The Desired Effect ~ Cameron Liddell

Chapter 1. Just Look Up.

Months passed since the announcement of my favorite band finally coming to my town. Every day after school I got on the computer to check if the price had gone down - I had to convince myself that they wouldn't sell out so I could buy them at the door because my mom wouldn't let me use her credit card to buy them online. I also convinced myself that I would have someone to go with by then. Going anywhere for anything but coffee was the most inhumane form of torture imaginable, so going to such a big venue alone was completely out of the question. The only friend I had worth asking to spend time with outside of lunch hour at school was Kier, but every time I previously mentioned Asking Alexandria, I received the same reaction: "those bands are so gay". Completely hopeless, I spent the Saturday I had been waiting for in my room alone taking pictures and listening to music.

"Naomi." I answered the phone to his loud voice, throwing myself down into my narrow twin bed. A stray spring caught my tailbone but the pillow was soft under my head.

"Kier."

"Come to V6." A local club. "Like, right now."

"I told you, I have plans to sit and stare out the window longingly all night. I can't even get in anyways." The only reason Kier could get into V6 underage was because his dad owned the place and pretended he didn't notice the bartender sneaking him the odd long island iced tea. Kier thought that made him better than everyone else, but being able to go to the bar whenever you wanted in high school kind of did make you cooler than everyone else. We met in the beginning of highschool. I was the only alternative girl in our grade, and he was the outcast theater kid, so we had no one else to be best friends with but each other - it mostly a necessity, partially love.

"You'll thank me." He hung up. Curiosity got the best of me, so I put on the everyday uniform - shredded black skinny jeans, a graphic tank top, and a zip up hoodie - and I got on the bus. Asking for a ride from my parents never occurred to me because no one had driven me anywhere since I was old enough to walk. The bus was the best place to watch people, once you got over the smell, because whoever you saw wouldn't be there for long enough to speak to you. On their way to work, home from school, on their way wherever - it was the only real way that I kept up with the outside world. At school I never looked up from my books or my phone, and at home I spent all of my time in my room for fear of being spoken too by absolutely anyone. No one spoke to each other on the bus, though, and I could get my fill of humanity on the twenty minute ride downtown.

When the creaky old bus finally pulled into the station, I took a cigarette out of the secret compartment in my backpack and lit it just as the doors were opening. It wasn't a far walk between the station and V6, and if Kier's dad saw me smoking, he would call my parents, and then the world as I knew it would end. I only started smoking a month before because someone at school, in all their shock of finding out I never smoked before, gave me an entire pack - I was hoping it would look more natural by the time I started grade twelve. Spring was turning into summer before my eyes, but the cool breeze still chilled the parts of my fingers that my sleeves didn't cover. The may showers were only just behind us but the air still smelled damp and each footstep in the new grass made an awful squelching sound. The only good thing about going to the worst bar in town on a Wednesday was that there was no bouncer. I saw them before I saw Kier, and before Kier saw me. There they were, all eight of them, sitting in a booth in the very center of the dark room, clinking bottles of strawberry wine, laughing and shouting. There they were. I froze in place, half behind the coat tree near the front window.

"Their show is right down the street. Thought you'd wanna meet them if you can't see them play." Kier appeared beside me, holding his hands behind his back and smirking like he just served them up to me on a silver platter. Danny, Cameron, Ben, James, Sam, Ben's girlfriend, Brandi, Myca, and Cameron. Cameron.