Band of Happiness

Band of Happiness Prologue

The beginning of the story goes a little fast and is a bit depressing, because it's hard to catch people up on the chaos that is my life. However, I'm doing it. I know I might regret it if anyone ever finds out, but this story isn't just fiction. Sure, some of it is just a fantasy, but I'm not going to tell anyone which part is. I want you to think of this whole story how you would- a fantasy at first glance, but a reality as you get engrossed, forgetting that this story is my life, and imaging it's your own. I really hope you enjoy it. -S

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"Welcome to Sea-Tac International Airport", the pilot said. What he probably should of said is 'Welcome to Seattle, home and birthplace of grunge, post grunge, and famously known as the home of Nirvana. Be careful not to get too attached to this place. Otherwise, you won't be able to live your life after you leave.'

This place hadn't always been my home. I had been coming up for the summers ever since I was 7 and my mom had found a new pilot boyfriend here. We moved when I was 11, and I changed schools when I got accepted into an international school. That's really when the story started. I started hanging with a group of so-called 'hippies'. It was mostly just guys from a school band, and some of the girls that hung out with them because they were tired of the preppy, cliquey girls. I was one of those girls. I loved music, and most of all I loved the feeling that I had a place I belonged. I didn't have to chase after these people because they accepted me for who I was.

I didn't exactly have the best past either. This isn't a made up story about some girl who turns into some drug dealer and gets accepted into a gang. Most authors that write about that have never even experienced something like that, and just want a chance to escape from their perfect little lives and find a world that they think of as fun and adventurous. The life I've been forced to lead wasn't as dark as some, but it definitely wasn't perfect. My parents got divorced when I was about 5, and I moved from Germany (my dad is German) to Philadelphia, where my grandmother lived. I still, to this day, have no idea why my mother chose to move in with that woman, especially since they had never gotten along perfectly. My mother was gone most of the time, working as a flight attendant overseas, and I went to school like a normal kid. I still visited my dad during the summers in Germany, and everything went great until I was 8, and my grandmother started drinking and getting in fights with my mom. They argued a lot, but it didn't really get that bad until my best friend's family needed a place to live, and we took them in. My grandma went over the edge, and for the next 3 years, my life was pretty much hell. I don't really want to get into too much of what happened, but my mom had a boyfriend that lived in Seattle, and she decided the best thing would be to move there. When they broke up 3 years later however, it went messy. Again, alcohol played a dramatic role in this, and after he threw me out of the house and threatened our lives, my mom went into a serious depression. I guess that was why she wanted to leave, but no matter how bad things got, I never, ever wanted to leave.

The band consisted of four guys:

Cole, the sandy, shaggy haired dream boy that somehow got girls to fall in love with him without even trying, even before they heard his Kurt Cobain-esque voice

Rick, the funny, sometimes really perverted skater dude that always seemed to say the funniest thing at the perfect time, and happened to play the drums excellently

Adrian, the French bass player with a non-jewish Ju-fro and (according to the band) an extremely hot blonde French mom that no one believed could produce Axel

and Nick. Nick was Cole's best friend, and the guy I fell head-over-heels in love with almost the first time I met him, which happened to be in a dating and relationships class for school. He wasn't to perfectly attractive, which I didn't mind because it kept him extremely hot but most girls away. He had really short, buzz-cut hair, similar to Eminem in Recovery, and played the guitar. He was perfect, and was the guy that I wanted. He didn't just reply to a girl with one word answers in serious conversations. He didn't talk much, but when he said things, they all had a place and meaning to them. He knew I liked him, and before I left, he liked me. We went to a dance together, as friends, but it was still something. My best friend there, Tasha, went with Coulter which was perfect, and my other friend Nia had opted to go with Rick. We all went as a group, and had a really great time. That was another reason it killed me to leave.

My mom was so messed up that she was flying all the time. Halfway through the year, she found this 19-year old, Mickie, to watch me. Before that I had been staying alone. Mickie was great. She loved the same kind of music as me, taught me how to play football, and helped me through the rough time I was going through. When my mom wasn't flying however, she was locked in her room, taking valium, anti-depressants, and getting drunk while she left me to take care of myself. It wasn't that she was a bad mom, it was just that she wasn't in a state where she could take care of me anymore. I mean, I was a size 0-2, and she had lost so much weight that she was too skinny to fit in my jeans anymore. That's why we had to leave, except that I couldn't live with her and her new boyfriend in Miami. That's why I moved in with my dad in Germany. When I left, Nick and I barely said goodbye. He'd somehow twisted his neck, and had to leave from my going-away party early, but as he drove off that night, he didn't even look back. He texted me some brief adios crap, which was sweet, but it still didn't really mean anything. We had never really gotten together over the year that I was there, but then again, I basically brought Nick to realize that having feelings for someone isn't that bad. When people found out that I liked him, everyone said that Nick wasn't ready for a relationship, including him. But I didn't just give up. I really liked this guy, and I kept liking him even when he drove away that night. I kept liking him when the wheels lifted off the runway of Sea-Tac International. I even kept liking him when I landed in Germany, and began the worst year of my life.

The following things happened to me while I was in Germany:

- I was bullied at my new school continuously

- I began smoking, along with the fact that I had already began to have a knack for partying and getting drunk, just as my family had done to escape from their problems (except for the fact that unlike my mother and grandma, I was 14)

- I began having insomnia and panic/anxiety attacks, sleeping an average of 4 hours every day, and crashing on the weekends

- I began to spiral into what was diagnosed as clinical depression, and was put on anti-depressants, just like my mother

- And I ran away finally, not really having a clue where I was going, but finally picked up by the police, who found my passport. When they asked where I was headed, I simply replied, 'home'. When they asked where that is, I told them to look on my American passport.

They didn't send me back, probably because they found a German passport on me as well, and I was registered as a German citizen, but it did make my dad finally realize that the reason I had insomnia and depression wasn't because of what I'd been through, it was about what I left behind. That's when he let me go back.