Your Melody Sounds As Sweet As the First Time It Was Sung

Gone. Poof. Disappearing act.

Before I knew it, four of my friends had packed their bags and headed for LA to record an album. I was left behind. Granted, I did have Kiah, but it wasn’t the same. Brendon was my best friendand my hopeless love. Everything was all wrong without him. To be honest, it probably wouldn’t have been as bad if I had Spencer and Ryan here to lean on, but of course they were gone too. Even Brent, who, although not a close one, was my friend, wasn’t here anymore. They were all gone. Don’t get me wrong, Kiah is great, but she can be a bit overbearing at times; one can only take so much estrogen!

It’s not like they completely abandoned us. I mean, they called as often as they could, but as they got more and more busy the calls got less frequent, and I’d be the one calling them at the completely wrong time and waking them up. But it’s not like they didn’t make an effort; they did. That effort just had a tendency to get my phone confiscated an awful lot in class. I refused to turn it off just in case they rang, but I often forgot to put it on silent.

This is all around two months after they got signed and left. But, heck, even Pete calls me more often then they do, and he is one busy entrepreneur. He’s kind of become like an older brother figure to me. I mean, not really. It’s not like I aspire to be exactly like him (he is a bit of a manwhore), and I’m sure older brothers don’t make nearly as many sex jokes about their little sisters as he makes about me, but hey. How would I know? I’m an only child. The point is that I spoke more to the famous bassist than I did to my best friends. Who ever would’ve thought, huh?

Bzzzz Bzzzz. Bzzzz Bzzzz.

I jumped a bit at the unexpected sensation on my thigh. For once I had remembered to put my phone on silent, but it seemed I had forgotten about the extremities of vibration mode. Three or four people sitting near me turned their heads indifferently, not really caring, but just as a reflex. Thankfully, Mr Lawrence didn’t notice and continued on about phagocytes in his monotonous drone. I know, right. Classic biology teacher. Biting my lip, I dropped by pen on my desk and fished my blue and black phone out of my pocket.

One new SMS.

I hit the next button with the nail of my thumb, waiting for the sender’s name to identify them.

Spencer Smith.

I almost squealed, but managed to hold on to a little self-control as I waited (rather impatiently) for the message to load.

Hey Charlie! We miss u baby. I wanted 2 call u but Ry decided 2 b mr logical and said u’d b in school. Call as soon as u can. Bden’s in a pretty grumpy mood. I think he needs to talk to his BFFL. Love u. xx

A smile immediately found it’s way to my lips and my fingers quickly danced over the keys to form my reply.

Ok. I’ll call at lunch in 15. Missing u all 2. xx

“Miss Miller!”

My head snapped up and I dropped my phone in my lap. Luckily the message had already sent.

“Yes?” I asked my teacher in a quiet voice.

“Could you tell us what the common yet not completely correct term for a lymphocyte is?”

Mr Lawrence looked at me expectantly. His voice had broken out of its usual dull tone to go an octave higher, the voice he only used when expecting the person to either answer incorrectly or make up some lame excuse. His eyebrows were raised above his circular spectacles, and for some reason his sizeable nose and large ears seemed even more prominent today. I’ll blame it on the clashing pink shirt and blue tie, but whatever way you slice it he was not the most attractive middle-aged man. I gulped as I comprehended the question, but let out a sigh of relief upon the realization that I knew the answer.

“A white blood cell?”

His bushy grey eyebrows settled in a frown, not bothering to acknowledge my correct answer as he moved on to the next part of his spectacularly boring lecture.

***

When the lunch bell ran, I met up with Kiah at the outside table where we always ate our lunch. It seemed so large and empty without Brendon and Brent. Around twenty meters away, near the doors to one of the buildings; I could see the table at which I sat when Brendon and I first spoke, all those years ago.

“I got a text from Spence,” I told Kiah, ignoring the sandwich in front of me. Her head immediately snapped up and she had the same gleam in her eyes that I assume I had.

“And…” she prompted.

“And he wants us to call him now.”

Kiah jumped to her feet, dragging me along and before I knew it we were in the bathroom with the phone on loudspeaker pressed to our ears as we waited for Spencer to answer.

“Charlie?”

“Spencer!” Kiah and I yelled at the same time, radiant smiles fixed on our faces. This didn’t happen often.

“Hey! How are my favourite girls?”

“Fine,” Ilied answered. “How’re you guys?”

“We’re great. We… oof…”

“Spencer?”

My eyebrows knitted together at the incomprehensible sounds through the phone receiver, but then I heard something so clearly it made my heart jump up and out my throat, do a little happy dance, and settle back in my chest pumping blood around my body twice as fast.

“Charlie?”

