CHAPTER 29:
"This is sick!" I walk around the small studio room. I admire all the equipment and tech items.
"I know right. Tyler and I have made a good amount of money within the last couple of months. We actually have fans!" Josh gushes as he hugs his practice drum kit. I smile at Josh's youthful aura.
Something about boys in bands makes me melt. I'm not going to lie; if a hot guy came up to me and said he was in a band, I would immediately be interested. Not only do I love music, I love boys who love music. Musicians are such dedicated and loyal people -- excluding a lanky, blue-eyed blonde boy.
Within the last week, Josh had really relieved me from all my stress -- not sexually. We made it clear the other day that our relationship will be completely friendly. Josh is totally hot; I'm not going to deny that and the sex was good, but nah. We did kiss a few times in the beginning, but it felt wrong. He didn't feel like Luke. I didn't feel the spark I felt when I kissed Luke. The kiss with Josh was simply mediocre compared to one of Luke's kisses.
I've told Josh everything about Luke. He practically tackled me to the floor when he caught me looking at pictures on him on my phone and on twitter. Josh obviously doesn't like Luke because last time he saw him, Luke gave him a good punch in the jaw. I think Josh hates Luke more than Josie does -- that's a lot. This week, Josh has been helping the 'healing' process of my breakup with Luke. Which is really kind of him. I would never think Josh would put my feelings before his.
Because I told Josh about Luke, he told me about this girl he was talking to. He says that they've meet from mutual friends in the music industry. The way he talks about her is so cute, his eyes light up every time he talks about her eyes and hair and voice. I can tell he's head-over-heels for this girl. He's only met her a couple of times. He hasn't told me her name because he thinks I might know her. He didn't want me to embarrass him with my fangirlness. It makes me so curious to know who he is talking to.
I'm super glad to have gotten closer with Josh again. This time around we both want to make it worth our while. We're really cool people and we get along really well. We seem to just click as friends. I'm really enjoying spending time with Josh.
"That's great, Josh," I look around the studio and sit on Josh's mahogany cajon.
"Remember when you came to one of my shows at a bar and nearly dropped my cajon off the stage while setting up?" he laughs.
"Oh my god! Yeah, and that was so embarrassing the owner of the bar thought I was drunk already. He was going to throw me out, but you had to calm him down," I laugh along as I try to make a beat. I failed because I have no musical talent at all. Actually, I don't have any talents. I'm a plain-jane.
"That was when we dropped our first album. Great times."
"Fuck, I love Vessel! I'm not just saying that because I'm bias, but it was such a good album," I gush over his and Tyler's first album together.
"I think I'm a Blurryface kind of guy," Josh winks at me.
"Blurryface?" I ask. Josh gets up from his practice drums and walks over to the stack of black CD cases. He picks one of and hands it over to me. I read the casing which says 'TWENTY ONE PILOTS: BLURRYFACE.'
"Holy crap, when did you guys release this?" I study the casing and the disc. It looked so legit.
"A couple of weeks ago. It looks pretty dope, right?" Josh asks me and I giggle at his choice of words.
"You know that day I came to the shop and we patched things up?"
"Yes, I do remember," I tell him as I try to find a walkman or anything I can put the CD into.
"You know how I was so happy?"
"Yes, I do," where to band boys keep shit to listen to music? I'm stressing out, I need to listen to this record.
"Well a few hours prior, Tyler and I got a call from our record company who got a call from Capitol. There's this artist that's thinking of having us be their support act for their U.S. leg of their tour! They've heard our new record and they really like it."
"That's so cool! I hope they do pick you guys to be their support band. Touring would be a great experience for you and Tyler," I give him a congrats hug.
"Tyler and I never really had enough fans to tour in big cities. This would be such a great thing to do to spread our music and expand our fanbase. God, I'm so pumped!" Josh jumps up and down. His happiness is making me super happy as well. He gasps and stops jumping. He grips my shoulders and looks at me with wide eyes.
"Marnie!" he yells.
"Josh!" I yell back.
"I just had the best idea ever."
"And that was?"
"If we end up touring with this artist, you have to come. Tour with us!"
"Touring seems so stressful. I don't want to be in your way," I look to the ground. I secretly did actually want to go on a tour. It would be so cool.
