Rock And Roll Ruined My Life- Chapter 5- Staying In Touch

After I said goodbye to Tim, I ignored the urge to go to Starbucks and set off down the hall away from the front doors. Yes, I Juliet Anne Marie Spinnet gave up my daily coffee to stay in school longer than I was supposed to. I patted my front pocket nervously and pushed through the crowd of students going toward the doors. I felt my brain slowing down from the lack of caffeine. 'Gosh', I thought to myself, 'my brain must really need that stuff to function…'

I decided to let my brain and feet go on auto pilot like I did this morning to save some energy. My mind went back to when I was with the guys playing video games on the bus. I smiled to myself as I remembered how accepting and weird they were.

All of a sudden I was thrown backwards and my right eye went temporarily blinded.
“WHAT THE FUCK BITCH?” said a masculine voice. I put my hand gingerly over my now throbbing eye and raised my left eye to the blurry 6 foot 3 monstrosity before me. It was Shaun Williams, our school basketball star.

His hair was braided back and pulled into a small pony tail at the nape of his neck, and the whites of his eyes stood out vividly against his dark skin. He normally looked kind of nice, but at the moment his lips were in an ugly scowl that made him look twice as menacing. He was also holding his left shoulder with his gi-normous hand and sending me a murderous stare. It seemed to me almost everyone was starting to stare at me like that…

There was a moment of tense, awkward silence. Shaun glared at me one last time, shook his head, and shoved past me into the crowd. I felt my eyes become watery, which made everything even more blurry. Where were my glasses? I wasn’t totally blind without them, but it’s kind of nice to be able to see the other people who are walking towards you from far away… It’s also nice to see signs like Danger, Do NOT Enter. I bent down on my knee and reached out blindly for my glasses. Once I realized they had fallen to my right instead of my left, I brushed myself off and continued sullenly down the hall

Finally, I reached my desired destination: the school library. Even though it wasn’t big, it had the one thing I was looking for: a computer. I knew for a fact that my mom would not forget the punishment she had prescribed to me, so this was my only chance. I stopped in the doorway and listened. No footsteps, no ruffling pages, no chairs scraping across the wooden floor. I was the only one here. Not even the librarian was here.

The door closed behind me with a heavy thump. I nodded approvingly and made my way to the computers in the back -even though there was a bunch in front- just in case. As I was walking I pulled out the tiny folded up piece of paper Gerard had given to me. I don’t know why I hadn’t told Tim about it. I didn’t really want anyone to know about it. I waited for the computer to start up.

When it did finally turn on, the light from the computer screen was 10 times brighter than it normally would have been since the library lights hadn’t been turned on. I squinted as I typed in the username and password the school had given to me. It was eerily quiet in here…

I still hadn’t unfolded the piece of paper yet. I felt my heart beat faster as I picked it up. “Calm yourself spaz!” I scolded myself. I really had to stop talking to myself before people thought I was totally insane. 'Too late…' a voice said in the back of my mind.

I shook everything off and eagerly unfolded the note which read:

Hey Juliet! Sorry this is almost illegible, but give us a call: 867- 5309. We will still be in New York by the time you read this – MCR.

“I’m so fucking retarded,” I said out loud. I had thought that it would have been an e-mail address. What rock star would give me their e-mail?! I turned to the bright computer screen and sighed in defeat. There was no point to me being here.

I was about to turn off the computer when I got an idea. I pulled up Google, typed in ‘My Chemical Romance’, and hit search. What I saw astounded me. One minute Gerard had black hair, and when I went to the next website his hair was blonde! As I went further back into the bands' history Frank had less tattoos, longer hair, and wasn’t even in some pictures. In his place there was some other guy named Matt Pelisser. In addition to that, Ray’s afro didn’t look the same, Mikey had different glasses, and Bob.. well.. he was just Bob.

