That Cliché Story

Chapter:1- The Ending

"Dude, do you even check your phone during the weekends? Me and the group have sent you at least 10k messages." Turning back to one of my best-friend/team-mate Josh who got into the passenger seat of my car.

Joseph Christopher Matthews or Josh and I go way back from the first day at school. That was the day we got to know each other and that was also the day when he pushed me down from the playground swing which hurt my knee and It resulted him having a scrapped elbow because I pushed him back after standing up again. He closed the door of my range rover right after he got in the passenger seat and threw his backpack onto the backseat before pulling up on his washed jeans which he paired with off-white short sleeved t-shirt. It fit snuggly on his 6 feet long frame and got comfortable on his seat.

Okay, he was exaggerating. Surely they didn't send that magnitude of number of texts just within 2 days but you never know with teenagers with their infinite amount of topics to chat on. Especially for this crazy bunch of people I call my friends who were particularly looking forward to know something from me and while waiting for my reply, they must have bombarded the group chat.

"Didn't have enough time to check my phone because I was jetlagged." I exhaled tiredly as I wasn't particularly interested into having to break down the news so early when it didn't align with what he wanted to hear. 

But who was I kidding? Josh is my best friend for a reason. He knew what the outcome was just from my tone. As he buckled his seat belt, he glanced at my strained face. "They said no again, didn't they?" he questioned with his knowing light green eyes. I didn't need to say anything as he already knew the answer. 

  This is the 4th time. 4th rejection.

Since my big break to the stage 3 years ago, I made a name for myself in the music industry. Getting recognition from the bigshots in the field had made it easier for me to score shows, tours, ads and what not. Multiple billboard top hits, collabs and 2 solo albums later, I have created a stable career as a solo artist. 

But that's not what I wanted. My journey to be a musician didn't start alone. It had always been with D-SYNC, a band consisting 5 members including me and Josh. Since I was 4, I had shown avid interest in singing which encouraged my mother to enroll me into Derek's Sync, a music studio owned by Mr. Derek Sanders who taught young aspiring music artists like yours truly. Through Mr. Sanders' tutelage and guidance, I learned and practiced my vocals, met a great group of buddies, had the best childhood one can dream of and formed D-SYNC along with the aforementioned buddies. D-SYNC started it's journey with local talent gigs, school programs and stage shows which earned us tons of appreciation and fans.

 And fortunately, my current manager Coby Donley scouted me from one of these gigs. The only issue was that Coby only approached me with a contract instead of my entire group. Despite my vehement rejection to not get into any contract as a solo artist, with Coby's persuasion and promises of extending the offer to the rest of the group afterwards, I agreed with the contract in the end which gave me my current fame. While I was grateful to Coby for my success, I was a fool for agreeing to his offer. He never had any intention to manage D-SYNC. And it turned out that his company only handles solo artists without any exceptions. This almost caused D-SYNC to disband because although my friends were happy for me, deep within they all held some sort of resentment. Luckily, that didn't last long before we cleared our misunderstandings and till date, D-SYNC managed to survive all odds against its favor. 

Now, using my already successful career and fame, I'm doing everything in my power to put the limelight on my band. 

The only issue? Coby-fucking-Donley.

He considers me as his greatest artist and thinks me forgoing my career as a solo artist will bring me nothing but criticism and backlash. And to make matters worse, he even convinced the top brass of my media company not give into my wishes of launching D-SYNC as it will cause great loses to the company. And thus, despite all my efforts, our band remained unknown and all our efforts went down the drain as my proposal got turned down again.