MATT'S POV

"Shadows, honey, are you even listening to me?" My fiancée Valary's words abruptly ripped me out of my trance. Damn. I knew I was trying her patience. It was the fifth time during our last meeting with the wedding planner that she caught me not paying attention.
"Sorry babe, I was just daydreaming about how great you're gonna look in that dress. What were you saying again?" I smiled and shot her some of my Sanders charme, but I knew I was on thin ice. "Pull yourself together!" she just scoffed. Wow, frosty much.

I pretended not to hear her and instead turned to face Melissa, our wedding planner. She was a middle aged, but nevertheless very attractive woman who seemed to put a lot of effort into her outward appearance. By the way she talked and wildly gestured I could tell that she didn't notice the awkward tension between the soon-to-be married couple in front of her. Or at least pretended not to.

I tried to focus on what she said about buffets, restaurant critiques and the likes, but I just couldn't. My thoughts always drifted somewhere far away. What will I make of the melody I tried to put down yesterday? Are Zack and Brian going to find a way to play along to the piano? When can we go to - God damnit Sanders, focus. Reception something... Oh wait, now we're celebrating in a hotel? Okay okay, whatever. Tonight's Friday, I'm free, and I'm going to Johnny's with Cat and the guys. Are Cat and Jimmy gonna do body shots again? And, holy fuck, is Jimmy gonna suggest his weird drinking game again? I can't come home fully wasted tonight. Val is so pissed anyway. Oh wait, fuck, was that a...?

"Mr. Sanders?" Melissa looked at me as if she had seen a ghost or something. "Uhm, I was..." I tried to explain, but Val cut me off. "Not paying attention, like always." Her icy tone gave me goosebumps. "We were just discussing if we could change our name to Shadows, when are you gonna do that?" She stared at me expectantly. What? I eyed her closely. A couple of days ago she'd dyed her pretty blond hair dark brown. If you ask me, blond suited her better. But I knew better than to tell her. Her brown eyes, the pleading look on her pretty face, it was all so familiar, yet all of a sudden felt so strange.

"What's wrong with my last name?" I managed to ask. "Well Baby, I'm marrying a real rock star, I at least want people to know who I'm with when I tell them my name. Valary Shadows - of course, M Shadows' wife, right? But Valary Sanders? That sounds like I'm with some potato grower from somewhere in fucking Nebraska," she scoffed, then laughed hysterically. Melissa threw me a questioning look before joining her laughter out of politeness.

Her eyes. I couldn't believe how cold they looked. Every piece of fiery temperament, of warmth and secureness I'd ever seen in them seemed gone. I wondered how long it had been this way. So she wouldn't love me if I were some ordinary mortal? And who was I to believe she would?

"Guys, excuse me for a few minutes please," I gasped, grabbed my jacket and hurried to the exit while Melissa babbled about men and cold feet and that everything would be over in a week, when we would be freshly married and off to our honeymoon in the Seychelles. "Actually," I said as I stood in the door, "Excuse me for the rest of the meeting." When I closed the door behind me I heard Val screaming a few swearwords after me, but that was nothing new. We'd fought a lot in the past few months, and I, too, said things I was not proud of, and I probably didn't mean.

I walked to my car in silence. I tried hard not to think about anything, but the words "some potato grower" and "fucking Nebraska" echoed inside my brain like a bunch of ping pong balls someone had thrown inside an empty hall. Is this what I want?

Now don't get me wrong, I love Valary, and deep down I wanted to believe that I always have. We'd been on and off for eight years, so does it really matter that our feelings seem rather off when we are getting married? They came back countless times, so they would come back this time, too, wouldn't they? Or were we just clinging to the past, just blatantly ignoring that things weren't that great anymore? Would I miss her if she was gone now?

I mean, last time I broke up with her I had to write her a symphony to make her come back. It's on our new album, coming out in some months. Buy it. Anyway, the song... Well, I guess I meant it at the time. Whenever I sing this certain song in which I beg God to hold her, I think about how much I missed her back then. Past tense. Why didn't I think about the present? Wouldn't I miss her anymore when I'd start touring? My head was overflowing with questions about my own feelings, and I had not a single answer to one of them.

Since Valary had the key, I decided to text my group chat for someone to pick me up. When I pulled out my phone I realized I had 47 new messages in my group chat, plus the group had been renamed four times. The current name was "fucktards + his Majesty the Rev".

In the beginning, we'd called it the A-Team (A for Avenged, get it?). It only consisted of the five members and Cat, our best friend from High School, who'd sung back up vocals more times than we could count, especially for the new self-titled album we just about finished recording. You'll hear her voice in A Little Piece of Heaven, Dear God (the forementioned song I wrote for Val about a year ago), Scream and a bunch of other songs in a choir, but also in some City Of Evil ones like Bat Country.

She is also the one girl starring in the Beast and the Harlot music video and making a brief appearance in the Bat Country one, too, and sometimes she joins us on stage. Chapter Four for example is a song we hardly performed without her. I mean, I can't sing and scream at the same time, so I scream and she sings.
I preferred the singing part, but when I asked her to scream she only replied, "Man, when I scream I sound like a gollum or some shit. I mean, I never watched Lord of the Rings but when I scream it sounds exactly like I imagine it. Plus, it sounds like people imitating it, so." End of discussion.

I sighed before starting to scroll through the messages. I expected the usual nonsens: Jimmy's conspiracy theories, Haner bragging about groupies and Johnny trying to make us believe he was an important member of our band. Of course he was one, and he knew it, and we knew it, and he knew that we knew it, but making fun of him was just our running joke. Deep inside, though, he was the one who laughed the hardest about it. I always made sure of that.