“Wow, they really came a long way,” I said to myself. After I had educated myself on their background, I decided to check out their music. I went to YouTube and typed in the band name to see what came up. The first song was ‘Disenchanted’. It had no music video, but it was from their album called ‘The Black Parade’. I sat back in my chair and waited. Suddenly, Gerard’s voice filled the library and I felt my jaw drop. They were amazing. And the lyrics were just flat out beautiful. You could tell that they really put time and effort into each of their songs. As I listened, I felt like they understood me. After ‘Disenchanted’ finished I clicked on the next song which was ‘I Don’t Love You’.

After about 20 minutes of listening to their music, I shut off the computer and rushed home. I had to get to a phone.

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“I’m home!” I yelled as I closed the front door behind me.
“Come on we’re about to eat dinner,” my mom’s voice answered. I went into the dining room where the rest of my family was sitting with plates of steaming food in front of them. I threw down my book bag and sat down.

Just as I was about to dig in, my father coughed expectantly. I raised me eyes slowly from my fork- which was halfway to my mouth- to see my mother, father, and sister holding hands and looking at me expectantly.

I let a small ‘o’ form on my lips and reluctantly put my fork down. I took my mother’s hand with my right and my father’s hand on the left and bowed my head. Silence. I looked up to see everyone waiting for me. I mentally rolled my eyes, took a deep breath and began.

“Bless us oh Lord for these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from Thy bounty through Christ our Lord, Amen."
“Amen,” my family responded. With out hesitation I began to eat my spaghetti and meatballs. Even though we weren’t Italian, I was sure we ate Italian food more than any other kind…

“So,” my mother began snapping me back to attention, “Where were you?” I finished chewing then replied, “In the library. The school library. I was doing some research.”
“What subject?” she asked suddenly interested.
“Mufic,” I said while chewing on a mouthful of meatball. I looked around the table to see the reaction I would get.

My mom nodded absentmindedly and my sister nodded with little interest. When my eyes flickered to my dad’s face though, he nodded approvingly and smiled. “What were you trying to find out? Anything I could help you with?” He looked at me excitedly. I turned my eyes back to my plate and started to twist my fork to get more spaghetti. “No, I don’t think so,” I saw his shoulders slump the tiniest bit out of my peripheral vision. “But I will definitely need your help later,” I added quickly. He sat up straighter, smiled, and continued eating.

We continued on in this peaceful silence until everyone was finished eating. When my mom got up to get some coffee for her and my dad, I took that as an opportunity to leave.
“I’m gunna go do my homework,” I announced pointing my thumb behind me as I stood up to grab my book bag-

“Bring your plate in here!” my mom called to me. I exhaled impatiently and made my way to the kitchen. I walked past my mom by the coffee pot and put my plate and fork in the dishwasher. “Thank you,” said my mom.
“No problem,” I replied walking towards the hall way.

Once I was out of everyone’s sight, I quickened my pace and rushed to my room and closed my door. I pulled out the piece of paper from my front pocket and rushed over to my house phone. I had to be super fast. Butterflies began to swirl in my stomach as I punched in the number. It rang twice before someone finally picked it up.

“Hello?” said an out of breath familiar voice. It sounded like they had just run a marathon. Finally I put voices and faces together.
“Mikey? It’s Juliet. Gerard told me to call you guys at this number...” I jumped in fright as Mikey suddenly yelled, “IT’S HER!”

I sat quietly and listened to the sound of many footsteps running towards Mikey, then all of a sudden a loud clanging noise came from somewhere far away and then I heard the phone fall to the floor. “YOU DROPPED HER?!” I heard Gerard scream frantically. Abruptly all of the fighting stopped and I heard the hasty fumble of fingers.

“Juliet?! Are you still there!?” said a very worried Gerard.
“Yeah, I’m here,” I replied trying to keep my voice low.
“Why are we whispering?” I heard Bob whisper.
“Because I got in trouble and got my phone, iPod, and computer rights taken away! I’m technically not even supposed to be talking to you guys.”
“Wow you must have done something really bad,” Mikey said.
“What did you do? Tell us!” I heard Ray say.

