Clash Of The Rockbands
He's...GAY!?!
Melrose’s POV
I heard the sound of the doorbell trilling over the voices and music filling the house. I shoved my way to the door and jerked it open.
“Oh, wow, it is beautiful.” the blonde standing next to Matt marveled, leaning forward slightly to look up at the golden, glittering chandelier. Matt smiled and nodded.
“Hey, Matt,” I said with a smile.
“Hi,” he replied. “Oh, this is Valery.” He motioned towards the blonde. “She’s one of my best friends.”
“Hi,” I said kindly to Valery as we shook hands.
“Your house is amazing already.” she told me with a smile.
“Thanks,” I said. “Please, come in. There’s drinks and food in the kitchen. You’ll find your peeps somewhere around here.”
“Valery!” I heard James’s voice call. Within seconds, he rushed over, dragging Valery into a hug. I laughed as I closed the door. “I haven’t seen you in...in...” He quickly tried to calculate how long he hadn’t seen her. “I haven’t seen you in forever!” he finally concluded.
“Nice to see you again, too, Jimmy,” she said, grinning.
“So, where’s Jen?” Matt asked me.
“Hell if I know,” I answered.
“I’m here!” Jen stepped up, holding two plastic cups of beer. She offered one to Matt, and he happily took it off her hands. “Who’s your friend?” She smiled over at Valery.
“I’m Valery,” she answered, shaking Jen’s free hand. “You must be Jen. I’m one of Matt’s best friends.”
“And ex-girlfriend,” Matt added cautiously.
“Oh,” Jen said, looking from Matt and Valery. “Huh. Why didn’t it work out, if I may ask?”
“We’ve been best friends since...well...forever practically, and in high school, we decided to get together because, why not, you know? But it felt really strange kissing my best friend, and I’m sure it was the same for him, so we just went back to being friends. It’s much more natural.” Valery explained. “I haven’t seen him happier, either, ever since he met up with you. He always talks about you. I really hope we can be friends.”
“No problem,” Jen answered with a smile. “I love making new friends.” Valery laughed.
“Then call me Val, friend.” Val said. Jen nodded.
“Just call me Jen.” she told her.
“So, what’s the album cover look like?” Matt asked me. I turned and pointed at the banister directly above and behind us. A huge poster of the album cover hung from it. “Damn, you look hot.” he told Jen. She smirked and poked him in the ribs.
Yeah, we hosted an album-release party. We’d just released our third album, Fairytale Wishes, and decided to throw a party because of it. Because we’re party people. Who like to throw parties.
The album cover showed all five of us dressed as, and these are Kim’s words, ‘Fairies of Rock’. We each wore a fairy costume, complete with wings. The costume itself consisted of a skin-tight, black, strapless top. The skirts were pretty short and puffed out from scratchy material lining the inside of it. The outside of the skirts were black as well, but the scratchy material that made them poof out was the same color as our respective bangs—mine was bright red; Rayne’s was white; Kim’s was bright purple; Jen’s was navy blue; and AM’s was bright yellow. Hey, we liked to dress according to the color of our bangs. Our hair was our trademark thing. Our wings were black but had glittery rhinestones all over them.
We all wore dark make-up around our eyes and had put contacts in that made our whole eyes white. Now that I saw it blown up on a giant poster, it looked really, super creepy, because there wasn’t any color on our eyes, just pure white hidden within the dark make-up. We all wore blood red lipstick with glittery lip gloss over it so that our lips shimmered. We all wore our hair down so that it cascaded across our shoulders. Our hair glittered with the glitter the hair dressers had sprayed on it. A metallic choker necklace hung around our necks with a large star on it, set right at the front of our throats.
We each ‘floated’ at different levels on the album cover. I was at the far left and floated up near the top of the album cover. Within one hand I held two drumsticks, with my arm outstretched so that the drumsticks pointed at the person looking at the cover. I just stared passively, with zero emotion on my face. But, somehow, it still looked creepy, like I was just thinking about coming alive and gouging your eyes out. To my right floated Kim, who floated a bit lower than I did. She had her bass guitar slung across her torso. She had one hand strumming and one hand pressing the notes on the guitar. Her tiny face held a menacing leer, like she would just come to life and break your face off and feed it to her pet mushroom.
