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#i dont think im ready for whats waiting for me in poland
appalachy · 4 months
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Last night in portugal
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allofbeercom · 6 years
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The brave new world of the xx, pop’s brooding perfectionists
Solo success, confronting grief, sobering up the feted London trio talk frankly about how the events of the past four years informed their new album, I See You
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The three members of the xx cross from Poland into Lithuania overnight, trying to sleep inside a bus that judders and lurches along an uneven border road. It is December, an unforgiving time to be touring eastern Europe, and snow that was coming in committedly when they left Warsaw still falls when they arrive in Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital. Its cold here, beer-jacket weather, hot-toddy weather, get-messed-up-after-the-gig-to-distract-from-the-bite weather. But the band Oliver Sim, Romy Madley Croft, Jamie Smith travel in good, sober order. They toured their first album, in 2010, blinkingly, greenly, through a fog of personal tragedy. Two years later they got through a second-album tour mostly by partying wherever they went. (Moving from encore to after-show chasing the night, as the band phrase it in a new song, Replica.) When we meet, the release of album number three, I See You, is looming. For various reasons they expect to take this one around the world in steadier, less emotionally hectic fashion.
Arriving in central Vilnius at 10am, the trio alight from the tour bus and teeter over icy pavement, straight to their hotel rooms for some extra sleep. Im in the lobby waiting for them when they emerge, one by one, at midday. Sim (27 years old, bassist and co-vocalist) appears in a splendid fur-lapelled coat. His enormous green eyes lend him at once a striking handsomeness as well as the perpetual suggestion of worry. More so than Sim, Madley Croft (27, lead guitar and vocals) is dressed for her terrain: leather boots, hoodie, black-camo raincoat, a hat over her dark shoulder-length hair. A stitched image on the hat is faded and hard to distinguish and when I ask her what it is she answers in a soft, whistling voice: Three babies dancing. She says she found the hat in a skate shop somewhere. Smith (28, percussion and production) might have found his entire outfit in a Sports Direct somewhere. He comes down in Nike T-shirt, Adidas trackies, his copper curls sprouting over the strap of a backwards-turned cap.
Theres something drastic and strange about Smiths appearance that takes a moment for me to identify. Hes smiling. I find this hard to reconcile with our last encounter.
In the hotel lobby, the band and I reminisce about meeting last time, more than four years ago, when I shadowed them for a couple of days as they toured through Los Angeles. They were about to debut Coexist, their second album, high in the British and American charts. Their first album, xx, had won the Mercury prize in the UK and gone gold in the US. Its sound sexily gnomic lyrics sung huskily over precise and chilly synths was exerting a blatant influence on the music industry, imitators of the xx springing up all over the place. Now Baz Luhrmann was courting them for one of his soundtracks, and he showed up one night in Hollywood to buy rounds of drinks. The band went to after-parties backstage at the Ford theatre, by the pool at the Chateau Marmont, on the roof of a downtown hotel.
Watch the video for the xxs single On Hold.
I remember the experience for the hilarious difficulty of interviewing Smith, who was then emerging as the silent genius of the group, an unfeasibly talented engine-room operator who was responsible for so much of their musics distinctive and influential texture. At the time he betrayed none of the weight or assurance of someone with great and growing industry clout. Instead he seemed to trust that if he stayed quiet enough during our encounters I might forget he was there.
These days Smith tells stories, tells jokes. While he speaks he taps his fingers in time to some imagined and apparently buoyant interior music. If theres a reticence to him, still, it transmits as a cooler and more grown-up nonchalance. Life, is his deadpan explanation for the transformation. I went from being 23 to 28. It happens to everyone. Perhaps theres a little more to say. Under his solo stage name, Jamie xx has long tended a fertile sideline as a DJ and a producer of other artists work. In summer 2015 he released an album of his own, In Colour, that was enough of a hit to fuel a substantial world tour. He was nominated for the Mercury and Grammy awards. Its easy to see how much Jamies changed, says Madley Croft. Its obvious, because of his personal career hes more confident.
