Days of the Old

“Have fun, kiddo!” Matt called as I hopped out of the front seat. I snorted and looked back at him with a look that said ‘yeah right’ before waving and making my way through the campus in search of Dannii.

It had been a week since we met, and we instantly hit it off and quickly became friends. It had become tradition to meet up by the auditorium at the start of the day, then again at lunch.
I had found out that since moving here from England last year, she hadn’t made any friends, either. This school was just so welcoming. She was the first friend I’d ever made that was a girl, but it wasn’t too different than being with Tyler. Maybe he was just a girl guy.

Today was different, though. She wasn’t standing in front of the doors of the auditorium, or anywhere around the premises. I waited a few moments, before taking my phone out and texting her.

Where are you?

Five minutes later, my phone finally vibrated. Good thing, too—the bell for first period was about to ring.

Not @ school. Home sick.

My shoulders slumped as if I’d been deflated as I read that, but then a felt a pair of eyes on me. I glanced around, and quickly found who was staring at me. Andy was leaning against Building B, which was only across the garden from me, his arms crossed as he stared at me.

Oh, no. I could not deal with that asshole today. There was nothing to look forward to; I wouldn’t have any one to hang out with at lunch, and Mr. Thorne was out sick, too. The substitute couldn’t even be considered a music teacher. She made us put our song on hold and gave us long, tedious worksheets.

That was it then, I’d made up my mind. I flipped Andy off, who narrowed his eyes at that, before turning on my heel and getting out of Huntington High as if there were a pack of rabid raccoons after me.

Matt should have considered himself lucky that I hadn’t ditched school in the two weeks I’d been there, so I felt no remorse as I wandered up the sidewalk of Main Street, having no clue where I was going. How long had I been there?

When I came across a Starbucks, I stopped off and got a Caramel Frappuccino, and continued on my escapade, the way I had come. Even though I didn’t know where I was, I had a general direction of where the beach was. All I had to do was keep heading down Main Street, and I would eventually (hopefully) stumble upon the beach.

It took longer than I had been expecting it to, about forty minutes to be precise, and pretty much almost got hit by a car when I had to cross the Pacific Coast Highway, but I didn’t let it deter me. I was going to make the best of my day off.

There obviously weren’t a lot of kids around, just a whole lot of tourists. I didn’t mind though—it wasn’t like I was skipping off of school with plans to socialize. I was slightly disappointed with what was there; a couple of pizza places and surf shops on the pier. Not a whole lot to do. I threw my empty cup in a trash bin before going down to the actual beach, and then under the pier.

The waves were small, so I didn’t have to worry about getting swamped by one or anything. I took my shoes and socks off, stepping forward until the low tide was just in front of my toes. When the water hit my feet, I was slightly surprised by how cold it was, but then reminded myself that it was winter.

With a sigh, I laid back until my head touched the hot sand. As I stared up at the bottom of the pier, I had trouble keeping my emotions in check. It felt so surreal to be here, and alone at the same time. I missed being best friends with Tyler so much. I just hoped he would take enough time out to visit over Easter break like he had promised.

And my mother. Every time I thought about her, that all-too familiar, longing ache ran through my chest, almost as if my sternum was compressing against my heart. I let out a shaky breath and wrapped my arms over my chest, wanting the feeling to go away as I blinked back the tears.

I couldn’t keep everything back anymore, and finally curled myself into a ball and let my tears out, thankful that I’d gone far up in the pier so no one could see me.

Every hour or so I checked my phone for the time, remembering how long it had taken me to get back to school. By noon my tears had subsided long ago, but I still stayed, finding more refuge in the pier than I thought possible. When 1:30 rolled around though, I knew I had to start making my way back to school, at least if I wanted to meet Matt on time. I had no plans of telling him I’d skipped off.

I had to cut through the back of the school, because Matt would have found it more than a little suspicious if he saw me coming through the student parking lot. Just as I had entered the parking lot, the bell rang.

“That was fast.” Matt noted when I opened the door, looking at me skeptically.

“Oh—uh—” Shit. I really should have thought this through a little more. “Mr. uh... Mr. Thorne let us out a little earlier than usual.” I smiled in relief when he nodded, thanking my lucky stars that he hadn’t read too much into it, because beyond that pitiful excuse, I had nothing.
“So,” He began casually, but hesitance was clear in his tone. “That Andy kid bugged you since?”