Rayne floated to the right of Kim. She floated even lower than Kim, pretty close to the bottom of the album cover. She held a microphone in her hand and looked like she was screaming into it. Her pure white eyes glared out at the viewer, like she wanted to break your eardrums with her screams. To the right of her floated Jen about the same level as Kim. Jen had her guitar slung across her torso, in the exact same stance as Kim. She had her evil grin on. It freaked even me out. That girl has awesome evil grins.
AM floated to the right of Jen. She hung at the same level as I did. She had her guitar slung across her torso, exactly like Kim and Jen. She had her head tilted to the side a little bit, a small smirk playing on her lips. It looked as though she was deviously planning the viewer’s demise, and enjoying every second of it.
And stamped, right in the center of us, but not overlapping our bodies, hung Fairytale Wishes in black, curly, glittering letters. The album cover looked pretty much awesome. I loved it.
“Rayne looks intense, doesn’t she?” Syn asked as he walked up. His arm was draped across Rayne’s shoulders. “Oh, hey, Val.”
“Hey, Syn.”
“Yes, they all look intense. But Jen is seriously creeping me out with that evil grin.” James said, quickly looking away. I laughed.
“Ann is a sexy beast, and don’t you deny it!”
We all turned to see it was Zacky who had spoken. He sauntered over, pulling AM with him, who was giggling and blushing to beat the band.
“Don’t say it so loud.” she whispered.
“But ain’t it the truth?” Zacky insisted.
“Yeah, I’d do that.” Rayne said with a laugh.
Okay, we were a little drunk. So sue me.
“If I was a dude, I would date you.” Rayne continued.
“Thank the lord above she isn’t.” Syn said with a smirk. Rayne giggled randomly, taking a drink of her beer.
“Hey, Sly!” Ann called. “Don’t try to sneak away like you don’t know us!” Sylvester walked over, smiling around at us all.
“Sly, tell me something.” Rayne said. Sylvester looked over at her. “Is Syn not the hottest man you have ever seen on the face of this planet?”
“Yes, if he was single, I would totally date the guy.” Sly answered. Rayne laughed, leaning heavily against Syn. James just looked confused.
“Don’t you mean if you were gay, you would date him?” he asked. That sent the five of us girls into the giggles. “What?”
“Sly is gay!” I explained around my giggles. “He is way too fun to shop with to be straight.” James looked over at Sly, clearly for confirmation.
“Yep,” Sly said. “I’m gay. I apologize if you’re homophobic.”
“Nope, nothing of the sort,” James replied. “But...wow. Warning would have been nice.”
“It’s all irrelevance!” Rayne exclaimed, waving an arm wildly. Luckily, all the beer was gone out of her cup, so none spilled out. “If the sexuality of all my friends was of any importance to our relationship, I would’ve let you known. But it’s not. So I didn’t.” She looked around, still waving an arm around. “I need more beer!”
“True that,” Syn agreed.
“We’ll all go!” Rayne exclaimed. She suddenly hooked her elbow with mine and dragged Syn and I down the hall. “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!”
**********
James’s POV
“Why is the rum always gone?” Rayne asked Syn weakly. All of the other party-goers had left, leaving the ten of us in the living room. Syn sat on the couch with Rayne stretched out beside him, her head in his lap.
“Because you drink it all, love,” he answered kindly. Rayne blinked up at him.
“I don’t want anymore rum.” she told him.
“You never had any. You only drank beer.”
Rayne threw her arms above her head in exasperation.
“What’s the difference!?” she cried. She suddenly winced and pressed her hand to her head. “Owie.” Syn leaned down and kissed her on her temple.
Melrose groaned. I looked over to see her head slumping against my chest. I sat on the arm of the armchair, and she sat in the actual armchair, leaning against me. I was proud to say I was the only semi-sober one of the lot. Hey, one of us had to stay a little sober, just to make sure nothing bad happened.
I stood up, and her body slumped down across the arm of the chair.
“Hey!” she grumbled, her voice muffled from the cloth of the chair. I gently straightened her upright, and she looked up at me reproachfully. “Why didja leave me?”
“I’m not leaving you,” I corrected her. I leaned down and helped her to her feet. “I’m taking you to your bedroom.”
“Bed...” Melrose mumbled longingly.
“Yes, bed,” I agreed. She slumped against me. I knew her knees would never be able to hold her weight, as drunk as she was. I leaned down and swept her straight off her feet. She leaned her head against my chest, closing her eyes.
A couple of minutes later, I gently set her down on her bed. She blinked up at me, her cheeks tinged slightly pink. Slowly, a clear crystal tear leaked out of her eye. I sank down on the bed beside her, wiping it away with my thumb.
