Music Girl

“Where’d you learn to fight like that?”

I opened my eyes from my meditation on my shag rug to see Aravic standing in the doorway, a bottle of juice in one hand and a stack of steaming Eggo waffles in the other.

“Boston. The Boston North Side Fight Club, to be exact,” I responded, accepting the food. “You made me breakfast?”

Aravic shrugged. “Least I could do. I thought I’d better appease you.” I sort of half smiled and started munching on a waffle.

The past week had been a week of secrets. I went to school with my injuries and concussion (I seemed to be getting hit in the head a lot lately) and all people did was whisper, whisper, whisper. They pointed at my bruises and spread rumors. Half of them weren’t true, and thankfully they didn’t see the worst of it. My hair had grown considerably from my pixie cut I got over the summer, so I now had just enough bangs to cover the lovely egg-sized bruise on my forehead. That thing caused me horrendous headaches by midday and prevented me from understanding anything my teachers said in my afternoon classes. I wasn’t exactly a very studious person to begin with, and as of late, my grades have begun slipping from B’s to C’s. At least they were still better than Tomas’s.

The worst part of everything was the fact that when Cynthia came back to school yesterday, it was like she was a completely different person. She didn’t talk to anyone, not even me, sat by herself all the time, and stopped answering questions in class. Her smile was gone now, and when she did try to smile, it was ghostly. Her blonde curls she had so fondly taken care of in the past now lay in disarray, and she no longer wore bright colours. I mean, she had seemed sad when she had woken up, but I never knew it ran this deep. I wondered if her parents had anything to do with it. They were pretty hardcore Regalists, and had never really liked me. Maybe they blamed this all on me and had forbidden her talking to me. Or maybe, they were glad her virginity had finally been taken and were congratulating her on it. I could see this killing her on the inside. She had confided in me once that the Regalist sexism disgusted her. I hope that Cynthia was still within her somewhere.

So between everything, I had taken to meditation to calm myself down. Some kids drank, some shot up drugs, most had sex...I meditated. What a boring, hippie thing to do, yet it was healthy and effective. I could drift upon the past when I did, go to my “happy place” so to speak. I had finished off the waffles and was about to go back to meditating when Aravic sat down next to me.

“I actually wanted to talk to you, Sam,” he started, running a hand through his blonde hair, making it stick up awkwardly in places.

“About?” I asked, almost scared to ask.

“What to do about Antonio.” I was only half expecting this.

“And what do you propose we do?”

“Well… okay, we both know we can’t get him on a rape charge, so I thought… what if we got him on something else? Something that would put him away for a long time.” Wow, an intelligent idea.

“That’s sort of what I’ve been thinking. You know him, what could we get him for?” This might work, for once.

“Mostly drugs and murder. The courts take them pretty seriously.”

‘I would hope so,’ I thought. “But how would we prove any of this? It has to be absolutely solid and without-a-doubt if anyone will believe us, much less get a case to court.” Aravic smiled at his own thoughts.

“We would sort of have to go undercover, get into the Skulls, record conversations and such.” I laughed at the idea.

“Alright, and just how are we going to get into the Skulls? It’s not some clubhouse you can just walk into, even I know that.”

At this, the amusement left Aravic’s face. “That’s the problem, and possibly the deal breaker for you.” He just left me hanging with curiosity and dread for a moment or two.

‘Oh shit, what now?’ I mentally swore.

“You see,” he started up again, sounding hesitant, “at the beginning of the year, I really wanted into the Skulls. I was given an initiation test, which I still haven’t completed, but if I do it, I’m into the Skulls and we can start taking him down.”

“And what was that, um, test?” I didn’t really want to know now at this point. Aravic was now avoiding eye contact.

“”I have to basically, uh… dominate this person. Get them under my control and… have sex with them at the Skull house under Antonio’s observation.”

I gulped down a, “That’s sick!” and instead said, “And who was or, is, this person?”

“You,” Aravic said simply and emptily, sounding almost like Cynthia.

I guess I should have been expecting this. I guess I should have expected this to involve me doing things I absolutely detest. But I wasn’t expecting it at all. Before I could speak, Aravic cut me off.

“I know you’re thinking I’m a sick bastard and I’m lying and using this just to get what I want, but… I’m not. I wouldn’t wish this on you or anyone else, and I’m not lying, it’s the only way, you can ask Tomas or Jared or Kevin, they were all there.”

"Why should I believe any of that?” I asked softly, feeling a bit of anger climbing up.

“Because I’ve changed. I’m not the same person I was in September. You’ve changed me.”

“No,” I answered. “No Aravic, I’m not doing that. Sorry. Find some other way.”

“Sam, I can’t. Antonio will get suspicious. It’s the only way.”

“That’s my answer, Aravic, and it’s no.”

“Not even to exact revenge? Not even to take down a drug lord and a murderer?” Great, he was playing the morality card. Yes, I desperately wanted revenge and yes, I wanted to take down a murderer, but… no. I wouldn’t degrade myself for that.

“Sam… you’re a good person. You’ll survive this. So you could either give up yourself for an hour or two and make a difference in the world, or you could be selfish and stubborn and let evil stay in the world,” said Aravic definitively, standing to leave. “I’ll need your answer by Monday morning. That gives you… three days to decide, counting today.”

“The only problem is, Aravic,” I said as he left, “is that the evil is all around us.”

“Well, count this as a start,” he said as my door closed behind him.

I now stood on the precipice of destruction. Of my destruction, of my change. I could walk away from the edge, play it safe, but walk back into what? A world of mundane cruelty, where you simply couldn’t be yourself? Or did I jump off the cliff, take a running leap perhaps? This seemed the more enticing choice, but my question holding me back was: Would I survive the fall?