10:01 am - Fri, Nov 11, 2011

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Meeting David Cook-My Story.

mioneandronforever:

A/N: My ACTUAL story from 11/4/2011. :’)

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                I squeezed my way out of the small, compressed space between the black leather seats of my mom’s silver Camero and the world outside. I was hit with a rush of cold air, the scent of autumn hit my nose. For the second time that evening, I found myself wishing that I hadn’t forgotten my jacket back in Kernsville at my MawMaw’s.

     My feet hit the ground as I turned around to face my friend. She was squeezing through the same hole that I had just come through. She was taking awhile, but I didn’t blame her, it was harder to get out of the car if you didn’t have a lot of experience in the area.

     “Did you hear from Nick yet?” she asked me as she finally got out of the car and stood beside of me. I reached into the pocket of my freshly washed skinny jeans and pulled out my phone. I had nothing on my phone but an update from Twitter. For once, I pushed even that to the back of my mind. I had more important things to deal with that night. 

     I shook my head, stuffing the phone back into my pocket, slinging my tote bag over my shoulder. I opened it up to check the contents inside.

     Umbrella? Check. Sharpie? Check. Camera? Double check. David Cook CD? Check. Tickets? Double check.

     “Do you have everything?” my mother asked. She was still inside of the car where the heat was. For once, I didn’t care about the fact that I was cold.

     “Yeah,” I said, snapping my bag shut once more. “Trust me. I made sure that I have everything. I’m not messing this up.”

     “Just check and make sure that you’ve got the tickets, Caitlin,” she said. “What if you lost them at Chili’s or something?”

     I rolled my eyes, pulling my bag open and reaching my hand into its depths. I felt around for a moment before my hands curled around a hard piece of paper. I pulled out the Ticketmaster envelope that held three tickets to the David Cook concert at Wake Forest University inside. I held it up to show my mom.

     “See?” I asked, shoving the envelope quickly into the bag again as another breeze blew by. “I told you that I had them. I’m holding onto these.”

     I turned around to face the Wait Chapel that was towering over us. My eyes weren’t instantly drawn to the Chapel like anyone else’s would have been. The only thing that my eyes saw was the line of tour buses that were parked snuggly together in front of the building.

     “Shannon!” I exclaimed, ignoring the sound of my mom’s voice for a moment. “The tour buses! We have to stay here for a little while. Nick can wait. What if David comes out?”

     Shannon sighed and nodded her head. “All right, all right,” she commented. “Just see if you can get a hold of Nick so he knows where we are.”

     “I’ve already called him three times, Shannon,” I replied, knowing that my phone was set to vibrate and we would know when Nick was calling us back. “He’ll be all right. He’ll call back.”

     Nick Bennett was a student at Wake Forest University. He had just graduated high school the year before and he was to be attending the concert with us that evening. We were supposed to meet him at the Chapel when we arrived so that he could show us around campus first but we hadn’t heard from him for at least an hour. I wasn’t too concerned, however. I loved Nick, don’t get me wrong but the fact that David Cook was anywhere from twenty to thirty some feet away from him was making me anxious. What if I actually got to meet him?

     “Fine,” Shannon said. She pulled her square Samsung from her pocket and began checking her messages.

     I turned back around to face my mother who was clearly ready to explain something to me. I wasn’t really in the mood to listen. I was itching to walk around the tour buses to see who we could run into.

    

     “I want you to call me when you meet up with Nick, okay?” my mom asked.

     “All right,” I said, looking behind me towards the buses again. I was so excited. The idea that David could be there was thrilling. I was on edge. I was so close. If I got this close again and didn’t get to meet him, I would be heartbroken.

     “And you had better remember to call me every now and let me know everything’s okay,” she said, sternly, a serious look on her face. You could always tell when my mother meant business. This was no exception.

     “Yes, mom,” I said, my voice the perfect picture of sarcasm. “Because I’m going to remember to call you during the concert.”

     Her eyes narrowed into a glare just then. “You had better remember to call me. Do you hear me?”

     I rolled my eyes once again. “Fine. I’ll call you in between sets I guess. Come on, Shannon.”

     I grabbed her by the arm and we started walking across the parking lot to the sidewalk that I guessed led all the way around the chapel. We rounded the corner of the biggest tour bus and reached the smooth pavement.

     Shannon was a few feet away from me, her phone pressed to her ear. She was complaining loudly to her mother about her English teacher and her research paper. I understood that she was stressed about it, but I was getting rather tired of hearing it, especially now that we were at the venue, close to David and the concert was in a few hours.