“Why are you crying?” I asked gently, sweeping her hair back from her face.
“On my twenty-first birthday, the girls and I went out and I got drunker than hell. We were in Indiana, visiting my parents, because I wanted to be with them on such a milestone of my life. My dad—he always liked the girls because they could always make him laugh—accompanied us to the bar. And the girls couldn’t carry my drunken body because I was too heavy for them. I was really just dead weight.” Melrose began. As she talked, another tear leaked out of her eye, and I quickly wiped it away. “So my dad picked me up just like you did, just swept me straight off my feet. He carried me out to the car and we went back home. And once we got back home, he carried my sorry, drunken ass up the stairs and put me in my bed, covered me up, and sat there, holding my hand until I fell asleep.” More tears fell. I couldn’t catch all of them. I hated seeing her cry. Her mascara smeared down her cheeks, along with her eyeliner, creating black streaks. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but I miss him. I miss them. And now my only family member left went back, away from me. I’m surrounded by people, lovely people, I love these people, but I feel alone. A part of my heart feels empty. The part of my heart my parents occupied.”
Melrose sniffled, angrily wiping her tears away.
“I hate crying. It hurts my head. It smears my make-up. It makes me look like death. I look like death, don’t I?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “You look gorgeous, as usual.” She let out a sudden spurt of sobbing. You know, the sound someone makes when they’re holding in all their sobs, and one, just one, breaks loose. It’s like a cough sort of, but more dreadful and it shakes the person’s body, and makes them cry even harder.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her torso against mine. Melrose’s fingers curled into fists as she burrowed her face into my chest. I rubbed my hand up and down her back, hopefully soothing her.
“This is so random.” she muttered.
“It’s okay.” I told her. She sniffled before pulling away and leaning back against her pillows. I gently pulled her covers out from under her and covered her with them. She suddenly pulled me into another hug, pressing her face against my neck.
“I love you.” she murmured.
“I love you too.” I replied. She released me and I pulled away. She smiled weakly at me, her hand finding mine. She curled her fingers around my own before closing her eyes.
Taking the hint, I sat there and held her hand, just as her father had done, until sleep overcame her.
I heard the sound of the doorbell trilling over the voices and music filling the house. I shoved my way to the door and jerked it open.
“Oh, wow, it is beautiful.” the blonde standing next to Matt marveled, leaning forward slightly to look up at the golden, glittering chandelier. Matt smiled and nodded.
“Hey, Matt,” I said with a smile.
“Hi,” he replied. “Oh, this is Valery.” He motioned towards the blonde. “She’s one of my best friends.”
“Hi,” I said kindly to Valery as we shook hands.
“Your house is amazing already.” she told me with a smile.
“Thanks,” I said. “Please, come in. There’s drinks and food in the kitchen. You’ll find your peeps somewhere around here.”
“Valery!” I heard James’s voice call. Within seconds, he rushed over, dragging Valery into a hug. I laughed as I closed the door. “I haven’t seen you in...in...” He quickly tried to calculate how long he hadn’t seen her. “I haven’t seen you in forever!” he finally concluded.
“Nice to see you again, too, Jimmy,” she said, grinning.
“So, where’s Jen?” Matt asked me.
“Hell if I know,” I answered.
“I’m here!” Jen stepped up, holding two plastic cups of beer. She offered one to Matt, and he happily took it off her hands. “Who’s your friend?” She smiled over at Valery.
“I’m Valery,” she answered, shaking Jen’s free hand. “You must be Jen. I’m one of Matt’s best friends.”
“And ex-girlfriend,” Matt added cautiously.
“Oh,” Jen said, looking from Matt and Valery. “Huh. Why didn’t it work out, if I may ask?”
“We’ve been best friends since...well...forever practically, and in high school, we decided to get together because, why not, you know? But it felt really strange kissing my best friend, and I’m sure it was the same for him, so we just went back to being friends. It’s much more natural.” Valery explained. “I haven’t seen him happier, either, ever since he met up with you. He always talks about you. I really hope we can be friends.”
“No problem,” Jen answered with a smile. “I love making new friends.” Valery laughed.
“Then call me Val, friend.” Val said. Jen nodded.
“Just call me Jen.” she told her.
“So, what’s the album cover look like?” Matt asked me. I turned and pointed at the banister directly above and behind us. A huge poster of the album cover hung from it. “Damn, you look hot.” he told Jen. She smirked and poked him in the ribs.
