Welcome to the Family

I walked in to the tour bus with Kyle, Will, Blake and Cody, my friends of two years now and who were all in a band together since 2003. We met in Chicago. They were all good friends with a guy who introduced them to me, Patrick Stump, the singer of the band Fall Out Boy. They were looking for a singer, and I was looking for band. Patrick had recommended we start one together and create amazing music.
We were known as Vanity Release (Please don’t steal) and had just finished recording and producing our debut self-titled album. We were on our way to our very first tour, on the famous tour called Warped Tour for bands like us. We are driving out to Tampa, Florida and should arrive soon.

I walked through the door of our bus for the year and threw my stuff on the black leather couch. “I get to use the bathroom first!” I shouted, running towards the door across from the fridge. I've been holding it in since we left the airport.

I was about to make a run for it when Blake, our lead guitarist and back-up vocalist snatched me up off the ground. He had dark brown hair that was just past his ears and even darker brown eyes. “I don’t think so Chelsea. I’ve had to pee since we got on the plane.”
He said, putting me back on my feet as soon as I stopped struggling to get down. I absolutely hated to be picked up and manhandled.

I laughed. “Gross. Why didn’t you just go then?” I asked.

He made a face. “I’m not going to the bathroom in a plane. Do you know how unsanitary that thing is?” He asked. He had a phobia of germs, and the ironic thing was is that he had bad allergies and was always sneezing. “So I think I should go first.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah right,”

“I can settle this argument,” Will, our rhythm guitarist said stepping into the bus. He had medium brown hair with light blue eyes.

“Well, how is that?” Blake asked, crossing his arms with a curious smile on his face.

“I’ll just go first!” He said, laughing and running into the bathroom before we could react.

“Hey!” We both shouted in unison.

I walked over to the door and started banging on it.

“Hurry up! I have to go to the bathroom!” I said doing a funny dance to hold it in.

“You have to go? What about me?” Blake said standing next to me.

“What are you two doing?” Cody, the drummer asked as he stepped onto the bus and saw us waiting at the door. He was the shortest and skinniest of us all and was also 21. He had shaggy, medium brown hair and medium brown eyes.

My birthday was June 3 and I was 20 years old. I was the youngest, and thankfully, only Cody and Kyle drank, and that was just once in a while.

“William won't let us into the bathroom.” I said, still bobbing up and down.

“Don’t call me that!” He shouted through the door. He hated it when I called him that.

“Well then hurry!” I shouted back.

He flushed and walked out. Blake and I made eye contact for a quick second, and then ran for it. We shoved at each other to get in first but then ended up being stuck in the doorway. Luckily, I was small enough and slipped through, shutting the door in his face.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” He yelled.

“You can hold it.” I mocked.

After I got out and we all did our business, we were sitting on the couch just hanging out and watching TV. The guys were playing a video game on the flat screen while I made some Ramen noodles in the microwave. It’s been awhile since I have eaten anything, so my stomach was growling like crazy. I popped open the door and started preparing the meal-of-the-day.

Through the past years on tour, I've had to learn how to maintain my health, stay fit, and have a shower as much as possible. It was hard.

The bus didn't have a shower, no actual tour bus did unless your band was fucking loaded, and we surely weren't. The only way to stay clean was to wash your hair and yourself off in the kitchen sink with some shampoo and a bar of soup everyone had to share. No one wanted to share a crowded bus full of stinky band mates. Staying fit was even harder, especially for someone like me who had Addison’s disease.

It was a condition where my body didn't properly produce enough adrenaline through the part of the brain or kidneys, but in my case, it didn't produce any adrenaline. I had to take three different types of pills a day just to feel close to being like everyone else.

The affects of the disease, for myself at least, was low to no stamina, which was a person’s energy and strength, constantly getting dizzy, sometimes nauseous, and wouldn't be able to stand for two minutes straight. Now imagine being on tour, being a singer. It makes it extremely difficult, having to stand up on stage for an hour-long show, or even more or less. I had started taking these pills for at least three months now, so my body was still getting used to the medicine, but it still affected me to where I could stand and not pass out on stage.

“Hey Chels’, do you want to play?” Blake asked me, waving the controller in front of my face as soon as I sat down next to him.

