Chapter 5: A New Life

Yuck Idaho.. that's where i'm from.. Lame.

The plane ride left my stomach making loops. I was glad that we always drove to our new home. Flying wasn’t my favorite thing to do. It had been over a full day since I last saw my parents. Now I sat in a small hotel room waiting to meet my new family. It wasn’t something I was looking forward to at all. Even so I brushed my hair, put on my most appropriate clothes, and even wore my nicest lip piercings.

I looked at myself in the mirror. Long straight leg jeans on top of converse sneakers with a black T shirt are what covered my body. It was the best that I had packed. My dark brown hair straightened nicely over one eye. The air in Idaho was so dry it really did well for my hair.

It was nice to finally have alone time. It wouldn’t last long. After meeting my family I would be whisked off with them to a giant press conference. My reappearance had hit national news. News stations from all over the nation would come to dinky little Idaho Falls, ID to see the forgotten kid. This wasn’t right. Everything felt like a dream. Perhaps someone would pinch me and I would wake up. That didn’t seem likely to happen though.

Sleep wasn’t something I found over the night or for the whole day. My new family wanted to see me right away. I told Woods I wasn’t ready that I needed my own time. I was glad I had taken it. Everything seemed to be happening so fast. I didn’t even know if I was ready now. A half an hour was all that stood between me and my new life.

My hand started to shake at my sides and I had to sit down. My eyes looked around the cheesy hotel room. Nasty old wallpaper covered each wall. It was a perfect country bedroom. As I looked at the walls my guitar caught my attention. I had time to spare and maybe it would make me feel better.

The clasps on the side of the black case snapped loudly in the small room. The lights glimmered off the polished finish of the instrument. Tagg had used this guitar his whole life. When my parent’s finally upgraded his, when I was twelve, Tagg passed his possession down to me. From that day on I’d been playing. Tagg taught me all that he knew. Together we wrote songs and played for friends. He didn’t join his band until he was seventeen. I was too young to tour so I was put on the back shelf for awhile. That was fine with me. Music wasn’t my specialty it was his. I just enjoyed the time spent with him.

My fingers easily fell over the chords he taught me of his favorite song. It was a song he loved since he’d heard it. Before he left on tour he sat me down on his bed. “I don’t want you to regret anything in your life, Thatch.” My heart hurt thinking back on this moment. “You’re so young and you haven’t seen a lot.” His green eyes fell down to the middle of the guitars between us. “I would give anything to be back there. To have so much life left in you.” A smile crossed his face and the beautiful pair of eyes leapt back to my face. “So tonight we’re going to do exactly what this song says.”

I opened my mouth and whispered the words to the song along with the chords. “Throw it away, forget yesterday. We’ll make the great escape.”  That night he and I ran around town and wreaked as much havoc as possible.

Tagg was never a brother to me. He was always more of a soul mate. Now looking at it, he was never a brother, ever. We just understood each other better than any two people in the universe. Everything was always on a different level with him. He always just understood. We never had to talk we just knew. I’d miss that.

The guitar slid on top of my lungs and fell to the ground. The strings vibrated loudly as they crashed against the ground. The sound echoed inside my head. What was going to happen to me?

Quickly I picked up my guitar and looked for any pain I had inflicted upon it. When the check was done I put it back into its case. There wasn’t anything else to do now but wait. Waiting wasn’t a good thing at this point. There were too many thoughts and questions exploding inside of my mind. I tried to hum something to keep myself focused, it didn’t help.

Finally the half hour passed. There was a knock at the door and I tightened up. What did I need to do? I needed to open the door. How do you do that? My brain had to force everything single muscle to move. I had forgotten how to breathe, how to walk. Fear had completely taken over now. I had no idea how I was even functioning.

Luckily Woods had a key on the other end. I stood up and waited by the bed. He slipped in by himself. “Are you ready to meet your family now?” His brown suit coat was too short for his arms. A slight pudge of belly sat above his belt. His face looked as if he had climbed Mount Everest. This would be the bust of his whole life and career. I was glad he was finding pleasure in my pain.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.” I shoved my hands into my pockets and stood uncomfortably in the middle of the room.

Woods put his hand on the door knob. “They know this might be overwhelming so they’re going to come in one by one to make it slightly easier for you. If you need to stop let us know.” I’m glad they realized I was fragile. But really was I that bad? I thought a moment, yes I’m that bad.

The sound of the door opening sounded loudly and two people stepped in. “Thatcher, these are your parents Ashley and Stanford Marshall.”

Author's Note

<3

Reviews

[Zombeh]

Another great chapter, I like how Thatch's [duh, finally I remember the name] brother has a bit more info on him about what he's like. I'll read on now >.>