Beauty and the Boyband

Friday Morning, 6:30 A.M. | Tamia Wayne (Female Lead) POV

My alarm goes off.

Ugh, another day of school.

I showered, got dressed, and headed downstairs for breakfast.

While eating, I thought about what was in store for me today at school.

I'm a senior at Theodore Roosevelt Academy in Los Angeles, but I haven't always lived in LA. My family and I moved here from Texas right before my freshman year— and before that, we lived in many other places due to my father being in the U.S. Army. I never really felt like I fit in anywhere, and I'm definitely invisible at school.

But it's not all bad. I do have two best friends: Morrissa and Vie. We've all been best friends for the last two years. Morrissa moved here from Tennessee and Vie from New York. I even have a boyfriend, and he's actually one of the most popular guys in school: Lawrence, or Larry.

On the way to school, I smiled to myself as I thought about how moving to LA hasn't been as bad as I try to make it seem...

8:00 A.M.

But when I got to school, my smile faded. Because there was my boyfriend talking to a girl named Starr . She and Morrissa are considered the prettiest girls in school, but that's not the reason I'm so uneasy when they're together. According to Lawrence, Starr was his first love— even though they never dated. He just used to have a huge crush on her, but they became good friends. How can I compete with that?

They're probably just talking about schoolwork or something, I said to myself as convincingly as possible.

As I got closer, I could see that they were both smiling as they were talking. I cleared my throat as loudly as I could to make my presence known.

"Oh, hey babe," Larry says as he quickly moves from Starr's side to mine, kissing me on the cheek.

"Hey," I say back without any enthusiasm.

"I'll see you later Larry," Starr says as she walks away, but not before subtly winking at Larry.

"What was that?" I asked Larry.

"What??" he asks all defensively. "We were just talking about our senior projects. You need to stop being so jealous. She's just a friend."

Larry knows that I hate when he says I'm so jealous. I'll admit, I am most of the time, but that's I can't help but think that he still likes Starr. I wanted to go off on him so bad but I know myself. I'm not the type to get confrontational in public, or much at all. I was also hurt by what he just said. So calmly, I say,

"Not you, her. That wink she gave you. What was that?"

"What wink??" he asked in fake disbelief. Larry isn't the best liar. "It was probably nothing," he continued without giving me answer. "This project we have to do is a bunch of bull and we were just talking about how much we hate it and Mr. Olander."

"Oh, okay," was all I could manage to say as Larry kissed my forehead and walked off to his class. Standing there alone, I felt empty.

Could something be going on between them? No, he loves me too much to do that.

But I couldn't shake the feeling that something was up.

Friday Morning, 7:27 A.M. | Jason Draper (Male Lead) POV

"Hey, Jay! Get up!" I hear my younger brother Caiden yell from downstairs.

I roll over and sluggishly get out of bed. I was exhausted. We'd just gotten back from a six-month tour and now Caiden was waking me up at 7:30 in the morning. For what? I wondered.

"What's going on?" I asked as I came downstairs. I saw Caiden and my older brother, Raymond, sitting in the living room. They both had their phones out. I'm not even sure where mine was.

I've been told that I'm not like most teenage guys. Well, I guess the fact that I'm a famous singer in a band with my two brothers makes me very different. But I'm not always on my phone and I don't get out much... well other than touring and concerts. And, as a superstar, I don't date around a lot, nor have I had many girlfriends.

"Bruh, you didn't get the alert on your phone??" Caiden asked in disbelief.

"You know I don't know where my phone is, Cay," I said groggily.

"Yo, Jay, our album just sold 250,000 copies!!" Raymond exclaimed in excitement.

My brothers (and I) have this app on our phones that lets us know when our album sales reach the next highest mark.

250,00? Sounds pretty impressive, right? Especially since it was just released six months ago. But we've done better than that. Our last record sold half a million in six months. Now that I was almost eighteen and my singing (and speaking) voice had gotten significantly deeper, I was beginning to think that our fans didn't like the change, which led to a drop in sales.

Raymond is nineteen and he has a fully developed tenor singing voice. Caiden is sixteen and can still sing in that higher octave our fans love so much. And me? Well like I said, my voice is changing and I'm still in that awkward stage. I was happy that my brothers were happy, but I'm a perfectionist. I always try to outdo myself. So I couldn't help but feel like it was my fault that this last album didn't see the same success as the previous one.

So all I could muster up to say was, "That's great, guys. But I'm really tired. We literally just got back from a six-month tour four hours ago."

"But, Jay, man, we're too hyped to sleep!" said Raymond.

"Well Cay and I need our rest because we're starting back to school next week," I said.

"Oh yeah man, I forgot to mention," Caiden said. "We're not going back to Clairmont Prep."

"We're changing schools again??" I exclaimed.

"Yeah, didn't I mention it to you before the tour?" asked Caiden. "Oh yeah, maybe I didn't," he said, not seeming too upset.

You see, because of our fame, we change schools often. We're told it's for our protection and privacy, and it's always a private school. It's been years since I've been to a public school, and I forget what it's like. I also forget what it's like to live a normal life sometimes too.

When we're not in school and on the road, we usually do our schoolwork online. We also have tutors who come along with us sometimes so we don't fall behind in school. Now, it's not always easy to have all of our schoolwork online, so this causes us to change schools too. It can get confusing and overwhelming, but we make it work—all for our dream.

"I'm glad I've graduated and received my diploma," Raymond said. "School was getting in the way of what's really important: our music!"

I rolled my eyes, but smiled. Raymond and Caiden hate school, but I love it. It's the only thing that makes me seem normal at times. "I'm going back to bed," I said as I headed upstairs.

As soon as my head hit the pillow, my thoughts began to consume me: How I'm not a normal teenager... How I don't have many friends because of my fame. Whenever I am in school, I don't know who to trust because a lot of people only want to be my friend because of my fame. My brothers don't seem to mind it too much, but I do. I want real, true friends—or just a friend. I want someone to see me for me.

Now don't get me wrong— I love my career and I love music. But sometimes I wish I could have all of that without all of the fame and fakeness that comes with it.

I slowly drifted off to sleep...