I began puking immediately after I got off stage. Shortly afterwards, I passed out stone cold on the flat floor. What was I doing with my life? My name is James Fredrick. I’m nothing but a has-been musician desperately craving for the spotlight I had years ago. It’s been a hectic ten years since my band, ABC Subtitle, was the centre of attention according to mainstream magazines such as MTV and Vogue. When our debut album went multi-platinum my heart lifted with joy because I assumed that it was a symbol from our fans implying how much they appreciated the hard work we put into our music. My band mates, Scott, John and Harry were my best friends and stood by me since kindergarten. I was gullible enough to think it would last forever. Boy was I wrong.
          Soon after we got the public’s attention, John, out of nowhere, decided to quit the band selfishly believing he shouldn’t have to share the spotlight, therefore branching out into a solo career. The rest of us were extremely devastated at him. We would constantly argue about the musical direction of the band without John and we ended up hating each other and disbanding it. We all tried to follow John and branch out into solo careers but it was ultimately proven that we were nothing without each other and that being united made us appeal to our fans.
Now, after all these years, the only things I feel are regret and anger. I currently live in a large studio apartment in Manhattan, all by my lonesome. My thirty-fifth birthday is coming up and I don’t have the slightest bit of interest in it. What’s the point? Why do I need to celebrate the fact that I’m slowly dying? There’s no point fussing over those issues either, I suppose. I tried to clear my head and relax but it seemed impossible so I headed to Central Park for a stroll. Little did I know that my miserable life would instantly turn around when I got there.
            I was awkwardly pacing at the park trying to manage my thoughts as I suddenly saw her face. All my thoughts had vanished and I couldn’t bear to focus on anything but her. My heartbeat accelerated as I took another glimpse of her beautiful long auburn hair. Her eyes resembled lava and they sparked at me as I made eye contact with her. Her movements were steady and content like a soft ocean breeze. She had a slim, curvy figure, and was walking towards me. I was panicking in my mind and was extremely terrified.
“Hey, are you okay?” said the breath-taking girl.
“Umm…” I replied in a clueless manor.
“You look like you spaced out for a bit. My name’s Lily!” she said as she energetically introduced herself to me.
“Umm….. My name’s James…,” I nervously muttered.
“You look like you’re pretty tired. Want to grab a bite with me?” she generously asked me.
“Umm…..Sure……,” I replied with sheer discomfort.
What was I doing? I basically fell in love with this girl on the spot and I couldn’t belt out a single word out to her! I needed to relax and get over my idiotic shyness.
“Where do you want to eat?” I politely asked her.
“I don’t know. Anything sounds good. How about KFC?” Lilly suggested.
“Sure,” I agreed.
We leisurely walked across the town on our way to the nearest KFC. It was about a mile away. On the way we talked about ourselves and our interests seemed to intertwine. She was apparently a struggling bassist trying to make it with her band. She was also a fan of ABC Subtitle! For some odd reason, turtles seemed extremely amusing to her and she was entranced by them. We eventually arrived at KFC, even though it felt like we’d been walking for a few seconds. As the two of us were ferociously chomping our burgers, I blurted out something I’d been dying to ask her since I met her.
“Lilly, will you go on a date with me?” I randomly blurted out.
“What? Oh yeah, sure!” she accepted.
“Here’s my number. Anyway, I have to go. Bye!” she shouted as she finished her burger and left with an astounding amount of energy.
“Bye,” I quietly murmured.
           I hurried back home to get ready for the big date. My life had grown dull and boring after the break-up of the band, but for the first time in ten years I was actually thrilled about something. I was actually looking forward to it. She was amazing. I couldn’t exactly pinpoint what it was about her but she made me feel happy. My repressed anger was wearing out, instead transforming into love. A few hours ago my life was a sad tale about a man who’d lost everything and now it was evolving into a sappy, stupendous love story of stupidity featuring every cliché imaginable to the human brain!
             There was absolutely no time to mess around with pointless pondering over meaningless subjects. The stress was building up in my mind when I realized what time it was. I had less than an hour to prepare for the date! My mind suddenly scattered off into a billion different places all at once and I was overloaded with a constant ache in my head telling me to focus on making tonight perfect. If I screwed this one up, my life would be over. I would be pleaded with guilt for not making it work. It had to work with her. She was the one.
