Local Love

Chapter One: Blocked and Remembered

I fumbled through my patched up green message bag, that I'd had since this 6th grade, trying to find my house keys. After 5 minutes of finding nothing but the half of yesterday's clothes that aren't still on my body I just gave up. I let my back hit the brick behind me with a soft 'thud' and i slowly slid down until I was sitting on the cold sidewalk. I closed my eyes a breathed a few deep breaths before pulling out my phone to text my room mate, Tyson. Two failed attempts at a phone call and 4 unanswered texts later i left a voice mail saying I would be at my moms until he got off work to let me in, I needed to get some things from my old room anyways. 

When I got there I was greeted by an empty house, it was sunday so they were probably at church. I walked down the hallway for the first time in months, and slowly turned the dusty door knob, taking a few seconds to wonder what if would look like on the other side. When I finally walked through the door I saw it. Everything was exactly the same, except for one thing. A package on my bed. It was in one of those weird things, like a bag made of bubble wrap or something so they can ship small items without using a box. It was addressed to my House but it didn't say who it was from, in fact it didn't say my name either. All that it said was "Our Lovely". Gosh, its been years since I was called that. I wonder if it's really them. What would they want with me anyways? I see them all over the Internet, I don't need them in my house. The date on the package was almost 2 weeks ago. Mom probably thought it was some stupid magazine subscription or a trinket of some kind, considering that it didn't even have my name on it. 

I wasted almost 10 minutes thinking of reasons why they would send me something, and I couldn't find one. I took a deep breath and slowly opened the end of the package. It was grey tank that read "My Local Scene Is the SH*T" one of the originals, they had sold out of my size before I could get one, not like my mother would have let me wear it anyways. I held the shirt up to my body, I'd lost weight and either they had noticed or they just forgot what size I wore and sent me a small by accident. I folded it nicely and sat it on my bed. From the corner of my eye I saw a paper on the floor with a hash tag, it must have fallen out whenever I picked up the tank. I turned it over to see if the back had the typical "Thanks for supporting you local music scene, love brad and gaege" but this was different. It wasn't a thank you, it was something totally different. I had to read it outloud to convince myself what it said. "Love, I'm sorry. It was never your fault, really. We need you now more than ever. Please call me, even though I don't deserve it, much overdue love, your ginger".

What was I supposed to do now? Just forgive him for basically destroying my company and run to the rescue of his? Sorry to them both, but i wasn't ready to do that. I was in love with some one else, and not even gaege could change that. He had his chance. 

I spent the next few hours examining my life from the time I was 16 up until now, just a few months shy of being 20. Goodness, that meant Brad was nearing thirty, if not already had his birthday, and Gaege would be almost 28. So much could have happened. its been over 3 years since we last spoke. I remmeber when I first found them. I was one of the first 50 twitter followers, before Brad even took over. Thinking about it all brought tears to my eyes. I remember sitting in this old room and spending hours talking to them and trying to find ways to afford more of their stuff. One year I asked them to be my valentine, and the twitter stud that he was, brad of course said yes. That was the year that everything fell apart. Late september of that year my media business was finally up and running and doing well, i was so excited. Gaege had given me some great advice and helped me out anytime I had questions. Our friendship had grown so strong. I finally decided to tell him how I really felt, that I loved him, of course, how could I, I wasn't even 17 yet and he was in his 20s and had a child of his own to take care of. I don't know why I said it, but it sparked something in him. We spent a couple weeks talking and late one night he eventually told me he felt the same way. I told him goodnight and that he made me so happy. However, the next morning I woke up to find that their twitter and facebook weren't showing up, I had been blocked from both. At first I thought it must have been a mistake on their part but then neither of them were visible to me on their personal facebooks either. I was crushed,  I had no idea what was going on. All I knew was that getting to close only caused me to loose the only family I had, my TILL FAM. 

How was I supposed to believe in local love in my communities? Was I supposed to expect a large group of stubborn and independent teenagers, who all want to be rock stars, to love me and what I represent when I can't even rely on one man to do that? 

That was the last time I ever spoke to, or of, the guys from TILL.