard to describe exactly how I felt when I got in the house but I now feel regret, regret for ever loving her, regret for ever trusting her.
When I got in the house I saw them on the couch, needless to say they weren’t wrestling. When they heard me come in they immediately jumped up from the couch and scrambled to grab their clothes. However, by that time, I saw enough to know exactly what was happening. That was the day we found out my mom was having an affair. That day started the rest of my life.

December third was the day we found out. December seventh was the day I moved to America. My dad and I have always been close and I loved him now more than ever. My dad was a businessman who spent a lot of time traveling to America and had built up a relationship with a lot of the companies so finding a job wasn’t hard. After buying a house in New York, New York we packed up, got on an airplane and spent the next nine hours planning our lives.

I was 13 when I moved here, I’m not going to lie I was pretty nervous to be starting in the middle of the year in a new country. That was until I met Lauren who would become my best friend. Lauren was a blue-eyed, blonde haired girl who loved video games and rock and roll. Her lips were that shade of pink that showed she wasn’t prep but she wasn’t a slob either. She was awesome, she is also the reason I met my other best friends, Mike, Austin and James.
Mike was a tall built guy who at first look would scare you but he was actually really nice, probably the nicest of my friends. He loved playing the bass and it showed he was great. Austin was a drummer and probably the best drummer I’ve ever met to this day. He had dark black hair and a pale face. James was the other guitarist. He had brown hair and was kind of short. Then there was me, with my brown hair, my one blue eye, and my one gray eye. I was as tall as a six-foot tall tree, I played guitar. I loved playing guitar when I first started I couldn’t stop. I just played and played.
When Lauren suggested we start a band we all thought it was dumb, and it was but after thinking about it we decided we would give it a shot. Thus, Quick Fix was formed. Our first band practice was in Austin’s basement, it went as well as one could expect. We all brought over our guitars and amps and sat there doing nothing. After an hour, or what felt like an hour, someone said, “why don’t we talk about learning songs?” We sat and talked for an hour about our songs and finally decided on a set list.
Our set list was all over the place. We played Avenged Sevenfold and Rise Against, and then we played acoustic songs. We weren’t terrible but we weren’t great. However in time we would start getting better. About a year after we formed Quick Fix we started looking for gigs. Our first gig was at a coffee shop called The Attic. The Attic was on top of a college bookshop. It was pretty small maybe 50 people could sit comfortably but to us it felt like we were playing at Madison square gardens.
It took four years for us to build up a following and we were now all seniors in high school. My friends didn’t change; it was still Lauren, Mike, Austin, and James. Mike, Austin, James, and I had gotten a lot closer and we were hanging out every night after school. On the weekends we would all go over to my house and play videogames all night. See, my dad was gone a lot on the weekends working, so the house was empty and teenagers being teenagers, when my dad left, the alcohol came out. It wasn’t like crazy amounts, but a beer here or there until we passed out at 4:30 in the morning.
Usually it was just the band but one time I told some of the guys from school about how my dad was going to be out of town and I said “if a few of you want to come you can.” Just a few people right? What’s the harm? Well 9:50 I here my door bell ring and about 50 people come slamming into my kitchen, just for the record none of them took off their shoes. Anyway so I thought well what ever we just party for a few hours and then they will leave. That wasn’t the case. By the time the last person left it was seven in the morning.
When the band left my house it was about 7:30. I hadn’t even noticed that my house was completely destroyed. My house was a wreck and my dad would be home in an hour. I knew the only person I could call to help was Lauren. When Lauren got to my house we had 45 minutes so we rushed to work. After cleaning the entire house it was about five minutes before my dad would be home. Lauren and I struck up a totally fake conversation and pretended to have been sitting on the couch watching TV. When my dad walked he smiled at us dropped of his suitcase and went to his room to change. When he came back he was wearing his nice suit.
“Where you going looking all fancy?” Asked Lauren.
“I… um… I have a date tonight.” He said awkwardly as if he was hoping we wouldn’t notice.
“A date,” I said, “well who is the luck lady?”
“It’s just a girl I work with. You wouldn’t know her.” He replied. “I am going to be out late tonight so don’t wait up.”
“Dad it’s like 10 in the morning. where could you possibly going that would take you all day?”
“We are going on a road trip then stopping to eat dinner then coming home.”
“Where is this road trip to?”
“Niagara Falls.”
“Aw, I want to go,” Lauren said.

He laughed off the awkward and said, “Maybe next time kido. After I get back into town my flight for Denver leaves so I wont be able to come home for two weeks.”

“Another trip?” I asked

“Someone has to pay the bills. Sorry buddy.”

It wasn’t so much the business trip, it was more the date thing. My dad had gone on lots of dates since the divorce, but never any like this. I loved my dad, I mean come on the dude is amazing, but as selfish as this sounds, I liked having him to myself and a serious date like this kind of worried me.