"No, you won't. It would be so fun to have you around. If you come, I'll get to tour the U.S. with my two best friends. You have to," he begs me.
"Josh, you know I don't want to be a hassle for you during that really fun time in your life. Plus, you don't need to feel the need to watch over me while I'm there."
"No that totally won't be the case. We can use the time to hang out and rebuild our friendship. Maybe I can introduce you to my friend that's a girl."
I contemplate my answer. It would be really cool to go on tour. It's always been a goal in my life. I like the idea of traveling and watching people do what they love. Plus, I am willing to patch up my friendship with Josh within the time the tour is going on. It would suck to start a new friendship with Josh then all of a sudden have to end it because of him touring.
"You know what? Fuck it, I'm young. I'm crazy. Let's tour!" I shout.
Josh returns the shout and picks me up off of my feet, "Yay, hopefully soon to be tour buddies!"
"Hopefully soon to be tour buddies!"
"Since you're hopefully going to be my tour buddy, you have to listen to Blurryface," Josh gets a walkman and two pairs of earphones, which I was stressing about looking for a few moments earlier. He puts the CD into the walkman and we listen to the songs. We listen to the album and honestly, I like Blurryface a little bit better than Vessel. Just a little bit.
I take off the earphones and nod excessively, "Shits good. Good shit, Josh."
"Thanks, Mar. I'm glad you like it even though you have bad music taste," Josh laughs.
I put my hand on my chest as if offended, "I do not have bad music taste."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't!"
"One word: One Direction."
"Josh, that's two words," I dead pan.
"You still like them."
"But, they're my guilty pleasure! Just like how you like Nickelback," I smirk.
"I know it's just the both of us, but I told you to never say that out loud. No one can know about it, okay?" he whispers as he checks around him for other people present in the studio room. We laugh and give honest truths about Blurryface. I look at the time and see it's almost midnight. I tell Josh I should get going before Josie freaks out.
Josh walks me to my car and says that he's glad we're friends again. I give him a grin and a hug before speeding off towards the direction of my house. I struggle with opening up the front door with my key. It always happens to me, I suck at opening doors. I never know when to stop turning the key and taking the key out of the keyhole. Once I finally get the door open, I enter the house and kick off my shoes. I see that Josie is lying on the couch face up with her phone being held high above her head.
"That's going to drop on your face," I warn her as I make my way into the kitchen and grab two beers from the fridge. I hear a 'plop' and Josie curse.
"Damn phone!" Josie joins me in the kitchen and takes a beer bottle from me.
"So where have you been, Missy?" she asks taking a swig from the bottle.
"Chilling with Josh," I tell her.
"Ugh, why him? You know I don't like him," groans Josie.
"You were hanging out with Tabitha and I didn't like her. That didn't stop you from seeing her," I argue. I roll my eyes at Tabitha's name. Hm, I wonder where she is and how the mommy-to-be life is going for her. I hope it's sucking ass.
"Damn, Mariko. You've got me there," Josie snaps her fingers and points at me. Josie looks to her phone and talks into her earphone's speaker bit.
"Jos, you know Michael won't go into cardiac arrest if you don't call him 24/7," I chug my beer down.
"You're right, but I will. I mean look at him! He's so perfect," Josie tilts her phones to meet my gaze. She nods at her phone and hands it towards me. I take it and plug in an earbud she handed towards me.
"Hi Marnie!" Michael shouts through the facetime call. I squint at the screen to see that Michael and Calum are both sitting on their couch again. Every single night that Josie facetimes Michael, he and Calum are on the couch playing video games or watching a movie. Michael and Calum makes a conversation about me and asks me why I've been so MIA lately on twitter and in the world. My reply was that I was just doing me in the last week.
"Have you guys seen Justin Bieber's peen pictures?" I ask the boys through the phone. I hear Michael groan loudly and Calum let out a laugh.
"Stop asking me about Justin Bieber's penis!" Michael shouts.
"Alright, Mike. Chill out," Calum pats his friend on the back.
"Wow, did you hear Michael groan. It was so hot!" Josie says to me and I cringe. If she said that a few months ago, I would totally agree with her. But now that we know them on a personal level, it's quite weird.
I decide to call it a night around one and I head to my bedroom. I get ready for bed and hop into it. Before I close my eyes and sleep, I check my phone. I haven't been on it all that much within this last week. I see that I've gotten a lot more followers on twitter and instagram.
