That Girl

Finley kind of missed the routine that she and Alex had set in place before she sent that ridiculous damn friend request on a website that shouldn't even matter (yet it did). Instead of being silent at lunch and sitting across from her, he had moved across the table to sit right next to her. And okay, at least he smelled nice (because, really, it would've been so much worse if he didn't know what cologne was) but…okay, she shook her head. No more getting off track.

"So I was thinking, to commemorate our friendship, we should do something together," Alex declared.

"We are not--"

"Friends, blah blah, yes we are," Alex said cutting her off. "Admit it. You'll feel a lot better."

Finley bit her lip again.

Alex smiled. "See? You know you want to smile. I don't understand why you don't."

"I smile when I have a reason to," she told him, "I assure you."

"If you say so," Alex said, pausing for a minute. "So, hey. What are you doing on Friday?"

"Breathing, blinking, doing what humans do," she told him in a bored tone. "You?"

"Playing a show. I'm in a band," he said.

She nodded. "You've told me this before."

"Well…I am. And we're playing a show."

"At Katie Levensworth's."

Alex smiled. "You remembered."

"Jack and his conversation are hard to forget," she told him with a shrug.

"Will you go?" he asked.

"Probably not," she answered him honestly.

Alex pursed his lips. He wasn't expecting that. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "It's not my scene."

"Music is everyone's scene!"

"Music is my scene. Parties are not my scene," she amended.

"Please?"

"Alex--"

"Lie and say you'll think about it," Alex told her with a shrug.

Finley sighed. "Fine. I'll think about it."

Alex smiled. "That's good enough for me," he said before leaning forward, kissing her forehead, grabbing his books and walking away.

Finley sat there for a minute, more than slightly confused as to what had just happened. And she tried to push the fact that he had kissed her out of her mind.

But, yeah, it wasn't that easy.

+

When Finley got home from school that afternoon, she tossed her bag onto her bed and changed from her jeans and v-neck into a pair of leggings, a sports bra, and one of her dad's oversized shirts. She had repeated to herself about one thousand times over the afternoon to not think about Alex. And, in keeping busy, it really wasn't that difficult. When she exited her room, she ran into her father who was on his laptop on the couch.

"Where are you going?" he asked, not bothering to look up from his computer screen.

Finley could've been surprised, but she wasn't. She didn't really wonder how her father knew anything like other teenagers--he was incredibly observant so she didn't need to make excuses. "I was going to go for a run."

"Again?"

She shrugged. "Is that a problem?"

"Don't you think you run too much?"

"Is that a metaphor?"

"Do you think it's a metaphor?" he asked, finally turning around to make eye contact with his daughter.

She sighed. "I'm not into playing mind games tonight, dad. Just say what you mean or give up, okay?"

Robert shrugged. "Alright. I have to work this weekend. Do you have any plans?"

"Not that I know of."

"You should go out with friends."

She scoffed. "What friends?"

"The friends you refuse to make," he told her.

Finley sighed. "I'll see you when I get back from my run," she told him with a tone of dismissal. She grabbed her iPod off of the coffee table before walking out of the door. She put her earphones in and turned on her music, Motley Crue's Dr Feelgood album (her personal favorite) as she took off on her usual route. Her father was wrong. She didn't run too much--not in a physical or metaphorical sense.

Or maybe she did. She really didn't know anymore. She didn't want to make friends in case she had to leave--leaving was always the hardest part. But at the same time, she couldn't deny the fact that she felt lonely. Her life had become class, exercise, shower, homework, bed. Repeat and repeat. Over and over. She felt as if she was becoming stagnant.

And that wasn't a feeling that she enjoyed.

+

"So what else do you think we should play? Jasey Rae?" Alex asked before biting at the cap on his pen with his teeth.

Jack sighed, mindlessly strumming at his guitar as he laid down on the couch. "I don't know, man. We've gone over the set list about ten times. Can't we just pick a song and be done with it?"

"Well, we need more than one song," Alex said.

"Yeah, but--"

"Rian, can you try to get it through his thick fucking skull?" Alex asked, annoyance clearly evident in his tone.

Jack rolled his eyes.

"Jack, we need more than one song," Rian told him.

"Oh, gee, really? I didn't know that," Jack spat.

"Look--"

"We have a couple of Blink covers and a couple of originals. How long do you really think she's gonna want us to play anyway?" Zack asked with a sigh.

"Between thirty and forty-five minutes," Alex said. "That's what she told me. I saved the text."

"So about three to four covers and three to four originals. That shouldn't be too hard," Rian said.

"Alex is making is more difficult than it should be," Jack interrupted.

"How?" Alex asked incredulously.

"I don't wanna play this song and I don't wanna play that song," Jack said doing a horrible impression of his best friend. "You're rejecting some of the best songs we have!"

Alex forced himself to take a deep breath as he stared Jack down. "I'm not playing Daniel's song," he told him as evenly as he could.

"It's one of the best--"

"I don't care," Alex snapped. "I'm not fucking playing it. End story."

"Alex--" Jack said before he was cut off.

"Just let it go, dude," Rian said quietly.

Jack's jaw clenched. "How can I let it go when we're going to look like fools because Alex won't play this song?"

"Fuck you, Jack," Alex muttered as he shut his notebook and stood up.

"Dude, don't go," Zack said while shaking his head. "Let's just figure this out first."

"We can figure it out later. The show isn't for four days," Alex said quietly. He ignored the guys as they asked him to stay; he simply gathered his things and left Rian's house. It wasn't that he didn't love the band--he did. There were just some things that he loved more.