Memories of the past week quickly flitted their way into my mind, and I had to force myself to keep the smile up. If anything, it had gotten worse. Much, much worse. His girlfriend had joined in on the harassment. I avoided them as much as I could, but harsh words were tossed around, from me and Dannii to Andy and his girlfriend and back again. I knew we had to settle it once and for all soon, but I wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

“Nope,” I said, emitting a fake laugh. “Not since the time I got detention over it.”

He smiled. “That’s good.”

Later that night, around six, I was on the phone with Tyler again, when Matt entered my room without even knocking. And that alone set me in a bad mood. I quickly told Tyler I had to go and hung up, before looking up at Matt with an annoyed expression, but I shrunk back slightly at the sight of him.

His arms were crossed, and he was staring down at me with his cell phone clutched tightly in his right hand. Obviously, something was up, so I immediately put up my tough facade and began spinning around and around in my chair like I had done so many other times. I rolled my eyes when he put his free hand on the back of my chair to stop me.

Finally, I decided to speak up. “Sup, Matt?”

“Is there anything you wanna tell me?” He asked slowly, and I knew then that he was on to something I had done. He was giving me a chance to confess.

Yes. “No.” I looked up at him as if he had grown three heads, and that seemed to make him a little angrier. He stepped back so he was sitting on my bed across from me.

“The school called,” My blood ran cold and I froze for a second, before picking back up on spinning around in my chair, staring up at the ceiling. As far as I knew, it could have only been about two things. And neither of them were good.

“And?” I asked casually, feigning innocence.

“It was an automated message. You weren’t at school today, were you?”

I began mentally cussing myself out. I had forgotten about that. It was then I finally decided to be honest with him. “No.” One-word answers were much more do-able at that particular moment. I was slightly surprised, Matt looked pretty peeved.

“Well, if you weren’t at school, where were you?” He asked, narrowing his eyes as he clenched his jaw.

“The beach.” Well, that was one of the places I’d been. I didn’t think he would be interested in my trip to Starbucks.

“With who?” He demanded, and I stopped my spinning and looked at him as if it were obvious.

“Myself.”

He took a deep breath and closed his eyes, as if he were trying to calm himself down, which only made me annoyed, too. What was he so frustrated over? I was pretty sure he had cut class quite a few times in his days. “Do you know how dangerous it is to wander around Huntington alone?”

“It was broad daylight, Matt.” I replied in a monotone, not letting myself get as worked up about it as he was.

“You could have just called me, Payton, I would have picked you up if you really didn’t want to go today.”

Okay, I began trying to make sense of things and pinpoint exactly what he was mad about. So he’s not mad about me skipping off, but because I had wandered off alone?

Not waiting for me to reply, he continued. “I’m serious about this, Payton. I don’t want you wandering off alone like that again; you could have gotten into a lot of trouble.” He let out a frustrated sigh when I didn’t bother to reply. “Are you even listening?”

Honestly, if he had gone about this a little more calmly, I probably would have responded in a more reasonable way. But he was trying to tell me what to do. To me, he was basically asking me to skip off to the beach again. I grinned nonchalantly. “Nope.”

Just as he was about to say something, the phone began ringing. He glanced at the caller ID before looking back at me with annoyance in his eyes. “It’s the school again. Wonder what it could be about.”

That made me stop and pause. One of the reasons as to why the school would phone was already down, which left only one more thing to go. “Hello? Uh—yeah, this is him. Mr. Thorne?”

Standing up, he cradled the phone to his ear as he made his way out of my room, shutting the door behind him. I could hear him talking out in the hallway and tried to listen in, but I was panicking way too much.

Of course Mr. Thorne had to pick this moment to phone. Talk about bad timing.

Five agonizingly long minutes later, Matt came back in, again without knocking. His expression was blank, but I could see anger building in his eyes. He stayed beside my open door and pointed out. “You,” He gestured to me, then back to the door. “Follow me.”

There wasn’t much else I could do, because at that moment, he was pretty intimidating, so I didn’t have much of a choice but to just follow him. What was he, kicking me out or something?

My assumption was proven wrong when we passed the foyer, and several guys poked their head out to see what was going on. “Where are ya’ going, Matt?” Zacky asked, but Matt ignored him. This got the rest of the guys and girls up, and I looked back at them helplessly. By the time we got to the kitchen, they were all following closely behind.

“Matt, what’s going on?” Val asked as he opened the door that led to the basement. I hadn’t been down there yet, and I was just as clueless as everyone else. My jaw dropped once we got downstairs, there was a recording studio down here—the whole shebang. But nonetheless, Matt walked right on past it, and into a large lounge off to the side. By then, I was pretty sure my jaw had already hit the floor.

