You've Got To Hide Your Love Away

"Here." Aislin tosses a clear jeweled CD case with a single silver CD inside towards Kelcie.

Kelcie fumbles it for a few seconds, finally managing to grasp it between the tips of the middle and ring fingers on her left hand. She studies the case for several moments, flipping it over and over, searching for a label or some kind of writing. And of course, there isn't any; Aislin's not stupid.

"What is it?" Kelcie asks, flipping it over yet again, as if that will make a label magically appear.

"A CD, obviously." A sly smirk decorates Aislin's plump pink lips.

"I see that. What's on it?"

"Music." Aislin knows she's being a bitch, but well, it's just so much fun, and it's supposed to be a surprise.

"Like...?" Kelcie draws the word out, hoping for an answer.

Aislin shrugs. "Listen to it and see."

"Humph." Kelcie frowns, furrowing her straight, dark brows.

"It's a graduation present. From me to you." The last sentence has Aislin's brain dredging up lyrics to a Beatles song from way, way before her time. "I'm not going to see you for god knows how long, and you're going to need something to make you think of me and my distaste for all things Panic."

Kelcie attempts to raise one eyebrow, but only manages to make both brows slant upward at a forty-five degree angle. "Hmm...is that a clue?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

Without warning, Kelcie rushes forward, slamming into Aislin, wrapping her into a huge hug. The green mortarboard flies off Aislin's head and tumbles to the sidewalk. "I'm gonna miss you so much, Ash!" she gushes, in a voice that is a dead ringer for the one she used at Panic's meet-and-greet a year ago: almost fakely sweet and way too excited.

Kelcie's leaving for New York in a week, to study dance at fucking Juilliard, and Aislin's going to California in a month to study graphic design at CalArts. It's still her dream school, even though her obsession with Tim Burton is long gone.

Aislin hates Vegas. She hates the casinos, the bars, the clubs, the shows, the lights, the Strip, the drinking, the gambling, all of it.

She hates her high school, Palo Verde, and the stupid panther mascot and Summerlin and the house that's way too big for just two people.

She needs a change of scenery, and she needs it now.

"Aislin!" her mother's voice resonates through the air from the shiny silver SUV parked at the curb. "Let's go. NOW!"

"Coming!" Aislin calls, squeezing Kelcie into one last hug. "Call me when you finally listen to that, okay?" she asks, indicating the CD.

"Of course!" Kelcie gushes again, in the voice that makes Aislin want to reconsider the whole damn friendship. People should not sound like that.

Aislin snatches the mortarboard off the sidewalk before dashing towards the SUV parked at the curb. She climbs in the passenger's seat, sweeping the hems of the gown in before shutting the door. She tosses the green mortarboard into the backseat before leaning deeply into the dark leather of the passenger's seat.

"Seatbelt," her mom reminds her. She sighs and buckles up.

"Your dad would be so proud of you." The voice her mom uses is definitely sickly-sweet.

A faint smile decorates Aislin's lips as she remembers her father. The smile disappears as she relives his final moments. "Yeah, I guess he would," she says softly as she pulls her iPod out of the console in between the two front seats. She unwinds the earbuds wrapped around the device, sticking them in her ears and letting the music shuffle. The first song to drift into her ears sounds vaguely familiar, but she can't quite place it, and she has to check the display.

Time to Dance
Panic! At The Disco
A Fever You Can't Sweat Out

She's sung the song before, that's why it sounds so familiar. It's on the CD she gave Kelcie a few minutes ago. Aislin lets the stupid synth and the lead singer's annoying, high-pitched voice that she can't stand drown her thoughts.

Aislin listens to "Time to Dance", Radiohead's "Subterranean Homesick Alien", blink-182's "Feeling This", and makes it about four minutes into The Beatles' "I Want You (She's So Heavy)" before her mom pulls into the driveway.

Aislin rewinds the cord of the earbuds around the iPod and grabs a set of house keys from the console. She wants inside now, and doesn't want to waste time waiting on her mother. Her mom's really not being that slow, but she's moving too slow for Aislin's tastes.

Aislin has the key in the door and is dashing up the stairs before her mom's even out of the car. She's got the green polyester gown unzipped and wadded into a ball before she even makes it into her room. She tosses the gown into the corner near her dresser, and her brown paisley-print dress and wedge sandals that lace up the ankles with coppery brown ribbon follow it. She's barely pulled on her pajamas (an old Radiohead T-shirt and a pair of black men's sleep pants) when her Sidekick blares.

"Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself," Thom Yorke's voice sings.

Aislin grabs the phone off her nightstand and answers it without checking the display.

"OH MY GOSH!" Kelcie's voice explodes from the phone, and Aislin has to drop it on her bed to save her eardrums. Kelcie continues to scream, but Aislin can't make out what she's saying.

When Kelcie finally stops, Aislin picks up the Sidekick and holds it gingerly to her ear.

"Would you mind repeating everything after the 'oh my gosh!'?" Aislin asks. "Oh, and try to be slightly less enthusiastic, will ya?"

"FINE," Kelcie huffs. "You always have to ruin my fun."

"Nah. I'm just trying to save what's left of my hearing. It's still recovering from the Panic concert, and that was almost a year ago."

Kelcie rolls her eyes into the phone. "Fine. Where was I?"

"I don't know. I put the phone down because you were screaming."

"SORRY!" Kelcie says a little too loudly. Aislin winces slightly. "Is that you on the CD?" Kelcie asks in a normal voice.

"Yeah."

"OHMYGOD!" Kelcie's screaming again and running her words together, and Aislin pulls the phone away from her ear.

"KELS! VOLUME!" Aislin warns, as loud as she dares.

"Your voice is amazing!" Kelcie squeals. "It sounds sooo perfect with Brendon's! I knew Panic would grow on you! Brendon Urie went to Palo Verde too, you know."

"Kelcie, they are not growing on me. I can't stand them. I'll never like them; deal with it. And I don't care if someone in the band went to the same school we did."

Kelcie pauses for a moment. "You like Radiohead, right?" she asks.

"Kels, you know I do. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Ryan Ross likes them, too."

"Kelcie! For the thousandth time, I don't care!"

"Okay, whatever, Ash." Kelcie pauses again, and Aislin can hear keys clicking. "I think I'm gonna put a link to your songs on the message boards. Maybe someone from Panic will find them."

"Kelcie Rose Jackson, if you put my songs on the internet, I swear to god I'll--"

"Whoops! Sorry, Ash! My mom's calling me. I gotta go!" Kelcie hangs up the phone before Aislin can say anything else.

"Dammit," Aislin mutters under her breath.

Aislin puts her phone on the nightstand and pads downstairs to the den. As usual, her curiosity has gotten the better of her, and she can't resist having one little peek.

She pulls a green and black yearbook off the bottom shelf of one of the built-ins in the den. 2005 is printed across the front in silver leaf. It's the yearbook from her sophomore year, which seems like a good choice. She can't remember how old Kelcie's said Brendon is, but she figures that he can't be more than a couple of years older.

She flips to the senior class, running her finger across the names under the photographs. She stops when she sees his name. He's the only Urie in the entire senior class.

Her eyes look up to the picture above the name. The boy in the picture is wearing a dorky suit and tie. His hair looks the way the Beatles' did in 1964. He's smiling in the photograph, displaying his even, perfect white teeth.

He's adorable, and she can't drag her eyes away from the picture. She didn't know he was that cute. The only other time she's seen the guy, his face was covered in stark white makeup and his eyes had at least two inches of black shit around them. Of course, this picture's a couple of years old, but she suspects he hasn't changed that much.

Just for the hell of it, she pulls 2004's yearbook off the shelf and flips to the junior class. His hair's shorter in this picture and a little less Beatles-esque, and he's not really dressed up. He's also not smiling; he's kind of pursing his lips. And his lips, oh my god, his lips are gorgeous.

Aislin slams the book shut and slides it back on the shelf as she shakes the thoughts from her head. She's seen dozens of pictures of Brendon; they plaster the walls in Kelcie's room. But she's never once looked at a picture and thought, "hmm, he's hot". Maybe that's because in the yearbook pictures, he looked a little more normal. Aislin's not one to drool over celebrities.

She grabs the remote, flops down on the black leather sectional, and starts flipping through channels, looking for something to watch. She finally settles on a marathon of CSI: on SPIKE, even though the episode is already halfway over and there are commercials on at the moment. She tosses the remote on the table in front of the sofa and stretches out, eager for a marathon of corpses, blood, and gore.

She never gets to watch a single episode. She's asleep before the commercials are even over.