Andy

My heart leapt at her words. “Huh?”

“Why not? They sound like a great band.” She shrugged nonchalantly, still looking down at her phone screen. Slowly, the pieces formed a bigger picture in my head...

She would look them up and possibly learn of Andy’s existence, and maybe even find out he was from Pendant, and quite creepily deceased... My head spun for answers, as I tried to find a reason to discourage her from wanting to do so.

“Eva!” Franky’s voice could be faintly heard at the bottom of the stairs. We got up, myself a little shaky and nervous.

“Come on, Volcanica, before Franky blows a damn fuse,” she joked in a murmur.

“All right, Ivy.”

I followed her, pushing my concerns to the back of my mind. Because as well all know at this point... I have a bad habit of bottling things away and fretting over them.

I listened to her rattle off more stories, all of them sounding significantly more enthusiastic and involved than my own. But I couldn't let myself get jealous, because I had to remind myself I had a ghost for a best friend.

When we got into the kitchen, my parents were talking to Mickey about some old friends they knew before they had me. It was outside my league of understanding, since the name was unfamiliar, so I tuned out, sat down at the kitchen island next to Eva, across from Franky – who had his headphones on, ignoring the world – while we made sandwiches.

During the construction process, Eva told me more about her friends and her school, as well as some details on where she'd been that morning, picking up the new uniforms for her volleyball team. She had the classic role to go with her light blonde hair and California tan: she was the captain.

Although we'd been apart for a long time, it didn't make me feel any less at home to tease her about it.

"Volleyball captain?" I echoed with a sarcastic amount of enthusiasm. "Wow, you've really turned a new leaf." Chuckling, I continued to slather a piece of bread in mayo. "I remember back in the day, we'd sit on the bleachers on rainy practice days, laughing our asses off at the girls out there slipping and sliding on the court because Pendant Middle school wouldn’t fund a net indoors in the gym."

She pressed her lips into a thin, embarrassed line. "Well..."

I heard a chuckle, and Franky had looked up from his phone briefly to laugh at his sister.

"Shit... You used to hate preps? You've been one ever since I met you." He cracked a smile, wiping the black hair off his forehead, revealing an odd, jagged scar. It was slightly faded, a shiny pink, just along the edge of his scalp. I stared awkwardly at it for a moment, before his green eyes flashed at me briefly, and he shrank back into his seat silently, shaking his hair back out.

"Sorry..." I murmured low enough for only him to hear.

The only thing I could figure was that maybe it was a childhood incident. I’d hit my forehead a number of times on low end tables while waddling around in my diaper with a glass of juice. However, I never got any scars. But all people are different. It could have been something else entirely. Maybe a car door or something else.

I dismissed it from my thoughts quickly as an awkward and embarrassing cloud surrounded us three, narrated by our parents chatting behind us at the kitchen table.

“I don’t know what you want to do for the rest of the day... I mean, with all the time I had to prepare, I could have gotten something arranged-” Eva babbled after we’d finished up. I shrugged, content with the idea that we just hung out around her house. But when I suggested that, she instantly shot it down.

“Oh, ho, no!” She slammed the marble counter top with an excited grin that made me worried. “We’re doing something, I guarantee you. Hey, I could take you to see Trevor and Mike?”

“Uh...” I was hesitant, never good with meeting new people to begin with, let alone close friends to my friend, and people I’d probably have to hang around again in the future.

“They’re cool, you’ll like them. They play in a band.”

That gave me some confidence, but not much. Not enough to actually keep my head above the waters of anxiety.

“Please?” she begged when she still saw how reluctant I was. “If you don’t, I’ll make you,” she finally threatened, but I didn’t feel any more motivated than before. Her brow scrunched up briefly in annoyed frustration, then she got an idea. “I’ll get Franky to make you go. He’ll pick you up and throw you in my car and you will not like it at all.”

I didn’t even have to object, because he already was on his feet complaining. “No way!”

Eva was too busy laughing to notice his odd retreat. He left the kitchen then, leaving me with a sour taste in my mouth. There was something bizarre and off about Eva’s adopted brother. I thought about asking her, but then decided it’d be better to wait until we were alone. I took that opportunity to agree to the trip to her friends’ house, and would ask her on the way.

“Where are you off to?” Mickey asked us as Eva went to grab her sandals by the doorway.

“I’m taking Asheen to Trevor and Mike’s house.”

My parents perked up a bit: enthusiasm because I was going to do something with friends; dread because it was at a boy’s house. I shot my mother a discreet ‘don’t worry’ look, and followed Eva to the front door as Mickey called after us to be back in a reasonable time frame.

It surprised me how much alike me and Eva were, even with the long time apart. Just like myself, as soon as we got in, she turned on the radio and switched the channel to a more reasonable one, streaming from Oakland.