Yeah, we hosted an album-release party. We’d just released our third album, Fairytale Wishes, and decided to throw a party because of it. Because we’re party people. Who like to throw parties.
The album cover showed all five of us dressed as, and these are Kim’s words, ‘Fairies of Rock’. We each wore a fairy costume, complete with wings. The costume itself consisted of a skin-tight, black, strapless top. The skirts were pretty short and puffed out from scratchy material lining the inside of it. The outside of the skirts were black as well, but the scratchy material that made them poof out was the same color as our respective bangs—mine was bright red; Rayne’s was white; Kim’s was bright purple; Jen’s was navy blue; and AM’s was bright yellow. Hey, we liked to dress according to the color of our bangs. Our hair was our trademark thing. Our wings were black but had glittery rhinestones all over them.
We all wore dark make-up around our eyes and had put contacts in that made our whole eyes white. Now that I saw it blown up on a giant poster, it looked really, super creepy, because there wasn’t any color on our eyes, just pure white hidden within the dark make-up. We all wore blood red lipstick with glittery lip gloss over it so that our lips shimmered. We all wore our hair down so that it cascaded across our shoulders. Our hair glittered with the glitter the hair dressers had sprayed on it. A metallic choker necklace hung around our necks with a large star on it, set right at the front of our throats.
We each ‘floated’ at different levels on the album cover. I was at the far left and floated up near the top of the album cover. Within one hand I held two drumsticks, with my arm outstretched so that the drumsticks pointed at the person looking at the cover. I just stared passively, with zero emotion on my face. But, somehow, it still looked creepy, like I was just thinking about coming alive and gouging your eyes out. To my right floated Kim, who floated a bit lower than I did. She had her bass guitar slung across her torso. She had one hand strumming and one hand pressing the notes on the guitar. Her tiny face held a menacing leer, like she would just come to life and break your face off and feed it to her pet mushroom.
Rayne floated to the right of Kim. She floated even lower than Kim, pretty close to the bottom of the album cover. She held a microphone in her hand and looked like she was screaming into it. Her pure white eyes glared out at the viewer, like she wanted to break your eardrums with her screams. To the right of her floated Jen about the same level as Kim. Jen had her guitar slung across her torso, in the exact same stance as Kim. She had her evil grin on. It freaked even me out. That girl has awesome evil grins.
AM floated to the right of Jen. She hung at the same level as I did. She had her guitar slung across her torso, exactly like Kim and Jen. She had her head tilted to the side a little bit, a small smirk playing on her lips. It looked as though she was deviously planning the viewer’s demise, and enjoying every second of it.
And stamped, right in the center of us, but not overlapping our bodies, hung Fairytale Wishes in black, curly, glittering letters. The album cover looked pretty much awesome. I loved it.
“Rayne looks intense, doesn’t she?” Syn asked as he walked up. His arm was draped across Rayne’s shoulders. “Oh, hey, Val.”
“Hey, Syn.”
“Yes, they all look intense. But Jen is seriously creeping me out with that evil grin.” James said, quickly looking away. I laughed.
“Ann is a sexy beast, and don’t you deny it!”
We all turned to see it was Zacky who had spoken. He sauntered over, pulling AM with him, who was giggling and blushing to beat the band.
“Don’t say it so loud.” she whispered.
“But ain’t it the truth?” Zacky insisted.
“Yeah, I’d do that.” Rayne said with a laugh.
Okay, we were a little drunk. So sue me.
“If I was a dude, I would date you.” Rayne continued.
“Thank the lord above she isn’t.” Syn said with a smirk. Rayne giggled randomly, taking a drink of her beer.
“Hey, Sly!” Ann called. “Don’t try to sneak away like you don’t know us!” Sylvester walked over, smiling around at us all.
“Sly, tell me something.” Rayne said. Sylvester looked over at her. “Is Syn not the hottest man you have ever seen on the face of this planet?”
“Yes, if he was single, I would totally date the guy.” Sly answered. Rayne laughed, leaning heavily against Syn. James just looked confused.
“Don’t you mean if you were gay, you would date him?” he asked. That sent the five of us girls into the giggles. “What?”
“Sly is gay!” I explained around my giggles. “He is way too fun to shop with to be straight.” James looked over at Sly, clearly for confirmation.
“Yep,” Sly said. “I’m gay. I apologize if you’re homophobic.”
“Nope, nothing of the sort,” James replied. “But...wow. Warning would have been nice.”