Sim and Madley Croft made guest appearances on their friends solo record. But this was very much Smiths project, one that had been building up for quite a while, and its gestation contributed directly to the years-long wait between the xxs second and third albums. The band started writing material for I See You as long ago as 2014. But the finish line, as Sim describes it, kept getting pushed further away into the future. He is diplomatic about the difficulty of Jamie just not being available. Even though he was really pushing himself, and not giving himself time off, getting face-time with him was tricky. Smith is apologetic. I was busy doing my thing. It was going well. I was happy in that way. But I was also anxious about finishing our [group] record. I definitely felt bad, coming and going. And I did understand that Romy and Oliver were really anxious to finish it. Because they didnt have They obviously had things going on. But they didnt have a creative outlet.
The band get ready to leave the hotel for an afternoon of rehearsals. Before we spill out into taxis I take Sim out of earshot of the other two, and ask: What about jealousy? We cant always rely on ourselves, as humans, to be perfectly delighted by our friends achievements. What did you and Romy really feel while Jamie was flying solo?
There were moments when I felt jealous of his time, Sim says.
And of his success?
Sim speaks carefully. I think of jealousy as: I dont want you to have this. And I felt proud of Jamie. I felt pleased for him that he had all of this going on. But, at the same time, I wanted this. Me and Romy wanted this. We wanted to be back up there, on stage, with a fire lit underneath us.
The trio strongly believe the hiatus has been beneficial to their music. I agree. After his secondment in a more dancefloor-orientated world, Smith has brought back with him to the xx a sense of pace and playfulness, obvious from the very first hands-in-the-air bars of the new record. Across its length the album has a brewed, stewy, experience-enriched quality, subtly but importantly different from the older stuff, which always had terrific clarity but which could lack human warmth.
From a bald commercial perspective the bands absence does not seem to have unduly alienated the fanbase. All tickets for seven nights at Londons Brixton Academy in March recently sold out. Still, there have been some surreal moments for Sim and Madley Croft during their semi-enforced sabbatical. They describe to me how bizarre it felt, trotting along to watch Smith play alone at Brixton, a spiritual home of sorts for the xx and a place they had played many times together. Only now two-thirds of the band were stood among the audience craning like everyone else to see over the next head.
Rehearsals are taking place at the venue for tonights show, a mid-sized arena on the outskirts of Vilnius. I ride there in a cab with Madley Croft, who has a digital camera and takes occasional pictures of the bleak winter landscape. Touring, she says, means seeing countries through the windows of cars. Tomorrow the band will fly to Japan. After that Australia, then Scandinavia, and eventually back for those Brixton dates and four other UK shows. They were on a killer tour the last time we met too. Then, they spoke to me about how strange an existence it was, their every need taken care of while they moseyed from encore to after-party. They made it sound cloying but also comforting, cocoon-ing, in Madley Crofts phrase. At the time I wondered what the effects might be, of the long tour finishing and all the machinery of the band falling away, leaving them to their own devices again.
It took an adjustment, Madley Croft says, of varying degrees for the three of them. She thinks Sim probably found it the hardest. Oliver, to me, is the natural performer of the band. I know he gets a lot of confidence from performing. And I sensed he might not be quite sure what his place was, for a while, when we were off stage. For herself, Madley Croft used the time away to address private matters shed ignored for some time. Stuff from the past. Losses Ive had. It all kind of hit me.
Smith, AKA Jamie xx, playing Londons Hyde Park last summer. Because of his personal career, hes more confident, says bandmate Photograph: RMV/Rex/Shutterstock
Wed touched lightly on this in Los Angeles her difficult backstory, intimately and pretty cruelly interwoven with the backstory of her band. She was only 11, in 2001, when her mother died. (This was a few years before she started writing music with Sim a friend from school in Putney, London as a form of escapism.) Her father died in early 2010 when she was 20. (By now, with Smith, another schoolfriend, the three were established as the xx. They were performing an early show in Paris when the news about Madley Crofts father reached them.) Towards the end of 2010 a close friend of hers, a cousin, died too. (The band had just won the Mercury and were becoming quite famous.) By the time I met them all in Los Angeles, Madley Croft was 22. Shed barely stopped touring or recording since her double bereavement in 2010, and I got the sense of a young woman putting a lot on hold.
The last few years have been, for me, about facing all of it, she explains. At the time I just went for it. Encore, after-party, encore, after-party. Its only on reflection I think how intense everything must have been, and how I just pushed it down. But everything comes up. Ive learned that everything comes up.
