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B A C K G R O U N D S .

austin isaiah graham.

“Can I have your autograph, Mr. Graham?”

To say these six words were over said and over coated with sugary eagerness, is an understatement.

I like to think I’m a nice bloke, I hail from Aussie and I like to think I’m doin’ my country service by puttin’ my best foot forward. But that’s not what I packed my bags for and flew to the States for, to be known for who I used to be. Insomnia’s Refuge – IR – the grunge/pop punk band that became an overnight success? I was on every billboard from age nineteen to twenty five, you don’t need to tell me twice how the entertainment business is. Yeah, it was me on back up vocals and lead guitar, Gage as lead singer, Trevor playing bass or keyboard or whatever the hell we needed… and Cam on drums. We were a rough, choice band: you either loved us or hated us, but either way you couldn’t stop talking about us. Gage’s party lifestyle with Trevor hanging on his dick like it was made of gold, made headlines, and for the longest time I thought it was just me and Cam who held a sense of sanity in this spotlight we were thrown into. Oh, but you heard all about that in the papers, didn’t you? But I guess I should probably start from the beginning, shouldn’t I?

Well, if the paps didn’t manage to steal my birth certificate, I can tell you anyway I was born as Austin Isaiah Graham in the suburbs of Sydney, Australia. I wasn’t exactly normal, in the sense I’m a fairy, and come from a long line of’em. Shapers, I think they call’em now, mainly working class in my family, though like every parent mine hoped for the best, maybe a Noble or somethin’. Hah! Me! A Noble, can you believe it? I’m not, though, I was a late bloomer, but I got a pretty high status nonetheless – a Guardian. Now that was something to be proud of, innit? That’s what everyone else thought at my coming of age ceremony, but not me. See, I’m not into that caste system trash and kissin’ the Queen’s shoes and all that. So while it was all very nice and everything that I acquired and was taught these powers and whatnot, it wasn’t for me. I was seventeen and about as impressionable as an ankle biter of two when I met Trevor: I was hanging out in my school’s auditorium playing on a guitar when the little bitch found me – I say that affectionately as a nickname, no kiddin’, he was a tiny bloke – and his eyes grew as wide as saucers because, well, because I guess I wasn’t half bad. I didn’t make anyone’s ears bleed, anyway.

Considering the runt was on’y bout fourteen, I didn’t so much as blink to shoo him away despite whatever claims he had about ‘sex, drugs, and rock n roll.’ Where’d he get that from, an old issue of The Rolling Stone? Anyway, when I was walking home, I got cut across in an alley by Trevor again, cept this time he had with him two other mates of his, and man, I’d never forget the firs’ sight if it was my last day on Earth. The boy, he was stringy with long dark hair and darker eyes, but he held the air of someone important, someone that knew he was gonna be a someone someday. And the sheila, well, I’m only human – she was something, I’ll tell ya. Beautiful brown hair with natural highlights, and legs that could go on for miles. That was the first time I met Gavin “Gage” and Cameron Jones, adopted siblings that just moved in our side’a town, which would explain why I didn’t see either roamin’ the halls. Another, being, well, they were high school drop outs, nineteen at the time. Aside from Trev’s obvious infatuation with Gage, I could see why he tagged along them like a lost puppy: they had that something models starve for and actors cry for – charisma.

But see, my parents did put a good head on my shoulders, so it was only after graduation of my senior year, which was only a few months later, that I let all their persuadin’ coax me onstage with them. Boy, they weren’t pleased: the first Guardian in the Graham lineage and I was turning my back on the ‘honor,’ you mighta thought I pissed on baby Jesus’ grave by the way they went off on me. It didn’t take a genius to figure out I left home on a bad note, but Gage and Cam, they took me in, and little Trevor dropped out of school to follow and play shows with us: I never asked, but apparently his parents never gave a shit, and let him. It wasn’t very glamorous at first – passing out in ten dollar motels cause Gage drunk himself into a pile of puke on the smelly linen – and then sneaking out before check out so we wouldn’t have to pay for the ‘damages.’ But Trev was always there to give him a quick bj and practically be the one to keep’em alive while me and Cam hung back; don’t get me wrong, I like beer as much as the next guy, but I sure as hell never injected anythin’ in me and never plan to, and Cam was the same. Yeah, “the life” wasn’t very beautiful, but I had a beautiful lady by my side, and that made it okay. She promised me the world, she did, and kept the fire of hope ignited in Insomnia’s Refuge burning – she knew we’d make it big. And she was right.