            I raced upstairs to my closet and quickly put on the most expensive suit I had. The suit was blue....sharp-looking, and well-fitted. Exactly the sort of thing that a woman would pick out for her man to wear to at a formal event like this. The clock was ticking and I was anxiously getting into my car to pick her up. She was expecting me any minute now.
Suddenly, I'd realized just how preposterous this was. Why was I acting out like this? What was I so worried about? I was wasting my time worrying about how I could mess this date up, when in reality, I knew Lily was the only person or thing that I could never mess up, because she was what someone could consider, absolute perfection. The truth that was blinding me all along was the fact that being with her was the only thing that had made me feel this unreasonably happy in decades. It wouldn't matter where we went or what we did on this date, as long as I was with her.
               Lily wanted me to meet her at the restaurant, so I went there a bit early. It was a five star establishment, but thankfully I'd managed to spend my fortunes wisely over the years, and I had more than enough money to afford an extravagant dinner for two. The restaurant itself was rather classy, if I do say so myself. It was quite an amusing observation really, as I had more or less detached myself from places like this over the years, yet it somehow felt like I belonged here. A majestic grand clock was present at the restaurant, and it eventually occurred to me that it was eight-thirty. Lily was supposed to meet me here at eight.
              I couldn't allow myself to believe that she stood me up, so I didn't leave. Any second now, I optimistically kept thing. Any second now, she would enter the room and she would immediately brighten up my day with that enthusiastic smile and those lava-like eyes. It was only a matter of time before I managed to snap some sense into myself and realize that I had been played. She was two and a half hours late! Of course she wasn't going to show up! The burning rage in my delicate mind had finally figured out how to escape. What was the point of opening myself to people when the end result was always identical? My band left me! I was unemployed! I had no close relatives or friends! I was thirty-five years old and I had no clue as to what I was doing! Even Lily stood me up! This was the last straw!
             I dragged myself to the King Cole Bar at 2 East 55th Street. I was sobbing with intensity on the way there, and I think it was safe to say that I was an utter mess.
“One Bloody Mary please,” I half-heartedly sulked out.
“Coming right up!” the attractive Bartender sympathetically replied.
As you can probably guess, one drink turned into a few dozen, and the rest of my evening consisted of a ferociously dangerous streak of drunken partying. Over the years I had spent a countless number of hours trying to pinpoint the source of my unhappiness, but for some odd reason I never came to the assumption that it was because I was what one would call a recluse. Tonight was inevitably going to be different. In all my years of extensive touring, I had never been this radically drunk. It was a new experience for me, and as most people who have suffered from the effects of a hangover will tell you, it isn't the least bit pleasant afterwards.
               At some point I had managed to pass out on a seemingly random bench on the street. I woke up with a severe headache (which was obviously expected), and I wasn't entirely sure  what my next move was going to be, so I spent a couple of minutes consciously laying on the bench, contemplating my life.
“James, is that you?” asked a deep voice from behind the bench.
I got up and looked backwards. This was definitely more than I could handle right now.
“John? What are you doing in New York? Aren't you supposed to be on a European tour or something at the moment?” I bitterly replied.
The truth is, at that said moment, there was literally nothing I wanted to do more than shove his face down a toilet. He was directly, and even indirectly responsible for all the pain I had to put myself through over the course of the last couple of years! Thanks to him I was thought of as nothing but a washed up, second-rate musician, whereas he was more or less worshiped as a modern legend!
“Nah, that starts next week! I'm in New York because I have to record a music video for my new single today, and it's going to be shot near the Empire State Building. Oh, By the way, happy birthday!” John remarked.
“Birthday? Oh right, it's my birthday. I guess I forgot. Um, what time is it?“ I politely inquired.
“About eight a.m. Wait a second, do you have a hangover?” He laughingly asked. 
Yeah, it's a long story. Anyway, it was great seeing you after all these years, but I better get going,” I quietly mumbled, hoping he wouldn't reply.
“Nonsense! It's your birthday, after all! How about this? I'll buy you breakfast!” he declared, with a sense of assurance.
“Uh, sure,” I awkwardly said.
I wasn't entirely sure as to why I had agreed to having breakfast with a man I despised for years, but when you're at rock bottom there's nowhere to go but up, so who really cares. We spent a while walking around and taking a bunch of redundant, yet amusing shots at each other, while we were looking for a restaurant to eat at. To be honest, I forgot how much fun it was to hang out with John. Unfortunately, the amusement had been blown to smithereens the moment John got a phone call from his manger.