“So, what else has been up with you?” she asks as we come to a stop sign, partially crowded in the oncoming lane. “You were pretty vague when I asked.”

“Oh...” I trailed off thoughtfully. Oddly, nothing came to mind to tell her right then. It was like the eight plus years had evaporated and there was not a single tale she did not know about.

“Not much, really. Just school and church.”

“Never one for a social life,” she joked, pursing her lips as she looked in her rear-view mirror.

“Well, hey, on occasion I hang out at Apture.” I defended with a proud smirk.

“Right... Do you take anyone with you?”

“No.”

“Of course not.” She sighed, mixed with a laugh. “Do you hang out with anyone? Anyone at all?”

“Well, yeah, of course. I hung out with CC a week or two ago, then played with his band a few days later. I can be social.”

“Wait- back up, band? CC? Oooh, something you can tell me about!” Her excitement faded into heavy sarcasm. I rolled my eyes, realizing there was that glorious detail I had to myself, one of the few things that had changed since she’d moved.

“Christian Coma,” I introduced him fully, his cheerful smiling face appearing in my head as I spoke about him. “He’s a drummer, and a good friend. I didn’t have anything else to do, so I hung out with his band and played piano for them.”

She frowned. “You always water everything down to make it sound like something that is a big deal isn’t.”

I just shrugged, feeling kind of awkward being put on the spot. “I dunno, I guess for me the experience was just so... Thrilling? I don’t even think that covers it, really... It was just so amazing that my faded words could never express everything I felt about the event. And as for CC, just imagine a man in his twenties with long hair still trying to be the class clown.”

She still looked let down by my lack of details, but was interrupted when she spoke up. “We’re here.”

Pulling into the driveway of a small, neatly kept brick house, two men bounded out of the open garage to greet her. I felt nervous as I sat there, partially hoping neither would notice me. I studied them.

Eva got out, and greeted the first man as Trevor. He was tall, skinny as a rail with short, black hair, and his chin looked like it hadn’t been shaved in about a week. He was excited, but still chill, with darkly colored eyes. He leaned against the hood of her car, arms crossed while she quickly recited what she’d done that morning. I took the opportunity to look at the other boy, who I assumed was probably Mike. He was shorter, bulkier - not in weight, but in muscle - and had light green eyes from what I could tell.

“Ash, get your ass out here,” Eva scolded, ducking down far enough to look back through her window. I groaned under my breath, but proceeded to push open my door, stepping out, standing there awkwardly while everyone looked out me the way someone looks at another person after they step out of a dressing room in really ugly clothes.

To Trevor and Mike, I was an outsider. Friend of a friend or not, they did not know me, and I did not know them, and I instantly felt hostile and defensive, straight faced without muttering so much as a hello.

Which made the situation worse... Eva’s smile faded as she stared at me, waiting for me to give off some friendly gesture to say I came in peace, but I just couldn’t summon it.

“Okayyy...” Trevor trailed off awkwardly as his eyes burned into mine. I stared back without backing down, surprisingly. “You brought a quiet bird with you.”

It annoyed me that he was automatically talking down to me. Mike, the scrawny kid, maybe fifteen, stood behind him, and after he’d gotten a good look at me, returned to kicking pebbles across the slope of the concrete driveway.

“Ah c’mon, Ash, you were so talkative like five seconds ago!” Eva laughed nervously, trying to joke. I wasn’t sure I liked her friends too much.

“Silent,” Trevor mocked, taking a step closer to me, standing face to face, him towering over me

I narrowed my eyes at him a bit before speaking. “You’re in a band?”

My comment seemed to take him off guard. He looked like he’d been expecting something else - maybe some tears or for me to tell him off.

“...yeah?”

“Can you play or are you all talk?”

He smirked at the challenge. “What do you propose?”

“Me? Nothing. I have nothing to prove to you, and there’s certainly nothing you can do that I haven’t seen already.”

There was surprise in his expression as he struggled to adapt to my words with some nice trash talk of his own, but he came up speechless for a few more silent awkward moments.

“Look- I don’t know who you-”

“I’m no one. No one you should concern yourself with,” I interrupted his babbling, finding secret amusement in baffling this man.

“You can’t just waltz in here and-”

“Hun.” I grinned brilliantly at him, leaning in a bit closer to him, his structure a full foot above my head. He seemed to have expected something else when I finally spoke. “I already have.”

He stared at me, unsure whether to call me a cruel name and send me away or to applaud. The decision was made behind him quickly when his entourage began clapping, laughing hysterically in a fit.

Trevor shot his friend an annoyed glance and looked back at me.

“Who the hell are you, anyways?”

“Asheen Emily Hunter,” I say, with a small, witty smile, “but my friends call me Emo Bitch Queen.”