This Is How It's Supposed to Be.

Garrett was gone when I woke up.

It didn’t surprise me, not really. Especially with all the fighting he and Lauren had been doing, I figured he didn’t need Lauren to find out somehow that he’d been at my house overnight. It was probably best for me, too, because I knew he’d slipped off his shoes and left them next to the front door, and the last thing I needed was for my mother or grandfather, or –God forbid– Caitlyn to wake up and find his shoes, which would lead to them coming down to investigate. My mother probably wouldn’t be mad, once she saw we were both fully clothed, though I could almost guarantee that my grandfather would prohibit me from making contact (physical or otherwise) with any boys ever again. I didn’t want to think about what Caitlyn would do.

I’d like to say I wasn’t disappointed.

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John’s mom was just setting muffins on the table when I walked in. She was smiling and laughing along with her son and the guys, something I’d always loved about her. She never felt like she was too old to join in on our conversations or laugh at our jokes.

“Hey, Mrs. O’Callaghan,” I said, slipping my shoes off. “Sorry I’m late!”

She shook her head, “Just in time!”

I slid into my chair at the O’Callaghan’s dining room table, in between Pat and John. There were muffins and Belgian waffles set out, along with more fresh fruit than most people had ever seen in one place at one time. We all dug in, devouring everything in sight while John asked, with his mouth full of muffin, why he only got homemade breakfast like this when we were all over to go to band practice. His mom laughed, sitting down, claiming she had to try and make him fat before he left for a tour she was sure would happen. We all laughed at that –no matter how much John ate, we all seriously doubted he would be able to gain any weight at all.

We finished breakfast fairly quickly, and all of the boys fled to the safety of the living room to play video games while I helped to clean up. Mrs. Ohh told me not to worry about it (as always), but I ignored her and refused to leave until the last dish was dried and put away.

“Well, thanks for breakfast, Mrs. Ohh…but I should probably get them moving before they’re there all afternoon.”

She nodded, laughed some more, and thanked me for the help as I left.

I rounded up the guys and we split up in the driveway: Garrett, Pat and I in his car, and the others in John’s. It was a short ride, I knew, so Garrett left the windows down and the radio turned up.

“I have to go get Lauren,” he yelled over the wind and music. “It won’t take that long.”

I nodded, not sure of what other type of answer he wanted. “Okay.”

We pulled up to her house not too long after, cutting the engine in front of a well-manicured house with perfectly green grass and flowers in all of the window boxes. It seemed like a place where Lauren would live: perfectly manicured to anyone looking, and probably one of those houses that was more like a museum than a home on the inside. She emerged from the front door with a huge tote slung over her shoulder, filled to the top with who-knew-what. I climbed over the center console and into the backseat next to Pat, knowing that, especially in Lauren’s mind, that was where I belonged.

The first thing out of Lauren’s mouth when we pulled into the parking lot was “How long is this going to take?” Garrett sighed, and I knew that he was annoyed. He said he didn’t know and walked off, popping the trunk of the car to get his bass out. She sighed too, and pushed her huge sunglasses farther up the bridge of her nose, dropping her bag and sitting on an amp that wasn’t being used.

The guys were good. Their original songs were almost better than the cover they did, surprisingly. I’d heard them play before, at other practices and the school’s annual battle of the bands for Project Graduation, but this time they sounded like a real band. Sure, they were a little unsure of themselves, and they had absolutely no idea what they were doing for the most part, but they sounded great, and that was what mattered. They could deal with making it all look professional when the time came.

About four songs in –three originals and one cover– Lauren snapped her phone shut and looked up for the first time since she’d sat down. She got up, in the middle of a song, and tapped Garrett on the shoulder, almost getting hit with the neck of his bass when he turned around to look at her. By the way his expression changed when he saw it was her, I think that he expected it to be me, because he went from a “what’s up?” kind of look with his eyebrows raised, to a “why-are-you-interrupting-me-now?” look that was shooting daggers. As cliche as it was, if looks could kill, Lauren would have been six feet under in a matter of seconds. Her unexpected presence threw off his playing. She mouthed something and gestured to her wrist, and he stopped playing completely, which threw off everyone else until they finally stopped, too.

With all eyes on Lauren, she said, “Jessa and I are going to the pool. I need to go.”

“O-kay…And?” I didn’t know if anyone else noticed the edge in his voice or the anger in his eyes, but I knew that Lauren was definitely crossing a line. You didn’t interrupt unless you were giving serious critique (in other words, unless you were me), or actually part of the band. It was an unspoken rule that we assumed Lauren would pick up on.

“I need a ride.” She said it with no emotion, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

“Now?”

“Yes, now!”

I would have offered to take her, but I had a feeling that neither she, I nor Garrett’s little yellow car would make it out alive, and so I kept my mouth shut.

I didn’t know how Lauren was still looking at Garrett, expecting an answer. With the way he was looking at her, I half expected her to burst into flame, or turn to stone, or just dissolve into dust. He was looking at her with such…hate, that I knew if he came to me again, I’d suggest he break it off, mostly because I never wanted to have to see him look like that ever again. I didn't want to have to look at anyone who made him look like that in the first place. I knew that when he came to me, I'd tell him he deserved so much better.

He didn’t say anything else, though, but instead handed me his bass and walked out with Lauren following close behind. Seconds later he sped out of the parking lot, leaving me and the guys to pack up and leave, because we all knew that he wouldn’t be any use to them even if he came back.