Guitars and basses lined the walls, all sorts of different kinds and makes. I thought the music room at school was kickass, it was nothing compared to this. Matt pointed to a half stack off to the side. “Go set it up.” He said, pointing from Brian to the amp. Brian looked beyond confused, but did as he asked anyway. Matt took a baby blue Stratocaster down from the wall and held it out for me to take.

I stared at it questioningly, but took it from him when it looked like his temper was about to flare. Moments later, Brian was back with a single cable, to which he plugged into the guitar I was still holding. I heard hushed, confused whispers from everyone behind me, but didn’t look back.

“Play the song.” I knew exactly what he was talking about, but figured that giving it one more try couldn’t hurt, right?

“What song?” I asked quietly, and then a pick was placed into my free hand. I glared up at Zacky, I had no excuses for not being able to play then.

“The song you wrote in music class!” His voice rose slightly, but I forced myself not to flinch.

There was a way around that. “I didn’t write a song in music class.” I persisted, scrunching my eyebrows over in mock confusion. He gave me a look that could kill, and I finally gave in. Well, I guess the secret’s out.

I glanced back nervously at the small audience of friends that I was starting to consider family, and they all wore confused, yet encouraging expressions. I let out another long breath before launching into the song I’d become so familiar with. I was too nervous to enjoy playing it, but I heard sounds of shocked gasps and whispers behind me, and I was happy to see that Matt had at least a small smile for me.

When the solo came, I made myself let go and get into it, or else it wouldn’t be half as good. And if everyone was finally going to find about my guitar playing ability, I didn’t want them thinking was shit. There was one more solo at the end of the song, but it was a short one, and then I was finished. I kept my gaze on the ground, and fiddled with the knobs on the guitar instead of looking up to see the everyone’s reaction.

“Peanut, that was awesome!” Brian said, and both he and Zacky were instantly in front of me. “Who knew you had it in you?”

“P, did you write that yourself?” Zacky asked after they had both high-fived me. I smiled and hesitantly nodded. I had out my heart into it and I was proud of what came out of it.
Jimmy soon came into my view, and he was grinning from ear to ear. “Mini—seriously, why didn’t you tell anyone?” I merely shrugged at that, still not being able to find my voice. I wish I knew myself.

“Guys,” Matt started, speaking for the first time since I started playing. “I have to talk to Payton—alone.”

Everyone quickly caught on, and they were upstairs faster than I had ever seen them move before. I swallowed the lump in my throat as I hauled the guitar over my head, and handed it back to Matt. He placed it back in its original place on the wall before heading over to a sectional leather sofa in the back of the lounge, patting the seat next to him. Well, at least he didn’t look too angry anymore.

“Why did you lie?” He asked, much softer than I had been expecting.

“I didn’t!” I said quickly on reflex, and then groaned. That probably just made it so much worse.

My answer seemed to annoy him a little, but he managed to keep his voice at the same level. “Really? Would you like an example?” I shook my head, but nonetheless he pressed on. “No—wait, I can give you a few. Let’s start with when we first met, the night before we left. You said you only played ‘a little’,” How the hell did he remember that? “Then, just a couple of weeks ago, when I was signing you up for your classes. You said you ‘sucked’ at guitar.”

At that point, I couldn’t even meet his eyes. I really fucked up on this one, hadn’t I?

“Look at me, Payton,” Once I finally locked eyes with him, he sighed. “Patey, kiddo, I don’t want you think I’m not proud of you. It’s the opposite; I think it’s awesome how well you can play. But you can’t continue keeping things like this from us. It’s not good for you, or anyone else.”

“I know.” I was honest about that, that one little lie I told him when we first met had blown up into something I couldn’t handle.

“Alright,” He paused and searched my face, as if trying to detect a lie. “Pinkie swear,” I smiled and laughed slightly as he held his pinkie out for me, but waited to see just what I was getting into. “That from now on, you’re not going to keep anything from me.

That seemed to be easy enough. All of the big ones were out of the way, anyway. There really wasn’t much else I was keeping from him. Still smiling, I locked our pinkies together, but was still surprised when he pulled me into a hug.

“Oh, and Patey?” He asked a few minutes later, I was walking back and forth, my eyes scanning over all of the guitars on the wall. I looked back at him. “Can you try not to get into anymore trouble at school?”

Now that was something I couldn’t guarantee, but I nodded. He said try, right? And I would at least try to avoid confrontation with Andy and his plastic trophy, but if a chance to say, break his face, arose, I certainly wasn’t going to pass up on it.