Lauren and my dad left at the same time leaving me all alone in the house. Alone in the big two-story house and for some reason it felt I felt was alone in the world. Lauren was going away for two weeks to go to Florida with her family.
I had been used to not having my dad around since he went on so many business trips but I hadn’t been without Lauren since I moved here. If I went on vacation she came, if they went on vacation I came, and the cycle repeated every year. That was until last year when her sister was diagnosed with cancer. Her sister Aaron was diagnosed with brain cancer so when they got the news last month that the tumor had been destroyed the family wanted to celebrate. I had never really gotten too close with her sister because she was seven years younger than I was and I never really talked to her. So when she invited me to come, I respectfully declined.

I spent the next two weeks playing guitar as loud as I possibly could. If I didn’t go to sleep with a headache I didn’t feel accomplished. Between school and home I didn’t really do anything. I lived off pizza and take out Chinese food; needless to say it was a fairly boring two weeks.

When Lauren got home from her trip she spent the next week staying the night at my house. I suppose two weeks with her family was too much to handle. When we weren’t at school we were goofing around on Halo or playing Mario on her Super Nintendo. She loved classic video games and it was just about the greatest thing ever. I had never met another girl who liked playing video games, let alone the video games I play. I think that’s why she was so awesome, we had so much in common that it was like she wasn’t even a girl, she was just another one of the guys. I mean minus the long blonde hair and the rocking body, but I digress.
The Tuesday after Lauren got home we had band practice. We had taken the two weeks off to write some songs and try to practice on our own. As I walked into Austin’s basement I could feel the bass drum pounding out a rhythm that was so crisp and clear that I knew Austin had been practicing. As I came around the corner I saw the rest of the guys sitting on the couch waiting for me and eating some leftover chicken dip. When Austin looked up and saw me he instantly stopped drumming and looked up at me. I didn’t know what he wanted me to say so almost by accident I said, “cool beat.” It just sort of came out; I didn’t really know why or how, it just did.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Play it again.” I insisted.

As he started that beat again I hopped on my guitar and started playing this beat that I can only describe as… epic. Mike jumped onto his bass and James strapped his guitar on and we all came in and had this jam session. The sound of the bass thumping like a heartbeat filled the song and the drums slamming a rhythm in your face made everything collide together in perfect harmony. James laid down this perfect rhythm guitar and I played a solo on top of it and out of all of the chaos we created our first song that would later be called “Apathy.” Apathy was written about James’ ex girlfriend. She was well, apathetic. The chorus was probably my favorite of any lyrics we have written to this day.

We started jamming at four and by 5:30 we were withering away to nothing, so we decided to go upstairs and order a pizza. While eating the pizza we started writing lyrics and after the first line everything just came out so naturally. At about 8 we decided we should call it quits. By that time we had punched out three more songs. When I got home I went straight up stairs and called Lauren. We talked till like two and we fell asleep on the phone.

The next day was the annual spring picnic and Quick Fix was playing at it. It was a pretty big deal. There were probably close to 300 people and all of them would hear our music. By this time we had played a number of gigs and none of us were really nervous, that was until we got back stage. When we got behind the massive stage I noticed that Lauren wasn’t there. This was the first gig Lauren has missed ever.

“Where is Lauren?” I asked

“I don’t know, not my day to watch her,” Austin replied.

“Every one help me give a warm welcome to Quick Fix,” The voice came over the speakers and it was our turn.
As we came around the curtain everyone started clapping. The smell of the warm early May day, and grilled hot dogs and hamburgers filled the park. When I looked out I saw a sea of people and, in that sea was neither my dad nor Lauren.

We started with a song called “Loving you,” and when we finished everyone went crazy. I’m not talking like yeah woohoo good job crazy I am talking like full-blown God just stepped on stage and cured Stevie Wonders blindness. Over the screaming of the crowd I faintly heard Austin say, “This is amazing.”

After our set list ended the crowd started cheering encore and you can’t let your fans down so we ran back on stage and played through our last song, Apathy.

When we got back stage Lauren was still nowhere to be found, it was a little upsetting but I didn’t even have time to think about that before a man walked up to us and said “ that was some show you boys put on.”

“Thanks… and who the hell are you?” Austin said. Austin always had a way of saying what everyone was thinking but didn’t have the balls to say.

“Good question. I am Anderson; I am from Warner Brothers Studio. Lets go get lunch.”

As if we were his puppets and he was pulling the strings we followed him into the parking lot where we saw it.

“Is that your limo?”

“Sure is. You guys hungry?”

“Sure lets eat.”

As we piled into the limo he ordered the driver to take us to Mancies. Mancies was a really fancy restaurant on the upper side of town. When we got in the restaurant the hostess said, “Hello Anderson we have been expecting you. Your seats are this way.”

