Alone at Six

I sat in the corner on the spare bed with both curtains closed and my head in my knees. Sandra had chewed me out for twenty minutes straight about how I should have at least called and how I'm lucky she doesn't beat me with a metal rod for it. When I tried to explain myself, she yelled it all again. Sandra had once made my dad cry for forgetting her name after knowing her for years but remembering the name or the new paperboy. After she'd finished she yelled at me to get out of her sight and I'd run to this bed.

"Hey Andy." Jinxx threw two sodas and some chips onto the bed then pulled himself up. "Heard Sandra all the way in the room."

God, people probably thought someone was getting killed or some little kid was getting in trouble. She was like my fucking mom only twenty times worse. Of course, she usually had a good reason for exploding, but I think this time it was just because she was PMSing.

"Where were you?" He asked, opening his soda.

"I ran into Cole." I left out the part about running after her and opened the soda sitting on the bed "Got her a ride home."

"Hm" He nodded, a mouth full of chips "Your girl in white. How'd you find her? You're not stalking people again, are you?"

Follow one girl to Wallmart and you're a creeper for life. I just wanted to see what was on her shirt, it's not like meant any harm. "She was on the street, trying to caught the transit."

"Wow, that girl really needs a car."

I imagined Cole driving down the street in a snow white convertible, no dirt or bumper stickers at all. Then I remembered the two cars that had been there in the driveway the day we dropped her off in the buss and how only a jeep cherokee was there today. It must have been her fathers or maybe she had a brother or sister.

"Yeah." I sighed taking another sip of soda.

"So you like her?" He asked like he already knew the answer.

"Yeah. And I have no idea why."

"Well don't act so fucking sad about it." He said picking up Cole's booklet thing "You have someone to like. Something to look forward to. What's this?"

"Something of Cole's. She left it in the car." I've bee going through it a bit. It's filled with homework page numbers, test dates, project deadlines, and little reminders like ACE presentation, debate, drama talent practice, SGA meetings, Linkin Park release date, and the most recent, Ryan's BVB birthday.

She had really nice handwriting and made little doodles of objects like projectors and desks or mini rhymes like 'I'm done with black, I'm done with red. I want to live alive, not dead.' or 'I don't know how I sleep at night, I fill myself with the same old fright.' I also noticed how she changed the way she wrote her lower case A's B's and D's. This one little booklet actually told me a lot about her. The cover was even unscratched, the edges had no pencil marks besides her name in marker, and the spiral thing holding it together was perfectly in place.

The only part out of the ordinary, besides the overly cleanness of it all, the dates going all the way back to September, was that she had homework written in for two months past today and already had all but two assignments crossed out, indicating that she'd already done it all.

"Cool" Jinxx said finishing his soda. "Then we know what we're doing tomorrow."

"Wait, what are we doing? Aren't we leaving?"

He shook his head "Nope, the battery died and nowhere around here has one that will fit the buss. They had to special order one it won't be here for about a week."

"Are you kidding me!?" The first thing that popped up in my head was terror. We would have to halt touring and skip some shows. "We'll miss three shows!"

"I know, they're already trying to reschedule so we can come back and do them at the end of the tour. No one's skipped. But now we have time to find Cole."

"Go find her? What are you talking bout? How the hell are we going to find her?"

"Andy, we have a school, a name," He pointed to the booklet on the bed "and a guy with a crush. All we need is a reason."

"I found he book?" I suggested.

"That might work for her but not for the school. Think about it, two grown men looking for a seventeen-year-old chick in a high school who have absolutely no relation what so ever to give back a book."

He had a point. They'd probably go into a code red and we'd get hunted down by cops and put in jail for trespassing or 'child endangerment'.....again. And that would be a great reason to tell our fans why we canceled our concerts.

"Uh, she said something about a fund raiser for the Senior class." I remembered her crying frustrated and red, how I hated it every moment of it.

"Great. We can say we're there to preform a fund raiser concert and we're promoting it."

"Won't they be suspicious when there is no concert?"

"Not if we put one on. The buss will be ready by Sunday, we can do one Friday. Low organized school function and since it's short notice the whole fucking school won't be there."

I had to admit, it was sounding great. We'd get to preform and I could try to find Cole. The only thing we had to do was get Jake, Ashley, and Sandra to agree, and of course the school too. Seemed easy enough.

"Okay okay. Thanks Jinxx, it-"

"Don't even" He cut me off, climbing down "I already have to listen to Jake talk about some guys ass and dick. I don't need to listen to you loos your Man Rights too with a heartfelt thanks."

"She has nice tits." I said instead.

Jinxx smiled and left saying "I bet she does."