When we met before she was in the first months of a relationship with a designer, Hannah Marshall, who was then travelling with the band. They were sweet together, newly and sorely inked with matching tattoos patently in deep, even though Madley Croft seemed a little awkward in a public setting, as if she was getting used to her band-life and love-life intermingling. When we first got together Hannah was always so much better in social situations than me. I felt so shy. But through being with her I feel so much more at ease. Ive noticed thats happened in a different way with me than it has with the boys. And I know its because Ive been with someone.
The couple recently got engaged. It was the stability of the relationship, Madley Croft says, that gave her the grounding she needed to look squarely at her past. She went from pushing down thoughts about her parents to actually kind of craving going to therapy and dealing with it… Its an ongoing thing, she says. I feel like Ive dealt with a chunk. With a hell of a lot more than I ever did before. And the self-examination has borne creative fruit. Right in the middle of the xxs new album comes its tenderest and most nakedly spiritual track, Brave for You, a song that Madley Croft wrote about drawing strength from the memory of her parents.
We pull into the car park of the venue, sure weve got the right place because we can see the steaming figure of Sim, shivering in his coat, smoking a cigarette. Together he and Madley Croft clomp inside, shed their layers, and walk to the stage. She takes up her Les Paul guitar, he his Fender, and behind them on an elevated platform Smith finds his place among an array of mixers and synthesisers. Performing for an empty arena, they play a few old songs and a couple of newer ones, including Brave for You. Smith taps out a high rhythmic pulse. Sim waits for his moment to apply some bass. Madley Croft closes her eyes and sings: When Im scared/ I imagine you there/ Telling me to be brave
Madley Croft with her fiancee, designer Hannah Marshall. Photograph: David M Benett/Getty Images for Equipment
The rehearsal lasts a long time: hours. I perch with Smith in his mixing station and watch over his shoulder as the trio pick through 20-odd songs. Sometimes the noise, ringing off the exposed concrete of the arena, is tremendous. During uptempo songs Smith starts dancing, big-stepping in time like a cowboy at a line dance, thrashing his head like a metalhead in a mosh pit. Impossible to imagine, Madley Croft says, the old Jamie doing this.
Sim, frowning, the least at ease on stage today, unsticks a printed set list from the floor. He thinks back to the previous gig in Poland and says: Oh. I spoke in the wrong place last night. After a lifetime trying to maintain belief in the spontaneity of artist-to-audience banter, its a little shattering for me to learn that the xx arrange their chatty interludes in advance. But these guys are precision workers, broody perfectionists; and theyre rusty in their stagecraft after so long apart. When they rehearse a mid-gig spectacular of mashed-up songs, the music builds and builds, smoke machines gushing, some glorious climax imminent until at the clinching moment Smith slaps a button on his mixer and a deafening error-sound hums around the arena.
Everyone flinches. Argggh, shouts Smith. The mixer is unplugged and hauled away in machine-disgrace. The band take a break. Smith consults a roadie about a replacement. Sim drifts off stage. Madley Croft picks up her phone and taps out a message to someone.
Im starting to see that these three took very different paths away from their last album. Madley Croft into domestic stability and a worked-for interior peace. Smith into self-affirming solo work. Sims route took him where? He has always been the xxs most elliptical member, a charming if skittish, ambiguous interviewee. Unlike Madley Croft he has resisted overt statements about his sexuality. And the particulars of his family background, apparently as troubled as hers, remain much more opaque. When the New Yorker published a deep-digging profile of the band in 2014, the reporter was obliged to include a vague line about Sims early life, which was scarred by family dysfunction that he declines to discuss. Madley Croft has grown over time into openness, Smith into sureness. Sim seems still on his way somewhere.
Maybe theres a clue in the new music. I See You has a couple of tracks that come over as more direct and less cryptic than anything else in the bands back catalogue. A Violent Noise, for example, seems to be about partying too much, overdoing it (Youve been staying out late/ Trying your best to escape). In a subsequent track, Replica, chiefly written and sung by Sim, it sounds as if an unnamed parent is being addressed: Ive turned out just like you They all say I will become a replica/ [That] your mistakes were only chemical 25 and youre just like me Is it in my nature to be stuck on repeat?
