The Only Hope For Me Is You

When we finally arrive, I can see why Ray was so freaking late to get to Starbucks. The drive was a miserable forty-five minutes! He obviously moved from the last time we saw each other because I distinctly remember him only being like fifteen minutes away from the school last time. The entire ride we kept to ourselves mostly, every few minutes or so, he’d point to some really cool scenery or show me a house he was jealous of and wanted to live in. I didn’t really talk at all though; there just wasn’t much to about in all honesty.
I chew my lip nervously as he pulls up into his driveway. “Let’s do this!” He says all excited. As uncomfortable as all of this made me deep down, for some reason, I couldn’t help but feel a little bit of genuine excitement myself.“I guess that I’m not going to be able to just walk to your house anymore after school.” I say. He turns, his afro kind of swishing from the small wind gust when he moved his head. “Oh yea, I completely forgot that you had school huh? We can make something work okay, don’t worry about it.”
That’s what I like about Ray. No matter how hard the circumstances he’ll always make something work. Especially if it has something to do with his friends. He came to the Starbucks a little bit blind-sided didn’t he?
Without another word we got out of the car and I followed him into his house.
His house was a dark pastel blue and it had white shutters around all the windows. The lawn looked like it was being kept up on at least twice a week, and the smell of irresistibly good pot filled my nose. Ray might have moved really far from the school, his past, and me, but nothing has actually changed in the sense that he’s still Ray.
We enter the house and I find myself looking for Gerard everywhere. But he’s nowhere that I can see. I hear Ray come in behind me and close the front door. Ray’s house was simple. Maybe a little too simple. When I see Ray I see color, and happy, and crazy, but the only thing I was attracted to was the freaking music studio that replaced his living room.
“In the car I texted Mikey and asked him if he could lay out the song lyrics on the counter for you before we got here and… oh well look at that! He laid out some lovely newspapers instead.” Ray scratched his head and grabbed the newspapers off the counter, ripping them into shreds all over the floor.
“Everything okay?” I ask him. He just laughs though. “I’m totally fine it’s just that Mikey can’t seem to do one fucking thing that I ask him to anymore. The thing is, HE has all the song lyrics and he went down to the Orchards Tap with G and Jenna. They could be back anytime from ten minutes from now till’ three days from now. And that’s a bit problematic considering you need to be back home before the day is over and we might not have another opportunity like this one to get you up here for another week or two after today.”
I was bummed; I mean really Mikey, what the hell. I don’t even know who he is but I don’t have to know him to know that he’s a frustrating one. Being in a band with him and G…what am I going to do? I can barely function without G even here.
I wanted to practice some songs. I really did.
“Can you text or call him maybe and see if he’d be willing to come back with the songs?” I ask with one last shred of hope. Ray let’s out along, heavy sigh and pulls out his phone, and before I know it, he’s looking up at me with a big juicy grin on his face. “I just texted Mikey and they’re all on their way back. He apologizes to you for the wait.”
Happiness bubbles up in me. “Awesome, can’t wait for them to get here.” I say. “You going to be okay with Gerard here?” He asks. I nod my head yes. “I’ll try and keep it together. I think I can manage.”
“Okay. Tell me if you start to get uncomfortable or anything though. Last thing I want is for something to get awkward. Anyways, follow me. I can show you some of our already recorded songs-the instrumental version of them, before they all get here.” He says, tucking his phone away in the pocket of his pants.
So I do just that and follow him past the kitchen and into the music room-which looks like it was originally a living room but was transformed into something literally hella awesome.
There’s a black drum set in the corner of the room, black, red, and white electric guitars lined up against the wall next to the drums, along with an awesome bass guitar, a huge keyboard set up in the center of the room with a microphone place in front of it. On the other side of the room from the drums, there’s a desk with a laptop on it and three foot high stacks of papers.
There is also studio equipment like synthesizers (I think. I’m no music professional) put up on the desk and a bunch of other futuristic looking equipment, made to make music sound better.
To the right of the desk there was a black acoustic guitar plugged into a small amp. Man, I really like their set up here. This is awesome. “How have you guys been able to afford all this equipment?” I ask. He lets out a really loud and un-attractive laugh. “We can’t afford any of this‼ It’s called debt my friend. I’m pretty sure I’ll still be paying off the music store when I’m 45 or until our band takes off into the clouds and we’re able to pay everything off sooner. But the thing is, we all have so much hope for this band that the fact that we’re in debt doesn’t cross our minds really ever. Music is a passion of ours, and being a famous band is becoming more and more of a dream. Don’t ever let something as minor as debt-something that won’t always be there-ruin your dreams, do you hear me?”
I understood. And everything that he was saying only made me want to be in this band more. I never would have guessed that this would be where me and Ray ended up in life. “I get it Ray. That’s awesome.” I say. “Here, listen.” And before I can say anything else he’s holding out his phone, which is playing a line of amazingly fast, rock chords from the electric guitar, and fast beats of the drums. I was picking up some really pretty notes from the piano and bass guitar, and all together, they sounded so amazing that I’m surprised they aren’t already famous. “This song is called, ‘Surrender the night.He says.
“I feel like if I sing in that song, I’m gonna screw it up.” I say. My voice was nothing to freak out about. It was nothing special at all. “Aww, I’m sure it’s not that bad Frank. Besides, we can make it sound good with all our new equipment.” I roll my eyes and flicker a glance over to all the futuristic looking equipment on and by the desk. “Wow. Rude.” I say. He chuckles. “Well it’s tru-“ But before he’s able to finish his sentence Mikey, Gerard, and Jenna all come barging in the house all happy and laughing, giving a friendly nudge on each other’s shoulder back and forth, and teasing like they’d known each other for a million years.
They all treated each other like siblings. As jealous as I was to have that brother-sister relationship with my friends like that, I was happy as hell for them all. They were enjoying each other’s company and embracing this “band” dream of theirs.
“So this is the Frank you were texting me about!” Says Mikey all enthusiastic. He walks right up to me, abandoning G and Jenna and opens up his arms for me to…hug him? I wasn’t sure so I just froze up and stood in my place, not moving a muscle. “Jesus Christ you’re awkward.” Mikey says to me. “Let me try.” Jenna says walking up to me as well. She opens her arms. I don’t know why but hugging her seemed like it would be more awkward to do considering everyone was watching and anticipating my next move. Mikey is right, I am awkward, but why are they doing this? They’re asking for awkward.

