sincerely, asher

twelve

ASHER

I tried calling her. I tried calling the woman who once held me in her arms and sang soft lullabies in my ear to get me to go to sleep, the woman who kissed my knee cap when I scuffed it against the concrete while playing footie, the woman who told me to never fear, but yet feared her own life because of me, the woman who I turned my back on willingly, the woman who accepted my anger, hate, and rage as innocent and pure love.

She didn't answer. She didn't answer her little boy because he's grown up. He's grown up into a man, a man who spent a year losing himself in a whisky bottle and a spliff, a man who tried to come home to provide for his mum and brother, but got scared and ran away, a man who let the mistakes of his father rule his life, a man who keeps failing and failing and can't stop, a man who is losing himself again, a man who hates himself because he's become a spitting image of the man he hates the most.

I couldn't let the continuous ring on the other line get into my head though. I couldn't let it morph me into a miserable human because I have a perfect and beautiful soul waiting on me in Boston. Harley, she's waiting on me. She's probably sitting on the cheesy plaid couch in her living room under her parents' shrine of their rock and roll past. She's got her hands in her lap and she's twiddling her fingers, trying to fight back a small smile to avoid her soft dimples from popping out. The smile moves from her perfect lips to her innocent brown eyes, crinkles working their way around her eyes, making her youthfulness apparent. She probably has on a big t-shirt, hiding her sinful, unnoticeable curves, baggy sweatpants that cuff around her ankles, and her black sneakers covering her feet. I want to see her hair in a ponytail and vintage glasses over her eyes. I want to see her sweet, tired morning self. She's in Boston, more than likely looking so sweet and kissable, and I'm in New York City, a good four hours away from those soft lips and innocent eyes.

"Ash-hole," I hear from behind me and I turn around to see Sketch looking at me. He points down to my abdomen and says, "Play, you arse." Oh. I have a guitar in my hand. I don't even remember picking it up. Wait, we're in rehearsal? Since when? Asher, you've got to get the hell out of your head.

I look at Diana and mouth what are we even playing, and she stifles a laugh and mouths back, Time Still for the twentieth fucking time today because Sketch is obsessed with it. She's right. He's fucking obsessed with this song. We have to move on. I know I haven't even been playing, but this crowd won't want to hear Time Still twenty times. They'll want to hear a variety of things they know and things that our own.

"Sketch, mate," I ask, letting go of my guitar, letting it hang from my shoulder. "Do you, perhaps, think we might be able to move on to another song? I personally think we have Time Still down to a perfect tee.."

"How would you fucking know? You've been in la la land for the past forty-five minutes, thinking about the tits of your girl back in Boston." Did he just say that about Harley in front of everyone? "We'll move on when I feel like it."

I clear my throat and take off my guitar. I'm not putting up with his shit today. "Someone can come get me when you move on to a new song. Not playing that shit anymore." I walk off the stage and out the door, into one of the side rooms Jay has reserved for us to relax in. I pull my phone out of my pocket and go to Facebook. I haven't been on there in fucking ages. So fucking long, my picture is one from primary school and it says I still live in Yorkshire. My bio says, "smoke weed, fuck bitche$" and I want to internally cry at my immaturity level then.

I click my profile picture and change it to an updated one, a picture with me holding a guitar on stage and I'm wearing a black t-shirt, the new and kinda, sorta, maybe improved Asher Lancaster. I click my bio and just erase everything. Those kind of things are bullshit and no one needs a biography to know me. If I want someone to know me, I'll tell them. Bios are false representations of who a person wishes to be, not who they actually are and that's pathetic.