The Only Girl in the Band

The Only Girl in the Band...[Part 15]

A/N: Hey all! This part isn't going to be as long as the last two. It's more of like a filler chapter. There's not that much action going on in this one. It's a lot of explanations and background. I wasn't going to write chapters for every day of the band's life, so this is skimming over a whole semester. I just wanted to get their process and background out of the way. The next chapter will have more dialouge and will go back to the individual stories. Nonetheless, enjoy! Comment and vote and let me know how you like the story so far!!

XOXO

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The rest of the semester went by excruciatingly slow, but each day felt like the hours were rushing by.

I was in my last semester of college and graduation was just a little ways down the road. I was busy with projects and exams and end-of-the-year college hoopla. And that was just college life.

I had quit my job at TFP. I just had no room for it. After the craziness of last semester, I knew I couldn't handle finishing school, being in a band, and a part time job. Something had to go, and my job was the only option. I wasn't too upset by this. Sure I missed the free coffee. But that was a small liberty to give up compared to what else was going on in my life.

I probably spent the most time with the band. When I wasn't holed up in the library studying, I was in Caleb's basement studio, helping write music and lyrics to our songs. This was proving to be extremely difficult. For some reason, we weren't able to write our songs as quickly as we had written the first three. Coming up with original ideas was the first hard part; putting creative and memorable lyrics to those ideas was the next hard part. Obviously we were writing songs about break-ups and falling in love; almost all songs are about that. We also wanted to throw in a song about fame and Hollywood.

Writing and recording songs was difficult. Whereas our first three songs we had written before we met Paul, now we had the label breathing down our necks, shooting us deadlines and vetoing our ideas. Paul told us the label wanted at least 11 original songs, not including covers.

At the same time as we were writing and trying to record our music, Paul had us booked almost every weekend to play somewhere. He said that we needed to make a good fan base before we got the album out. Whenever I was able to skip a few classes and take a long weekend, Paul booked us in places outside of Beverly Hills. We made our way to Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, and Malibu and other small cities along the way. We always had small crowds, but the reception was always wonderful. After performances, we would be able to hang out with the people that came to our shows and they would tell us how they liked our music and were excited for the album.

So we were slowly building up a small fan-base. Paul took up my suggestion of creating a Youtube account. We shot videos of us hanging out, performing, and recording and writing our music. The videos would only get about 5000 views, but that was good enough for us. At least people were watching.

Spring break, Paul booked us out of state. We down to Nevada to perform at a few casinos in Las Vegas. While we were there, we ran into All Time Low, who asked us if we wanted to open for their show in Arizona. So we travelled down to Arizona and opened for ATL and that was probably the greatest moment of the entire semester. All the sleepless nights and long days seemed to have paid off. The boys of ATL were really nice and supportive. They told us to go for our dreams and not give up. They said that it would get hard along the way and there would be times where it seemed like nothing was going right, but we should perservere and we would get through it. It was encouraging advice, especially coming from a successful pop-punk band that had already been through what we were going through at the moment.

By coming out of our little Beverly Hills bubble, we were able to reach quite a few people. We were able to get the word out about us and build on our small fan-base. It was exciting when people would recognize us on the street and tell us that they enjoyed our performances. Moments like those made it worth all the hard work. At least it was paying off to something.

With each performance, I slowly overcame my phobia of performing in front of people. I was becoming more and more comfortable on stage, which showed with each of our performances. Since I was the lead singer, it was up to me to get the crowd going. I was the one that had to make our performance memorable enough for people to keep us in mind. It was hard work, but I was doing it.

In the midst of my busy life with the band and finishing college, my relationship with Ian seemed to be suffering. With Paul booking us almost every weekend I didn't have an exam, and with us working almost every day on our music, Ian and I didn't really have much time to ourselves. We would steal a few minutes away sometimes just to talk and catch up. It seemed like ages since we had had our last real date. We were both always so busy. When I wasn't with the band, I was hiding away in the library at school writing a paper or doing and assignment or working on a project or just straight up studying. When I was with the band, we would all be in our secluded corners, working on separate things and then coming together and telling each other what we had gotten done.

I had confronted Mae about her kiss with Caleb after the party. She had told me the truth, that they had indeed kissed on New Year's, but that that was all it was. She it was in the moment and that they had talked about what it meant. Both Caleb and Mae agreed that it wasn't the best time for them to begin a relationship, seeing as how mine and Ian's wasn't really going anywhere. They both admitted that the feelings were there, but they just didn't want to act on them yet.

Mae was doing really well in her fashion designing degree. She had shown Paul some of her designs and sketches and he liked them so much that he had hired her to be our stylist. Caleb, on the other hand, was also busy with the band. He was also still trying to get over Emma and didn't want to rush into another relationship. And he didn't want to push it with Paul, who was still firm on all of us being single. I suspected that part of the reason he was putting so much work on us was to keep me and Ian from getting too serious. And it was working.

I took two weeks away from the band once I got to finals week. I couldn't risk letting my grades slip, because regardless of all the work I was doing with the band, I was still doing really well in my classes. I stayed late nights in the library studying for finals and finishing up papers and projects. The break was well worth it because I completed all my courses with exceptional grades.

Graduation was exciting. It was nice to finally be done with college. I knew that whatever happened with the band, I would still have a legitimate degree to fall back on. But I was still young, which was the best part about it. I still had time to chase my dream.

My parents weren't too thrilled when I told them I wouldn't be going to graduate school and that I was going to take time off and focus primarily on the band. But when I told them that we had performed for Paris Hilton, they lightened up a little. Hearing a real celebrity's name gave them a little assurance that this band thing wasn't a failure.

After graduation, things finally cleared up a little. My mind wasn't as occupied, so I was more inspired to write and record. I wasn't as stressed and I had more time on my hands because school was finally over. In addition to that, we were almost done writing and recording our songs. We would always listen through the songs and find something that could be changed.

At this point, we were editting all of the songs. The album was essentially finished. With each day, the possibility of having a record label and an almost finished album was becoming more and more real. It was such an amazing and accomplished feeling. The light at the end of the tunnel was getting brighter with each day. We were almost there.