I remained still where I was though, refusing to feed their hunger for the “awkward Frank show” And Jenna put her arms back down. “Gerard you try.” She tells him. But he wasn’t here we all realized. “What? Where is the peanut?” Mikey asks. Ray looks over at me as if to say, “I’m so sorry about these guys.” Jenna walks over to the keyboard next to Ray and starts playing all these amazing notes with ease and perfection. I was so jealous.
“Forget about G. He’ll be back. Probably just out taking a smoke break or something.” Ray says. “Anyways, for now we can get you all set up with the mike, Frank. Mikey, can you get him set up by the keyboard with that?” Mikey grins and does a soldier salute at Ray. “Aye Aye captain.” He says, and begins to un-plug and then re-plug some stuff in next to the microphone. Literally like ten seconds went by before they were already to hear me sing.
My hands shook and I was sweating even though there was no reason to be. (Other than the fact that my anxiety was soaring) Jenna stopped with the keyboard and they all stood in a circle around the microphone.
“Wait! What song is he singing?” Mikey asked. Ray winked at me. “Give him the lyrics to the song, Surrender the night. But also have him listen to the version with Gerard singing in it before he starts. Otherwise he’ll be clueless as to when to sing and stuff.” I swallow hard.This is like an audition to the beginning of the rest of my life.
Mikey walks over to the desk, grabs a couple papers, hands them to me, pulls out his phone, and before I know it, I’m listening to the same song that I was before but with a voice singing so perfectly that I’m surprised it was G’s voice. He has not only a voice that matches the instruments so very well, but it’s also…almost kind of pretty. In the best way.
The song ended and I felt like I could do a decent job of replicating it. Sort of…
“You think you can do this now?” Ray asks all babyish. I sigh and look over at Mikey. “Hit play damn it.” And before I know it, I’m pouring my heart out into the song. Feeling the lyrics, hitting the right keys at the right time, just completely losing myself in the entire structure and rhythm of it all.
When it was over I open my eyes. (realizing that they had been shut the through the whole song) And the first thing I see is Gerard, standing behind Mikey, Jenna, and Ray. He’s leaning up against the wall. He’s smiling. That made me so happy to see him there. He was listening to me sing HIS song and I just can’t figure it out but there was something so satisfying to know that he listened.
G looks like he’s about to say something but all the sudden everyone else breaks out into a chorus of, “Oh my god you’re amazing!” and “You can totally be our vocalist!” and, “Were definitely going to be famous with him here.”
But something wasn’t right. All these things they were saying all felt amazing but at the same time, it’s like they were dissing on Gerard because he is currently the vocalist in their band. I can only imagine that he feels like crap right now, listening to them bombard me with compliments that should be said to G.
“You guys think so?” I ask. They all aggressively nod their heads. “Uh huh! Absolutely!” Jenna says.
She was so pretty. She had long black hair that was cut all “scene” and it laid so gently just over her shoulders. Her eyes were the most pretty brown. (Almost) like G’s. No eyes can quite compare to G’s eyes.
I glance behind Mikey, Ray and Jenna to see if Gerard is still there. He’s not though. He’s gone. All the sudden Mikey’s phone buzzes and he exhales sharply as he pulls it out from the pocket of his pants and reads something on the screen. “What the hell?” He asks kind of dumbfounded.
A feeling deep down inside me knew who it was messaging Mikey. It was Gerard. And nothing could have ever prepared me for the moment when I heard what Mikey had to say. I see Jenna’s and Ray’s expressions both change from all “excited” to worried in, like, two seconds. I bet that they have a feeling too.
“Gerard is going to kill himself…..”Mikey says.

Notes