     I glanced over to my left and I saw a man wearing a black fedora, his face point to the ground, a cell phone plastered to his ear, walking down the sidewalk. He looked eerily familiar and I wondered if it was Gavin DeGraw.

     “Hey, Shannon,” I whispered, tapping her on the shoulder. Her eyebrows furrowed into a frown as she covered up the mouth piece to her phone and looked at me.

     “What?” she questioned, her tone was full of annoyance but I didn’t care. I needed a second opinion before I jumped to any conclusions.

     “That guy in the fedora,” I said as I nodded my head in his direction. “Isn’t that Gavin DeGraw?”

     Her head instantly whipped around to look at the man that I was talking about. Her eyes narrowed, her hand making a visor over her eyes to see him since he had walked some distance away. She turned back to me and shrugged.

     “He looks like Gavin but I’m not sure. Get out your phone and Google him,” she said to me. “We’ll compare the pictures.”

     I nodded as she went back to her phone conversation. She was still complaining loudly to her mother about her paper. I pulled my phone from my pocket, touching the button to take me to my browser and quickly typing in Google’s URL into my Browser box. It took it a few seconds to load and I quickly switched the settings to images, typing in Gavin’s name as fast as I could into the search bar.

     I clicked on the first picture that came up and as it loaded, I turned my attention back to the person in question. Every time that Shannon’s voice would get a little too loud, he would look over in her direction. He leaned over a few times as if trying to figure out what she was saying. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to listen in or if he was just hearing it by chance.

     I quickly turned my attention back to my phone to find that the image had loaded completely and I held it up in front of me, hoping that it wasn’t obvious that I was trying to compare the photo on my phone to the man in front of me.

     I sighed as I realized that my idea was in vain. There was no doubt that this man looked a lot like Gavin, but I wasn’t sure if he was or not. There were some differences that were making it hard for me to decide.

     I nudged Shannon with my elbow once again. She told her mother that she would talk to her later and shut her phone, pushing it back into her pocket. I held my phone up to her. I watched as her gaze traveled to Gavin’s picture then to the man nearby.

     “I still can’t tell,” Shannon said. She was clearly frustrated as well.

     “I know,” I replied, clicking the side button on my phone so it would lock. “But I’m not just going to go up to the man and ask him if he’s Gavin DeGraw. Wouldn’t that be rude?”

     “It would be rude. He’s going to assume that people know who he is. It would be offensive to just ask him,” Shannon said.

     She said something else but my mind was no longer in the conversation at hand. The notes of a familiar song were ringing in my ears. The sound of a harmonic voice was drifting through the air.

     “What use is a paper heart, when you’re stuck in the rain, stuck in the rain?” I head David singing from inside the Chapel. They were sound checking! We had arrived at the perfect time. What if they came out soon?

     “Shannon! I hear Paper Heart!” I exclaimed, feeling my heartbeat increase. I grabbed her arm as I jumped slightly up and down. We were even closer than I had ever imagined that we would be. “We have to stay here. I don’t care if Nick calls within the next few minutes or not. I am not missing my opportunity to meet David.”

     I won’t lie; I didn’t even bother to listen to Shannon’s reply on the matter. This was my chance to meet my hero. David and his music had brought so much joy into my life since I had become a fan of his on Idol. He had captured my heart the first time that he sang. My love had only increased since then. When I heard Analog Heart after Idol, his song Makeover had helped pull me through a depression. I had remained a fan for his next album, I had even been to a concert of his in 2009.

     In my Junior year of high school, however, I went through the worst possible time of my life. I was depressed, lost, and confused. I felt like no one cared about if I lived or died. I began having thoughts of suicide. I wanted to die. Living didn’t seem all that amazing anymore.

     On a day that I thought that I couldn’t take things anymore, David released the Wal-Mart sound check songs for his brand new album “This Loud Moring”. I downloaded them as soon as I could. New David music was just what I needed.

     As soon as the first one was finished downloading, I popped in my head phones and pressed play and let the music play. The hauntingly beautiful opening notes of “Circadian” rang in my ears. I felt goose bumps rising on my skin. It was already beautiful. I would never imagine what the song would do for me.

     Once David began to sing those lyrics, the stuck with me, I had never heard anything so beautiful, so relatable to the way that I was feeling. Hearing that someone had been wear I was before, it gave me hope. I started to cry. That song saved my life that day and many days after that.

     It wasn’t just “Circadian”. The entire album kept me going. I don’t know where I would be without that album. It inspired me, pulled me through my hardest days, and always let me know that I wasn’t alone. David’s music saved my life and still continues to do so. I could never repay him enough for that.