I laughed and said, “I stayed on your bus and played video games with you guys for 5 hours when I was supposed to be home. That’s what I did.”
“Oh my God! Seriously? I’m so sorry Juliet!” I heard Frank yell. I jumped up in happy surprise.
“Where did you come from Frank? Why haven’t you been talking?”
“It just happens I’m icing my lip because someone,” I heard the smack of skin on skin, “tackled me while we were all trying to get to the fucking phone!”
“Sorry,” I heard Mikey mumble.

I burst out laughing at the mental image playing in my mind then stopped when I heard footsteps coming towards my door. “Hold on guys. Don’t make a sound,” I whispered then placed my phone back on its stand without hanging it up. I quickly grabbed a book off of my book shelf, jumped onto my bed, and opened up to a random page. Just as I sat down I heard the door handle turn and my mom’s head appeared. “Everything ok in here?”

I pretended to jump in surprise. “What? Oh yeah everything’s fine. I was just laughing at my book.” I glanced at the front cover, which ironically read Romeo and Juliet, and then smiled at my mom. She nodded her head slowly then closed the door with a look of concern. I laughed than rushed to my phone.

“Hello?”
“Yeah we’re here. Was that your mom?” asked Bob.
“Yeah that was her,” I said sighing.
“Soooo,” said Gerard. Everyone was obviously out of things to say over there. It got awkwardly quiet.

“I listened to your music today,” I piped up breaking the silence.
“Really?”
“What did you think?”
“We’re awesome right?”
I laughed, “I was totally blown away. You guys are really, really, really, good!”
“Awww!” I heard Frank and Ray say in unison.

I laughed again. I don’t think I ever laughed so much in one conversation…
“You sure like to laugh a lot,” said Mikey as if reading my mind.
“Yeah I don’t know why, but you guys just make me laugh!”
“We sometimes have that effect on people,” said Ray.
“Better laughing than crying right?” said Bob.

After a while of just blabbing on we finally got onto the subject of getting me to play an instrument. “So, you guys still want to carry through with this whole music thing?” I asked.
“Hell yeah!” screamed Bob. We all laughed.
“You guys are still in New York?” I said all of a sudden remembering what Gerard had written.
“Yeah we’re in New York, but not in Manhattan. We’re at a hotel in Staten Island. We stopped here before heading back to Jersey.” I nodded absentmindedly remembering that they were from New Jersey.

I gasped as I remembered that we were supposed to be going to Staten Island for the weekend.

“Wait! How long are you going to be in Staten Island?”
“For the rest of the week, why? Is something wrong?” said Gerard.
“I’m going to be there all this weekend! I’m gunna be sleeping over my cousins house for the whole weekend!”
“NO FUCKING WAY!” screamed Ray. I burst out laughing, “Way!”

After we finished making fun of Gerard and Mikey for their last name, I suddenly stopped laughing. “Wait, wait, wait. How are we going to do this? What if you guys are on the total other side of the island?” All of the other laughter died down. “That could be a problem,” Frank mumbled. Everyone paused in thought...

“Wait! I got it! Does your cousin or cousins or whatever like our band?” asked Mikey.
“Now that I think of it… yeah!” I said. I jumped up in excitement catching on to Mikey’s drift. “What’s the plan?”
“Ok, so I’m guessing your cousin is older than you. Am I correct?” Mikey asked.
“Yeah she’s 17,” I said.
“Ok, so you tell your cousin that you think you heard that we are staying at a hotel in Staten Island.”
“If she’s a real fan she’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand by now,” added Gerard. I chuckled and waited for Mikey to continue.

“Ok,” he began totally ignoring Gerard's interruption, “so you tell her that you think that we are staying at the Hampton on South Avenue, you guys show up, and then we can all just hang out. How’s that?”
“You are a total genius Mikey!” I exclaimed.
“Yeah dude!” said Bob.
“Besides the fact that I think you’re a total idiot for busting my lip, I think that was pretty genius too,” said a monotone voice.
“Aww thanks Frank!” I heard Mikey exclaim.
“Euwh! Get off of me douche!” I heard Frank scream in a high pitched voice.

I laughed and said, “I have to go guys, ok? I’ll call you guys later!”
“Bye Juliet!” Everyone screamed. I hit the ‘end call’ button and smiled. The weekend couldn’t come soon enough…