Chapter One: Monday.

Let's try this again.

That's what he tells himself when he feels all those words at the tip of his tongue wanting to drip down his throat, never to be heard. But he's used to this and despite the presence of a mantra—which, for all intents and purposes should have helped him along—he buckles. It would be insane to say that he isn't used to pressure, especially from himself. Pressure is how he lives his life.

Which would make this particular moment in time so ironic.

No matter how many mornings pass him by where he'll wake up and say that today will be the day… it's never the day. It never changes.

He wants to say that today is the day that he wants to stop. He doesn't want to do it anymore. He's been doing it for so long, every single day of every single week of every single month of every single year since he was knocking on the door to adolescence. He's afraid that it'll never stop. Because he can't imagine not doing this forever but at the same time, the thought of doing this forever makes him want to throw up.

I don't want this anymore… I think.

He wishes that he didn't lack so much conviction. But there he is, standing in the middle of the kitchen, trying to figure out how to tell the world that he, Nick Lucas, maybe didn't want to do the music thing anymore.

Maybe. Maybe.

Okay. So. Today isn't the day.

Honestly, it pains him to be so gutless. So weak.

He hates it.

He heads to school with his brothers and most of the day is just a blur of color and sound. Joe and Stella make the not-so-subtle eyes at each other. Kevin says something that earns him curious looks. And he… He's his quiet self and no one ever questions that.

It's during lunch period that he finds himself looking around while waiting for his brothers to get their stuff sorted out and his eyes land on the atrium. On a Macy Misa who is currently sitting on the bench criss-cross-applesauce (that's what Frankie calls it) with her legs hidden beneath her skirt. An open textbook is balancing on her right leg and she's studying it, the concentration etched on her forehead. What makes the whole picture entirely Macy is that with her left hand, she's tossing a baseball in the air at a steady pace as she reads her book. He can almost make out her pink-painted fingers tracing the words of her book as her hyperactive mind tries to digest every piece of information. A slight breeze passes and a strand of her dark hair gets caught on her lip-balmed lip but she's too caught up in what she's doing to push it away. It's rare that he's able to watch her this way when she's completely unaware.

He almost feels like a kid at the aquarium, looking at an interesting underwater creature and studying its movements. For a moment, he wonders what it's like in Macy's world because her world always seems so… bright. There's really no other word for it. He imagines rainbows and sunflowers and butterflies and, for some reason, really, really, really green frogs. The thought makes him jealous. Being on the stage so often with its glaring lights and seas of fans has painted the rest of his life in muted tones. He misses how it used to be when he didn't have to go and strap a guitar to his body and perform before thousands in order to feel something (anything) but that's how it is now. It scares him.

He mentally shakes all those weird and somewhat confusing thoughts from his head, even though the distraction is welcome. More than welcome in fact, he thinks as he turns to study the petite girl once again. His right hand searches for his notebook in his bag, to distract the others from his obvious distraction. Because, you know, life just isn't complicated enough.

Stella comes stomping through the atrium now and she stops in front of her best friend. This results in Macy stopping what she's been doing since even before he's had his eyes trained on her and a part of Nick is slightly disappointed. Another part of Nick stops short at the realization that Little Miss Multitasker Misa drops everything that she's doing when it comes to her friends. Yet another part of him questions if Macy considers him a friend enough to do the same for him. The last part of himself is a little sad that the question even exists.

He shrugs it off, letting these silly ideas slide off his back and onto to the ground (hopefully to be forgotten very, very soon). Then he turns to his brothers and makes a big deal of looking at his watch and raising his eyebrow at them. They'd keep him waiting all day if they could. It's not like they haven't tried to before. (The difficult thing about being a group of three is that someone is always outnumbered and it's usually him.)

"Just a sec, Nick," his eldest brother replies, busy with painting his locker door. It's happened often enough that he doesn't bother asking anymore. He sighs and tries to tune out Joe who decided, at some point, that singing the words "Tuna squish, tuna squish" would be entertaining. Unfortunately, that isn't the case at all.

After a few strokes that look more like a sword in a fight than a paintbrush doing its job, Kevin declares himself done and ready for "Lunch people!"and Nick does his best to appear relieved that forward movement toward the cafeteria will finally be achieved. Somehow, though, he feels unprepared to leave the place his feet are currently rooted to and requires a shove from Joe to get going. His brother gives him a look and he knows that it's justified because he's acting weirder than usual. (He won't even argue that weird for him is tantamount to normal for Kevin.)

Taking a deep breath, his feet unfurl themselves from the ground and he takes a step forward but not in the direction anticipated. His feet (the damnable things!) spin in (approximately) a ninety-degree angle and proceed to trudge toward the atrium. His traitorous knuckles knock on the glass panel and two heads, one blonde and one brunette, spare him a moment as they stop talking and look at him.

"Lunch?"' he mouths to them (and if he is honest with himself for even one second today, he would admit that he does so hopefully) while hitching his thumb in the direction of the cafeteria.

Stella nods in reply but his eyes are on Macy who digs through her bag pulling out an apple, showing off its ruby gleam to him. She then points to her book, which he can know see is a history book, and offers him a rueful smile and shrug. He returns them readily (both smile and shrug) and heads off to follow his brothers who have gone ahead without him.

