As Polly ascended to the third floor, she passes by old photos of Jamie’s family hung up by the stairway. They portray his mother and father, along with their old and senile dog, Doctor, who adopted this name because of how he cared for Jamie whenever he was sick or sad. Some of those photos had Polly in them, and whenever she’d see these particular photos, she’d smile.

Walking down the hall, Polly finds herself in front of the door, thinking to herself how many of them are there, and as soon as she opened the door, she got her answer. There was only Jamie and Marco there. Both were sitting across the room from each other; Marco had his face close to his phone, while Jamie was plucking a few strings on his bass. Polly is visibly upset when she sees that both Kevin and Sam weren’t there. It was understandable that Sam was missing, he’d always be late for each session. It was either because he was too tired to come or because he had a huge hangover from partying all night. However, the thing that really ticked off Polly was the absence of her rhythm guitarist, Kevin Smith. The only reason he’d be late is if it was because Sam brought him out for drinks, and Kevin just can’t say no to Sam.

With a heavy sigh, Polly walks up to Marco, still paying attention to his phone.

"Where’s Kevin?" Polly asked. Marco only responds by staring back at Polly, and then immediately back to his phone. Meanwhile, Jamie plucks a few more strings carefully, putting his ear close to the guitar. He smiles as each string was plucked. Polly persists Marco some more "What about Sam?"

"Dunno." Marco replied. Polly, annoyed and losing patience, snatches his phone away, to which Marco violently replies to. "What the hell!?"

"I asked you where Kevin and Sam are."

"And I told you, I don’t know! What do you want me to do, you want me to guess or something? Sam’s probably shitfaced drunk somewhere, probably the floor of his apartment, and Kevin’s probably jerking him off!" Marco glares at Polly. Eventually Polly responds by rolling her eyes and giving back his phone, to which Marco angrily snatches back and sits back down on his big red chair.

"Have you at least called them?" she asks.

"I don’t know his number, and besides I don’t wanna call him, dude."

"Seriously? We’re bandmates! We work together every day! How’s it you don’t even have his number?"

Marco slouches back on his couch. "I hate Sam. I don’t wanna know his number, and I sure as hell don’t want him knowing mine either. Why don’t you call him? You have his number, right?"

"I have everyone’s number."

"Well there ya go, call him yourself."

Polly sighs as she reaches into her bag, searching for her phone. "The point isn’t that I can make the call," she said "my point is that you guys should be more on top of things. I mean, the concert is in a week, and I don’t even think we’re ready yet. You guys should be more responsible and proactive and- oh crap, where’s my phone...?" Polly frantically looks through her bag trying to find her cell phone, but to no avail.

"Shit!" she exclaimed "I must’ve left it on the bed..."

Marco chuckled "Well damn, I guess you should take your own advice then, huh?"

"Shut up, Marco." Polly replied, annoyed.

"Shh, shh!" Jamie, stroking his guitar, was trying to get Polly and Marco’s attention. They both turned around and looked directly at him, and he responds with a smile. With his fingers on the strings, Jamie began to play a tune on his guitar. The melody sounded vaguely familiar to Polly, but she couldn’t quite make out if it were an original piece, or just a copycat with Jamie’s own flair to it. As soon as he stopped playing, Jamie lifts his head up and puts on a wider smile than before.

Jamie giddily asks "What do you think?"

Polly, unsure what to make of the song, hesitantly says "Well, that was...fine."

Jamie’s grin widened. "You think it’s good?"

"Sure do." she nervously replies.

"What was that? Wonderwall?" Marco asked.

"What?" Jamie said, surprised by Marco’s response. "No! It’s something new I’ve been working on!" An awkward silence fills the air. Jamie turns his befuddled gaze onto Polly. "You didn’t think it was Wonderwall, did you Paul?"

"Tch, I...no. No, of course not. I mean, yeah, just...don’t listen to Marc, he’s just dumb."

"What did you call me!?" Marc explodes and stands up violently.

"Does it really sound like Wonderwall?" mumbled Jamie.

"I could’ve sworn you just called me dumb, Polly."

"I worked really hard on this..." Jamie says to himself.

"Guys!" Polly exclaims "Can we please just settle down? Just for one day I’d rather not all of us get either disappointed or mad, or whatever. We can’t be dealing with all this drama right now, so can we just chill and wait for Sam and Kev to show up? Please?" Polly sighs and throws her body on the black leather couch exhaustingly. "I’d rather we not have this kinda crap going on. Especially not during this week."

Both Jamie and Marco look at one another. Jamie shrugs, whilst Marco sits back down on his red chair.

"I ain’t dumb." retorted Marco "I graduated high school. Ya know who didn’t graduate? Sam. Now that dude is dumb."

"Really? He dropped out?" asked Jamie.

"Yeah man, of course he did. Kev told me about that shit. Actually, he didn’t just do it himself, Sam just stopped going. School got tired of his shit and kicked him out."