I took my hand and shoved it away. “No thanks, you know I'm not much of a gamer.” I said, starting to eat my noodles.

“You sure?” He asked, looking at me curiously.

“Yeah, I think I'm just going to go unpack.” I said standing and grabbing my duffle bag from off of the floor and walking into the bunk room.

“Okay,” He said as I walked away.

I got to my bunk that was on the right and the very bottom. I threw in the bag and sat down on the edge with the steaming bowl in my hand.

“Okay guys we’re here!” The driver said from the front when the bus stopped. The boys shouted in excitement from the front.

I laughed and set it on the floor beside my bed and unzipped the bag, taking out a pair of dark-washed skinny jeans and a cute, black and white striped shirt with a sweetheart neckline that had sleeves that went to the middle of my upper arms. I put those on - after I locked the door - instead of this hot shirt and sweat pants I had on. I put on some deodorant, sprayed some Charlotte Russe Refuge perfume, and slipped on a pair of light grey All Star Converse.

After I ate, I grabbed my makeup bag and slipped into the bathroom before anyone could notice me, but I was sure that wasn't going to happen with all of them zoning out on the TV screen. I put some eye shadow on to match the outfit, and some pale pink lip-gloss. Last, I curled my medium-long blonde hair, having it poof up at the back just a little.

I opened the door and walked out into the kitchen/living room area. Blake was the only one to look up from the TV screen and notice me as I was about to walk out of the door.

“Where are you going?” He asked me.

I shrugged. “I'm going to go walk around for awhile. Anyone want to come with?” I asked.

Blake and Will stood up. “We’ll go.” Will said, slipping on his shoes. Blake grabbed his phone from off of the kitchen counter and walked outside with me.

“Okay, let’s go.” I stepped onto the grass outside and took in the warm, fresh air. After being on a plane for an hour to being on a tour bus for at least a week, the fresh air felt amazing. The wind blew on my face and into my hair, but at least it didn’t make it all messy.

“So what do you want to do?” Will asked, looking around at all of the people at merch and signing booths. There were stages a little far off with concerts going on with bands performing. I wanted to go and see one playing.

“Let’s go find out who’s playing today.” I said to the two.

They nodded and walked over with me to one of the first booths at the entrance. We also needed to sign as our band and get the information on when we were playing tomorrow. Today we were here just to have fun and get to know our way around.

We went to one that was almost empty and waited in line for a minute or two. I turned to Blake and Will from behind me. “I can’t wait to get on one of those stages.” I said, looking at one of them from where I stood. I couldn’t see much of what was going on at one of them, just heard a lot of music playing from different directions. It was hard to tell if any of it was good or not with it all colliding together.

Blake nodded, following my gaze. “Yeah, I can't wait to just get on my guitar and play in front of people.”

Will shook his head in return. “I'm a little nervous.”

Blake and I looked at him. He was not usually the type to get nervous.

He noticed our stares and explained. “I just don’t want to screw up. This is going to be our first time in front of many people and I'm a little afraid that they’re not going to like us.”

I laid my hand on his shoulder. “It will be okay. I am sure they are going to like us, and even if they don’t, it's our first show and everyone’s first show isn’t always their best. We’re just going to have to give it some time, and hopefully get used to it.” I said.

He nodded. “I just hope it goes well.”

“Me too,” I agreed.

We were next in line and stood in front of the table. One of the men and women looked up at us with a friendly smile. “How can I help you?” She asked.

I smiled in return. “Yeah, we wanted to sign in as one of the bands playing tomorrow. We wanted to know when we’ll be playing.”

She nodded. “What is the band’s name and who called you guys in?”

“The band is Vanity Release, and our manager is Brian Schechter, he should have called us in a week ago.” I said, hoping he hadn’t forgotten.

She smiled. “Yeah, I have you guys right here.” She said, pointing on the list. “You will be playing at 2:30 tomorrow on stage 4. Is this your first year here?” She asked us. I nodded. “Okay, well then here’s a map of the tour. It shows where all of the stages and most of the booths are around. It also shows where the bathrooms are and the places you can get food and things like that. It’s all there.” She said, handing it to me.

“Thanks, and we would also like a list of all who’s playing today and tomorrow if we can.” I said.