This time, though, the first message came from Cat: BITCHES, ZETA GAMMA IT IS.
Wait, have I really forgotten that Cat's starting College (again) today? Or at least moving her stuff into the sorority house. I knew College started in a month or so, but applying for sororities was earlier.

Fuck, how could I forget about that? I felt like I had failed as a friend. Having felt bad before, I felt miserable now. I just typed "congrats cat, let's catch up on sunday. last day as a free man i guess. or if ur home earlier ur always welcome 2 swing by" I hoped she would come to my bachelor party. Only girl allowed, though. Johnny picked me up ten minutes later, and he drove me home without asking stupid questions. The good man knew exactly when to be quiet.


CAITLIN'S POV

I'm too old for this bullshit, I thought as I sat down in a circle with all the girls from my sorority. After majoring in molecular biology, I'd decided to enlist to postgraduate studies at another university, another four semesters of genetics. This, naturally, made me older than most of the girls at the sorority welcoming event, who were all around eighteen and just graduated from High School. With my birthday in September, I had always been the oldest in my grade anyway. I was twenty-two, soon to turn twenty-one, and so they tried befriending me. They wanted me to buy alcohol, what else was new?

After the shy, pretty Asian chick with the red hair next to me told us her name, Wei Lin, and that she was from Korea, all eyes were focused on me. We were fourteen, I counted. It was unusual to have as many Freshmen as others combined, but whatever.
"Hi," I began, "I'm Caitlin May Anderson, turning 23 in about three weeks. I'm from Vancouver, but I moved to Orange County up north before I started high school. I majored in Molecular Biology at UCLA and now I'm here in San Diego for their Genetics program. Nice to meet y'all." I smiled politely as we moved on to the girl next to me.

"So, girls, you've introduced yourselves long enough, now let the jag begin!" Farrah Mohamed, the pretty sorority leader with the Moroccan roots screamed. Wait, she drank? Well, she obviously wasn't a Moslem, I chuckled to myself.

"Never have I ever," she announced our drinking game and wiggled her drawn eyebrows as she filled our cups with some green liquid. They called it the Zeta Gamma fuck up. It was a mixture of various hard liquors, juices and the likes. It tasted good and strong and after I took the first sip, I knew I'd be the last person standing. I mean, if you party with a real rock band for years, you get used to the booze. I threw a look in our round, seven Freshmen members and a few older ones who looked pretty dull and geeky. Yep, positive, I could and would outdrink them all.

A petite blonde with icy blue eyes and a fiery orange lipstick - which, by the way, didn't suit her at all - began. I was pretty sure she'd introduced herself as Sarah, and she was a Freshman. "Never have I ever had short hair," she said and threw back her waist long hair anticipatingly. I took a sip from my cup. "Caitlin?" Farrah and a really fat Mexican girl (and that's putting it nicely) whose name was Mar-something, (Marta, Maria, Margarita? Speaking of which, I could really use a margarita right now.) stared at me. "Pics or it didn't happen!" Sarah demanded and I pulled out my phone. Mar-something stood up and moved across the room to see it, too, and her knees creaked loudly. "There," I said, and they all wow'd, claiming that I didn't look like myself at all.

Before putting it back into my pocket, I glanced at the picture for a split second. I thought I didn't look that different. Sure, my now dark blond shoulder length hair was jet black and short, but my face looked so familiar. The same expressive green eyes, the same fun-loving freckles, the same luscious full lips. It was cocky, and something I'd never admit, but I was pleased with the way I looked. No wonder why I had starred in a couple of commercials earlier.

"Uhm, my turn right?" I said as everybody returned to their seats. "Never have I ever done body shots." I grinned, then took a sip. I grinned as some of the girls looked shocked, but Sarah and three others chuckled and drank, too.

Lauren, a tall girl with black curls and obviously surgically enhanced boobs who'd thrown a tantrum about not getting the "bed with the best chakra" earlier, continued the game. "Never have I ever had sex." We all grinned and drank, before it was Mar-something's turn. "Never have I ever had sex with someone famous," she whispered reverently, and all eyes automatically went to Lauren, who broadly grinned and drank three times. After some seconds, I took a gulp, too, hoping no-one would notice.

"Why don't you guys know Canty Sugarberg, he's like, the shit. He's the best rapper ever, I swear," Lauren blabbed, starting to get on my nerves, "and then there was Lil Francis, I'm sure you know him, he's a rapper, too..." We all shook our heads, but she didn't seem to mind. "But this one, guys, will blow your mind. Ryan Fernandez," she whispered and looked at us as if she expected us to applaud. Mar-something's eyes were as big as plates. Ryan who? "¡Diós mio!" Mar-something exclaimed. Did she just insult me? I should have taken those Spanish classes back in good old Huntington Beach High School more serious. After a while, it turned out that the Fernando Fernandez or something guy starred in some rather unknown Mexican movie.

"But there was someone else who drank," Farrah grinned and looked at me. I swallowed hard as thirteen pairs of eyes suddenly were glued on me. "Who was it, Caitlin?" Farrah asked. "Maybe someone we actually know this time," Wei Lin added with a boring expression. Fuck the Fake-Boob-Chakra-Bitch, I thought.

"M Shadows," I replied.

Notes

Heeeello and welcome to my new story :)

It's the first time I'm trying to write Matt's POV, too. So what do you guys think so far? You want me to continue? :)

love, seventhtrumpet