All I Wanted Was You

Parker Storch folded his bony arms and leaned against the brusque metal back to his school chair. He really wanted a cigarette and sat memorizing Mikayla, as she stood before the classroom, to assuage the call of his addiction. If she would look over at him – which he noticed that she sometimes, very rarely, did – she’d know that he was sober this morning. Whenever he was high, she used to say, he always wore the same face.

Mikayla and a chubby brunette girl who wouldn’t look quite so thick if she wore clothes that fit – Kara or Callie, he didn’t know – were debating in front of the class. Parker knew that the prompt their sociology teacher had used to incite the discussion was just another class participation grade to the brunette girl. Because she didn’t care enough to gather a more coherent response or maybe because she was trying to brush off the fact that Mikayla intimidated her, she rolled her eyes.

Mikayla was cognizant; she was resentful of the bubble most kids lived in and this prevented her from allowing a genuine social issue to be diminished into an impersonal classroom activity in her mind. Most of the time she was quiet but she never shied away from countering an ignorant statement and this offended their oblivious classmates in a way that was hard to believe.

Watching Mikayla and the ardent way she let her whole body submit to her argument, Parker chewed at his lip to stifle a smirk. A lot of the kids in their class hated Mikayla’s opinionated, “great defender” tendencies and her broadcasted liberal point of view. With a bemused smirk, the first thing Parker had ever noticed about her was that she didn’t care that people made fun of her for caring.

She kept to herself so much Parker swore their first sociology class together was the first time he’d ever seen her. While he didn’t quite notice her quite so much at the start of the year – since he normally sat, high and transfixed, isolated in that uncomfortable chair each morning – he was aware of her like a background humming or a peripheral light. She was interesting.

Then, they officially met one January night and dated for three and a half weeks.

She was wearing a denim vest they had studded together and she dug her hands into its pockets as she walked back to her seat to get her things before the bell rang. He almost regretted cheating on her. He should have known that she would be one of those girls who asserted their self-worth by dumping the guys who cheating on them. He respected her for it, but he really wished she hadn’t.

“Hey.” Parker aligned himself with Mikayla as the classroom began to empty, “Is that MeWithoutYou?” he asked, referencing the newest addition to her vest: black letters across her back reading ‘Come on in and waste away awhile.’ The vest’s shoulders were studded; a cheetah-print fabric was sewn along the distressed collar and there was an At the Drive-In patch that he’d actually sewn on himself for her. It was on the back, near the bottom and off to the left side like ending punctuation. Beneath the vest, she wore a black cotton maxi-dress. Sometimes, when beneath it her body shifted, the loose fabric adjusted, clinging to difference areas of her body. With a sway of her hips, the fabric tugged around her round butt and he grinned, remembering one of her best features.

“Uhh yeah,” she looked up at him to respond before stalking off. So he went in the opposite way, though his class was in the other direction, just since he didn’t want to piss her off further.

“Hey Parker,” Vikki Mitchell passed him in the hall, a little too eager with her bubble-gum friendly smile and pageant wave. He nodded and kept walking. Mikayla and Vikki’s friendship had already been over by the time he started dating her but he’d heard a bit. He was not a big fan of bubbly girls like Vikki and Abigail anyways. Those girls always seemed like they were hiding something; very rehearsed.

The week that they started dating, actually, there was this rumor around school that Mikayla did heroine. Granted, she had started dating Parker Storch and then immediately missed three consecutive days of school so the idea that the two of them were off on some lovers’ drug binge could seem plausible to outsiders. But Parker had never done or planned on doing any hardcore drugs and Mikayla was at home sick with a respiratory infection. When he did get drunk or high around her, she just smiled at him all doe-like and disapproving. He had an idea who spread that interesting piece.

Parker remembered meeting Mikayla the first time outside of school one Friday night, months ago, and giggling out, “Hey! Don’t we have a class together?” She’d merely nodded.

They were at some girl’s house – six or seven of them. Mikayla had not wanted to be there but was family-friends with the girl and agreed to sleepover that night even though she wasn’t friends with anybody else there. Parker had been invited by a friend of a friend. The group ended up spending the weekend together and Parker watched this uncomfortable girl loosen up and, even though she wouldn’t smoke with them, she seemed to be having fun.

Mikayla had been quiet, mostly, but occasionally she’d say something hilariously sarcastic and he wanted to know her. The group of them danced to pop songs that everybody but Parker and Mikayla knew the words to and made milkshakes. It was one of those weird, hyperactive weekends when a group of kids who aren’t really even friends act like teenagers together.

Though, it was all summed up Sunday night when and Mikayla suddenly burst into tears in the middle of a group conversation, sitting on the floor with everyone. Parker squeezed her tight and by Tuesday he was calling her his girl. She explained to him once how she had good days and bad ones, sometimes falling into a funk. He imagined her walking at the other end of the hall, happy with herself after the small classroom discussion. That was the kind of thing that built her up a little bit.

She was really something and he really did like her.



The girl at the counter made a haughty glance to Frank’s neck tattoos before taking his order. He just chuckled and provided the made of his coffee – black, two sugars – because she looked to be about twenty-five and was working at a Dunkin’ Donuts, with sloppily done eyeliner and a big tacky bun atop her head. She had the nerve to judge him, which was comical.

In high school he’d been as short as he is now but he’d been friendly. He still got pushed around sometimes and wasn’t necessarily popular, but he played in bands and smoked out behind the school with friends and broke his ankles skateboarding. He had been one of those kids who were waiting to do better, more interesting things. In high school, he bet this girl had peeked. So he laughed.

Frank was in a really good fucking mood, picking up a coffee on the way home from his first practice with his new side project. Since My Chemical Romance was taking a short hiatus, he’d grown restless and started his own outside project: a hardcore band called Leathermouth with some of his buddies. While he played guitar in MCR, in Leathermouth he performed vocals.

Today, they had just been jamming, getting a feel for playing as a unit. But as Frank walked outside and towards his car, he was so happy to have a new musical outlet. He was anticipating their first show. MCR had been off the road for a while and he needed to be playing again.

Frank loved Gerard, Mikey and Ray but he had arrived at the point in his career when – though he loved My Chemical Romance and what it had done for him – he began to resent the teeny-bopper senseless girls who had grown to define his success. He was thrilled to have a second outlet while they’d taken a break so Gerard could take some time to build his family and Ray could enjoy being a newlywed.

Everybody was moving on; even Mikey was in a pretty serious relationship. Frank’s new relationships, he supposed, were with the microphone and his notebook filling up with lyrics. He pulled out of the Dunkin’ Donuts parking lot, headed home and wondering what it might be like to bring Mikayla along to a Leathermouth show sometime.

She liked a lot of hardcore bands, he had noticed. A lot of her young exposure to decent underground music probably had to do with having Lindsay as a role model, but still it was pretty cool.