We Can Be The Same

Noah, Luca, and I assembled in my garage the following evening, while Jet, on the other hand, was notably absent. God knows why the fuckwit was absent; all that mattered was that he was.

“You did manage to convince him to join us, right?” Noah asked.

“Yes, he told me he would be here,” I replied, although I must admit I was beginning to grow uncertain.

“He’s never exactly been known for being on time. He’ll come when he comes,” Luca shrugged.

“It’s not that I’m late—I just prefer to make a stylish entrance,” Jet’s familiar voice added.

He entered the garage with a girl wrapped around his arm. He was wearing a pair of sunglasses and a black singlet that hugged his physique. The tight, weathered black jeans he wore left little to the imagination. I had to divert my gaze.

“And who is this you’ve brought along?” Noah asked, raising an eyebrow.

“This is Charlotte.”

“Carol!” the girl interjected.

“This is Carol; I thought it would motivate you all to have a cute groupie join us.”

“Don’t you mean girlfriend?”

“Whoa, hold on there, babe. I told you I’m not ready for that level of commitment.”

She looked pained by his words but not as in pain as Jet, whose cheek bore a distinct red mark from where she had slapped him. Jet appeared bewildered, rubbing his face as she stormed away in anger.

In the meantime, I was rolling on the ground, unable to contain my laughter. I pounded my fist on the ground as I laughed hysterically.

“Shut up, shorty!” He yelled before composing himself. “I’m sorry, guys, looks like we won’t have any cute girls to cheer us on.”

“That’s alright; the only girl I need cheering me on is my wonderful partner, Jane,” Noah replied, pulling out a photograph of his girlfriend from his wallet and kissing it.

“I’m ace, and Blake is gay,” Luca added. 

Meanwhile, I was still rolling on the floor with laughter, my sides beginning to ache.

“I didn’t know you were ace,” Jet commented.

“You never asked.”

“That’s fair. Well, I guess it’ll just be my productivity that drops about fifty per cent.”

At first, I thought perhaps the woman I had seen earlier had returned for something she had forgotten. Instead, it was Darcy entering the room.

“I just saw a girl I’ve never seen before leaving. What happened?" she signed.

“Ah, a beautiful maiden has graced our presence!” he declared theatrically, making large gestures, potentially so Darcy could understand the general vibe he was directing towards her.

“Hello, Jet,” Darcy said verbally, letting out a small laugh. Her voice was a little rough around the edges, given that she barely ever used it. She was likely lip-reading to understand what was going on.

Unlike the other women, Darcy wasn’t immediately charmed by his devilish good looks. Maybe that’s why he got so giddy with her.

She signed a quick greeting to the rest of the band, by which point I had managed to pull myself together and finally relayed the drama she had missed. She let out a small laugh, then spoke again, her voice still strained.

“Sounds like you had a rough time, Jet.” 

It was clear she was making a conscious effort to speak. This made Jet blush; perhaps Jet had been tamed by Darcy. That being said, I was going to have to have a word with her later. Try to convince her to keep her distance from that womanising prick.

Now that we were all on the same page, it was time to start work on writing a song.

We began our jam session, some things worked and others didn’t. Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still missing from our music.

“Does anyone know any other languages?” I asked.

“No,” Luca commented.

“I can’t help you with that either,” Noah sighed.

“I only know Latin,” Jet added.

My jaw dropped. “Wait, you of all people know Latin?”

“Yeah,” he shrugged.

“How? Why on earth would you take Latin?”

“I took Latin classes because the teacher was hot.”

Ah, that explained it. My surprise shifted into disgust.

“You know Latin, that’s so cool,” Darcy piped in. While I was attempting to extract more details from Jet, Luca discreetly penned it down in a notebook for Darcy.

“It’s not that impressive,” Jet mumbled, looking away.

“As much as it pains me to say this, I’m actually somewhat impressed by you. Let’s put that Latin skill to use and work it into the song somehow,” I felt sick as I said this.

We got back into creating the song. It was centred around challenging normalcy and conformity, celebrating the importance of embracing one’s true desires and intentions. A fusion of genres: rock, with touches of rap, and even segments reminiscent of a Latin church choir, we mostly left that to Jet.

Once we wrapped up the recording, we began mixing. Noah was the best of us, so the rest of us stepped back and left him to do it. A few hours passed, most of it was trying to keep Jet and Darcy separated, but we finally had a completed track. We decided to title it Devil Inside.

After completing the song, there remained only one task: sending it off. After a brief ten-minute upload on our shitty internet, the track was out of our hands. A confirmation email confirming it had been successfully submitted to the Special Communication Service, our national broadcaster.

A few weeks passed, and I began to lose hope before the email arrived.

Dear Jane Doe and the Cadavers,

We are delighted to inform you that you have been chosen as one of the ten artists to compete in Australia Selects this year.

Kind regards,

Stephanie Branbull

Special Communication Service

A quick message later to the rest of the band, letting them know the outcome, and we began making plans for the trip to the big smoke.

─── ༻ ☼ ༺ ───

The next few weeks went by quickly as we prepared everything we needed and packed it into the back of Noah’s van. We all scrambled in, about to leave, when we heard someone yell.

“Good luck, everyone.” 

It was Pete; somehow, he made his own fan T-shirt with our band name scrawled in black marker on the otherwise plain T-shirt.

“Thank Pete,” I called back, recalling when I chose Jet as our guitarist instead of him. Maybe I had made the wrong choice; Pete’s support of the band was commendable, whereas Jet was… well, Jet. Also, I hated him, so there was that too.

We drove eighteen hours to the Gold Coast, blaring The Angels’ version of We Gotta Get Out of This Place on loop. We made several stops along the way to stretch our legs, but we couldn’t stop for too long. Jet would wander off to find single girls, Noah would fall into a depressed spiral, missing Jane, and Luca seemed to befriend every old grandma around and get dragged off to their place for biscuits. Despite the distractions, we finally reached the Gold Coast.

Upon our arrival, we were utterly shocked by the height of the skyscrapers that dominated the skyline. Back home, the tallest structure in our small town was the local pub, a large two-story building. These buildings were at least thirty floors high. They were bloody huge.

We checked into our hotel and were given a room on the thirty-seventh floor. Noah, Luca, and Darcy went off to buy groceries, and Jet was flirting with the receptionist, so I began climbing the stairs to our room. There were so many bloody stairs. Whoever thought of making buildings with this many floors should be beaten to a bloody pulp. Once I finally reached our floor, I felt I was going to pass out. When I reached the door to our room, I was met by Jet.

“What’s wrong with you Shorty?” He asked, looking down at me.

“How… the… fuck… did you… get here… before… me?” I asked, panting.

“I took the elevator. Wait? Did you climb all the stairs? Mwhahaha.” Jet had to grip the door to prevent himself from falling over laughing.

I felt like an idiot, and if I had the energy, I would have chucked him over the balcony. But I was way too tired. Instead, I connected my phone to the Wi-Fi and collapsed onto the couch, watching the live broadcast of Italy’s Solstice representative. After a suspenseful build-up, the final artist was announced: the rising star, young heartthrob Marco Ferraro, along with his power ballad, Riunione D’Amore, Love Reunion.

Marco?! What the fuck?!

─── ༻ ☼ ༺ ───

End of Chapter 2