For The Win

Chapter 1

Tay Jardine looked out into the crowd. The blinding lights hitting her face made it hard for her to see where she was.

To her left, she saw her friend Cameron on the guitar, to her right she saw Jordan, just.. standing there. Having to do a double-take with Jordan, she realized that his light brown hair was starting to smoke. Not really sure if she was seeing it clearly, she walked closer. Sure enough his hair was smoking, and the closer she got the more it seemed to burn. She walked even closer to him and his whole head burst into flames. She fell backwards and hit her head on something hard, but just as she tried to stand up-

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!" Startled, Tay quickly sat straight up in her bed, and put her head in her hands.

"What is wrong with me?" she asked herself as she slammed off the alarm. She's been having dreams like this for the past few months. All of them having to do with playing shows with her band, and during those shows something would always go terribly wrong.

Tay looked at the clock and saw that it was 7 AM.

"Crap!" She ran out of bed, almost tripping on her dark grey cat sleeping soundly on the floor. "How did I not hear that damn alarm?! I was supposed to be up 30 minutes ago! I cannot get fired!" She mumbled to herself as she ran into the bathroom and started to run the shower. It was winter so she always had to wait a little bit longer for the water to warm up. She decided to brush her teeth while she was waiting.

She tried to squeeze the toothpaste onto her purple toothbrush but barely anything came out. "Are you kidding me? I just bought this last week!" She said as she squeezed as much as she could onto her toothbrush.

When she was done, she got into the shower. "Oh my god, what the..?!" The water was ice cold, but seeing as she was already late she didn't have time to sit and wait for the water to warm up any longer.

She got out of the icy shower, wrapped a towel around her body, and walked over to her closet. Picking out clothes never really took her that long, so she grabbed the first things she saw: A plain white tee shirt and black skinny jeans. "I wouldn't wear flared jeans if my life depended on it," is what she told her mother last Christmas when her mom tried to force her into a pair for family pictures.

Tay hurriedly dried her wavy brown hair with a blow dryer, not even bothering to straighten it. Then she put on her shirt, jeans and make-up in what seemed to be record timing.

She ran over to her closet once more and slipped on a pair of red Toms. Then, she headed to the full-body mirror and gave herself a once-over. "Well, it could be worse." She said to herself as she looked at her less than perfect hair-do and wrinkled top.

Looking at the clock and seeing she had only 10 minutes to get to work, she grabbed her black bag and cellphone, ran out the door of her apartment, and out to her car.

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"Got here just in the knick of time, Taylor! I was just about to give ol' Maxy here your job if you weren't on time!"

"Ha ha, very funny." Tay replied sarcastically to her less-than-favorite boss, Mr. Clemmons, as she pulled on her green apron and pinned on her nametag.

It wasn't that she didn't like her boss, she just didn't like what he said to her at times, like when he told her there was no need to look for other jobs "'cause you're gonna be working at this cafe the rest of your life! There's not much else a girl like you can do anyway."

She never understands what that old bald man means when he says "a girl like you." She didn't look very different, she wasn't uneducated, heck, she was probably the smartest one in the building. The only difference is the dream she had.