“Well actually, all we have right now is the lists posted on the wall over there.” She said leaning forward a little over the table and pointing to a wall with several flyers and other types of papers taped to it.

“Thanks,” I said, taking my map and walking with the guys over to the wall.

We stood at the bottom and looked at one of the many sheets of lists hanging up. “What time is it?” I asked Will, who was the one with the wristwatch.

He looked at it. “It’s 11:15, who’s playing?”

I looked at the list. “Well right now…” I scrolled down the list, looking for the right day and time. “There’s a band called Hey Monday playing on stage 6, and Underoath’s playing in five minutes on stage 2.”

“Ooh, yeah let’s go see them.” Will said, sounding excited. We all liked and listened to Underoath on the bus.

Blake and I agreed. “First we should get something to drink, I'm thirsty.” Blake suggested.

I nodded. “Okay, then by the time we get to the stage they should be on in three minutes.” I said looking down at the map.

We were about to go find a place to stop and get a drink when we heard someone shout or names. “Hey, Blake, Chelsea, Will, wait up!”

We turned and saw Kyle and Cody walking towards us. “Oh hey,” I said to them when they got to us. “Want to go watch Underoath with us?”

“Of course, I love that band.” Cody said.

Kyle shrugged. “Sure.” I wasn’t the only blonde in this band, thankfully. Kyle had dirty blonde hair and solid green eyes that didn’t always express a lot of emotion. He always looked bored or irritated. He was a natural surfer’s tan even though he was from Chicago. Believe me, he wasn’t the type who would go tanning.

We started walking then. “We were going to stop and get something to drink first. Are you two thirsty?” I asked.

They both nodded. Kyle stuck his hands in his pockets and Cody tapped on his legs to the beat of one of our songs the entire way to the food booth and to the concert.

We got to the food stands, picking out which one looked good. We decided on a place with a corn dog and some kind of beverage painted on its banner. Blake got a Coke to drink, I got a Dr. Pepper and Will, Kyle and Cody got Pepsi’s and corn dogs.

I laughed when Cody was attempting to put mustard on his corn dog but missed and landed on his white t-shirt. He glared at me with a playful smile and wiped it off with a napkin, leaving a big yellow stain.

“Let’s just go, I'm ready to see Underoath.” He said, throwing away all of his trash in unison with the rest of us.

We started walking to the stage they should be playing on. I used the map to guide us, hoping we didn’t get lost. As we got closer, I could see a crowd had formed at the stage. It was getting a little out of control as the minutes passed. I got slightly frantic when we entered into the herd of people, trying to make our way to the front. While we had to push our way through, I tried my best not to make contact with people, and when I did, I would apologize and try to keep up with the guys. People glared at me as I did, causing me to want to retreat.

Cody looked back and saw that I was falling behind, so he came and got me, grabbing onto my hand so I wouldn’t lose them. The boys and I made our way to the front, gathering against the metal fence that separated the crowd from the stage.

It became 11:30, and the show was starting. Each of the band members got into their places and began to play. They started with Writing on the Walls-my favorite song of theirs-and ended with In Regards to Myself.

As it ended, the crowd cheered, for it was a great concert. A sense of anticipation overcame me as I thought about what was in store for our show tomorrow. Would the people like us at least half as good as they did Underoath? Probably not, but I wasn’t expecting anyone to fall in love with us and become our fans instantly. I just hoped that one day we could be just as good or even better.

Blake looked at me then with his brown eyes, sensing something was wrong. “Are you okay?” He shouted over the noise.

“I'm fine.” I shouted back.

That didn’t seem to convince him. “Are you sure? Do you just want to go?”

I nodded as a reply and he informed the rest of the guys. They agreed that it was time to go and started walking back to the bus with Blake and me. We managed to escape from the crowd of people and started walking back to our bus.

“Well that was fun,” Cody said, still drumming to his own beat.

“Yeah, we should go check out that list again and see who else is playing today.” Will said, turning to face us and walking backwards.

“Eh, I think we should go and practice for the show tomorrow. I just want to make sure we get everything right.” I said to them.

“Yeah, I feel like I don’t have all my parts down yet.” Blake agreed.

