*ON HOLD* It All Started With A Dream- A Ross Shor Lynch Fanfic

Chapter One

"Hmmmm hmmm," I hummed to myself quietly. I strummed a couple of strings and wrote down the notes into my now tattered and torn song writing book.

Singing is my passion. Well no, let me re-phrase that. Everything that has to do with music is my passion. Ever since I was little, music's always played a vital role in my life; I can't live with out it. It's what I hope to do for the rest of my life.

My parents have definitely been the biggest supporters of my passion for music. Especially my dad. He was the one who taught me how to play guitar and piano, and gradually I taught myself how to play ukulele, something I'm pretty proud of, if I do say so myself.

My dad, though, he taught me how to listen to a song and play it by ear, and I thank the heavens for that everyday, to be quite honest. He was a music major at the Berklee School of Music in Boston, New York, which is where I want to go for songwriting once I'm done with high school, you know, follow in my dad's footsteps. He got his degree in music education and moved to beautiful Santa Monica, California to be a music theory teacher at the local performing arts high school. Which is where my father met my mother when she was there as the school's musical director. However, in 1993 there was a fire that started in the auditorium, burning it to the ground. My mother and father worked together to try and start fundraisers and different events to raise money to build a new auditorium, which I'm proud to say they did. Some like to say they brought the music back to the halls of the school. The sad thing is, the high school got shut down in 2010, due to lack of funds and kids in general, as a new performing arts high school had opened up in Los Angeles that offered "better things." So now the buildings used as a church for the high holidays apparently. Crappy, huh?

Back to my dad, though, it's been four years since he passed away from a brain tumor that the doctors said was incurable since it took up more than half of his brain. Watching my dad suffer for so many months sucked all the life out of my mom and I, and he knew it. So, one day he finally said he was ready. He was content with the life he lived and that was that. I don't really like to talk about it too much.

After he died, I became more closed off and spent my weekends at home instead of going out with friends. Since my mom lost her job at the high school and my dad died, she gave up on directing and now works at a real estate company which causes her to work long hours during the day and sometimes late nights. She busied herself in her job to try and distract herself from everything else, just like I did with my music.

We both kind of lost ourselves and who we used to be. Until one day, that is, my mom got fed up with us continuously moping around the house and gave me, and in some ways herself, one of her famous pep talks that was desperately needed and it opened our eyes. Together we got out of our "sad funk" and decided it was time to move on, as it was what my dad would have wanted us to do.

So, now, along with her real estate job, my mom is now the musical director at the local children's theatre which I help out with sometimes, and I have to say, some of the kids in there aren't half bad. She's also started dating around a little bit, but none of the guys she's been with have been like my dad, so she just kind of stops talking to them and waits for married friends to call her up and tell her about their friend who just got divorced who wants to start dating again. She seems pretty content to me, but I know how much she misses my dad and I catch her looking at old pictures and crying sometimes. It breaks my heart, but she always pulls herself together because that's what we do in this family.

As for me, I'm now in my summer before my Senior year with my 18th birthday right around the corner. The college apps, scholarships, and University tours have been exhausting and I can't wait to finally be on a plane to New York in a year. As for my music, when I got lifted from my funk, I started to take back my life and focus on my passion and somehow along the way I managed to put together a band. A cover band, mostly, unless I'm willing enough to share my music, which is rare. We perform every few days at a coffee house called "The Bean." It's a cute little cafe on the Santa Monica pier and it's my home away from home, as I like to call it.