Missed Chances // Louis Tomlinson

[1] What it was like before.

                                                            [1] What it was like before.

"Lou!" A first-year that was in his previous lesson shouted as he walked out of the door, waving his hands trying to catch my attention. Louis turned and smiled at him, waiting for him to catch up and tell him about whatever was so important. "So, dude, there's a new kid and he's holding a party in his flat to get to know people. You up for it?" He said excitedly, with a toothy grin on his face.

"His flat?" Louis responded, surprised that a first-year would have a flat instead of having a dorm. Louis was in the second year and he still lived in the crappy dorms that were assigned at the start of the first year.

"Yeah, the kid is apparently from a rich family, so I want to cosy up. Maybe get to move into his flat," he replied, almost buzzing as he spoke. Louis had only known him for a few weeks; he sat next to him in his Second Year English Literature class. Although he was only in first year he attended the lesson because the British resemblance of an all American boy was a genius.

"Don't get your hopes up too high, buddy," Louis spoke back, in a calming voice, in hopes that the floppy haired boy would stop hopping from one foot to another.

Louis knew calling a college student 'buddy' may have been a bit weird, but he didn't know his real name. It's not like he didn't ask but All American had a strange accent that took a while for Louis to get used to, so when they introduced each other he didn't understand what he said. He had gotten used to the odd accent after a week or so, but after knowing the boy for almost a month, it would have been awkward to ask for his name again, so Louis calls him anything but whatever his name is.

"Anyway, I can't go; I'm staying behind at music because I'm going to pick which song I'm going to sing," he added before patting him on the back and heading off in the direction of the music quarter.

He only had music three times a week, for an hour and half each session, but he had a lot of free sessions due to the fact that he only took four subjects, and two of them were including music: Second Year English Lit, Music Industry, Media Studies and Vocational Music.

Music was his version of meditation. He liked how there was always a song that reflected how you felt. There were songs that could cheer you up, bring back memories and make you sing along.

Those were the types of songs that Louis wanted to write. The happy, upbeat songs that had people tapping their feet and bouncing along to the tune. He wanted to write the ones that became people's guilty pleasures, the ones that you might of hated at the beginning but now it was constantly in your head that you have learnt to love.

He just wanted to make people happy with his music. Was that too much to ask for?

As he stepped out of the building he was in, he instinctively raised his hands to block the bright rays of sun from hitting his iris'.

He wasn't surprised it was sunny, it always was, but it was just like Louis to never put a pair of sunglasses in his bag and save him the effort every day. He only seemed to put his effort into his music, writing songs, trying to find which instrument would be the best for him and practicing any and every song he could think of.

That didn't include him going into his draw and picking out a pair of sunglasses and placing it into his bag. That took too much energy for something that was not music related.

He continued walking across the courtyard, his eyes trailing the floor to prevent the sun beams from temporarily stunning him. He only looked up to avoid crashing into benches that were scattered about, the odd lamppost and other students that were preoccupied by phones or for random reasons, walking backwards.

He carried on walking until he reached the jackpot at the end of the ridiculously bright rainbow; the music block.

The music block had been his home for the last few weeks; he could even go as far as saying a month, but it was primarily the last few weeks that he had spent practically camping there,

And why wouldn't he, it had everything he would ever need if his dream was to pan out. Apart from the fact that it was inside school boundaries, that sort of ruined it for him.

Apart from that minor characteristic; it was perfect for him. When he got rich, he planned to get a giant crane, scoop up the music block and place it in his back garden.

Louis liked the fact that it had a perfectly constructed sound booth where he could sing his heart out, as loud as he wanted, and no one would hear him. Not even if they pressed their ear against the door. There was only one way of being heard and that was if they were in the other room that made this place Louis' dream: the recording studio. Even then, the only way you could hear was if all of the settings were correct and you were wearing a pair of unfashionably chunky black headphones.

The station had every DJ's or recording artists dream equipment just lay out in front of them. They could hear the backing track and change that volume. They could change the singer's volume, and if you were cheating, change the singer's voice a touch. They could add other layers to the track or just mix it up.

It was his version of utopia.

The only problem Louis had was he didn't know how to work the equipment, he was awful at the advanced technology that the booth used, which was why he was lucky that he had someone to help him every so often.

The studio maintenance man, Mark, who was fresh out of college himself and took the job while he prepared himself to be a radio DJ, was always happy to help whenever he got the opportunity, and it was often.

The recording studio was where Louis spent all his time preparing for the audition that gave him the opportunity to change his personal utopia from a block inside the school campus, to a small section of his dream house.

He was auditioning for the X-Factor.