Lovers Avenue

Addison.

As I strum the last chord on my guitar, I stare up at the audience. A few claps echo the room.
"My name is Addison Myers, you can find me on social media at AddisonMyers, and yeah, have a good night folks." I say breaking the tension in the air.
I wasn't playing to an arena, no where near. I was playing to a couple of old men who are regular liver destroyers at this bar. It was walking distance from my house, I lived in Birmingham. I'm American born and raised but we moved here for my dad at the end of the year.
I started fighting when I was six years old, I remember my first song was called 'Sunny Day', I had written it about a day that I had at a park with my friends, from that moment on I just didn't stop singing. I was raised in Chicago, I live there until I was 15 years old. All through high school I was teased and bullied because all I wanted to do was sing, I ended every single talent show but didn't end up making it, around high school I started to blossom, I actually put my audition forward for American Idol but I was too young, it just wasn't meant to be. When I was 15 we moved to Birmingham, I remember the move really well, it was like my whole life of changed. As much as I had amazing friends back in Chicago, I was at that point in my high school experience where I just didn't feel like anybody around me was real, they all felt like characters that were just playing in unessential part in my life. I wanted to pursue music, I wanted to be somebody who everybody idolised, I wanted to share the many stories and songs and I have written over the last few years, it was sort of, all I had going for me.
When we moved, my little brother Max, hated it. We moved for dad, he got a job at RedMine Construction, he hates his job, he moved and thought his promotion was good, but he ended up doing the same job, for less money, only perk, is he is now home on weekends. We've been here for five years, Mum was a stay at home wife for awhile until she started her own candle company, my mum has suffered with mental issues her whole life, she had a really traumatic experience happened to her for years ago, a year after we moved. She was so hesitant to even talk about it when I asked her, even though I was a little bit older to understand I didn't think it was something she ever wanted to share with me.
My dad took care of us for a while and she was very distant. She used to ask me to play my song sunflower for her every single night before she went to sleep, she said it helped her sleep better knowing that at the end of the day she has a familiar noise coming from a familiar face, her realities often got very mixed up, meaning that growing up, she was always very distant and scared.
Today is the beginning of a new year, it's currently March and i'm turning 21 in August, I know it's pretty far away but all of my hopes and dreams have been to save up all my money from my shitty waitress jobs and a save a bit gigging on the side, I still live at home, and now that high school is over, and I didn't really end up making any good friends, I guess I have more time to get into work and save for a holiday, but, I just have no plan on coming home. For now, I was arriving home, after my gig, I left as fast as I could, before the honest truths of drunken straight men at the bar, start flying my way.
"Hey honey, how was your gig." My mum says as I walk in the door.
"Shit, mainly just hecklers and old drunk men." I say back, dropping my guitar in its case on the floor.
"Oh honey, these things take time. You've been at it all school life, I'm sure your destined for something big." She exclaims back.
"Thanks Mum, I'm going to head to bed." I say and leave the room.
My mum was right, she always is about this kind of stuff. All during high school that was the only thing I asked her, I had a week period when I was 13, back in the states, where all week I cried about the possibility of not making it. I had written 2 albums over the last two years. My first one was called, "Sonder", the word means, understanding that someone else, is living just as much of a a complex life as you are. I wrote 24 songs for that album, I then wrote another one, a year ago. I put my songs into albums for the pure authenticity of having similar work that I made around a similar time or collectively put into one place, my second album was actually called, 'Addison', I looked at sonder, as my play around album, but Addison had songs that I really related. Songs for Mum, Dad and even max, he's now 15, the same age I was when we made the move, for him, being 10 when we left, meant, he hadn't even reached high school yet, he plays football and had the thickest English accent I've heard, stronger than his friends somehow?