Saving Chester Bennington

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Chester’s POV

          Chester woke up on Saturday and stretched tiredly. He couldn’t remember why he was waking up so early on a weekend. His day yesterday hadn’t been horrible. He had the house to himself the entire evening. He’d also saved Mike’s ass in history. He still wasn’t really sure why he’d done that either. Maybe it was just a spur of the moment thing. But maybe it was because he actually did want that friendship that Mike had offered a while ago. Maybe it was because he was willing to give Mike another chance because otherwise there wouldn’t be anyone for him. He didn’t believe that for an instant since he hated Mike and Mike apparently hated him. Now why was he getting up early again? He glanced around his room and his eyes fell on the folded piece of paper on his desk.

          “Oh fuck I’m supposed to be trying out for a band,” he breathed. He was out of his bed in an instant pulling on the first clothes he could find. Black jeans and a white shirt that fit his skinny frame perfectly. He was pulling on his black and white Nike shoes as he hopped down the stairs on one foot. He was glad his dad wasn’t around to see him leaping around like an idiot. He grabbed a snack from the kitchen and then was out of the house. He checked the address on the paper and then started his way towards the house. He wondered how many other people were going to be there. He was getting nervous again. What if they hated him? What if they told him he wasn’t good enough? He slowed down as he approached the house. He could still turn back now. He could still run home and no one would ever know that he had planned on auditioning. He stopped and half turned around to head back home before he mentally kicked himself. He took a deep breath and then walked up the driveway to the garage where a bunch of other kids were sitting in a line.

          “You’re at the end, dweeb,” a kid said with a laugh. A few other kids snickered at the remark and their conversation carried to Chester’s ears.

          “Does he really think he’ll make it?”

          “I don’t know why he even came here?”

          “He’s going to get crushed.”

          “He doesn’t even talk, how can he sing?”

          Eventually a voice called from inside that the first person could come in and that’s how it went. One person would go in for about five minutes and then come out and sit back down. Then the next person would go in and do the same. There were a total of fifteen kids here including Chester himself. He still wasn’t sure if being here was a good idea. The kids had really made him doubt himself here. Maybe they were right about him not being able to sing. Sure he’d sung to himself a lot. He’d had to when he was writing his lyrics. But maybe he had made himself sound good just so it wouldn’t be another thing to hate about himself. Eventually all the kids had gone and he was the last one.

          “Well what are you waiting for loser? Go on in! But when you come out, we’re not fucking comforting you for trying to do something way out of your league.”

          Chester stood slowly. His mind was itching to just make a run for it but his legs carried him forward to the door. When he opened the door, he saw a sign with an arrow that pointed to a set of stairs leading down. So he was going to audition in the basement? Alright then. He slowly descended the steps and walked towards another door with light illuminating from underneath it. He stood outside it for a minute trying to calm his nerves before grabbing the handle and turning it.

Mike’s POV

          They all sucked. That was Mike’s opinion and he could tell that Dave and Joe were thinking the same thing. Brad and Rob had commented on one of them but that was it. No one he had seen today had what they were looking for. Some of them sang horribly and one made Dave leave the room ranting about killing the screeching monkey in the other room. Yea, it’d been that bad. Another one had tried to do one of those deeper voices that some of the rock singers had. That one had made Dave fall over in his chair with laughter. Another boy came in and started screaming all the lyrics. Eventually Dave had told the kid to shut up and Joe had started laughing hysterically. Like he had said before, they all sucked. None of them could sing.