     David had always inspired me, however. As I followed him through Idol and throughout his career, I saw someone that was living out his dream but was still kind and generous and a wonderful person deep down. I had no doubt in my mind that the person I saw on interviews, followed on Twitter, who I already felt like I knew was the person that I would meet if I got to meet him. I had no doubt in my mind.

     I saw another girl about our age and her mother standing near the equipment truck about twenty feet away from us. I grabbed Shannon’s arm and started walking down there.

     “Come on!” I exclaimed, not waiting for a response. “Let’s go and see what they’re doing. I bet that they’re waiting for David.”

     “Why don’t you call Nick and we can meet up with him first and then come back?” Shannon asked as I pulled her down the sidewalk.

     I shook my head as we got even closer and I heard the wonderful notes of Paper Heart grow even louder. “No!” I exclaimed. “I’m staying here until David comes out. I really hope that we get to meet him!”

     We finally reached the girl and her mom. I waved at them, smiling brightly. “Hi!” I exclaimed. “Are the two of you waiting for David to come out too?”

     The girl and her mother nodded. “Yeah,” the girl replied. “I’m really hoping that he comes out.”

     “So am I,” I replied. “This is my second David show and I’ve never met him before. I really hope that I get to this time.”

     “We’ve followed him a bunch of places,” the girls mom replied. “We even tried in D.C. and didn’t get lucky. This is our seventh show, Kelly?”

     Kelly nodded at her mother. The song had stopped and I felt my heartbeat getting faster. Where they going to come out soon? Was I really going to get to meet him?

     All of a sudden, a girl came over to Shannon and I. She asked us if we knew where to go and all of a sudden I felt my phone vibrate. I pulled it out and say that my mom was calling. I touched the green button to answer and brought it to my ear. “Hello?”

     I wasn’t really paying attention to what the girl or my mother was saying. There was too much happening at one time. I heard the girl mention something about going to the other side of the Chapel, I heard my mom saying something about listening to the girl, I heard the other girl’s mother mention something about David taking his ear piece out and then I heard a beep from my phone.

     “Hold on a second, mom,” I said into the phone as I watched the girl that had approached us turn around to face the other direction in confusion. I brushed it off as I took the phone away from my ear to see who was calling.

     INCOMING CALL FROM: NICK BENNETT.

     I quickly switched the conversation over to the other line then seeing as how I already had a missed call from him, it would be in my best interest to answer it then.

     “Hey, Nick!” I exclaimed into the phone. I leaned over to get a look into the door where David and the band where sound checking. The music had stopped but there was some movement. I watched as David walked over to the nearest speaker to pick up a bottle of water from it, taking a long swig. My heart nearly stopped.

     “Where are you guys?” the familiar voice asked in return. “I’m at the Chapel. You know you guys line-up at the front, right?”

     “Yeah, yeah. I’ve heard that. But Nick, we’re at the back where the buses are. We hear the band sound checking. We’re going to wait back here for a little while and see if we can meet him, all right?” I told him.

     Shannon rolled her eyes at me but I didn’t care. That’s what we were doing. I was so close. If he came out, I was going to meet him and my dream would come true.

     “Oh, all right then. Just come over to the other side when you’re done, okay? I’ve already got a place in line,” Nick answered in reply.

     “Okay,” I said. “We’ll see you soon.”

     I hung up from Nick’s call, clicking the button to transfer the call back to my mother. Not very pleased when I heard her yelling at me.

     “Caitlin! Did you listen to that girl that came over to talk to you guys? She was going to tell you where you were supposed to go!” she exclaimed into the phone. I winced at the sound of her raised voice. She didn’t have to get so angry with me.

     “I already know where to go!” I said back. “Nick told us that we have to go around to the front!”

     “Well, she’s a friend of Gavin DeGraw’s she might have been able to help you meet David, dummy!” she said in response.

     “Aw, man!” I exclaimed, looking around to see where the girl went, but she was gone. It was like she had never been there.

     “What is it?” Shannon asked as I turned back around to face the other three people that were standing there.

     “That girl that was over here?” I replied. “She was a friend of Gavin Degraw’s!”

     “Oh man! Can she come back over here? We could’ve asked her if she could help us meet him and David!” Kelly exclaimed.

     I nodded at the response, not hearing what my mother had said within the past two minutes of our phone conversation. She clearly had not realized that I was talking to other people around me.

     “Whatever, Caitlin. Wait there forever. I don’t care. Just call me when you meet up with Nick, all right?” she said.

     “I will! I already promised that I would. Don’t worry about it! Bye!” I said. I pulled the phone away from my ear, hanging it up and shoving it into my pocket.

