bleed just to know you're alive;;open

[jagger nicholson]

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

______________________________

You know that feeling that you get when you know people are watching you? That drop in your stomach. It was because you knew that people were looking you over judging you and talking about every single aspect of your person. It was a horrible feeling that teenagers went through all the time these days. The problem with teens was that they actually cared what people still though of them at this point in time. They wanted people to like them and think they were cool. So they made it so that people wouldn't talk about them, the problem was that that just made people want to talk about you more, talk about how you were trying so hard to fit in but you didn't at all. It was a horrible feeling of rejection that they suffered. Hoffman was probably the only place where that happened to every single person. Well every single person but one.

Jagger Nicholson walked through the streets of London, his black Ray Bans covering up his eyes and his brown shaggy curls falling into place over them. It was busy for a Sunday afternoon three were all sorts of people around. Johnny had a bounce in his step as he made his way, well he wasn't exactly sure where he was going. He just liked walking these days it cleared his head about lots of things. He stopped at a coffee shop and bought a cup of Irish coffee, not as good as the coffee in Ireland he though as he pulled out a crumpled five pound note and handed it to the teller. He was handed his change back and had to wrestle his hand into the pockets of his white skinny jeans to put the coins in. Then he realized that he could have just put them in the pocket of his black leather jacket. He shrugged and walked out of the store. He was just about to turn around to go back to Hoffman when he spotted the entrance to Covent Gardens. He'd never actually spent time in there.

He pushed his sunglasses into his hair as he walked into the glass enclosed shopping center. There were so many people about pushing him from either side. He finally made it to the upper leave of the center and spotted an empty table with a white umbrella above it. He thought it was utterly absurd to have an umbrella on a table that was for the most part indoors. He sat down any way, his coffee still in his hands. He took a sip, tasting the whiskey on his tongue. Again not even close to real Irish coffee. He leaned back in his chair and watched the people mill about. A group of girls about his age or a year younger walked by giggling as they went. They'd probably never seen a boy wear white skinny jeans. Well at least there was a first time for everything. Jagger quickly finished his coffee but remained at the table just thinking about some things. He had no where to be on this lazy Saturday afternoon, he might as well make the most of it.

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Out on the road today,
I saw a black flag sticker on a Cadillac
A little voice inside my head said,
"Don’t look back. you can never look back."


It was different living in a whole new country half way across the world. Everything seemed so much more cultured and refined here, unlike back in the States. Weston was having trouble figuring out why the Europeans seemed to know the secret, whatever that was, and the Americans didn't. She, being one of those oblivious Americans, did not know the secret either. Was there even a secret? Still though, this city seemed so much different than back at home where you had to take a car to get anywhere you wanted to go. Here people walked. Everywhere. It sort of made sense now why America was the country with the fattest ass. She saw on Oprah once all the women from the other places around the world talking about ho overweight American women could be. It was probably because they sat on that fat ass all day long, in cars, on the computer watching TV. Sure, Weston prided herself on having a nice bod' but she now realized after trekking her way across half of London, that there was a very large gap between looking good and being in shape. It was a good thing that she had worn converses today instead of heels. Of course, London wasn't so completely different from America, you still had traffic up and down the narrow streets, and you still had the poor people begging for change at corners. The only difference was that in Texas you were safe in your minivan and could pretend that you were talking on the cellphone. At those times they would just go up to another car. Here though you didn't have the glass and metal box that kept you insulated from the rest of the world. Nope, it was just you pounding your way across the pavement, ready to greet whatever lied ahead.

Weston had felt the need to get out of her stuffy room, and thus had hit the streets, with no real objective as to where she was going. She had slung her hobo bag over her left shoulder and in her right hand were numerous papers, notes and measures scrawled all over. She had dedicated herself lately to mastering a piece from one of her favorite movies Spirited Away. It was the first part, the main theme, that would usually been played on piano, but she wanted to try it on the cello. So far she was no where near sounding as that one guy from Youtube did on the keys. She mumbled to herself, the rubber of her soles making 'thwak thwak' sounds with every step she took. She stared down as people bustled past her with their briefcases and cell-phones and shopping bags. She would glance up occasionally only to make sure she was not about to ram into someone. That would have been unfortunate.

Weston figured that at this rate she would never have the piece down. There were so many people, so loud, moving to and throw about their days. It was a giant mass of faces and she blended in. Just another smear on the canvas of a city, meaningless. She mumbled to herself as she swung open the door to a shopping center,looking for a place to sit and rest her legs. Damn her American upbringing and their SUV's. Weston was in a daze as she sat on an empty bench, the people still running back and forth. Suddenly she stopped to look up from her sheet, frowning. "How the hell get..." No matter. At least she was sitting down. And no one was paying attention to her anyway. She looked back down at the music before her, biting her lip in deep concentration.

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[jagger nicholson]

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

______________________________

Jagger's mind had this weird thing of connecting events even if they had no relevance to each other. He thought it was what made him such a good songwriter. He could be stuck on one line of a song and then start thinking about a specific event or maybe one of his brothers or sisters, and suddenly it was all connected he found that event that told was he was trying to express at that moment. He was thinking about this project that he was going to have to do at Hoffman, he had to write and preform a song about something that really mattered to him. That was going to be just a bucket of fun. Sure he loved his family and all that but he couldn't write a song about any of them, he couldn't write about any of his one night stands, and anything else was just to boring to write about. He should write about liquor and give the Hoffman administration to think about. He couldn't push it though.