I look through my missed calls and I see that I've got plenty from Luke. It's a reoccurring thing, his calls I mean. There hasn't been a day where he hasn't called since I've left California. But, I do notice something different than most days, I see voicemail messages from him. Luke has never left me a voicemail message. This is out of the ordinary for him.
I brace myself for what I'm about to hear. I make sure the volume is loud enough for me to hear and low enough for Josie not to. I'm not too sure what I am about to hear or if I'm ready to hear what he has to say. He was pretty smart for leaving a voicemail knowing that seeing the notification in my phone would guilt me to listen to it sooner or later. I click the blue play button and put the speaker towards my ear.
The line is stuffy and I can hear the traffic of LA in the background, "Marnie, hey. It's Luke, Luke Hemmings. You're not answering my calls and I know you probably won't anytime soon. I thought actually leaving a message with the operator asked would be a better idea then calling you all the time. I hope it is a better idea, god I hope you're listening to this. I felt the need to get this off my chest in some way or another. I've been thinking a lot since you've left."
"I just wanted to start off saying that I miss you. I miss you so much. I'm such an idiot for letting this happen. I'm hurting a lot myself, I can't imagine how you feel. I didn't mean for you to get hurt so badly. I hope you forgive me because I'll never forgive myself if you don't forgive me. Hopefully this changes your mind and you'll call me back. I really want to--"
The first voicemail ended and it still didn't change my view on Luke. I felt like he just wanted my pity and for damn sure he wasn't going to get it. I click on the next message and take a listen.
"Sorry, it cut off. Anyways, I really want to talk to you. Not through one-way texts and voicemails. I want to be able to hear from you. I've been thinking about what happened. I've thought about it every single day since you left. And fuck, I can't believe myself," I hear Luke's voice crack and he takes a deep breath.
"I know I told you I didn't know exactly why I did it. But, now I know. So please hear me out, babygirl. Remember the first night in LA? I told you about how I think I ruin everything, this whole situation proves I'm right. I never wanted to ever feel that way. I did it purely because I was scared. As you can tell, and majority of the fans, I was still really beat up about Aleisha. I wasn't over my relationship with her. But, you helped me. You made me forget about her in such a short amount of time.
" You changed my out look on relationships. I just thought maybe if I talked to Arzaylea a bit, she would be there when you break up with me. Trust me, you're going to break up with me. You won't be able to keep up with me, I'm a mess. I do stupid shit and I'm so awkward. Why would you want to be with someone like me. Without this band, I'm a fucking loser. I was a loser before this band and I'll be a loser after this band," Luke sniffles into the speakers. I hate hearing Luke talking bad on himself. It's so heartbreaking to hear him speak this way when he is a smiley guy for the media.
"I did it because I know you would break up with me one day. One day you were going to finally realize you deserve way better than a loser guy like me and leave me. That was such a stupid idea. I thought it would help me out in the long run, but it backfired on me in the worst way possible. I usually wouldn't give such a long apology and explanation, but you deserve it. You're an amazing girl and you're so amazing to me. I'm just an idiot for not seeing it earlier. Please, call me back so we can talk. You deserve to ask me any questions. I'll answer them for you. I'll be waiting for you're call, baby. Bye."
The voicemail ends, but my train of thought doesn't. I didn't know how to feel. I didn't know what action I should take. I should wait it out and maybe ask Josh for some advice. If I got to Josie, she wouldn't even let me say Luke out loud. She was angrier at him than I am. I lock up my phone ans snuggle into bed. My phone vibrates as my eyes begin to get heavy. I roll around and check the text.
Luke Hemmings: this is luke btw. just in case you deleted my number
Luke Hemmings: ps i know it's late. i just wanted to say goodnight.
Luke Hemmings: so goodnight lol. i hope you choose to reply to these texts after you listen to my voicemail. :-)
Me: goodnight luke. x
//
so here's the thing, i had this chapter all written out and shit. luke's bit was so deep and heartfelt. then i accidentally deleted it somehow and i had to rewrite this whole chapter. and i'm not happy with the luke part. i'm so mad at myself for deleting it. i'm going to sue myself.
ok bye. im still mad. this chapter sucks.