"You okay, Nick?"

He looks up from his keyboard to see his dad looking down at him with concerned eyes. It's nice that after everything (fame and fortune and everything else in between) dad is still dad, mom is still mom, Kevin is still Kevin, etcetera and so on and so forth… Except Nick isn't Nick anymore. He doesn't get it. How can someone consciously change? When it started, he could feel the change coursing through his veins. He was just powerless to stop it. Powerless? Somehow he feels that that's the wrong word entirely.

But instead of venturing into the unknown territory of sharing his feelings, he looks at his father with blank eyes and answers with a question. "What makes you think that I'm not?" He doesn't really mean it as a challenge but it comes out that way nonetheless. So he's not surprised when his dad shoots him one of those 'Quit the attitude or else' looks.

"Well, let's see Nicholas. You sat down there two hours ago and no one has heard a peep out of you since. Not a sound. I came to make sure you were still even here."

"Oh. Well. I'm here." He casts his eyes downward and they, in turn, trace each delicate curve of the black and white keys.

He hears his dad sigh and the floorboard creaks a little as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "That you are…" He trails off and Nick hopes that the conversation will end there but of course it never does. "Listen, Nick, I know this isn't just another case of writer's block. You know that whatever has been bothering you, you can tell me, right?"

That's debatable, he wants to say, but he keeps his mouth firmly shut and merely answers with a stiff nod. "Yeah, dad. Thanks." He even offers him a small smile to seal the deal, to get him walking again, out of the room, so that he can continue staring at the wall like he's been doing the past ninety-eight minutes. It works and he's left to his own devices once again.

Only, he is device-less. All he has are fingers that are afraid to touch the keyboard. He has spent the better part of two hours wondering what would happen if his fingertips touched the cool plastic. A part of him (the most ridiculous part of him evar) is convinced that he will just die. He will stop breathing. His heart will stop beating. It won't even be painful. Everything will just cease to be.

It scares him. It scares him because he wants to touch them just for that reason.

There's a short shriek of laughter that pierces through his self-imposed silence and he pushes himself away from the offending death instrument to find it. What he finds is Stella and Macy wrestling on the floor over a purple feather boa. Or, rather, Stella wrestling Macy to the ground so that she can wrap it around her best friend. At least that's what it looks like to him.

"I'll never surrender to you, Stella!" Macy shouts at the top of her lungs, her face a strawberry red as she tries to push her best friend off of her person. "Get off! You're crazy heavy!"

Her competitor, the fierce Malone, will not be deterred it seems as she brushes off the insult and victoriously ties a knot with the accessory's two ends. "A deal's a deal, Misa! You said!" Stella points an accusing finger at the defeated girl once she's back on her feet. "You lost the bet and now you have to wear that to your next volleyball game." The triumphant look in her eyes is undeniable and as she brushes herself off.

"God, Stella," Macy huffs, now masquerading as a ball of purple feathers. "You should seriously think about joining the wrestling team." She sits up and tries to free herself from her fashion cage, spitting a feather out of her mouth as she tugs and pulls. "I'm stuck."

Nick almost jumps when her eyes meet his and he's five years old again, caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Macy seems just as surprised (if her jaw dropping is any indication) but it's Stella who talks to him first.

"Nick! Sorry if we disturbed you and your songwriting."

She smiles apologetically as she says this and he doesn't bother correcting her. Songwriting? It's a default action for him, he supposes. And sitting in front of a keyboard would give a person that impression. Regardless if it is played or not.

Macy smiles her smile. The one that goes from ear-to-ear and is all pearly white teeth and joy. He'd have to be an idiot not to know that she's excited at the prospect of a new song. Macy Misa, covered in purple feathers with her hair in complete disarray and her cheeks almost the color of her lunch apple is excited over possibility.

A possibility that doesn't even exist.

He feels the waves of jealousy again, the second time today, because it takes him a crowded arena chanting his name for him to feel the exact same way. Jaded. That's what he's become. Cynical. Quite possibly suffering from clinical depression. But it sounds all so 'Rockstar' that he hopes that it's none of those.

(But if he is honest with himself for even just one second today, he'd say that it's all of those.)

"Sorry to disappoint, Mace, but no song today."

Her crestfallen look ignites something inside him and he hates it. He's disgusted by it. But he loves that he has this power over her and it's sick sick sick. But he can't help himself. He can't help himself as he gives her a hand, helping her to her feet. Or even when he places his hands on her shoulders, steering her toward the other room while ignoring Stella's confused stare. And when he reaches for his guitar and starts playing an old song for her and watches as her entire face lights up the room (including that most ridiculous part of him), he doesn't notice that touching the guitar strings didn't kill him.

Instead, he feeds off of her, of her uncontainable happiness, her shining hair, eyes and smile. He almost feels guilty but then, seeing the look on her face, he doesn't feel so bad. She feeds off of him, too. Might not be the same thing but it's something.

Something that tells him that maybe he's still normal.

"You wanna come over tomorrow?" he finds himself asking and she nods emphatically.

Today is Monday. For a Monday, he's feeling rather good.

Author's Note:
Next chapter up soon, hopefully.