Book 1: Echoes Of The Past

Chapter 13 - **Shannon's POV**

I was desperate for another coffee. Not only was my energy sapping from me, it was also freezing outside and despite wearing bike leathers, the desert climate in LA was pretty chilly overnight and into the early hours until the sun came out and you could feel it warm up.

The coffee they had on set was that bulk-buy shit, regurgitated commercial crap that tastes like licking the inside of a toilet bowl; not that I've ever stooped to the need of wanting to do that.

I'd brought my own stash of coffee beans with me and had already requested my trailer to have a percolator. To be honest, over the years of filming these music videos for the band, I had become wiser to my past mistakes and that's why I had insisted on having one in my trailer.

One of those mistakes and probably the key to my coffee downfall had been when we had filmed the video for 'A Beautiful Lie' in Greenland. We were there for a week, and it had been the most miserable week of my entire life, purely because I had forgotten to bring my own coffee with me; I had been a complete ass. Needless to say, I learnt my lesson.

As I made my way back to my trailer—we had done about six takes already of me on the bike by now and I wasn't doing anymore; I thought about that kiss that I had also surprised myself with earlier on when I had kissed Ivy.

She had got in such a state once she had actually read Jared's transcript for 'Hurricane'., that I could see she was starting to have another panic attack.

I grabbed a hold of her by her upper arms and made to calm her down by breathing slowly with her and getting her to count, to distract her until she eventually seemed to be more or less normal again.

We talked for a bit afterwards and I teased her about my brother. They had always been close, even when we were younger; to be honest I had always been very jealous of their friendship and maybe the way I had treated Ivy, reflected that.

She'd told me that me teasing her about him eye-fucking her wasn't helping with calming her nerves and she'd looked so lost and out of her depth, so innocent, that something inside of me was stirring, and it took everything inside of me not to defile her.

I suddenly found myself placing my lips on hers! I was just as surprised as her face was reading to me. Her lips were as soft as I remembered from that brief time we kissed before at hers, when she kissed me, and they tasted lightly of peach ChapStick. Her cheeks were flushed and I watched as her pupils dilated.

I waited for her to slap me round the face or something as I know how much she dislikes me and that's all of my own making, I know that.

Pulling quickly away from her, I made some excuse that they needed me on set to film my part with the bike, but she asked me what just happened?

I decided to tease her, because that's the kind of dick I am, and I just replied, 'practice'. I knew she was going to kill me later for that.

Later, once I returned to my cabin under the premise of getting another coffee, I was shocked to open the door to my cabin and find my brother kissing her! I was so shocked that all my dumb ass could get out was, 'Oh, sorry.'

I had no idea Jared saw Ivy like that. Growing up they had been incredibly close, but I'd always thought he'd seen her as a kid sister to us. I always thought she may have had a bit of a crush on him.

I wasn't entirely surprised though. Given the choice of the two of us, most women usually flocked to my brother. He's the one with the charisma, drive, opulence. He's the one with the talent. It was even his idea that we started the band, although he came up with it with me in mind.

Long after Ivy had moved to LA from leaving Louisiana behind after Jack cheated on her, I went down completely the wrong path in life. No-one knew my exact reasons for doing this, and I haven't even told Jared the true reason, and if I can help it, it'll stay that way.

When Ivy had moved away it broke my heart in two. When she left, a piece of me died. For the longest time I had liked her; despite her being nearly ten years younger than me, and gradually over time that lust had turned into love for me. So, I did the only thing that I could think to do. Push her away.

If she wasn't there I could get on with my life. I could focus on the things I enjoyed doing. My bike, fighting and fucking.

I didn't realise how much her departure would tear me apart. I could have killed Jack for how he treated her, he didn't deserve her. The number of times he cheated on her; and there were far more than she even knew about, pissed me off no end.

After she left, my life completely spiralled out of control. It was no secret that I had been bunking off school and because of this I'd had to complete a couple of Grades twice over before finally all but dropping out. She had left after completing only one semester at Bossier City Community College.

I knew mum was concerned about me and so was my brother. We'd had numerous conversations and numerous fights that ended up with me moving out of the house and moving in with some of my biking buddies.

Once that happened, I didn't care about anything. I was drinking, fighting and smoking. I'd been arrested on a few occasions as well; luckily no one of which accumulated in me serving any jail time. I'd become so self-destructive that I just didn't care anymore about myself, my life, my family, nothing.

It took for me to have done coke and Xanax for 3 days straight, which then ended in me overdosing and waking up in hospital surrounded by wires and tubes and my mother, Constance, crying her eyes out, worried that I was dead — If only Ivy knew. If only she knew what she had done to me.

Jared told me after the hospital incident that I needed to get a grip on my life, I needed to change my life around, because the way I was headed I was going to only have two options. Jail or Death. And I knew he was right.

It was then that he presented to me about the idea he'd had of forming a band. It would give me a sense of purpose in my life, a direction and a structure to my day. So, I agreed to start Thirty Seconds to Mars with him. The band had literally saved my life and I owed everything to my brother for that.

I had been on top of the world, that was until I'd heard Jess mention that someone called Ivy would be filling in for Brittney on the set of the music video for our new and upcoming single, 'Hurricane'.

I mean, Ivy is a commonish name, but something just told me that it was going to be her. I just knew it.

It was after I'd been told that Brittney had had to be replaced, that I properly decided to read Jared's transcript for the video so that I knew what would be entailed for me and Ivy. When I saw what was initially written for me, I knew I couldn't do those things with her. I mean, I wanted to; God did I want to, but not like that. So, I got him to re-write it.

I was so anxious about filming our make-out scene; I'd finally get to do the one thing with her that I'd been wanting to do for years, and now I was acting like chicken shit about it.

That girl would be the death of me.