Unlike about ninety-nine percent of the Hoffman students here, Jagger was here on a very restricted scholarship. His parents barely had enough money to support their family of ten let alone pay the twenty thousand dollars a year for Jagger to go here. If they had had it their way he would have just gotten a job and started to help out with the debt, but fate had been kind to Jagger and so he was here on the good graces of a record company. A record company that thought he had talent, that thought that he could go far, he just needed to be trained up a bit. That was all shit in his mind, but he had already been kicked out of his school back home, he didn't want to be the youngest anymore and he didn't want to be the one who disappointed his parents. Hoffman had been a curse and blessing to him. Just this final year to go, if he could keep his cool then he would have his record deal and be done with it.

As soon as Jagger was about to get up, he suddenly had the urge to go to Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park and see what things were all about there for a while. A group of tourist started to push their way through Covent Gardens, much to the displeasure to the shoppers, they looked like American's or as far as Jagger could tell. He stayed at his table tapping his fingers on the table. Once they were all right in front of him a girl who looked like she was a part of the group sat down at the bench in front of them. Jagger knew that American's hated to walk so much, but Londoner's were use to it. When the group finally started to move away from Jagger he looked at the girl who seemed to be a few years younger than him. "You're group's getting away," he said pointing after them. If you got lost in London you might as well forget finding them again. The least he could do was help her out.

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There was one thing that everyone in the world, and either didn't want, didn't appreciate or something along those lines. Parents. Every person in the world had a pair lying about somewhere on the face of the earth. Most of the time, they were something that you did not want. Weston never knew a lot about parents, except they were there to sign permission forms and buy her things. She had been through two sets already. Well not exactly two sets, but two mothers. She wouldn't be surprised that if some random woman came waltzing to the door proclaiming 'I am your mummy!', she would believe them. Her father had difficult time if staying with anyone one person for two long. Maybe it was just that he didn't care. Weston didn't even know her biological mother, who apparently was a whore who refused to appear or be named. It suited her as much. She was happy with her life and the never-ending cycle of women trying to fill the oh so important motherly role in her life. The only creepy part about the whole thing was that these women were getting closer and closer to her age. If they ever became younger than her, though, she'd have to intervene and say something.

Her current step-mother, Maire, was the one who had thrown her into this school. When they first moved to London, she was happy with her tutors, then went to an elite middle school where she seemed to fit in easily. Now though, Maire being the social-climbing show-off that she is, decided to uproot her and too her in with other 'gifted children' as if to say, 'Oh my step-daughter is gifted too. Beat that all of you other mothers with rich kids'. She would have probably put it more eloquently. Now Weston felt like she actually had to prove herself to more people. It really wasn't just the school, but more of a coming of age type of thing. She now recognized that she had a role to fill and if she didn't do it who would. Sure shehad daddy dearest's money to back her up, but she was out there proving herself just like the rest of them.

She glanced from her seat at the loud group of tourist in shorts and baseball-caps, cameras hung from their chest and sunglasses on her head. They were like a strong burst of color and noise and Hawaiian shirts. Americans for sure. She followed them with her eyes, thinking back on how the first thing that she did upon moving was throw away all the things that would give off a tourist vibe. She thought she had done a good job. "You're group's getting away," Her eyes shot over to the voice who had said that, a boy who looked about seventeen or eighteen. Apparently she hadn't done a good enough job. Her eyes widened for a moment, "What? Er-no...I'm not with them," she said quickly, slightly embarrassed.

[jagger nicholson]

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

______________________________

It was funny the way things that your brain saw through your eyes and then figured out funny ways to relate them to things in your life. Jagger's brain did that a lot, he figured that it was the thing that let him be such a good song writer. At least good in his mind, a certain cord on his guitar could bring out an emotion that he was feeling at a certain time or with he was with someone and he could just start turning out lyrics. Sometimes it came at the most inopportune moments, times where he was in class and his guitar was across the room, or he was out walking and didn't have a scrap of paper. It's not that he thought about it these days, he was use to it. After four years of this stuffy boarding school it hadn't taken away, if boarding school hadn't taken it away then it must be a good habit.

It was at that moment after the tourist had gone by, when the girl was about to get left a couple at least a good ten years older than Jagger walked passed him. They were both blonde, slightly scruffy and looked literally pissed at each other. Yet somehow they reminded Jagger of his eldest siblings, Colman and Jilleen. They were twins and he doubted this couple was related, but Colman and Jilleen rarely agreed on anything, the only thing that they liked to share were their handsome good looks, their chic way of life that none of his other siblings could copy. He picked up a napkin the one that had been wrapped around his mug of coffee and wrote a few lines down about Colman and Jilleen, the kinds of lines that made you smile. The couple passed and Jagger just remembered the girl who was on the bench. He just caught her sentence.

"Sorry, tend to put my foot in my mouth," he said his slightly unnerving, slightly charming accent very predominant. "Least I didn't tell you to go home," Jagger said shrugging. He did get that quite a lot, it wasn't just the fact that he was Irish, but he said the wrong things and he was dirty poor. He got "Go home harp," quite a lot although he became immune to it, and he had a killer right hook to go with the statement "Fuck off,". So people actually had some reasons that people wanted him to go home. He gave a yawn, not bothering to cover his mouth and went back to playing with the paper on his mug.

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