“Uh, James, I don't know how to tell you this, but, well, Charlie's gone. He's dead. The funeral starts in about an hour. We better go,” John painfully told me with genuine remorse.
Charlie Thomas was someone I'd looked up to since the inception of ABC Subtitle, and even as John was uttering the horrific words he had just told me, I silently refused to believe them. Charlie produced our universally acclaimed debut album and a bunch of John's solo albums, and as far as I knew, he was the most lively, most energetic man to have ever existed. He was only about twenty or so years older than me, yet he was healthier than I was, physically and emotionally. How could he have died, just like that?
“What? How did he die?” I blatantly asked him in a manner that probably resembled shouting.
“He had a stroke. Um, let's go back to my hotel. I have an extra suit you can probably wear to the funeral,” John replied uncommunicative.
I never thought I'd say this, but I felt sorry for him. He was closer to Charlie than any of us. It's as if the raw energy that defined John's personality was spontaneously taken away from him. We took a cab to his hotel, and he was speechless the entire time. His suit was a perfect fit for me, but that wasn't really a priority to anyone.
                Believe it or not, but the funeral turned out to be the setting of an outrageously unprecedented turn of events. For starters, Scott and Harry, who were apparently in New York at the time, both decided to attend the funeral and pay their respects. It was certainly a surprise, but it was definitely a pleasant one. This was the first time all four of us had been in each others presences since the band broke up. It was, as a fan of ours would probably say, history in the making.
              For the majority of the funeral I was so preoccupied with them that I had neglected everyone else who had decided to attend. There were a bunch of familiar faces of course, but there was a particular figure who had popped up when I had least expected it. I could recognise that auburn hair anywhere. It was Lily.
“James? What are you doing here?” asked Lily, while at the same time wiping a handful of tears off her face.
Suddenly, the anger I felt towards her for the past twelves or so hours had passed away. I didn't care about the fact that she had stood me up for our date. I could tell that she was in a state of excruciating pain, a state I was all too familiar with, and I wanted to comfort her in any way possible.
“Charlie was a close friend of mine. Um, Lily, I just wanted to let you know that even though we barely know each other, I'm here for you. I don't know why you didn't show up last night, and well, the last twelve hours have been a bit, well, odd I guess, but I am, by all means, here by your side at this particular moment. I have absolutely no clue why you're here, and this monologue of mine probably sounds a bit creepy considering the fact that we just met, but if it's alright with you, I'd love to have a second chance,” I replied with a sense of newfound confidence as I gently approached her.
          It was astonishing really, when Lily leaped into my arms. I had this utter sense of contentment, but the ironic thing was the fact that I couldn't bring myself to experience the happiness I had so desperately craved. Suddenly, the realization hit me. This was Charlie's funeral. I had found a way to forget about all my worries when I gazed upon Lily's sweet porcelain face, but the harsh reality was that Charlie was in fact dead.
“Lily, I hope you don't mind me asking, but how do you know Charlie?” I softly asked, hoping she wouldn't take offence.
“Um, he was my father. I guess I should've told you that when I said I was a fan of ABC Subtitle,” softly replied Lily, who was still sobbing.
Father? Charlie never mentioned anything about a daughter! Well, to be fair, he was probably trying to keep John away from her. He was, and probably still is, notoriously known for being a player. It was more than a tad bit unexpected, but I could live with that. At least  she had a valid reason for standing me up last night. Charlie was said to have been proclaimed dead at around eight last night, which was when our date was originally scheduled. I felt like a bloated, idiotic jerk, but a small part of me was also relieved.
“Hey, it's alright. I miss him too, but he's in a better place now. He was a good man, and I'm sure he was proud of you,” I calmly said, with an imitation of the sympathetic voice the bartender had displayed to me last night.
             “Thanks. I'm probably going to busy for the next week or two, because of dad and everything, but I would be thrilled if you could find time to reschedule our date. If it's okay with you, that is,” Lily told me, with what seemed like a bit of optimism.
She had wiped the tears off her face by now, but she was obviously still depressed.
“Sure! Give me a call whenever you want. I wouldn't miss it for the world,” I replied in a hushed, gentle tone.
           I could now say, with the utmost confidence, that everything was going to be alright. Sure, I was going to struggle along the way, but looking at everything that's happened to me over the course of my life, I was going to survive, for better or for worse.