     I turned around to say something to Shannon but I was quickly distracted by the next statement that Kelly’s mom said.

     “They’re coming out!” the woman exclaimed. I looked over and realized that she was right.

     My mind started racing in that moment. I wasn’t sure what was going through my head. I was actually going to meet David Cook. I started to walk in his direction and somehow my purse found its way to the ground off of my arm. I didn’t care.

     I walked right around the large equipment truck and I saw him. Standing maybe two feet away from me was David Cook. He had on a black zip-up hoodie with a skeleton printed on it. It was his sound check hoodie. I recognized it from pictures on Twitter.

     I walked straight up to him and he looked at me and my eyes locked with his and I was lost right then. They were such a crystal clear swirl of blue and green. They were so full of depth that it felt like I was looking into a sea of glass.

     “Hey sweetheart,” he said, a perfect smirky smile lighting up his face. I could’ve sworn that my heart skipped a beat. Had David Cook really just called my sweetheart?

     I opened my mouth to tell him my name in return but nothing coherent was coming out. Great. He was going to think that I was insane.

     “This is Caitlin,” Shannon said, stepping up to the plate to make sure that I didn’t embarrass myself. “And I’m Shannon.”

     He laughed and I felt like I was in a dream. Hearing that familiar voice in person that I was so used to hearing in interviews and stuff, it made me feel like I was listening to a recording. It was so beautiful.

     “Hey, I’m David,” he said, sticking his hand out to me, still wearing a small smile, his hood still pulled up over his head.

     “Oh my God,” I finally manage to get out. I was shaking. I didn’t know if it was because I was excited or if it was because I was nervous. I was meeting my hero and I was acting like an idiot. “I can’t believe that I’m meeting you right now.”

     He laughed again as I reached out to shake his hand. When I made contact with him it felt unreal. The skin of his hand felt so soft. I was surprised that they weren’t calloused from the entire guitar playing that he did. I wasn’t surprised that his hands nearly engulfed mine. I had always known that his hands were large. It was easy to tell in the pictures.

     He laughed once again. The sound rang in my ears. I felt like I was shaking even more. Why was he making me so nervous? It didn’t help that I already found him insanely attractive and that he was more attractive in person. I had never understood how that was possible until I figured it out for myself. He was easily the most attractive person that I had ever met.

     “Did you want an autograph?” he asked. I felt myself nod. I was amazed at how nice he was being. I had never expected that he wouldn’t be nice, but I had only had a short amount of time with him so far and it was already exceeding my expectations.

     I nodded my head, unsure of how I was actually able to form a proper sentence and get it out of my mouth. But I somehow managed to say, “I would love an autograph.”

     He smiled again and Shannon went over to my purse that I had abandoned on the asphalt and started to dig through it for my CD case and pictures I had brought just in case.

     It was just David and I alone. I looked up at him and his gaze locked with my own. I instantly felt nervous, but I needed to tell him what I swore I would tell him if I got to meet him. I swallowed hard. It felt like my throat was closing up. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. The walls of my esophagus were pressed together. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. His gaze was so intense that I felt like he was starting into my soul.

     “David,” I said, feeling my body still trembling with nervous, my voice shaky and uneven.  “This might sound really weird, but there’s something that I need to tell you.”

     He nodded his head, still looking at me. He seemed so genuinely interested in what I had to say. It was surprising. He didn’t seem dismissive or annoyed with me at all.

     “Okay,” he said sweetly. His tone was gentle and curious. “Go ahead and tell me.”

     I nodded, hoping that I could get it all out. When I looked up at him again everything seemed okay. I knew that I could get it out. I had too.

     “This Loud Morning?” I said. He nodded, saying ‘yeah’ as he looked at me. He was actually interested in what I had to say. I took a deep breath and started to continue. “David, I just wanted to tell you, that album has helped me through the hardest time of my life. I have no idea where I would be without that album. I just wanted to thank you for putting something to amazing out. Thank you.”

     I was shaking even more by the time that I was finished talking. I felt close to tears. I fought them as hard as I could. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to cry in front of David. It didn’t seem like it anyway.

     David looked at me again. I couldn’t exactly tell what the look was he was giving me. If it was understanding, sympathy, or something completely off of the wall, I didn’t know, but it was meaningful. I wondered if I had touched him at all with my words. I hoped so. They were completely true.

     “Thank you so much for telling me that,” he said sweetly, that smile gracing his face again. He opened up his arms, offering me a hug. “Come here, darlin’.”

