Fall Away

“Soren,” I groaned, following the noise into the house. I found Soren dancing around the kitchen as he looked at my iPod. “Honestly, you’re like a hyperactive five year old,” I muttered under my breath.

“You’ve got a lot of songs on here,” the boy informed me.

“I know,” I laughed.

Soren paused for a second, then moved over to a small computer I hadn’t even noticed, half-hidden in a corner. “Well, I have – have three thousand,” he replied defensively. “That’s a lot.”

I winced. “Are they all classic rock?”

“Hey,” Soren protested, pointing a finger at me. “The 70’s were a bomb time for music.”

I made a face. “They weren’t that great.”

He shook his head. “I guess you had to be there.”

I raised an eyebrow in his direction. “And you were?”

He looked confused, then let out a half-hearted laugh. “I guess not.”

He guessed not? I opened my mouth to ask more questions, but Soren beat me to it. “Is this what you call diversity?” he asked, indicating the computer screen.

I glanced over to see that he had plugged my iPod in, and was scrolling through my music on a larger screen. “Yeah,” I shrugged. “It’s at least more diverse than yours.”

“Hmm…” Soren pursed his lips as he ran through the songs. “You and Kirian seem a lot alike. He likes some of these songs, too.”

“Where is he, anyway?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Soren replied. “Kirian!”

I winced as he shouted at the top of his voice, pausing for a second before shrugging again. “ He’ll come down eventually.”

Soren continued to scroll through my music, and I pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Considering I didn’t know where Kirian was, and Soren looked like he was entertained for a while, I might as well make myself comfortable.

A moment later, I was startled out of my seat as music blasted through the room. I finally noticed the speakers on top of various cabinets, but that still didn’t explain…. “Hey,” I said slowly. “I know this song.”

“I should hope so,” Soren said, mock sternness in his voice. “It’s on your iPod.”

I laughed, mumbling the words to myself. I had just settled back down when another loud noise echoed through the kitchen. “What-” I rose half out of my seat.

“Why are you playing my music, Soren?” Kirian looked mad, although I didn’t quite understand why. “You’ve already made it clear how much you hate it, why don’t you just play-”

He saw me and stopped short. “Ellie?”

“Hi,” I replied, a little warily. I glanced between Soren and Kirian, trying to figure out what was going on. “Umm… you have this song, too?”

“Wha – this is your music?”

“Soren plugged in my iPod,” I nodded, pointing to the computer.

“Oh. Well, in that case…”

“You two have a lot of the same music,” Soren remarked casually. He didn’t seem to care about his brother’s outburst, as he hadn’t even looked up from the computer. “You could go to a concert together or something.”

“Um… yeah, okay,” I replied slowly, still completely confused by this turn of events.

“Here, see? I bet if I play a song off of Kirian’s five star list, you’ll know it.”

Soren pressed a few buttons on the computer and the song coming out of the speakers changed. “Change it,” I ordered, the words coming out of my mouth before my brain could think to stop them.

“What?”

I looked between the two boys, who were both looking at me with identical expressions of confusion. “This isn’t actually a bad song,” Kirian replied.

“You do know it!” Soren crowed suddenly, as if something had just clicked in his head.

I sighed, shaking my head. “No, it’s not a bad song. I just don’t like it.”

“Then why are you singing along?”

I shut my mouth quickly. I hadn’t even realized I’d been mouthing the lyrics along with the lead singer. “I used to like it. But, you know, things change.”

Soren shrugged, as if he didn’t really care, but I couldn’t escape Kirian’s gaze. Even as the music changed, and the conversation switched to other topics, I could still feel his eyes on me, asking all the questions I didn’t want to answer.