Photograph: Suki Dhanda for the Observer
Away from the rehearsal I sit down with Sim and tell him the lyrics to Replica register, to me at least, as a kind of confession. A child of addiction, growing up to worry he has become an addict himself, wondering if the problem is unavoidable and hereditary or whether he can go down a different path. Does that sound accurate?
Sim, his large eyes open to their fullest extent, stares over my head for a while. Then he clears his throat and says: Um. Well. Thats kind of bang on, your reading.
He takes a breath. Yeah. Just kind of That was a big thing to deal with, over the past couple of years. Just kind of dealing with my relationship with using [drugs]. With drinking. And, um. And also my parents. Yeah. He says its a shock to realise that the private matters underlying this song have come over so plainly. This conversation is a bit of an eye-opener.
He started writing Replica, he says, a couple of years ago. Before I was taking any action. Or saying anything out loud. The bands 2012 tour had finished. The pace we were moving at stopped, suddenly. It was a pretty flaky existence Yknow, I left school thinking I wanted to live my life like a nomad, free-floating. Turns out I absolutely need some kind of structure. Living back in London again, structure-less, he thought of his drinking and drug-taking as blowing off steam. Later, I started to wonder if it was still charming to be the drunkest person in a room.
His decision to seek help took a while. A long, drawn-out decision. Smith was away gigging. Madley Croft was travelling the US with her girlfriend. I felt a bit lost. The schoolfriends all describe this period end of 2014, start of 2015 as the farthest apart theyd been from one another, geographically but emotionally too. As Madley Croft puts it: We werent in tune. Jamie was on tour. Oliver wasnt being entirely truthful with me about what he was going through. Walls were up.
When they did regather, Sim brought them the lyrics to Replica. Madley Croft recalls the moment. I thought: This is very real. Even though everything we do is real, this felt more transparent? It felt brave. And I loved that he let me in, to discuss it.
Sim makes it sound inevitable it should be writing, rather than talking, that helped bring down the walls between the band. Im a lot better and braver in songwriting than I am in conversation.
He says he has noticed, of course, how much his two friends have evolved in recent years. Theyve come on in leaps and bounds. He says he feels more sluggish in his own progress, a bit stunted People are like, So Jamies done his record and toured the world. What have you done? To be honest, Ive just been at home, figuring stuff out. He doesnt seem to realise that hes made the most progress of everyone. I ask him how long hes been sober.
Watch the video for the xxs Say Something Loving.
Eleven months, he says.
And?
And lifes been transitional, he says, smiling shyly. Quite a shift. Tonights show in Vilnius, for instance, the fifth of the current tour, will be the fifth show hes done in his career without drink. Its why I dont maybe feel so confident here. I dont have that support. I dont have my booze blanket. Everything feels more raw.
Are you happier?
Im. He stops and considers. Im Yes, I am happy. Im sort of adjusting to a different pace of life. But yeah, Im good. I feel anxious. About the next year [of touring], and being away from home. I wonder how its going to play out. But Im excited too. He might be about to experience the beginnings of a music career for a second time. I realise I was never entirely present before. Booze took away the nerves. But it also, like, definitely capped the highs. If hes sacrificed some self-confidence, he says, at least hes gained some self-understanding. Madley Croft agrees. I think hes getting to know himself. Who he is, as a 27-year-old, not as a performer on stage, but in life. Im really proud of him.
Soon enough their rehearsal resumes. Theres not long to go until the show now, and fans are beginning to appear in the snow outside. The band practise what will be the nights final run of songs. They try Intro, one of the first things they ever wrote together, as well as a new track, a happy-sad doozy called On Hold, which explores the ways in which life can seem to move at different speeds for different people. Transitioning from the old song to the new, Smith turns a dial on his mixer. Madley Croft steps forward and sings her half of the shared lyrics, Sim his. Then they sway, gently, by their mic stands.
At the end of the song the two guitarists lay down their instruments. Smith tidies his things. Madley Croft walks around taking a few photographs of the arena before it fills with people. Sim, before he leaves the stage, attaches a small light to his microphone stand. So that hell be able to find his way back to it, later, in the dark.
