The Runaway | Ashton Irwin AU

Part 4

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[Charlie's POV]

[Three years later]

Hard times ahead, my father had told me. At that moment I didn't quite understand what he meant, but I do now. Three years doesn't seem like a long time, but in this industry, it feels like a lifetime.

It only took a couple of months before I was signed. I guess I never should have hid away in those practice rooms at school. I've been told my voice is something that everyone needs to hear. But that was all talk. They didn't want to hear me, hear my voice or my words. They wanted the girl that they tailor made for whatever image they thought was most poplar now. They wanted Atlas Rose.

I was not this girl. I didn't wear sequins or backless dresses. And I most certainly did not sing only hit singles.

Before all of this, three years ago, I wrote an album. Well, I wrote the songs for an album. It was a little James Bay meets Amy Winehouse and I was so proud of it. I had been working on it since I was 16. Back then no one knew, or even cared, what I had been writing in that notebook of mine. Maybe there had been one person, but he was probably long gone by now. He was like me in the way that I could tell he had dreams that he wanted to fulfill. We were very similar back then. I wondered what he thought of me now.

When I finally got a label to listen to my songs, they instantly disregarded them. Throwing them away like they were nothing. Figuratively of course, I would never allow anyone to destroy something I had worked so diligently on. They told me if they were to sign me I have to do exactly what they wanted. And after months of being told no, I finally decide it was time to make a change because I so desperately craved what they had. So I agreed and here I am now.

My hair had changed from its sandy color to an almost translucent bleach blonde. My skin had been tanned to perfection and the clothes that I had brought here to California had long been forgotten and replaced with new up-to-date fashion. The passed two and a half years have been spent doing the same routine over and over each day: wake up, work out and record.

At first it was difficult for the label to see me as an actual human being. Instead, my voice was used as backing vocals or featured in the latest hip hop single. It took almost two years since moving to California to actually start the recording process of my own album.

When I was told that I would finally be recording an album, I thought that it was finally my turn to show the label what I could really do. But of course they had other plans in mind. They had everything already prepared for me: music, lyrics, the whole nine yards. They said all they needed was the right voice, and I guess I was that voice. I couldn't say no. If I did, I would have been back where I started and that was worse than this.

Sellout. That's probably what everyone from back home was thinking. And I can't deny it because it's the truth. I soldout the second I got to California. Sometimes I wished I had never left Arizona and my little town of Page. I missed the dry desert heat and the fact that everyone knew each other. Here it was like high school all over again. Sure in high school everyone knew who I was, but I was still invisible. Here in LA, I'm just invisible.

It's hard, the pressure that comes with a lifestyle like this. I had no idea. I thought it would be easy: move to California, get signed, make an amazing album and everyone would love it. But that was just a child's fantasy. Now, after being here for only three years, I realized how naïve I had been. My slogan has come to be: fake it till you make it.

Maybe if this album goes well, the label might let me do what I want for the second one. Maybe if I hadn't been so weak in the beginning, I would be releasing the album that I had spent years writing. But those were only dreams now. In one week, on April 22nd, my first ever single will be released out to the world. It will be played over several radio stations and after the song is released, I will be doing my first ever tv interview with MTV.

I'm not sure if I'm ready for it all just yet. I had been so ready in the beginning, but after everything that has happened, I'm not sure if I'm cut out for this life. I've only ever wanted my music to be heard by people and possibly have it influence ones state of mind in a positive way. But the songs on this album will be nothing more than the background music being played at starbucks. This is not what I wanted.

. . . . .

A/N: So this book was supposed to be a short story, seeing as it's based off a song that is no more than four minutes long. With that said, I'm still unsure how long this book will be.

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