     I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around him, his arms wrapping around me in turn. I was engulfed in a hug by David Cook. My nose caught a whiff of him. I caught of scent of cologne that smelled eerily similar to Axe. He smelled slightly musky from where they had just been sound checking for the show. It might have been strange to say but the mix of the two smells was enticing. I thought he smelled amazing. He squeezed me slightly before releasing me. I felt as if the hug where over entirely too soon.

     Shannon came back over with my purse and the things. She handed them to me before she asked David if she could have a hug as well. I didn’t really pay attention to the exchange as I took my CD insert from its case with shaking hands. I was still trying to recover from the hug.

     I watched as a man that I guessed was David’s body guard hand David a Sharpie and I handed over my copy of This Loud Morning. David signed the insert with a signature full of beautiful arches but if you didn’t know what it said, you probably wouldn’t be able to tell. He reached under the CD case and placed the two pictures that I had brought with me over my insert.

     One of the pictures, that I had brought to get signed for my friend Chasity, was of David’s performance on Good Morning America back in 2009. He was wearing a pink plaid shirt and he was cheesing it up for the camera.

     He laughed at the picture. “Why did you pick this one?” he asked me, flipping the picture over. “My face looks ridiculous.”

     I laughed lightly, unsure of what to say. “It was just a picture I had printed off at my house,” I said. “I grabbed it with me when we left. If you wouldn’t mind, could you sign it for my friend Chasity? Her name has one ‘s’ in it.”

     He nodded as he began to sign it. I explained to him that I promised her that if I met him that I would get her an autograph because she really wanted to be there but due to some unfortunate events, she couldn’t be.

     I was still shaking as he signed the picture. It was clear that I was still nervous. I was probably embarrassing myself. He looked over at me and smiled a little.

     “Are you okay?” he asked. Great. It was to the point that he had to ask. Wow. I must’ve really looked like an idiot.

     I nodded, trying to gain my composure. “Yes,” I replied, afraid that I looked stupid. “David, I’m so sorry that I’m acting like this. I’m just so excited. It means so much for me to meet you.”

     He placed his hand gently on my shoulder and I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. He was touching me again. Why did that cause me to lose any thought that I was forming at the time?

     “Don’t worry about it,” he said with a smile. “I completely understand.”

     The fact that he understood, the fact that he was so cool about it, meant the world to me. I could tell his words were genuine and that meant the world to me.

     He finished signing the picture for Chasity and I smiled. He slid that one under the CD sleeve and laughed as he saw the next picture. It was a full shot of the band from the Morongo Casino back in early 2010. Andy had longer hair then and Neal was still a member.

     “Wow this is an old one, isn’t it?” he asked, putting the Sharpie to the paper. “Andy’s hair is long in this one! I should tell Andy to grow his hair back out again.”

     I laughed at the comment as he finished adding his signature to the picture. He handed the things back to me and I began to dig into my bag for my camera. I wanted a picture.

     “Do you want me to take the picture?” his body guard asked. “I’d be happy to take it.”

      I nodded, feeling around in the depths of my bag, grasping onto my camera, handing the bag to Shannon so that she could find her own.

     I turned to face the man with the camera. David was standing right beside of me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and I felt myself start shaking again. I had calmed down for a moment. My nerves were getting the best of my again now that he was touching me. I slipped my arm around him as well, posing for the picture.

     His security guard (or whoever he was) was just about to take the picture when he got a call on his walkie talkie.

     I really don’t remember what the call was about or exactly what the man said to him in return. All that I remember about that conversation was that during it, David’s arm was around me the whole time.

     At one point during this very short exchange on the walkie talkie, David looked over at me, a smile on his face and asked, “Are you sure that you’re okay?”

     I reassured him that I was, sure that he could feel me shaking. Finally the man that had my camera raised it up and David and I smiled for the camera. It flashed and the memory of the best moment of my life was captured on camera.

     I turned to David and smiled as the man handed my camera back to me. “It was so great to meet you, David.”

     He gave me one final smile and said, “It was great to meet you too.”

     That was the last thing that I said to David Cook and I wondered if I would ever get to meet him again. Even if I didn’t, that would be okay. I had a wonderful and amazing memory. My meeting with him wasn’t rushed or crowded. I was practically the only one there. It meant so much that he was so kind and sweet to me. I knew that I would never forget it.

     I never imagined David to be unkind or a jerk but the way that he treated me far exceeded my expectations. I would never be able to explain how amazing it felt to meet my hero and leave with a higher respect for him than before.

     So, I rounded the corner and went to talk to Andy and Kyle and once I was finished I walked away and cried. I had never been so happy. My dreams of meeting David Cook had finally come true.  

This deserves a reblog for the beautiful story-telling :) One of the best recaps I’ve read.

(Source: xforeverdeen)