It was my eighteenth birthday the night we were signed, and coincidentally the night I lost my virginity and began my relationship with Cam – everything seemed to be spinning on its axis perfectly, after so many months and shows with the greatest result was us getting piss drunk and forgetting everything in the morning. Our first single ‘In The Morning’ gave us instant success, and it was weird, fuck, weird as a bat straight outta hell, to hear ourselves on the radio for the first time. I can’t even explain it. Sign this, sign that, boom, bam, we’re on a worldwide tour and we’ve got people screaming Insomnia’s Refuge, wearing merch other people made for us, saying our names. It was surreal, damn, I’ll tell ya – I even called up my Mom and Pops to tell’em, though I needn’t have, they already knew. And they still didn’t approve, and it was then I figured I could be god damn leader of the free world and they wouldn’t approve if I wasn’t Guardian of the caste – so I said, fuck it. fuck it, fuck’em all. I might as well have been leader of the free world, I was lead guitar and part vocals for Insomnia’s Refuge, guys wanted to be me and girls wanted to fuck me. I could do anything.

Moreover, though, that was me just hurt over not ever reaching my rents’ expectations – I never really fell into the pit Hollywood constructed for every celebrity out there. Neither did Gage, really. That boy woulda smoked, drank, and fucked, fame or not, and Trev would have followed his every move, the world’s eyes on us didn’t change that. Still, though, by the time I was twenty three, twenty four, around there, we were bad. For over five years the media had given us mixed responses to how we lived our lives, but now there was no denying we had all well surpassed representing teenage rebellion, now we were just fuck ups that made music. Gage had never been the exact built type, but he started to hollow out more, and that was no good – models would have purged for days to get the stick thin figure he had, and his ‘I’m a rockstar’ attitude was starting to get old, real old. Even Trevor had enough. And damn, when that boy had enough, we knew enough was enough. The music we made was my life, and in the later years Gage couldn’t sit still long enough without snorting up a line or three, so I was in charge of really making it – to success, who woulda thought? He took the credit, though, whenever he was barely sober enough to talk to the press; don’t think for a second I gave two shits, I just was waiting for all of this shit to blow over once and for all. I already had a ring on Cam’s finger to prove I had a future elsewhere.

Up until that day, anyway.

August eighth, four years ago. What a date to go down in the rock n’ roll history books.

The public knew Insomnia’s Refuge was going to burn out – mostly due to Gage’s substance abuse and growing violent tendencies, he had even assaulted a photographer before, he barely got out of that sentence. I was out grabbing something to eat when I came back to our loft, and fuck.I’ve never seen that much blood in my life. Lil Trevor, just twenty one god damn years old, mutilated barely beyond recognition on the living room floor. His pants were down to his ankles, and I wanted to throw up. I was about ready to run the hell out, when I heard something. Moaning. Yeah.

I walked in on Cam and that murdering sunovabitch Gage fucking. Siblings. Adopted, but siblings nevertheless. God damn.

They were both fucked up as hell, I don’t even know what was in their systems, but Gage let out a giant scream and tried to tackle me down. Like I said, he had a real slight frame, and I took care of myself for the most part, so I had him down in almost no time. Almost no time, at least, until Cam took a fucking knife to my back. Literally. The last thing I remembered was lookin’ up into those green eyes that had, only hours before, told me they loved me.

The trial was long, painful, and public.

In the end, the whole world got to witness me limping with over forty stitches in my back to the court room, with both Gage and Cam detained in cuffs and neon orange as some bitch lawyer defended them on ‘innocent on reason of insanity.’ Ugh. That shit hardly got off in Aussie law, and Gage and Cam both got life sentences, Gage and Cam for the premeditated murder of Trevor Bryant Smith, on top of attempted murder on yours truly, and let’s not count all the illegal drug offenses. Yeah… the press printed me as some sort of suburban boy tricked into the rockstar life, pitied me. If you ask me, that’s just life. It’s hardly fair, see. I’m a living legend back home, so it wasn’t too much of a surprise when I fled to a tiny little place in Washington. People still recognize me, sometimes.

But I’m no victim, see. I survived.

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alexa ava montez.

troy glenn sterling.

parker indigo bennett.