make-believe | jason newsted

viii

chapter eight: make-believe

As time went on, Jason was becoming extremely desperate. And being desperate was not a good look at all.

The song had been out for a couple of weeks already, and he thought he would've heard from the mysterious girl by this point. 

The band was starting to get concerned about Jason. He was too hung up over this situation and it was starting to affect the rest of them when it came time to do something else. 

Whenever they came together to work on the album, his mind was usually elsewhere. The band was tired of reminding him to keep focus, and understandably so. 

Jason kept coming to every session with a new song he had written about her in hand. As much as they wanted to support him, it was coming to a point where they had to put their foot down.

His mind was too preoccupied with this girl, bordering on obsessive. When they had downtime, he would mention her to the guys and how much he wanted to see her.

At first, they didn't care all that much. They were trying to support their friend who was searching for his "soulmate." With time, they expected him to get over it. The problem was that he never did. 

As time went on, the more he talked about her, they started to think that maybe she was just a figment of his imagination. After all, he only knew a few things about her. 

It had been months since the day of their performance and weeks since the song came out, but it didn't feel like that to him. Any opportunity for a girl to come forward was slowly starting to pass.

But Jason still tried to convince the band that she could turn up at any moment. He had a gut feeling about it, but to the rest of the band, it sounded like something a crazy person would say.

The chances of him actually meeting this girl were getting lower and lower as time went on, no matter how much he wanted to prove to them that wasn't the case. 

They were in the middle of another session when they decided to say something. Jason was venting to them about her again, and this time, they had to put their foot down.

Kirk spoke up first, hesitating to bring up the topic. "Look Jason, I get you like this girl and all, but don't you think it's time to move on already?" 

Jason went silent for a moment and stared at Kirk. "Move on?" That was out of the question, he wanted to be with her, and he knew she was somewhere out there. "No." He replied.

Lars rolled his eyes. "Have you thought that maybe the reason why you haven't seen her is because she isn't real?" He asked. It was a real concern, and they weren't trying to judge him.

The whole room got silent, and Jason's eyes widened at his accusation. He knew he didn't imagine her, there was just no way. He wasn't crazy, he was not imagining things, and she was real.

"You're only saying that because I was the only one who saw her, and you guys didn't." Jason got defensive, his voice coming out sharp.

"Okay, let's say you didn't imagine her," James chimed in. "It's been months, and you haven't seen her anywhere. She's probably not even in this city anymore."

Jason did not want to be dealing with this fake intervention they were doing right now. The last thing he needed was for the band to try and call him out for being too distracted by all of this. 

"I have to find her, I can't just give up on her. Isn't that why we put the song out?" He spoke softer this time, trying not to get so defensive with the band. After all, they were just trying to help him out.

"Trust me, we get that," Kirk spoke up again. "But thousands of people have already heard that song. Anyone could think the song is about them." Kirk said, trying to let him down easily.

Jason tried his best to ignore what they were saying, even though he started having similar doubts over the last couple of weeks. There was still nothing he knew about her except for her face.

Maybe his desperate search for "the one" was starting to cause more problems than help him. And in a state of pure desperation, he had imagined a girl as beautiful as her. 

"You talk about her like she's a goddess," Lars spoke up. "If it's too good to be true, it probably is." Well, if Lars had seen her, he would know that she was a goddess.

A brief silence fell over the four of them. Jason didn't want to listen to anything that they were saying, what did they know? 

"Let's just continue rehearsing." Jason muttered under his breath, turning away from them to grab his bass and trying to forget this conversation even happened. 

Jason didn't say anything after that. Maybe they were right, maybe in a moment of self-pity, his mind had played tricks on him and imagined a girl he would've wanted the most.

But he was still going to ignore their concerns and continue to keep an eye out for this girl. If he didn't, the regret of never being able to find her would taunt him for the rest of his life.

As much as it bothered the band, he wasn't going to give up on her anytime soon.