chasing the dream, catching you

Chapter One

Are any of you guys only children? Yes? Well, I'm not. However, today I was wishing more than anything that I was. You want to know why? That's because my loving older sister, Carter, is the most pushy, thorn in my side, pain in the ass sibling you could imagine. She was twenty five and two years older than me. I lived with her in our family house that we grew up in. Along with her two year old daughter, Kennedy. The daddy was out of the picture. She was always the extrovert and I was the introvert. She was always loud and I was quiet. She was always willing and I was stubborn. We lived in Hancock County, Tennesee. Sneedville to be more specific. It was just the two of us. Our Mama died from Cancer when I was eighteen and our father was never in the picture. We both worked at our family owned cafe, 'Whiskey House'. Don't ask me why it was called that because I didn't know. My grandfather named it when he bought it. My best guess was the name stemmed from him being a huge alcoholic. Every friday night, we had karaoke and open mic nights. Those were the days I loved working the most, right up until today when Carter broke some news to me. She had overheard some people at our open mic night talk about me singing. Saying I had potential and all that kind of stuff, so what did she do? Took it upon herself to find my journal of songs and send them into record labels in Nahsville! I had no idea that she did this until I opened a later today that read:

Dear, Callan Grey,

     We are ecstatic to say that your application for the full time songwriter position here at 'Jett Records' has been accepted and we are offering you the job. Your first day will be Monday, August 5th. You will meet with one of our people for a tour and then our owner to get some scheduling set up. We can't wait to meet you.

Sincerely, Jett Records".

Talk about a shock when I opened that up. I fought with Carter for days about it saying that I couldn't afford an apartment down there, but of course she had already paid for one in Lebanon for me, which was 30 minutes from Nahsville. She told me not to worry about the cafe because she would take care of it. I fought so hard to not go, but guess what....at this current moment I was standing in the living room of my new apartment down in Lebanon. Carter won the battle.

"Cal, you know this is an amazing opportunity. You'll thank me one day" She says. We were organizing boxes of my stuff to go in the living room, bedroom, and kitchen.

"You say that now, but in two weeks when I'm back home with you because I can't do this, you'll eat those words" I say. She rolls her eyes. Her flowy brown hair bounced around as she shook her head. People always thought we were twins. We both had baby blue eyes and dark brown, wavy hair.

"How many times did you say that on the trip down here?" She asks. I put my hand up to my chin pretending to think about it.

"Hmm, I don't know. Too many? But it's true!" I say. She walks over to me and puts her hands on my shoulders.

"Callan, you are the strongest, smartest, most talented, amazing person that I know. You have earned this. You deserve this. You've got this" She says. I take a deep breath and nod.

"What if it's not worth it?" I ask.

"You will regret this if you don't give it a shot. I know you will. And it is so worth it" She says.

"How do you know?" I ask.

"Because it's your dream, and any dream is worth chasing" She says. That hit me. Back when I was eighteen, I was going to audition for 'The Voice', but that's when my mom got sick, so I backed out to help take care of her. After she died, I didn't think about every going after it again. "Don't you remember mama always told us to chase our dreams?".

"Yeah, I remember" I say.

"So, do that" She says. "And if you're not going to do it for you, do it for mama".

"I will" I say. "I'll make her proud". Carter pulled me into a tight hug. I knew she was getting ready to leave to go back home, but I wished she stayed. She pulled away.

"You already make her proud, and you make me proud too" She says. We start walking down to her car. "You call me after your first meeting on Monday. I want to hear about it. And, call if you ever need anything. I'll come down and visit, okay?".

"I will" I say.

"I love you, Cal" She says.

"I love you too" I say. She hugged me one last time before getting in her car and driving away. I walked back up to my apartment. I sat in the middle of the living room floor with my guitar. Let the chase towards my dream begin.

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