"That's so mature! Blame me!" Blake called from the front seat, making the two of us chuckle.
"Good morning!" Finn brightly chirped from the other side of Chad, unzipping his backpack on the floor in front of him. "I brought some bagels from the continental breakfast."
"Thanks, Finn." Blake said as he was handed one.
"Thanks. I knew we kept you around for a reason." I took one with sesame seeds on it. "Did you score any cream cheese to go with these?" He passed me a small packet of strawberry jam and a knife instead. I took a bite out of it, humming when I tasted the strawberry.
"Food might help settle Will's stomach." Blake informed everyone. I hadn't noticed my stomach was doing somersaults until he said someone. We made eye contact.
"Your brother knows everything." He said mysteriously before turning back around the face the front. I stayed animated as everyone talked, but my stomach was now starting to churn. Usually my nerves would be settled by food, he was right, but today it was as if I hadn't eaten anything still. I watched out the window as Big Ben started to draw nearer from the distance.
At a traffic circle I brushed all the crumbs off my lap, trying my best to look presentable. Almost a block away and I began to saw the very end of a very long line, and from there the crowd just grew. A few of the people in the crowd noticed the black SUV for what it was and began screaming. Signs and banners went up from the sound of the screams and the crowd turned the noise into a deafening roar that could be heard from the inside of the van. The signs had our faces on them, or a song lyric on it, or some girls dirty fantasy of what she'd do to us. The majority of the signs were handmade, with a few merchandised posters mixed within.
Our van came to a complete stop at the front of the doors where the group was the most compact. I made eye contact with a short brunette girl who had to have been around my age, holding up a sign with my face on it and wearing the band shirt that had sold out the first week of our last tour. I wasn't sure if she could see me looking at her through the tinted glass. At the very moment I was wondering about the glass, she began to scream my name in a frenzied state. Blake let out a nervous laugh from the front seat at seeing all of the fans. I had to admit, seeing that many adoring fans would make anyone get butterflies.
"This is it." I announced as our body guards, publicist, and manager came around to my side of the van and flew open my door and Blake's. The screams of the fans became almost deafening outside of the car.
"WILL! I LOVE YOU!" The girl who I was just staring at screamed. I smiled and waved, staring behind my brother as we started walking behind our manager Jeff. Body guards were on each side of us, but gave us a little bit of room in case we wanted to interact with some of the fans. Blake took an album from a girl on the right and grinned at me, being my cue. I went over to a girl with curly hair and braces who was waving her pink camera in the air.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Diane."
"Do you want to take a picture with me?" I shouted over the screams. She nodded vigorously. I leaned as close to the barrier as Guido would allow and smiled at the camera lens as it clicked.
Violet
I woke up slowly, trying to hold onto the fragments of a dream already halfway forgotten. I had been having a dream about the ocean, but that's all I could remember.
"I'm a teenager today." I mumbled to myself as the realization began to come creeping in. I was more alert now that it had just dawned on me. Today was my birthday, and I hated it. I hated birthdays, but mostly I just hated growing older. In another sixty years I might be in a nursing home, unable to remember my own name. It didn't sound like something I should be worrying about the day I turned thirteen, I know, but the next sixty years would be gone before I knew what was happening.