"That’s harsh."

"He did it to himself. Besides, he was probably too dumb for school anyway."

"You really don’t like him, huh Marky?"

"I hate him as much as I hate that stupid nickname you keep calling me, even though I keep telling you not to call me ’Marky’!" Marco raised his voice.

"Relax, man! Why don’t you like Sam so much?"

"Nobody likes him." Marco turns his gaze towards Polly, who is currently staring at the ceiling lost in her train of thought. "Especially not Polly."

Hearing her name, Polly turns her head to the two of them. "What?"

"You don’t like Sammy, Paul?" asked Jamie.

She shrugs "I’m indifferent."

"Yeah," scoffs Marco "you didn’t seem indifferent when you yelled at him that one time he was late for a gig."

"He was on my nerves that day, so what? That doesn’t mean I hate him, or dislike the guy."

"Really?" replies Marco "Even after all those sexist things he said about you? Even though he’s been flirtin’ and harassin’ you throughout these two years we’ve known him?"

"He only does that when he’s drunk, besides he hasn’t been like that in a while."

"But he still shows up late every time we come to practice. You’re startin’ to defend him more than Kev does, ya know that?"

Polly shrugs "He’s a good drummer, what can I say?" Polly sits up "Plus, what do you want me to do? Kick him out?"

"Well yeah." bluntly replies Marco.

"I have to admit Paul," says Jamie "Sam’s kind of a hindrance to the band sometimes. He’s late to the shows we do, he’s drunk during practice sometimes, and he doesn’t always seem to care about the band all too much. I mean I’m sure Sam ain’t really a bad dude outside of work, but during practice that dude is crazy and neurotic. I don’t really feel safe being around him sometimes..."

Marco claps slowly "Said beautifully by the co-founder himself. See?"

"Guys come on, you can’t honestly expect us to just kick our drummer off the band, do you?"

"Listen, I just want what’s best for the band, Polly. I know sometimes you don’t think it, but I love being here. I love the songs we make, and I love that other people love this shit too. But what I don’t love is shitty people like Sam walking around here acting like they’re hot shit. Somebody’s gotta bring his world down. Show him he can’t just do what he wants to do. Just think how he’ll be like if we ever breakthrough!"

"I’m sorry, Paul." Jamie voices in his opinion "I agree with Marco. If we all can’t have a hospitable zone to concentrate and make music, or if someone’s really holding us back during each session, we really should then consider kicking Sam out."

Polly sighs heavily and rubs her forehead. "I hear you. Both of you. Really, I do. Sam really can be a pain in the ass sometimes...maybe a lot of times. The reason I haven’t kicked him out before is, like I said, he’s a talented guy. We can’t deny talent."

"We can if the talent starts to turn into a nuisance." said Jamie.

Polly looks at Jamie and nods. "No, you’re right. Listen, I’d rather we not talk about kicking Sam out just yet. We’ve got a big show coming up, and if we lose our drummer now, then we’re royally screwed. Let’s talk more about this after the show, alright?"

Marco smiles. "Thank you! Christ, now you listen. I knew Kev couldn’t defend Sam for that long."

"How are those two even that close to each other?" asked Jamie. "They’re so radically different from one another."

"Shit, beats me. I feel kinda bad for the dude, he has to deal with Sam’s shit all the time. I kinda like Kev too."

Suddenly the group hears footsteps coming from the stairs next to the room.

"Well, one of them’s here." Polly said.

"Probably both of them, they’re always together. Weird that they didn’t ring the doorbell though..." Jamie replies.

"Okay, you guys just act normally. Pretend that this conversation didn’t happen. I don’t want them to get suspicious."

Once Polly said that, the door knob started turning. This startled her for a brief moment, but once she saw that nobody opens the door a few seconds later, she becomes more confused than before. The three of them look at one another, all looking fairly puzzled.

"Uh, it’s open!" yells Jamie.

The door knob turns again, and slowly opens. The person behind the door was Kevin, the blonde, slim, and dashing young rhythm guitarist of the band. He had a ghastly look on his face, almost a mix of exhaustion and sorrow. He looked especially pale today, and was avoiding eye contact with anyone as he walked into the room. His head was facing the ground.

Polly calls for his name softly "Kev?"

Kevin looks up and weakly smiles at Polly, but the smile soon vanished as quickly as it was there. "Hey guys..." he said with a tiny, and weak voice.

"What’s up, man?" Jamie asks with sincerity in his voice. There was dreary cloud looming over that room, and the cause was Kevin. While it took a few moments for any voice to speak up, Kevin finally responded.

"It uh...it has something to do with Sam." Kevin tried to articulate his words through his choked up voice.

"What? What about Sam? Is something wrong?" Polly asked, with an abnormal fear on her mind as she could tell something was off.

"Well uh..." Kevin continued, but keeps pausing to collect himself. Finally, with a weak voice, he says "Sam. He’s uh...he’s dead."