I Dare You *On Hold*

9| The Break

The next few days passed by slowly, and I spent all of them just working on my song. I had a little less than three weeks left to finish it before I had to send in the final product of it for the competition. It had to be perfect by then, or I could kiss my dream of being a recognized songwriter goodbye. It's something I've wanted to be since I picked up a guitar and played my first chord. The next one came naturally, and then the next until I had my first little song. It was about my love for video games, but hey, at nine years old I felt like it was a pretty cool accomplishment. It was also the moment I found my passion, and I had no intentions of letting it go.

After dropping out of college, I spent my time busting my tail feathers just to be noticed for my talent. Youtube videos, Instagram posts, and even local shows at different cafes have done absolutely nothing to grow a fanbase, and while I know it takes time to build these things, I didn't have time. I made a deal with my parents that if I couldn't make a living off of my passion by the time I turned twenty-two, I would start working for them with their real-estate business. They came up with the age, saying it was the age I'd have been when I graduated if I hadn't dropped out. It wasn't ideal, but it also wasn't the worst deal in the world, and I still had two years to get it done, but I wasn't keen on letting the time tick down. I wanted to succeed sooner rather than later. I wanted to secure my future, the one I wanted, and I wanted to do that now.

Which is why you need to win this competition. Focus.

And I had been. For the past five days, I really bunkered down, not moving from my spot in the dorm, and pushed out a pretty solid second verse to match the first. I worked in some complex but complimentary finger picking to really hook the listeners in and elevate the song from something basic to something that showed effort while still seeming effortless, if you get what I mean. To say I barely left Drew's room would be an understatement. If he wasn't bringing me food, then delivery was, and while I didn't condone that kind of lifestyle longterm, the progress I'd made was enough to make me excuse my 'irresponsibility', as my mother would put it.

All that was left was a banging bridge and the song would be complete. The problem was, I couldn't come up with one. I knew I could use a break, but I wasn't entirely sold on the idea yet. Ever since the party last Friday, I hadn't gone out or done anything 'fun'. I tried inviting Natalie over for a bit, but she didn't want to risk running into Drew since it was his dorm after all. I was disappointed that that reason even existed, but I understood, and promised that she'd be the first to hear my song once it was finished to make up for being unreachable lately.

Drew was annoyed, but for multiple different reasons. His main one, however, was that I apparently stunk and needed to shower. Granted, I wasn't exaggerating when I said I hadn't left my spot. I'd been sitting at the edge of the bed, wearing the same basketball shorts I had on since Saturday, and wasn't exactly winning the award for best hygiene. Drew's roomate would probably have a permanent indent of where my butt was on his mattress.

Poor guy. Hope he doesn't mind.

I still had yet to meet him, actually. Come to think of it, there were a lot of things I'd been meaning to do that I hadn't since my songwriting binge.

Huh, maybe I should take a breather.

I hadn't even had time to meet up with Madelyn again. And whose fault is that? I already knew it was mine. We'd text here and there, send a few funny pics to each other, or video links, but that was about it. One time she sent me a picture of her and Severus, who was a black chantilly with his fluffiness up to the max, captioned by the message, 'Don't you want to meet him?' He definitely looked like he'd belong to Lou with the way he scowled at the camera, amd even though Madelyn looked really cute smiling next to him, the lyrics to the second verse were just coming to me and I didn't want to risk breaking the flow. I did, however, decide to use that picture as her contact pic in my phone, and smiled whenever I saw it pop up with a new notification showing she'd texted me, which it just so happened to do right now.