Collide To The Sound Of Our Heartbeat.

April’s Point of View
After school, I drove in our new car back home. Bob had told me that he was going to get Ray to pick us up later. Ray was one of Gerard’s close friends, who had got on well with the rest of us, too. He went to College at William Paterson University, which was in Wayne, New Jersey. He wanted to be an editor, and he was quite good at all that tech stuff. He was a pretty damn amazing guitarist, too, if I do say so myself. Everyone usually called him Toro, by his second name. I don’t know why, I guess it just suited him.

When I pulled up at our driveway, Ani got out quickly, seeing Dad’s white Mercedes Benz. I sighed, unbuckling my seatbelt and climbing out, locking the car. I walked around to an upset Ani. Her fists where clenched tight, her knuckled white. Her jaw was rigid, her long hair fluttering around her face in the wind.
“Not today, okay? He’ll be expecting a nice, happy setting. It’s our sixteenth,” I muttered, placing a hand on her arm.
“So?” she spat, shaking my hand off her.
I and Ani didn’t always see eye-to-eye like people would expect. She disliked our Dad a lot – and I mean a lot.
See, our Mom doesn’t really have all her marbles anymore, as the saying would go. When our Dad left, she was so depressed, it just… killed her inside. She truly loved him, and couldn’t see why he would do something like that. Leave his wife and two kids at Jersey, while he went to live in Manhattan, New York with some new, slightly younger blonde chick he met through work. I believe in the saying ‘forgive and forget’, whereas Ani would believe that someone had to work to gain someone else’s trust back.
My Mom and Dad were still quite young – Mom was only 34, and Dad was 36. They had us when Mom was 18, and Dad was 20. They had got married two years later, after they had settled down with us. When we were 13, Dad left. He and Mom never divorced – I think Mom wasn’t really mentally stable for it yet.

Sighing, I walked inside the small home, leaving the blue front door slightly ajar for Ani. She’d get over it a little and come inside when she could cope with seeing him. I walked down the narrow hallway into the average-sized kitchen, seeing my Dad sat at the wooden circular dining table, my Mother across from him. They both had a mug of coffee clasped in their hands, Mom looking a little drained, whereas Dad looked quite happy.
“April!” he cried, standing from his chair and wrapping his arms around me. He wore a black suit, with a white shirt and black tie, so it was obvious that he’d come straight from the office in New York.
“Happy Birthday! You’re getting older, eh? Did you like your present?” he asked, extremely excited. I smiled widely, nodding.
“I love it! It’s such a nice drive, I drove it back from school,” I said, chuckling at Dad’s excitement.
“Good. Where’s Ani?” he asked, breaking our little embrace.
“Uh, I think she’s coming,” I explained, and right on queue, we heard the door slam shut, and the sound of her converse-clad feet coming down the hallway. She appeared at the doorway, a small but fake smile on her lips. I knew her like the back of my hand – and only I could tell the smile was a fake one.
“Hey, baby! Happy Birthday!” Dad said walking over to her with his arms wide, hugging her. She hugged back, a little vigilantly.
“Thanks. And thanks for the buff car,” she added, trying not to seem like a total bitch. She was trying, I’ll give her that, and I was happy that she was.
“No problem, hunnie,” he said, letting go of her and sitting back down at the table. We mimicked him, sitting down at the two remaining chairs.
“So what else did you get for your birthday?” he asked, sipping on his coffee. I pointed at the gorgeous locket around my neck, and he looked over, picking it up.
“That’s beautiful,” he mumbled, letting it hang from my neck.
“Anything else?” he asked, ruffling his hair a little. He did that a lot.
“Not yet. We’re going to the Way’s for a party,” Ani stated, tracing patterns in the table with her finger.
“The Way’s? They live down the road, right?” I nodded.
Gee and Mikes don’t live far from us – we live on Brighton Avenue, and they live on Salter Place, which is like 97 steps from my front door. No joke. We counted.
“Well. Alright… are you staying there?”
“Yeah, I guess so,” I said, just as the phone rang. Ani stood up quickly, rushing to the living room to answer it…. subtle.
“I don’t like the sound of those Way kids, April. I know Ani would throw a fit if I said it… I’ve heard a lot about them,” he mumbled, leaning over the table to look in my eyes. I blinked, raising an eyebrow.
“They’re fine and harmless. They’re my friends, Dad,” I said, slightly pissed. “What have you heard about them?”
“Well… it doesn’t matter. Just watch out, okay?”
“I wouldn’t need to.”
“They’re trouble-makers,” he reasoned, sipping on his coffee casually.
“No they are not!” I cried, and I stood up, walking out into the living room as Ani hung up the phone. I took a deep breath.
“Who was it?” I asked. She looked at me, her head cocked to one side.
“Bob. What were you shouting about?”
“I’ll tell you later. What did he say?” I said, curious.
“We have to get ready now. Ray’s swinging down in about thirty,” she said, walking out the door. I heard her make her way to the kitchen.
“Ray will be here in about half an hour… so we’re gonna get ready,” she sounded, and she peeked her head around the living room door.
“C’mon,” she said, leading the way upstairs and to her room. She sat on her bed, the red and white sheets wrinkling from where she sat. She kicked off her shoes, throwing them towards her wardrobe.
“Tell me,” she said, and I sat down, lying on her bed next to her.
“Dad was complaining to me that Gee and Mikes are trouble-makers and that he’s heard a lot of stuff about them,” I said, mimicking Dad’s voice. She chuckled.
“Dick.”
“I know,” I replied, sighing.
“What’re you gonna wear?” she asked, sitting up and pulling her knees under her chin.
“I dunno yet. I was thinking of a dress, or shorts and something, but I dunno,” I explained, still lying on my back, and picking at a loose thread on Ani’s sheets. Her room was decorated exactly the same as mine, but we had different colour combinations. She had red, white and black, and I had blue, white and black. It was quite cool.
“Well I was going to go with my shorts, the denim ones. So wear a dress, yeah?” she explained, getting up and going over to her wardrobe, pulling out her favourite short shorts, along with some bright teal tights and white dolly shoes.
“What top?” she asked a questioning look on her face.
“The ripped up Misfits’ one. Or a plain white one or something,” I replied, scanning the shoes, tights and shorts that she threw on the bed next to me.
“Ripped up Misfits?” she said, pulling it out. I nodded, and it joined the small pile of stuff on her bed. Her Misfits’ shirt was quite cool, it was quite an old one, the very first bit of band merch she’d ever got, so over the years it had got a couple of rips here and there. It was a little frayed around the edges, and one of the sleeves was completely ripped off, thanks to a play fight she got into with Ray a few years ago. She’d cut it up around the neck, too, so it hung on her shoulders. It was very cool.
“I’m gonna go and shower now, so… yeah,” Ani said, smiling, and walking into her bathroom. We each had our own bathroom in the house. There were three rooms and they were all en-suite, which was fucking kick-ass.
Because Ani spent about an hour in the shower, I decided to go back to my room and have mine, which wouldn’t take me as long.

