Floral And Fading // Sequel to Choices

FIVE : Little Do You Know I'm Hurting While You Fall Asleep

Siren

PTV was in the midpoint of their show, when I was supposed to come out and prank the guys. Copeland, Lance, Brandon, and Kasen had all set this up and the kid that I dragged in (whose name I finally figured out was Aries) was slightly pushing me towards stage.

"Come on kid, don't be a pussy" I hear this (jokingly, of course) from Copeland as she hands me the water gun. The prank was to soak 'em but avoid wires and shit so I don't ruin the wiring. After that everyone else from Transcendent plus Aries would run out with cans of silly string.

I let out a deep breath and made sure none of them could see me. I snuck up behind Tony and there were only a few people in front who screamed as I ran out and then I sprayed Tony first.

He chased after me around stage after he gave someone (stage crew) his instrument as not to damage it and it gained the attention of everyone on stage. I went after them all with the super soaker and Mike played a random beat on his drums as the crowd started to laugh. Eventually the rest of my band and Aries came out with the silly string and got all of them, Mike last. I stood on stage laughing before I was lifted off the ground and immediately felt string on my face. I was soon in a group hug of wet clothes and silly string.

Not really a fun experience.

After that all happened and everyone got clean clothes, PTV all went back on stage and played the rest of their set.

"Hey, Siren, not cool dude."

I shrugged at Mike as we walked over to the area they had for the fans to meet us.

"Blame my band, not me."

×

We finally were done with the meet and greet and back on the busses. I was in my bunk with my headphones in and I was scrolling through the PTV edits tag again, mostly because I was paranoid and because, well, I had nothing else to do really. I kept seeing edits of Emmie and then ones of those 'plot twist ones from me to Emmie. I know they didn't really mean any harm but it was so hard being compared to Emmie. Especially when I was usually at the negative end of that stick. I would rarely see any positive things about me online. So many people hated me and acted like I had something to do with Emmie leaving when they weren't even alive when Emmie was. They based everything they knew about Emmie on what their parents told them and they pretend like I'm her replacement. It mostly makes me angry but I also feel horrible because I know I could never live up to be as inspiring as my sister, I could never reach out to as many people as she did, I was a major villain compared to her. So many people also blame me to be the reason Vic doesn't seem as happy anymore and honestly, I've started to believe it. He never really smiles when he's just with me, never cracks jokes, just kind of ignores me or stares at me with a blank, angry, or sad expression. Like, sorry world that I'm not my sister, it's not like I asked to be born. In fact sometimes I wish I wasn't born, but I'll never really admit that to anyone because I can't put my family through that hurt all over again. If I did tell anyone how I actually felt most of the time they'd say I'm being selfish or watch me like a hawk and that's the last thing I need right now. I hated the fact that I was stuck in a really bad situation with my self-esteem and mental health but if I went to anyone with my problems I'd just annoy them and be, yet again, compared to my sister.

It's one thing to complain about being compared to a sibling that was alive and lived with you but for me it's so hard to focus on my own issues when I've spent the majority of my life trying to not act or do anything that made people say I'm trying to be my dead older sister that took her own life. My only outlet was the band. My band.

I remember the day we all met, it was back in elementary school and we were all the weird kids. None of us were going through our emo phases yet but we all knew of the music and had family issues that we all wrote into dumb songs.

Lance had been the best singer of our group (we tested this by all of us singing a verse from American Idiot) but she was super shy back then and had gotten bullied relentlessly for it. Trisha had a lot of anger problems and always got in trouble for tapping or hitting desks constantly and one teacher got pissed at her for wearing a skirt one day. Kasen was in band and played the flute but they admitted they hated it and found music a lot more fun when they could write their own and play what they wanted, their parents had also began fighting a lot and they were often stuck in the middle of it. Then there was me. I had found a lot of Emmie's old CDs and two of her old notebooks and went through them, was caught by my dad, and scolded. That was the begining of the years he spent ignoring me and pretty much hating me. I took my emotions out by pouring them into learning an instrument. Jaime had taught me bass and I loved it. We didn't meet Brandon until 7th grade, when we all learned how sentences actually worked well and how to use poetry and not just sing "I hate my life" over and over and call it a song. Brandon was going through his hardcore emo phase back then and picked up on guitar and him and Lance both became best friends rather quickly.

We had convinced the rest of PTV and others bands I had connections to let us be their opening acts to at least get us out there and about halfway through 8th grade, I found the first Transcendent fan edit and fan page. Since then we've blown up a little bit but not big enough yet to have as much of an impact as PTV has or all the other bands I know.

But we'll get there.

I sigh as I plug my phone in and turn over, starring blankly at my bunk's closed curtains as I wait until my brain will finally switch to sleep mode.