First Chance : Rock Romance #1

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

"It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance. It is the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance. It is the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give. And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live."

Bette Midler

Natalie

"I think I just fell head over heels in love."

That's what my best friend Layla just squealed aloud to me.

She's staring at an album cover, drooling over the lead singer of a rock band I have never heard of. Don't get me wrong I love music, I breathe music. It's a part of my soul. I just have no interest in a mainstream rock band- sell outs really. Layla tells me the band's name is Steele's Army; their lead singer Steele is her dream man. The man she would give everything up for. A man she would follow anywhere.

She mentions that they are coming to our college in Boston. Our college, the Berklee School of Music, entered some radio contest, and we won. I do not want to go but am preparing myself to. I know Layla is going to use the friend card to get me to agree to attend this sorry excuse of a concert. What's one night of putting up with shitty soulless music for my best friend?

I've known Layla my entire life. Our parents were best friends, until tragedy struck.

I hate remembering those days. It always hurts. We celebrated every birthday and holiday together as a family. Living across the street from each other our entire lives, our parents being so close to one another, we would have dinner together every night. As a family. Rotating who would host.

Until five years ago, Layla and I were staying at my house having a movie night while our parents went to a sit down fundraiser dinner raising money for abused children. Our parents were always supporting charities. They were fortunate to have money beyond their wildest dreams. I also donate quarterly, mainly to charities for children or music programs, in memoriam of them.

I still don't know all the details, nor do I want to. I think it would fuck me up even more if I did.

Recalling that night. It was late, way past our supposed bedtime, when we heard a knock at the door. I paused the movie we were watching and answered the door. It was a police officer. He introduced himself as Officer Petty's. He asked if I was Natalie Wright. That being me of course, I said yes. He then asked if Layla was there and if we would come with him.

I should have known something was wrong when he wouldn't tell us why we were on our way to the hospital. In fact, he wouldn't tell us anything at all. When you tell someone that their parents are deceased and that her best friend's parents are in surgery, you don't want them to be alone.

When we entered the ER, he asked me if I wanted to see my parents' body, that's how we broke the crushing news. There was no way that I could handle something like that, and I really didn't wish to remember my parents that way, so I hastily declined.

Firstly, I was angered at the officer then at the doctors for not being able to save them. Then anger toward the cruelty of it all. What kind of person informs a fifteen year old that she is now alone in the world like that?

Later, I had found out that the officer did try to find out if I had any next of kin, preferring that they broke the news. I remember him asking if we would like to wait in the waiting room while Layla's parents were in surgery.

Where else would we have gone?

While we sat in that waiting room nervously awaiting news from the doctors on Layla's' parents condition, what was happening slowly sunk in. I became numb just feeling a wave of emptiness wash over me, my heart detaching itself from my emotions, no longer there. I was alone. They were my only blood family. My parents were both products of a one child family and my grandparents on both sides had passed way before I had made my way into this world.