When I got out, I put on some black underwear, and wrapping my dressing gown around me. I then pulled my wet hair up into a messy bun carelessly, starting on my make-up. I put on a thin line of liquid eyeliner on my eyelids, and using my black kohl pencil for the bottom of my eyes. I layered my eyelashes with mascara, making them really thick and lots bigger. I then applied yellow eye shadow, all the way up to my eyebrows. I loved this eye shadow, but I barely had any place to wear it. It was all glittery as well as yellow. It was so cool, because it wasn’t gold. After I was satisfied with my make-up, finishing with my powder base on top of my matte foundation, I made my way over to Ani’s room, knocking on the door.
“Come in!” she yelled, and I opened the door, walking in and hearing Scream! by The Misfits playing on her stereo. She had just finished her make-up, too, and was in her tights and underwear… a funny sight. Her make-up consisted of just mascara, with teal eye shadow which was swooped out like a model would wear their eye shadow, and some base. It was very cool, actually.
“What are you wearing?” she asked, picking up her white hairbrush.
“My yellow dress, dumbass,” I said, rolling my eyes. She giggled.
“What you doing to your hair? I don’t want the same shit,” I asked, sitting on her bed.
“Keeping it wavy… and mouse,” she said, pulling out her hairdryer from her drawer. I nodded, getting up and going back to my room to finish getting ready. I began immediately on my hair, blow-drying it completely straight and smooth, and my fringe hanging over my eye. I walked over to my wardrobe, and looked over my different coloured tights. After a few minutes, I pulled out skin tights, pulling them on carefully and quickly. I then got out my favourite yellow dress, putting it on carefully so I didn’t make major creases. After a while, I decided on my black and white heeled shoes, slipping them on and grabbing a set of plain white pearl necklaces and wrapping them around my neck, along with other black, white and yellow beads and necklaces. Checking myself in the mirror, I slipped on my white jacket, walking out my room and down the stairs, checking my phone, keys and cigarettes were in my jacket pocket. Ani was in the living room, her hair wavy and messy looking, her slender teal legs crossed, waiting.
“When will he get here…?” as if on queue, we heard a loud knock on the front door. We yelled our goodbyes towards our parents in the kitchen, before swinging open the front door, revealing a dishevelled looking Ray, a lopsided grin on his face. We stepped out, and Ani closed the door behind us, grinning.
“Happy Birthday!” Ray cried, locking Ani and I in a huge hug. We hugged back, mumbling thanks.

Ray was a tall, half Puerto-Rican and half Portuguese kid with fucking amazing wild hair. It was like an afro, and was usually the punch line of a joke, which he never really minded. He was the second oldest of the group at 20, Gerard beating him by a few months.
“Alright kiddos, ready to go?” he said, linking one arm through the crook of my arm, and his other arm through Ani’s. I nodded, grinning up at him, and we started down the street.