I See You is out now on Young Turks. The xx play UK shows from 4-17 March
from All Of Beer http://allofbeer.com/the-brave-new-world-of-the-xx-pops-brooding-perfectionists/
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School with the MAGCON boys pt 1
hey im Zahra. im 15 born and brought up in London, England. my father travels alot for work which means i have to go with him, my mother isnt here with me anymore she died while giving birth to me but ive learnt to stop thinking bout her as much...im proud of my father, although i may have been an accident he doesn't treat me like one, he treats me amazingly he’s been there for me through thick and thin, hes taught me so much and when we’re traveling from country to country ive been enrolled in so many classes, including self defense classes to help myself become a stronger female as a whole. I have the grades of a high level collage students so im basically never behind on my studies. my father had me at age 17 with my mum who was 16 at the time, they had the most beautiful love story yet so real, my father a man of his word, a gentleman he charmed my mother and they had me. after i was born my father didnt know what to do so i lived with my grandparents most of my life seeing my father come home from school tired but he always smiled when he saw me.
more on school. I was moving to a highschool in Chicago,i was looking forward to it but i felt that i would be very left out, i was the dork. my hair was black, long, thick and wavy with a few red highlights, my eyes were dark and my lashes were long. i had a very petite body, tiny waist and small hips. i was a decent height only 5′7ft  one could cal me innocent and i agree its ture heck i haven't even had my first kiss yet!
the school i went to was more of a local school with the usual crownds from what i could tell. There were the Jocks, popular bitchy girls, the nerds, emo’s and the “freaks”. i walk in with my Dad i wore blue jeans, a white top, bomber jacket, white vans, a small hand bag and my huge geeky glasses. i didnt wear much make up just a bit of eyeliner and highlighter. We were given a tour of the school, it wasnt that big but i knew i was still gonna get lost.
i get to my first lesson late. as always. I knock on the door and enter. “oh, and who must you be sweetie?” said the teacher at the front. 
“hello, im Zahra im new here.” i say, my British accent standing out.
“ok hunny! go have a seat and ill be right with you im Miss Dina,”
I Nod and take a seat at the back. that was the only available seat. i adjust my glasses and get a pen, pencil and ruler out of my bag. i look around realizing there were a few familiar faces. That’s when it hit me, i realized there were a few viners here, Matthew Espinosa, Jack J and Shawn Mendes. i look to my left and  felt a tingly sensation in my stomach as i took a closer look at who sat right beside me. Nash Grier. OMFG i felt really shy but then i snapped out of my shock and returned to what the teacher was saying.”Now Class who can Name the three enzymes needed for digestion along with their uses?”
my hand shot right up in the air without me thinking. “Yes Zahra?”
“the first enzyme is Carbohydrase this breaks down starch and sugar, the second is  Protease this breaks down proteins and lastly is lipase this breaks downs Fats and Lipids.”
“Excellent!”
i felt everyone’s eyes piercing at me i could feel my face slowly becoming a tomato. i felt really panicky and queasy, my panic attacks were bad but i didnt need one now of all times, ive barley been in the classroom 20 mins. i started to lower my adrenaline levels and i slowly returned to my normal state. I was given an exercise book to write in but i didnt need it. my grades were amazing and i already knew all of this. but i still wrote as much as i could. it was about 5 mins until the lesson was over so i started packing my things up.i  reaching my bag and looked at my planner, it was a small planner but it was sentimental to me it had pictures of me and my classmates in France, Germany, Beijing and Poland. I missed them but i cant get attached to people too quickly. its not good for me at all. I flip through the pages to see if i had any empty time slots that’s when  i saw a particular name pop up (my dad writes stuff in here to keep me on track) says the Jhonson family are coming for a meeting. i mean it was cool but i was praying that it wasn’t the family of the person who i think it is. I her my pencil drop on the floor and i lean under the table to look for it. “uh.. here.” i look up and Nash was holding the pencil. i take it from him and put it in my bag. “Thanks...”
“So your british?”
“yeah. well i havn’t seen London in 6 years...” I reply.
“ what do you mean?” he asked me.
“I Travel alot, so i go to a few different schools in different countries, but im usually home schooled if my dad is free.”
the bell rings and our class was dismissed. I head out of the classroom and start walking through the hallway, i see a crowd of guys. i push through them minding my own business before i hear a few murmers. “Thats the new chick!” another voice said “Damn she looks finee” i hear another say “She’s probably a hoe” i feel anger build up inside me waiting to be released. but i just keep walking faster and faster. 