“It’s all irrelevance!” Rayne exclaimed, waving an arm wildly. Luckily, all the beer was gone out of her cup, so none spilled out. “If the sexuality of all my friends was of any importance to our relationship, I would’ve let you known. But it’s not. So I didn’t.” She looked around, still waving an arm around. “I need more beer!”
“True that,” Syn agreed.
“We’ll all go!” Rayne exclaimed. She suddenly hooked her elbow with mine and dragged Syn and I down the hall. “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!”
**********
James’s POV
“Why is the rum always gone?” Rayne asked Syn weakly. All of the other party-goers had left, leaving the ten of us in the living room. Syn sat on the couch with Rayne stretched out beside him, her head in his lap.
“Because you drink it all, love,” he answered kindly. Rayne blinked up at him.
“I don’t want anymore rum.” she told him.
“You never had any. You only drank beer.”
Rayne threw her arms above her head in exasperation.
“What’s the difference!?” she cried. She suddenly winced and pressed her hand to her head. “Owie.” Syn leaned down and kissed her on her temple.
Melrose groaned. I looked over to see her head slumping against my chest. I sat on the arm of the armchair, and she sat in the actual armchair, leaning against me. I was proud to say I was the only semi-sober one of the lot. Hey, one of us had to stay a little sober, just to make sure nothing bad happened.
I stood up, and her body slumped down across the arm of the chair.
“Hey!” she grumbled, her voice muffled from the cloth of the chair. I gently straightened her upright, and she looked up at me reproachfully. “Why didja leave me?”
“I’m not leaving you,” I corrected her. I leaned down and helped her to her feet. “I’m taking you to your bedroom.”
“Bed...” Melrose mumbled longingly.
“Yes, bed,” I agreed. She slumped against me. I knew her knees would never be able to hold her weight, as drunk as she was. I leaned down and swept her straight off her feet. She leaned her head against my chest, closing her eyes.
A couple of minutes later, I gently set her down on her bed. She blinked up at me, her cheeks tinged slightly pink. Slowly, a clear crystal tear leaked out of her eye. I sank down on the bed beside her, wiping it away with my thumb.
“Why are you crying?” I asked gently, sweeping her hair back from her face.
“On my twenty-first birthday, the girls and I went out and I got drunker than hell. We were in Indiana, visiting my parents, because I wanted to be with them on such a milestone of my life. My dad—he always liked the girls because they could always make him laugh—accompanied us to the bar. And the girls couldn’t carry my drunken body because I was too heavy for them. I was really just dead weight.” Melrose began. As she talked, another tear leaked out of her eye, and I quickly wiped it away. “So my dad picked me up just like you did, just swept me straight off my feet. He carried me out to the car and we went back home. And once we got back home, he carried my sorry, drunken ass up the stairs and put me in my bed, covered me up, and sat there, holding my hand until I fell asleep.” More tears fell. I couldn’t catch all of them. I hated seeing her cry. Her mascara smeared down her cheeks, along with her eyeliner, creating black streaks. “I don’t think I ever told you this, but I miss him. I miss them. And now my only family member left went back, away from me. I’m surrounded by people, lovely people, I love these people, but I feel alone. A part of my heart feels empty. The part of my heart my parents occupied.”
Melrose sniffled, angrily wiping her tears away.
“I hate crying. It hurts my head. It smears my make-up. It makes me look like death. I look like death, don’t I?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, shaking my head. “You look gorgeous, as usual.” She let out a sudden spurt of sobbing. You know, the sound someone makes when they’re holding in all their sobs, and one, just one, breaks loose. It’s like a cough sort of, but more dreadful and it shakes the person’s body, and makes them cry even harder.
I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her torso against mine. Melrose’s fingers curled into fists as she burrowed her face into my chest. I rubbed my hand up and down her back, hopefully soothing her.
“This is so random.” she muttered.
“It’s okay.” I told her. She sniffled before pulling away and leaning back against her pillows. I gently pulled her covers out from under her and covered her with them. She suddenly pulled me into another hug, pressing her face against my neck.
“I love you.” she murmured.
“I love you too.” I replied. She released me and I pulled away. She smiled weakly at me, her hand finding mine. She curled her fingers around my own before closing her eyes.
Taking the hint, I sat there and held her hand, just as her father had done, until sleep overcame her.
♠ ♠ ♠
Heyloo.Long-ish, indeed. Random, OF COURSE.
Comments?