“Okay, well we can stop by the list and then head for the bus afterwards, if you want.” Cody said to me, but I barely listened to anything anyone else was saying.

My head was in the clouds because all I could think about was tomorrow. “Yeah, that’s fine.” I said to them.

It didn’t really matter to me if we checked out the list first, I just wanted everything to go right for tomorrow. I wanted to have a perfect show and for people to like us.

Suddenly I bumped right into someone’s back while I was watching my feet as I walked. The impact made me stammer back for a moment, but then I looked up to see who I had slammed into.

The guy spun around quickly to see what was going on. He was extremely tall, around 6”3, probably 6”5 and had black hair and blue eyes. The style he had for his hair wasn’t a usual thing you saw every day. He had his bangs combed over to the left with a thick strand of black hair on each side of his face in front of ears, but a little bit of it was behind them. In the back was different. It was tousled in all different directions and was shorter than the rest of the hair. He had a labret piercing under his bottom lip.

“Oh gosh, I'm sorry.” I said, having to look up at him.

He looked back at me from over his shoulder, turned around for a second and shrugged, about to say something when someone hollered.

“Hey!” He looked over to the sound at another black haired guy. “You coming or what?” He asked the tall guy.

The person I bumped into looked back at me for a second and started walking away towards the other guy.

“Jerk,” I mumbled even though it was my fault.

“You okay?” Blake laughed. I just nodded as my response. “You are such a klutz, you know that?” He
asked me, trying to hold back a smile.

I smirked. “So it seems. There’s the list,” I said, seeing it from here. “Let’s go look at it again so we can go practice.” I said, walking over there with them.

We looked at it and we didn’t see any bands playing because rather we didn’t know of them or we didn’t really care for them.

“Do you see any you want to go watch?” Will asked every one, but nobody answered and shrugged.

I clapped my hands together. “Great, then let’s go back to the bus, set up in the trailer and practice.”

Cody sighed. “Fine, but I really wanted to conserve my energy for the rest of the day so I can do well tomorrow.” He said, trying to convince me to not want to practice.

I rolled my eyes at his attempt. “Well then, get some sleep tonight, then you should be well rested.” He groaned and I laughed. “Come on, let’s go.”

We left the wall of papers and made our way to the bus. I walked onto the bus, went to the bathroom and put up my medium-length blonde hair. It was too hot to have it down any longer. I looked in the mirror at myself. I hated the reflection inside. My blue eyes looked tired and seemed to make me look even more stressed.

I was 5”4 in height and had no clue to how much I weighed. I lost weight every day because of the medicine I was taking, along with the lack of nutrition in my diet. I looked horrible. I decided to forget about how I looked for a change and left the bathroom. I grabbed bottled water for everyone and met up with the guys outside in our little trailer.

Cody was the only one inside it because of his drums. Everyone else was rather right up against it or in front of it. I set up my microphone stand, plugging it into the amp with the extension cord. I could hear Blake, Will and Kyle plug in their electric guitars and the bass behind me, making a kind of screeching sound. I covered my ears and shouted.

“Sorry!” Will said, laughing at my reaction.

We weren’t trying to put on a show, but if anyone was interested in watching and listening to us, I'd be more than happy.

“So what do you guys want to start with?” I asked, turning to face them.

“We should definitely do Defiance. That will be a crowd pleaser.” Cody said, banging randomly on the snare and cymbals.

“Sure. That okay with you guys?” I asked the others.

They all agreed to it. We did several of our songs, starting with Defiance, which was one of our darker, heavier songs. A small cluster of people started to form around us, about 5 to 7 people, but they seemed to like us. That really got me excited for tomorrow. We didn’t want to give much away to the crowd, so we quit while four songs in. We were clapped for and everyone went back to doing what they were doing.

"Well that was fun. Now, can we please go back inside?" Cody whined.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, you big baby." I said with a smile.

After that, we packed our stuff back up and went into the bus. I was the first one inside. Everyone sat down and chilled, hanging out for a while until it got dark and when we got bored of doing nothing.

“Want to watch a movie?” Cody asked each of us.

Kyle shrugged and continued to text on his phone, Blake was cooking something in the kitchen and Will and I both nodded.

“Sure, what movie?” I asked.