“Brendon!” I grinned massively. I could tell he was grinning too.

“Hi! How are you, doll face? You holding Summerlin together without me?”

“Not quite,” I laughed. “Kiah’s here too.”

“Oh, hey Key!”

“Hey Bren,” she smiled.

“Wow! It feels like I haven’t talked to you guys in forever!”

In the background, we heard Spencer yelling something along the lines of ‘Give me my phone back, you prick!’, and a low chuckle following it that could only belong to one person.

“Hey Ry!” I yelled into the phone, hoping that he could hear me.

“Hey guys!” came the reply, a little more audible than Spencer’s yells.

“Is Brent there?” I asked.

To be honest, I didn’t really care much. He’s become so much more introverted. I don’t know exactly what I’d say to him, but I had spoken to the others and I felt that it was only polite to ask about him too.

“Nah, he’s gone to call his brother, I think,” Brendon answered.

“Oh, okay,” Kiah shrugged off. “Now what’s new? Why’d you want us to call so bad?”

“Guess who just found out that they’ll be filming their first video clip in two weeks!?”

“No way!” Kiah gasped, excitement radiating from her. “What song?”

“I Write Sins,” Spencer answered proudly, and I assumed they'd found their brains and put the phone on loudspeaker.

“Oh my god, I am so proud of you guys!” I smiled. I was happy, but deep down I knew that it meant that they would be away for even longer.

“Thanks guys.” I knew that Ryan was beaming.

Why am I so selfish? My best friends are living their dream and I’m here wishing they were with me instead. What is wrong with me?

After a few minutes of quick catching up, their stories being a hell of a lot more interesting than ours, the guys had to go and Kiah and I hung up with lighter hearts. Those guys just have a way of doing that to you with merely the sound of their voices.

The two of us returned to our table outside, around fifteen minutes still left of lunch break. I was relatively quiet and let Kiah go on about her latest date with Jake. They’d been going out for quite a while now, even longer than Kiah had gone out with Brendon for, and they were cute together. And lucky me, I got to hear about every single detail of their intimate relationship. I guess that’s what you get for befriending Kiah.

It was kind of weird for me, to be honest. I mean, I have never had a real boyfriend. I’d kissed guys before, obviously, *cough* Ryan *cough*, but it had always been friendly. It had never really meant anything more than a kiss. Ryan had known that he was my first kiss. This was probably when I was around fifteen? Sixteen? Around then. I was over at his house one night, after having ordered take-away Thai food for dinner (do not ask how I remember that), and we were hanging out in his room. He was strumming notes on his guitar, pen and paper in hand, trying to write a song and was asking me for help. It was, as most songs generally are, a relationship song, and so we got to talking about how I wasn’t exactly an expert on the subject. And graciously, gently, he gave me my first kiss. It didn’t mean nothing, but it didn’t mean much. As is the meaning of a kiss, it did mean that we both cared about each other a lot, but not like that. He didn’t want me to lose my first kiss to some guy who I would break up with and possibly regret it later. He wanted my first kiss to be important to me. And I won’t deny that it was. This was before I was even in love with Brendon. Back in the days when friendship was simple. I had a slight attraction to Ryan, I suppose, but not enough to be considered a crush. I didn’t even really acknowledge it. I mean, Ryan was hot, in my books. Kissing a guy you consider both hot and one of your closest friends automatically lights a tiny spark of affection.

After that one kiss, I guess it was just something between the two of us. We still only saw each other as close friends, nothing more or less. As stupid as this sounds, he taught me how to kiss. He said I’d need it soon enough. We didn’t tell the others, I guess just because it’s kind of weird and slightly embarrassing for me, seeing as I was pretty much the only one who never dated anyone, and I didn’t really want that to be acknowledged.

Anyway, so that brings me back to how awkward it is for me to hear about Kiah’s sex life. I mean, I make plenty of sex jokes, but having a serious discussion about it makes me feel a little uncomfortable. As much as I love Ryan (as a friend) and appreciate his help, I’m not going to let him ‘teach me’ how to have sex. That’s definitely pushing the friendship boundary. And then there’s the whole Brendon factor. Let’s not even go there.

It was as Kiah was going on about a kiss that was ‘different from any other’ that my phone vibrated again to indicate a message. Once again, I jumped.

“Sorry,” I muttered as she laughed and I checked my phone.

-One new SMS.
-Mom.
-Hey Charlie. Can you come home straight after school today? I need to talk to you about something. Love you. From mom.

I tried to shrug off the curiosity as I replied.

Sure thing. Should I be worried?

I waited for her answer, and was relieved when it came.

No no. We just need to talk. Love you.

Love you too. xx

Guess I’d just have to wait.