We walked through the dimly lit room to a room in the back that was completely empty except for some waiters standing around conversing and holding pitchers of some random sodas.

“What will you have?” asked Anderson “It’s on me.”

“Can I just get the chicken basket?”

“Sure you can,” he said with a smile that seemed to say everything and nothing all at once.

As we all placed our orders we talked about what it was that Anderson did with the company. He explained that he was the guy who went around to local bands and found bands that had potential to become big. He also explained that he was quite impressed with our set list and our sound.

“So I have got a little something for you to read through.”

As he placed this contract on the table I couldn’t help but remember every story I had ever heard about singing your soul away to the devil. But those were just stories… right?

We read through the contract at a pace a 5th grader would deem too slow but we didn’t want to miss anything. It wasn’t until the last page that we stopped dead in our tracks.

“Holy s***!” Austin screamed.

“What?” Anderson said terrified.

“60,000 dollars?”
“Yeah is that a problem.”
“No, uh… not at all.” Austin liked to talk so it was pretty impressive that anything could shut him up.
All the screaming was about our signing bonus. Basically it said if we signed with them we would a check today for 60,000 dollars to be divided between the four of us. Naturally we all signed it immediately.

We all sat around the table eating our dinner 60,000 dollars richer laughing and talking about what he had planned for us. He explained that the day after graduation we would be taking a plane to San Diego to meet with the producer of our CD. We would record our CD and after that we would leave for Boston where we would start a nation wide tour. Things were finally starting to come together for the band.

In all of the commotion of the contract I had completely forgotten to tell Lauren. She was going to be so excited and I couldn’t wait to tell her.

As I walked over to her house I could smell the flowers and I could feel the heat of the mid May sun beating down. I could just be romanticizing the entire day but it seemed like the perfect Saturday. The sky was a shade of blue only seen in movies and everyone was still out at the park at the picnic so the roads were empty. As I walked closer to her house I realized something; I wasn’t going to see her for two years. I thought two weeks was bad but how was I going to live that long without seeing her. I remembered all the summers we spent together all the summer nights we spent out talking on my porch until the early morning. That’s when I felt it. I remember all the things she said, I remember every sunset I remember how we never said goodbye. I couldn’t believe I’m leaving. I felt like my soul is broken. Suddenly the warm day turned into a frozen winter walk all by yourself. I love her. She was my best friend all this time but I never realized how much I cared for her.

I stopped and turned around I couldn’t tell her I was leaving not yet and that was when I thought of it. I needed someway to tell her how I feel and it needed to be soon. Austin was not just an awesome dude he was also super smart. He was valedictorian and he was giving a speech at graduation and I thought what better way to ask her out then at graduation. When I got home I decided to actually do it so I called Austin.

“Hey can I ask a favor of you?”

“Yeah sure what’s up?”

“Well during your speech I was wondering if I could give a speech of my own.”

“You want to ask Lauren out?”

“Yeah how did you know?”

“Dude you have been in love with her for like four years everyone knew it but you.”

Its weird but looking back I guess it has always been pretty obvious. I suppose hindsight is always 20-20.
“Well… can I?”

“Do you baby boo.”

To this day I still have no idea what that means but I was pretty sure it was a yes.

After three long days of not eating and nervously biting every last follicle of nail I had it was finally graduation day. When we got there everyone was in their robes talking about all the parties we had to attend and when their parties were.

“You ready?” Austin asked in that voice that kind of said he was anxious too.

“Ready as I will ever be.”

I couldn’t think straight I literally had like everyone read it and tell me what they thought. The general response was “that is so sweet” and “wow that takes a lot of balls.” Which yeah it did and they were balls I didn’t have. I think the only reason I actually went through with it was because I had already shown everyone and there was no returning.

When we presided in I was looking all around for my dad and Laurens family. Laurens family was in the upper right corner kind of far away and my dad was front and center right in the front row. I was kind of surprised that he made it. My dad had like a perfect zero when it came to school attendance. Basketball games, missed them, hockey games, missed them, gigs with the band, missed them; really this was the first thing he had attended since my Thanksgiving in first grade.