Cody stood and walked over to where we kept the movies and video games. “There’s Jaws,” He suggested.

Will and I looked at each other and made faces. “No.”

“The Lord of the Rings?” Cody asked.

“You’ve seen it a thousand times, aren’t you bored with it yet?” Blake asked from the kitchen.

Cody chuckled. “I’ll never get bored of that movie, it’s such a classic.”

I shook my head. “What else is there?”

“Uh…” He paused, looking. “There’s Harry Po-”

“No!” Everyone, including Kyle shouted at the same time.

Cody looked up quickly in surprise. “Jeez, okay, okay.” He kept looking. “Well the only thing left is Titanic.”

“Harry Potter,” Will and I said at the same time, hoping to avoid the movie Titanic entirely.

He laughed. “Well then, I guess we can just throw that one out.”

Blake looked up from his noodles. “Who even brought that movie, anyway?” He asked, sitting down at the left of me as I sat in between him and Will.

Cody shrugged. “How the hell should I know? Oh, here’s one.” He said, pulling something out. “What about White Chicks?”

“Fuck yeah, I love that movie.” Will said.

“White Chicks it is,” Cody said, popping in the disc.

We shut off the lights and sat down to the comedy.

While they watched the movie, I sat at the booth with the dining table. I was on the laptop writing and even playing on MySpace. After a while of doing nothing anymore, I got off and shut the computer down, really bored. I decided I was going to go to bed.

I stood and put the laptop on its charger. Blake saw and stood up with me. “Are you going to sleep?” He asked me, keeping his voice quiet so they could hear the movie.

It was at the part where they were auctioning off one of the main characters for a lot of money. Every one actually paying attention to it laughed or grew a smile.

I yawned and stretched. “Yeah, I've probably seen this movie a thousand times before, so I'm just going to go to bed.”

He chuckled. “Okay, well good night.”

“Goodnight,” I said to him. “Goodnight everyone, goodnight Bill.” I said to the guys and our bus driver.

“Goodnight.” They all repeated back without looking back at me. Blake just laughed and got on the laptop.

I went in the back and headed for my bed, opening the door to the bunk room I shut it behind me, about to go inside my bunk when I almost ran into Brian Schechter (pic is of him and My Chemical Romance), our band manager. He was in his late-twenties, had dark brown hair and blue eyes. He had a nose piercing on the left side and his ears pierced. His arms were sleeved in tattoos. Even though I was only twenty, I somewhat had a crush on him. I only thought he was cute, and it was nothing more. I met him through Bert because he was also The Used and My Chemical Romance’s tour manager. He was actually the person who introduced The Used and me to them, and we all became good friends.

He held out his hand to stop me from bumping into him. “Whoa, watch where you’re going,” He said with a smile.

I held my hand to my heart. He had scared me. “Sorry, I didn’t even know you were here yet.”

He laughed. “It’s okay, I just got here and was in the back on the phone. Are you going to bed already? It's only nine o’clock.”

I shrugged. “I figured there’s nothing better to do. That and I want to get plenty of rest for tomorrow. I really don’t want to mess up the show by losing any sleep.”

He chuckled then. “Okay, well goodnight then.”

“Night,” I said back as he walked into the other room.

I grabbed my duffle bag out from on top of the mattress, grabbed out an under shirt and a pair of red pajama pants with green Christmas trees. I smiled at them, remembering when Mikey, the bassist of My Chemical Romance had commented on them. It was the second day of ever knowing him and the rest of MCR. It was a little weird living with five complete strangers in a crowded tour bus. It wasn’t the living with other people part, just the fact that I didn’t know any of them. Bert was the only person there that I knew. Every once and a while Brian, our shared manager, would show up to see how we were doing, but besides that I didn’t know anyone. They were all good people though, and I was relieved by that.

After I left the MCR bus, I went on to my singing career to join Vanity Release on our own tour. I was still dating Mikey, if you wanted to call what we had dating. We didn’t really call it a relationship because all it really was or would ever be was just us liking each other and that was all. We promised to keep in touch as much as possible with each other, but being on the road made that hard. Maybe I would run into him and the rest of the band one day. We could hang out together or something.

