SHATTERED

thirteen

alex

two days after jessie's birthday party, me, miguel, jessie, and saylor are in the studio. the last time we were in here, we were mainly just messing around with everything, but today, we're actually going to work on recording things.

"nah, first, we're re-producing the songs we have on soundcloud; i want liam's shit out of there as soon as possible," i shook my head.

"fair enough; we do need his part out," miguel agreed with me.

jessie leaned back in the seat she was in, and she sighed. "i hate to break it to you, but we're gonna have to re-record all of that. i lost all of the files."

my eyes narrowed down at them. "are you fucking kidding me? how the fuck did you manage that?"

they glared back at me. "drop the damn attitude; it's not my fault my laptop stopped working."

i let out a deep exhale. "there's no way you can get the files back?"

"nope. they were only on the laptop."

"god damn it," i muttered with a scoff.

"look at the bright side," saylor started to say. "it'll sound way better now that we're using an actual, professional studio to record and produce it in."

i rolled my eyes. "whatever. let's start with kiwi first and get this shit over with."

•

a little over two hours later, it's nearing eleven a.m. we're still working on the production of kiwi when laura walks into the studio.

she glanced around at the four of us. jessie and miguel were working on actually producing the song. saylor was looking over their shoulders as she watched with a bit of an awestruck look, while i was playing on my guitar.

"i know you're all a bit busy right now, but we need to speak for a bit," laura gave a polite smile. when we all looked at her with furrowed brows, she let out a small laugh. "don't worry, you're not in trouble."

reluctantly, miguel and jessie came to a pause and saved everything. i sat my guitar on its stand, then followed behind the three of them, who were now following laura.

once we got to the conference room that we always talk in, we all took our usual seats. while they were getting settled, i pulled my cigarettes and lighter out of my pocket. i placed a cigarette in my mouth, and i started to light it.

my brows furrowed though as laura reached over and took the cigarette out of my mouth before i could light it. she swiftly tossed it into the trash can that was in here. "no smoking in the building, alex," she reprimanded as she paid me no mind and continued to look through her folders.

my jaw dropped slightly. i looked over at jessie and saylor, who were obviously holding back laughs. i cut my eyes at them. "shut the fuck up."

they both started to say something back, but laura held up her hand. "zip it; no fighting in the building either."

she then interlaced her fingers, and she placed her hands on top of the table. "okay, so, as you may have seen, after we signed you to the record label, we posted about it on our instagram page. we tagged you, and it's gotten your page quite a lot of followers," she started.

she looked between the four of us. "but your page has nothing posted on it."

i looked over at jessie. "you were supposed to be posting shit on there. what happened?"

"nah, you were supposed to," she argued. "you—"

"aht," laura cut them off. "it's fine. it's nothing to stress about. however, you do need to start posting more on it; media presence is important when it comes to growing as an artist in this day and age. you can post whenever, or i might specifically tell you to post something. that being said, you need to come to me before you post something, just so i can proofread it. we wouldn't want cancel culture on your ass before you even get started, now would we?"