The Existence of Carrie Griffith (5SOS) [Editing]

Chapter Forty-Four: Are You Ready?

Sunday was filled with sleep and food which was perfectly fine with me. Michael and I ended up going out for lunch and while many grew suspicious, we declared that we weren’t together and we were just going out as friends. The crowd seemed to calm down and believe us which we were so thankful for. We chatted over toasted sandwiches and coffee which was comforting and homey. The sandwiches tasted like the ones my mum made.

Monday was filled with meetings which bored me to death. I ended up writing several poems about how bored I was. The meetings had nothing to do with me. They were all about when we were going to release the song we’d recorded. We then listened to it over and over again. It felt weird listening to my own voice. I took a cab back to the house and left the boys to do all the other businessy stuff. I had no business being there.

I was eating Pringles when they got back and they all looked exhausted.

“You had the right idea to leave when you did Carrie. Oh my god it’s one fucking song!” Calum groaned. “So much havoc over one fucking song!” He fell on the couch beside me before stealing the tin and emptying the contents into his mouth. I said goodnight to all of them before having a shower and working on the video I’d neglected. I just needed to finish the backing music and we were golden. I’d decided against showing them while we were in LA and instead opted for show them when we got home to Sydney.

**************************

Tuesday I got up at 6am sharp and went on a run with Calum to the beach. He then went on to force me into doing the Hood boot camp which involved running up and down the beach, 10 burpees, 10 squats, 10 squat jumps, 10 push ups, 10 sit ups and another run along the beach. I was exhausted. And unfit; Calum had to give me a piggy-back back to the house. We got back at 6.30 and I had already planned what we were doing that day since they had planned every other day.

“Ok. Everyone needs to be fed and ready to go by 7.30.” My voice rang through the house. I heard several moans from upstairs and knocked on each of the boys’ doors. “C’mon you fatsos, hurry up!” I banged on all their doors like an annoying alarm clock but it seemed to work because Luke, Ashton and Michael all ended up facing me in the end, with bags under their eyes and loathing written all over their faces. “I’m not joking. Get, ready, now.” I felt like Sergeant Callahan from Police Academy. They all seemed to notice the growl in my voice and they were soon at the table eating either Lucky Charms or Vegemite on toast.

They were all ready by 7.30 as instructed. I hadn’t told them what we were doing so it was all mysterious. I played 5SOS songs in the car courtesy of Ashton’s iPod and we all sang along. I sat in the front next to the driver, making sure he didn’t reveal too early where we were headed. We got there at about 8am. Right on my schedule to ensure maximum entertainment. We arrived at a video game arcade and set the boys loose. They went insane, running around to every single machine they could get to. We had to be out of there by 9.45 so we had almost two hours of video game insanity. Well, I only used a grabber machine so I wasn’t exactly having a ball, but this was for the boys, not me. I ended up joining Ashton for a game of air hockey against Luke and Calum – Carton vs Cake – before getting a coffee from a nearby Starbucks and sitting down to watch the lunacy unfold.

At quarter to ten, I managed to drag their childish butts out of there, much to their annoyance and forced them into the car before calming them down with some Nirvana. At about two minutes to ten the car stopped we climbed out and the boys were faced head on with their surprise; Universal Studios.

“Whoooooa!” Calum cheered as he ran around in a circle.

“You’re shitting me. Thanks Carrie.” Luke smiled.

“Oh my God! I’ve always wanted to come here but we’ve never had the time!” Ashton yelled.

“Well go on. The gates open in less than a minute.” I handed them their tickets that I’d bought and printed off the previous night in secret. They all ran ahead to the gate and had their tickets scanned before stopping suddenly. “What’s wrong?”