The door from the living room opened. Kyle stepped in, seeing me on the edge of my bed with my clothes in my hands. None of my band mates knew about Mikey and me. They just knew I had been on tour with him and his band for about a year. I liked to keep a lot of personal stuff about myself private from anyone, even Bert, who was my best friend since birth. Bert was the only person in the world who knew about my past, with my abusive mother, and my couldn’t-keep-his-hands-to-himself stepfather, but even he didn’t know about Mikey and me.

Because I was born and raised into such an unpleasant environment, I always kept to myself about anything, hoping that no one would judge me or my past. No one knew everything about me. I was the only person I could truly trust. I used to confide in Bert, but ever since the night of that Halloween party, where he had left to go fuck some girl he just met and left me all alone to where some guy tried to get me to sleep with him. I had refused, because for one, I was still a virgin and two, he was drunk and last, I was scared of even the thought of sex because of my stepfather always trying to get at me.

The guy pulled me with him out of the house of the party, out past the driveway to his car that was parked a ways down the street and forced me inside. I was scared for my life. Even though Bill, my stepfather had come close to actually doing something to me, he never really did because of my mother being around all of the time. Because the guy had raped me, I was barely able to trust any men. Bert never found out.

I had escaped from my mother in Chicago, running back to Orem Utah to find Bert, but I ended up finding out that he and the rest of The Used had went to Japan after releasing their second album In Love and Death. After that, I was alone. It wasn’t until about two months later that they came back. Then, they took me on tour with them, on to the Taste of Chaos tour. There, through Brian, we met My Chemical Romance.

“Hey Chelsea,” Kyle said, closing the door to where it was only a crack. “Are…Is there something wrong?”

I quickly looked down at my hands to avoid eye contact. “No, I'm fine.” I looked back up at him. “Did you need something?” I asked in a polite way.

“Yeah, I came to tell you that-” He began.

“Hey guys, come outside!” I heard Cody shout.

I put my stuff down and stood. Kyle opened the door for me, and bowed. “Ladies first.”

I curtsied. “Thank you, kind sir.” I said, walking out.

He chuckled and followed behind. We entered the living room, which we only saw Blake standing in the open door way, looking outside.

“What’s going on?” I asked him.

He looked back at us then. “There’s fireworks going on outside. Come check it out with us.”

I smiled. “Okay, let’s go.” I said to Kyle.

We both followed Blake through the door. He, Cody, Will and Brian stood outside, waiting for us. Cody was bouncing up and down in excitement.

“Come on guys, hurry up.” He said to us.

I just laughed and we all jogged after him. He was running through a big crowd of people, trying to find a good spot to see the fireworks. He looked back, seeing that I was trying to follow so he slowed down and waited for me to catch up.

“Slow poke,” He said laughing over the people talking. I laughed back. After we slowed down, the rest of the guys caught up too, but they were just walking behind us. “Over there!” He said, pointing to an area where some people surrounded a bonfire. “Let’s go and catch some shit on fire.”

I stopped then. He was kind of a pyromaniac. “Whoa, I don’t think so. You can get hurt.”

He laughed, grabbing my hand and pulling me along with him. Kyle walked beside us then, while everyone else was behind us talking.

“Are sure you want to go over there? It looks like people are drinking.” I asked Cody.

He chuckled. “Don’t be so childish. You’ve been around Bert-who is a complete alcoholic-all of your life and you’re still not used to being around drunken people?”

I shook my head. “Yeah, but that’s just Bert. I'm used to the way he is when he is drunk, not other people.” I was afraid to be around anyone who was under the influence because the guy who had taken advantage of me was drunk. I felt like I couldn’t trust anyone if they were, too.

Kyle put his arm around me, trying to calm me down. “It will be okay, we will watch out for you. Come on, you’ll have a good time.”

I sighed. “Fine, but if anyone tries to hit on me, I'm kicking their ass.”

They laughed. “I would like to see that.” Cody remarked.

“Agreed,” Kyle chuckled, dropping his arm.

Notes

~All photos are from Google. All characters of Vanity Release are made up, except for the name, so please don't steal. All events and most characters are merely a matter of fiction from my mind (except A7X and anyone associated with them, and the few other bands to appear every once and awhile throughout the story)~

~ I hope you enjoy the story~