Mine - Luke Patterson (PRE JATP)

Chapter 11

We piled all the guys equipment into the back of my sisters truck, Luke ended up beating Reggie in calling shotgun. We pulled into the school to an almost empty parking lot and began to haul our stuff into the gym, where the homecoming committee met us, they told us where to plug in and hook up on stage, and then basically left and we had the whole gym to ourselves until people would begin to arrive. We sat on the edge on the stage while Luke, Reggie and Bobby tuned their guitars. Luke looked up and looked around of the gym and broke the silence with, 

"Just so it's clear, after today we're not playing another school dance."

"And why not?" Bobby asked, As I sat up from laying on my back with one leg hanging of the edge of the stage.

"Don't get me wrong its a good idea, but the only reason we got this 'gig' was because the school didn't have to pay us. They would of had to pay a DJ. No one probably even knows we're doing this." Luke said. 

"Yeah, and besides, Sunset Curve is to good for a school dance." Reggie said.

"True dat." Bobby added. Everything was silent as I landed my head back down and Luke said, 

"That's an odd thing to be doing before a performance." Gesturing to me. 

"To be fair I haven't done this before." I said. "I don't really know what one does before a gig."

"It usually looks like this." Alex said, "with some occasional sound check." He then proceeded to beat the crap out of his drums. "I'd say my drums sound great." Luke hit a power cord on his guitar.

"Guitars are good to go." He said rolling me a mic. I sat up holding the mic in my hand as they all just stared at me. "Cmon we gotta check all three." I sighed giving in and held the mic to my mouth still laying on my back and sang,

"I want your love, and I want your revenge, I want your love I don't want to be friends." The all five of us sang together

"J'veux ton amour, et je veux ta revanche, I don't want to be friends, I don't want to be friends, want your bad romance, want your bad romance!" All of us kinda of laughed together and after I said, 

"Mics are working." 

The doors opened and people teachers began checking tickets so we gathered our crap and went behind the curtains to prepare for my first performance. I'm terrified. We watched from behind the curtains as everyone piled in from both doors quickly filling up the gym. I just sat on a chair with a microphone in hand, gathering my thoughts. Alex came over and said,

"Hey your coming?"

"To what?" I asked.

"Cmon you'll see." He said pulling me over to the rest of the group. "We got this right guys." Alex said as all four of the guys put their arms around each other's shoulders and I did the same.

"Yup we got this. And after today, no more dances." Luke said. "You got this okay." He said looking at me. I nodded and they all put their hands in the circle and I did the same. "Sunset Curve on three, one two three."

"Sunset Curve!" We all cheered. We all walked out together, Alex took his place on his elevated drum stand, Bobby and Reggie to their mic stands on either side and Luke and I right in front of Alex's drums. Luke gave a head nod to the lighting guy behind the curtain who turned up the lights so we were actually visible to the crowd. I recognized the faces that lit up and cheered for us. The band kids, choir kids orchestra kids, anybody involved in music or had music dreams knew who we are, because we were the kids who are actually living what a lot of kids dreamed of doing but hid for fear of being made fun of. I knew a few of them had dreams of being big in music and I almost burst out laughing when I made eye contact with a boy in my Chemistry class because just a few weeks prior when he had asked me if I'd ever preform at a concert I said I would bury myself alive before doing anything like this, like singing for people, let alone this big of a performance. In front of the entire school.