Addiction and His Name

"We met some of our new neighbors today."

Debra folded her used napkin and put it on her plate, before pushing it forward a little so she could rest her elbows on the table as she smiled at her husband in front of her. The Wilkinson family had decided to eat out the first day of them living in Huntington Beach, they hadn't gotten their grocery shopping done so they didn't have any food other than a half loaf of bread, some butter, and a carton of milk in their otherwise very empty refrigerator, although all three family members had agreed on that their kitchen was too unorganized too cook and eat dinner in anyways. They were at Ruby's Diner and had just finished their hamburgers and Kayla was now sipping away on her strawberry milkshake, they had chosen to visit the diner solely because Kayla had wanted to, having been fascinated by the fact that there was a restaurant right above the ocean on the end of the Huntington Beach pier.

"Really?" Robert Wilkinson wiped his mouth with his own napkin before mimicking his wife's actions and folding his arms on the top of the table. "What were they like?"

"A couple, probably in their mid to late twenties, they were really nice," Debra gushed, "–The wife, Allison, welcomed us to the neighborhood when she got back from her morning run and saw me standing by the moving truck, and she was very talkative and nice. Her husband, Brian I think it was, briefly said hello before he had to join his band members to work. I'm sure he's really nice too."

Kayla, who had half-listened to the conversation while staring out the window and out into the dark water beneath them, immediately brought her full attention to what her parents where talking about when she heard Brian's name. She hadn't given him much thought the past two months since they first met, she had been perfectly happy and content knowing that she would never meet him again, he and his friends had been good company to she and her friends at that party they had attended. So when she had met Brian again earlier that day, she had initially been shocked at seeing him, and then at the same time been amused at how much of a hurry he suddenly had been in when realizing who she was. Kayla smirked to herself remembering his shocked face earlier that day just as her dad spoke again.

"He's a musician?"

"Mhm," Kayla nodded, having replaced her smirk with a simple smile, "–He's a guitarist."

"And his wife is a model, fairly successful from what I gathered when she told me what she was doing for a living."

Robert laughed a little and smiled at both Kayla and Debra. "So we have celebrities as neighbors now?"

Kayla rolled her eyes when her dad winked at her. "I hardly think so dad, I have never heard of her before and Brian's band, Avenged Sevenfold, isn't that mainstream so everyone outside the hard rock scene doesn't know him."

"You already know about his band and him now? God, Kayla, you're such a stalker," Robert rolled his own eyes before laughing with Debra when Kayla smacked his arm lightly from across the table.

"Har har, I happened to know who he was before he even said hello. Erin has spoken about and shown me pictures of them, you know she's into that rock stuff."

It wasn't completely untrue what she just said. Her best friend Erin did enjoy rock music and it was one her favorite genres in music, Kayla herself wasn't much for it but she didn't have any problems listening to her friend go on about new bands she had discovered, so she did occasionally get to see pictures of different bands and listen to Erin speak about her favorite bands. What was not entirely true, was that Erin had spoken and shown pictures of Avenged Sevenfold to her. She had mentioned them only once to her, and that was when she had told her about who was going to be at the party they had planned on going to, with no pictures shown. So she had gotten most of the little things she knew about them herself that night when she had met and gotten to speak with them. She made a mental note to google Avenged Sevenfold when they got home from dinner, just for fun and to see how big they in fact where.

"I'm just teasing, Kayla, you know that," Robert smiled and reached forward to stroke Kayla's hand, the one she didn't have wrapped around her almost empty milkshake glass.

Kayla smiled and nodded as Robert let go of her hand and sat back in his chair again. "Now when I think about it though, Erin's gonna freak when she hears Syn Gates is our new neighbor."

"Who's Syn Gates?" Debra looked at her daughter puzzled.

"It's his stage name," Kayla simply answered and smirked.

"What kind of name is that?" Robert laughed at the unusual nickname.

Kayla shrugged her shoulders as she drank the last of her milkshake. "You'll have to ask him yourself," she said and pushed her empty glass away from her. "Can we go home now? I'd like to explore the neighborhood before it gets too dark out."

Both of her parents nodded and waved the waitress over to get the check, and soon they were walking back down the long pier so they could get their car and go home.



The whole sky was almost a dark shade of blue when Kayla walked down the sidewalk that led to her new home after having explored the new and unfamiliar neighborhood she now was living in, with only the last orange shades of the sunset still hanging low at the horizon behind her as she pushed her bike beside her. She had been gone for almost an hour, and she had gone all the way to the Central Park in her exploration. She hadn't rushed and had instead taken time to actually take in the new environment around her, and she had already taken a great liking to the park when she had biked around in it before returning back home. Huntington Beach was beginning to prove that it was more than what she had hoped it would be before she had moved, she had been throwing childlike tantrums and been in a bad mood every time her parents or her friends spoke about the move ever since she found out that her dad had got a new job and that it would be more convenient for them to move closer to his new workplace, the Huntington Beach Hospital.

She would never admit out loud that she had been wrong and she would never confess to acting like a little child, but she didn't see anything embarrassing in telling her parents that she was starting to like Huntington Beach, and that was exactly what she was planning on doing when she got home.