----Later----
It’s lunch time and im alone. So much for being socially awkward. I had a lunch packed in my bag, Salad and water along with a small can of pringles. i look for somewhere to sit but everywhere was taken... i felt like shit but then again Having no one to leave is better than having a ton of friends who ill have to say goodbye to. I feel a light tap on my shoulder i turn around and see a girl she looked a little older than me but definitely around 16 or 17. she had curly hair and freckles.”Hey! I haven’t seen you around are you new..?” she says with a bit of cheer in her voice. “Why yes im Zahra, and you are?” i ask her. “My name is Mahogany LOX im 16 you ca Call me LOX, your accent is adorable!!”she squeals. “Thanks...” i say. “come sit with me and Shawn.” 
I followed her to a table where she sat down next to Shawn. she introduced me to him and we all were like bestfriends.. the vibes they were giving out were so warm and positive. I talked to them about life and school and about who i am and what i like to do. i felt like i could talk to them for hours. We ended up swapping numbers at the end of lunch. my last lesson of the day was calculus which meant more stuff i already knew. 
----end of the day----
it seemed like Mahogany and Shawn got along with everyone but i seemed to be the awkward one. i was walking out to the parking lot of the school when im approached by Jack G. “Hello there...” 
“Uh.. hi?” i say
“So you wanna met up some time late and go to my place?” he says with an arrogant tone.
“Sorry im not Netflix and chill sessions and by the way i dont think im gonna let you into my pants that quickly.” I say.
he attempts to put his arms aroung my waist before my fighting instincts kick in and i grab his hand and twist it. he   shrieked in pain and moved aside.
“So i see your playing hard to get...” he says with a little bit of annoyance in his voice.
“No i just dont fall for fuckboys like you.” i walk to my bike and cycle home.
i get home and put my helmet on a little table by the front door. “PaPa are you home?!” i shout across the house.
“im in the kitchen hunny! go put something nice on we have guests coming over!” My dad says.
“Ok dad but promise me you wont bring up anything to do with my grades” i say.
“how can  i not when i have such an amazing daugher?” he asks.
“whatever dad im going upstairs see ya in 5 mins”
i run up to my room and look through my cupboard. i choose a pastel blue dress with a pair of black tights and i put my hair up in a pony tail leaving my fringe out.. i run downstairs and join my dadin the kitchen. i sit on a chair and watch him cook. “so how was your first day?” he asks.
“a bit awkward at first but actually pretty good. and i made two friends.” i say with a little grin on my face.
“Any boys?” he asks with a bit of sarcasm in his tone.
“Dad if there were i would’ve told you, but as i said for the millionth time, guys aren’t into me im ugly.” my cheer went down and he turned around and hugged me.
“my beautiful girl is growing up thinking she’s ugly? im a terrible father!!!”
“No papa your an amazing dad!”
“My baby girl is growing up... i will always love you. you look just like your mother. you know that right?” i see his eyes glisten with tears.
“I know dad... i know. now dont cry otherwise im gonna get emotional!” i say trying to put a little bit of humor into the situation.
“Well i thnk ive passed on the wrong genes. have fun dealing with being an emotional wreck.” i see him smiling and i giggle.
the door bell rings and i run to answer the door and i see a woman with a smile on her face standing there holding the hand of who i presume was her husband, and right there i saw...Jack.
“Mr and Mrs Jhonson?” i plastered a fake smile and shook their hands. my dad came from no where and escorted them to the dining room. I walk tot the dining room and get my phone out before my dad starts speaking. “This is my daughter Zahra shes just been enrolled iin our local Highschool.”
“She’s in my biology class” Says Jack. 
i look up and look back down at my phone and start texting Mahogany.but no reply. i go up to my room and sit downon the windowsill as i watch the clouds slowly shift out of sight. i sit there for about 20 min until i hear knocking on the door.i walk over to the door and open it. “Hey..” jack said leaning on the door frame. 
“What do you want?” i say slightly annoyed.
“just wanna chill...” he says trying to act cool.
“Well i have better things to do and besides do you really wanna end up like your friend or worse?” i say slamming the door.
---- 2 hours later ----
Finally they’re gone and now i can return to my normal life. i get ready for bed and put on my “more revealing” night wear on. i fall asleep at 9:30 setting alarm for 6:30.
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