After the long boring speech from our principal it was our guest speakers turn. The speaker was our biology teacher, sounds strange I know but this guy was like the coolest person ever. His speech was all about and pokemon the last paragraph almost brought me to tears. He said, “So here you are, graduating from high school. Consider this gym the final gym that you have just beaten. You have mastered a generation that you have been through for four years. Its time for you to go out and be the very best, like no one ever was. You will travel across the land, searching far and wide for what you want to achieve. I’ll leave you all with a quote. In the heart-wrenching climax of the first movie, mewtwo leaves us thinking with a heavy statement that I believe is true to anyone, even if you haven’t seen an episode or played one of the games. He says, ‘It is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.’ So go out and catch your dreams. Because remember, you ‘gotta catch’em all!’”
And then it was Austin’s turn. He started going and I wish I could tell you what he said but as soon as he started talking I just zoned out to mentally prepare myself for what I was about to do.
“Alright so there is one thing I want to do before I finish my best friend Mason has some stuff he wants to say. Give a big round of applause for him, get up here buddy.”
As everyone in the crowd applauded I looked at my class and saw the puzzled look on their face.
“Well um hi, my name is Mason.” Yeah I said that, just wait it gets better.
“So the reason I wanted to talk today is because as you may or may not know I have a band with my friends, guys stand up. Well my band recently played at the spring picnic and once we finished someone from Warner Brothers Studio came and talked to us back stage. He explained how he had been to a lot of our recent gigs and he said that he would like to sign us to a label and send us on tour, for two years. So I am not here to brag as you might be thinking. The reason I am here is because in light of the recent events I realized something. Lauren I am pretty sure I love you, I know it sounds strange but you have been my best friend for four years and I never realized how much I care for you. I know its seems so out of the blue but before I leave I was wondering, would you like to be my girlfriend?”
The entire audience went stone faced, I stood there like an idiot and she said nothing. It was the most painful silence I had ever heard. Her face was red my face was red and finally after what felt like an eternity but later found out was mere seconds, Austin jumped up and said “Hey come on lets not put the girl on the spot.”
After returning to my seat and finishing the rest of graduation I couldn’t help but think of every possible scenario and every possible thing I could have done to improve what I said. I felt like an idiot, I felt as alone, I felt tears.
After graduation I was standing around with a group of guys all praising me for what I did but I didn’t want praise from them I wanted an answer from her. I didn’t care what the answer was necessarily but I wanted some answer the waiting was killer.
When I finally got home I walked into my room and there she was. I had totally forgotten I had given her a key until then, seeing how she never used it forgetting was fairly easy.
“What the hell!” she screamed.
“What?” I was kind of scared. Lauren was a fairly easy-going person but she seemed pissed.
“You just call me out like that in front of everyone and you say what. You know how embarrassing that was?”
“Look it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park for me.”
“You made me look like a douche, and on top of that I just sat there. I didn’t know how to react. I just sat there.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you look bad I just wanted a sweet romantic way to express my feelings.”
“Well, it didn’t work.”

I knew she was right; it was stupid. As I sat in my room just listening to her talk I realized that it was an incredibly dumb thing to do. I felt terribly, I don’t even want to imagine what I looked like. I probably looked like the dogs from those commercials with Sarah McLaughlin about the Humane Society.

“Oh, and to answer your question, no I won’t. How am I supposed to date someone I wont see for two years?”

“I don’t know, but I know we could make it work.”

“No, no we can’t.”

No, that word bounced inside of my head for the rest of my life. When her lips made the word my heart dropped somewhere into my lower intestine. After she said that nothing else was said. After a minute of silence she got up and left. If I would have known that would be the last time I would see her I would have done something. I don’t know what but I would have done something.

The next day was the day to leave for California. At eight in the morning the limousine pulled up to pick me up. Apparently I was last to be picked up because everyone else was already inside waiting for me.

“So?”

“No.”

“She said no or you don’t want to talk about it?”

“If he doesn’t want to talk about it then it’s a no dumb ass.” James blurted. James didn’t talk much but when he did it always was something logical.

“She said no.”

“We are really sorry bro.”

“Its okay lets just go get famous.”

I really didn’t fell that way but it was easier than listening to them talk about it the entire flight.

When we arrived at the airport our plane was a small private jet and was waiting for us. Once we got through security we hoped right onto the plane.

“Holy s***, do you see this?” Austin screamed.

The plane was amazing it had recliners and a T.V. it even had a mini fridge. Oh and lets not forget about the kitchen. If we needed food there it was, which was kind of handy because you cant exactly stop at a drive through when your 20,000 feet in the air, and I had forgotten to eat breakfast.

“Is there a way I can get a cheeseburger?”

“Yea sure. Bring this man a cheeseburger.” Demanded Anderson.

When the waitress brought it out for me I saw it, the most amazing cheeseburger ever.

“Oh my god this is amazing.”

“Glad you like it.”

I spent the next 10 hours watching T.V. and playing Xbox with the guys. When we arrived at LAX it was about 5:30 PM. When we got into the limo Anderson said, “I am starving, are you guys hungry?”

“Yeah we could eat.”

“Driver can you take us to Jenson’s.” Jenson’s was one of the local rich people restaurants and the food was quite impressive but for 55.00 for a steak it had better have been the best damned steak I’d ever eaten, and it was.

It had been 10 hours and I still hadn’t heard from Lauren.