Turning the last corner of the street, she immediately recognized the street she was on again. It was a miracle she hadn't gotten lost during the time she had been gone, her sense of direction was definitely not the best, so she was happy she hadn't been needing to call her dad to come pick her up with the car somewhere. As she got closer to her house, she could see the Haner's garage open and the light from inside shine out onto the driveway where Brian's car and a motorcycle was standing next to each other. She could hear the clinking sounds from inside get louder as she got closer, and she hoped that it was Brian who was the one in the garage, not Allison. She smiled big when she saw Brian emerge from the garage with some kind of a tool in his hand, and she realized he was working on the motorcycle when he knelt down beside it and starting fixing with it.

She had to pass him and his house to get to hers, so she figured she could say hello and no doubt have a little fun before she got home. She silently pushed her bike onto his driveway so she wouldn't be in the way for possible passer-byers on the sidewalk, he didn't notice her when she came to a stop behind him and the motorcycle, so she put on her best smirk before she spoke.

"Hi Brian."

Brian jumped a little at the sudden voice, and she couldn't help but giggle a little at him before quickly smirking again when she saw him beginning to turn around to see who it was that had scared him.

"Jesus Christ, don't do tha-," Brian stopped upon seeing Kayla behind him, hands on the handlebars of her bike and a devious smirk on her lips.

"How are you? Long time, no see," Kayla smiled sweetly, seeing how uncomfortable he was by her presence. She got no answer from him, he just turned back around and went to work on the motorcycle again.

"Is it yours?" she tried again, nodding towards the vehicle he was working on even though he couldn't see her.

She heard him sigh before watching him stand up and turn around to face her. He looked around to see if there were any neighbors outside that were staring at them, but she figured he couldn't see any when he walked closer to her, an expressionless look on his face as he did so.

"What are you doing here?"

His voice was a mixture between soft and harsh, but Kayla's smile never faltered at the negative tone.

"Can't I say hi to my new neighbor?"

Brian closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again to look back towards his house and then back to Kayla.

"Scared the missus is going to see us?" Kayla laughed a little and put a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear.

Brian's gaze darkened and he noticeably clenched his jaw before speaking.

"What are you doing here?" his voice was definitely harsher than before, but Kayla didn't flinch and just turned her sweet smile into a smirk again.

"I was wondering why you hadn't called," she shrugged her shoulders innocently, "–But I guess I know why know..." she trailed off before flicking her gaze over his shoulder to the front door of his house and giving a small wave with her hands.

Brian immediately got a look of panic on his face and whipped his head around to look behind him, and Kayla could only laugh throatily when he turned back around with a murderous glare when he didn't see his wife standing on the front porch.

"Don't fucking do that," he warned her and pointed at her with his finger.

"I'm sorry," Kayla began apologizing, thinking she was maybe being a little too rough on him, but she stopped when she heard a door open.

She took a step sideways and looked behind Brian to see Allison walk out onto the front porch. When Allison noticed that Kayla was standing down on her driveway behind her husband, she smiled big and started walking down the porch steps to join the two on the driveway. Kayla met Brian's gaze when he turned back around from watching his wife, and she held his glare until Allison joined them.

"Hey, neighbor!" Allison joked and lightly nudged Kayla's arm with her own, and Kayla laughed a little at Allison's goofy smile.

"Hi. Brian was just helping me with my bike, the chain was jumping weirdly and he offered to help me because my dad hasn't got his tools here yet," Kayla quickly made up an explanation as to why she was there. Brian nodded silently and smiled a little strained at his wife when she turned to him again.

"What a knight in shining armor I married, huh," Allison winked at Kayla before turning to Brian, "–Dinner is ready, so finish up out here so we can eat."

Brian nodded his answer, and watched Allison say goodbye to Kayla before she started walking back up to the house. He was just about to tell Kayla to leave when he got interrupted by his wife calling from behind him, "Oh and Kayla, would you be kind and ask your mother if she was okay with having a cup of coffee on saturday? You and your father are more than welcome to come too!"

Kayla nodded and smiled. "Will do!"

Allison gave her a thumbs up before disappearing inside again. Brian stared at Kayla with his eyebrows knotted.

"Kayla? I thought your name was Therese or some shit like that?"

Kayla looked up from where she was backing her bike out onto the sidewalk and smirked yet again. "I can't go around telling people my real name when my I.D says differently, can I?"

Brian raised his eyebrow in disbelief. "You have a fake I.D?" Kayla nodded from her place on the sidewalk. "How old are you exactly?"

Kayla tilted her head and stood like that for the short time it took her to count exactly how old she was, while still smirking. "Exactly?" Brian nodded. "Exactly seventeen years, eight months and twenty three days. Good night, Brian."

She watched his eyes widen in the same fashion they had earlier that day when they had met each other again, before she began walking towards her own garage to dump her bike off. She heard him curse quietly under his breath as she left him, and she couldn't stop smirking as she put her bike away. When she climbed the porch steps, the front door opened and her mother stood there with a shocked face.

"I was just about to look for you, missy," she started putting her hands on her hips, but Kayla interrupted her with a shake of her head.

"I've been here for a little while, Brian just helped me with my chain on my bike."

"Oh," Debra raised her eyebrows, and then smiled knowingly. "So what did you think? Not so bad, now is it?"

Kayla shook her head knowing that her mom meant what she thought about the city. She caught a last glance at Brian who was now walking slowly towards his front door before she stepped inside her home, and a smile began to creep onto her lips.

"Not at all, mom. Not at all."