Didn't Know It Before( An EJ Caswell/HSMTMTS Fanfiction)

Chapter Two: The Middle Of Starting Over

I took the bus home, eager to get back and prepare my audition piece for tomorrow.

I've never been in a show before. I always wanted to but I was way too terrified of singing in front of people but this time...something about seeing the change in Nini today makes me want to be more than that. I don't want to be just the shy, quiet, invisible girl that nobody notices or cares about. I don't want to be the person that people look back in the yearbook and think 'I don't even remember her'. I want to be something better.

I climbed off of the bus, offering a quiet 'Thank you' to the bus driver before running up the sidewalk and through the front door, putting my keys on the ring. I walked into the kitchen to get a bottle of water when I saw the note on the fridge.

Megan,

Dad and I are staying late again. We have that big presentation coming up. We've left Pizza money on the counter.

-Mom

I rolled my eyes, crumbling the note up and tossing it aside before opening the fridge and grabbing my water bottle.

My parents are basically absentee. They're never home. I don't even remember the last tie one of them was home for more than an hour, and even when they are home, they're working, so basically being ignored is my entire existence both at school and at home. Maybe...that's why I want to do this so badly.

I put my backpack down on the floor, sitting on my bed ad beginning to think about which High School Musical song I could do. But wait...everyone is going to be doing an HSM song. If I really want to stand out, which is kind of the whole point of this, then I should do a different song. Maybe an Original. I thought back to the notebook that was lying in my backpack with the unfinished lyrics filling its pages. 

Its a song about...wanting to grow up. I just want to graduate High School, be the person I want to be, study music, but everyone, mostly my parents, are constantly telling me that I need to slow down and live in the moment. They keep telling me that I'm too young to understand how life really works or...understand love.

To be fair, I don't know how it feels to be in love with someone who actually loves you back. I've had a huge crush on EJ Caswell since I was a Freshman and he was a Sophmore. I am really good at English, so I was put in an AP English class that was mostly geared towards older students, like EJ. We read Romeo and Juliet, and we had to pair up and do a project which...is easily one of the worst things I can imagine. I was so nervous but...then I got paired up with EJ. He was so nice, and tried his best to make me feel as comfortable as possible.

Just to hear him talk...I don't know how guys feel talking to him but being a girl talking to him, he...he makes you feel like you're the only girl in the world. He would tell me how smart I was, and how lucky he was to have me as his partner, and for the first time I think in my entire life...I believed him. He made me believe that I really was all of those things and...I just blubbered on like an idiot.

We haven't talked since and...he probably doesn't even remember that project. Or me.

But I remember him. I think about him everyday and I watch him from the back of classrooms and across cafeterias and...he's magnetic. He demands attention and I...well, I repel it.

But maybe this is my opportunity to change that! I'm sure EJ's going to audition for the show, so maybe I can show him that I can be more than the socially awkward train wreck that I was when we worked on our project together. But more importantly...

Can I show myself that? 

I grabbed my notebook out of my backpack and began flipping through it 

I had so many ideas for songs but...I'd never actually finished one. It was going to be a challenge for sure but for the first time in my life...I think I'm up for a challenge. 

I flipped to an empty page and began thinking about what I wanted my audition song to say about me.

Cast, out to sea. Drifting with the tide, and no way of finding me.

I'm invisible. Its so easy for me to get swept up in the more courageous students at East High, to the point where if I don't do something, no one is even gonna know that I'm here. But this audition is going to change that for me.

But now, that I'm free. Nothing but Blue Skies, Paradise in front of me. Awake from this dream. I hold my breath and just believe.

Tired of all the troubles, they've been wasting my time, I don't wanna fight, gonna leave 'em behind, Taking on faith, now I'm ready to fly, I'm in the middle of starting over.

I laughed out loud, clapping my hands together as the lyrics began to flow on the page more smoothly than they ever had before, and I began to write. This song was everything that I am feeling right now. I'm so sick of being where I am. I'm tired of being afraid to show people who I really am, I'm tired of being invisible and friendless. I want to be more than that.

This audition is going to be a new start for me, because no matter what part I get, its going to be a part, on stage, in front of people, and for the first time in my life, people are actually going to see me...maybe even my parents.  I couldn't stop smiling as the song came to life, and before long, I had the notes in my head.

This is the moment that changes everything.