She's the Reason • Ariana Grande

Chapter One

I threw my graduation cap into the air after hearing possibly one of the longest speeches I'd ever heard. It was the day of my graduation and to say the very least I was extremely excited. After four long, busy years I'd finally finished college and now I could start my life with my best friend. Not only had we both gone into the Fine Arts, but we'd known each other since seventh grade. His name was Anthony, as mentioned many times in the fifteen minute speech he'd just given. I loved him, but he was one talkative son of a gun.

Before I knew it, my mom was running to me smiling ear to ear with her arms spread to give me a hug. I laughed and put my arms around her, "I love you, mom."

She pulled away and grinned bigger than before, "I'm so proud of you." She left after hugging me one last time.

Not five seconds later, Anthony ran up to me and gave me a 'you better be proud of me that was horrifying' hug. "How'd I do?" he asked.

"It took forever for someone who wouldn't shut up about how nervous he was."

He shrugged and laughed, "Oh yeah, I have something to tell you." he uttered, "I got us tickets to see Elton John tonight, and I may have gotten backstage passes too." Ever since I was a little kid, I'd loved Elton John. His music, his style, and most of all his story. I had told Anthony when I first found out he was going to be playing here, and somehow he'd remembered.

"You did not! How'd you remember? I told you like a year ago!" I yelled at the top of my lungs.

"How could I forget, you wouldn't shut up about it for a month." he replied with a wide smile like my mother's. That's when I realized that with backstage passes I was going to meet him. In less than twelve hours, I was going to be meeting Elton John, the Elton John. The one I'd dreamed of meeting since I was seven years old.

"Wait when does it start?" I yelled almost as loud as before.

"Relax, we have like three hours, it's not until 7:00."

"We have to go home and change, then get there before there's five parking spots left." We shared a tiny house together a few minutes off campus, which for the most part was really fun. We threw parties as late as we wanted because no one would or could stop us. The landlord was always out of town for whatever reason so it was easy to get away with it. Now we were men though, so no more parties (mostly), no more drinking all the time, and we needed to get into steady relationships soon.

"Okay then we need to leave 'cause the stadium is like forty-five minutes away." Anthony said clearly not worried that there was no way that we could stop home, drive almost and hour, and still find a parking spot in time.

We said goodbye to our parents and walked out into the parking lot, greeted by a warm spring day. However, there was no time to be thinking about the beauty of Mother Nature. We had an Elton John concert to go to that was starting in less than three hours. We had taken my car here (a Honda Civic in case you were wondering), and we took it straight back to our house.

"Just wear a button up shirt or something." I told Anthony before we went our separate ways into our different rooms in the narrow hallway. I fished a red button up shirt and a black tie out of my closet and threw them on. I put on dark jeans and walked into my bathroom. I put on cologne in case I were to come across a new lady friend.

When I walked out of my room Anthony's door was still closed. "Dude, come on we barely have two hours left." I said through the door. I didn't hear anything at first but when my ears suddenly popped, there was loud wheezing coming from behind Anthony's closed door.

I threw the door open and saw Anthony throwing up his bed sheets and looking everywhere for what I assumed was his inhaler.

I began helping him as fast as I could, looking around on his bed beneath the ruffled sheets, his closet storage, and on his nightstand.