Rebel Love Song

Andy POV
I yawned as I woke up in a motel room that I was sharing with Jinxx. “Hey Andy” Jinxx mumbled as he rolled out of bed, groaning as he collided with the floor, even though it was carpeted. “Morning Jinxx” I replied, going to help him up.

Then once he was back on his feet I went and got dressed and did my hair & makeup. Then while Jinxx got himself sorted out I texted Jake to see if he & Jon were ready to get going yet. Jake texted back that they were both ready to go, then they came into our room. Then I texted Ashley to see if he and CC were ready.

Shortly afterwards he texted back saying they were ready so we all went into their room to see Ashley lying on his bed, dressed and ready to go, CC bringing his stuff out of the bathroom. “Morning Ash, what's got you in a good mood?” asked Jake. Ashley opened his mouth to reply when CC shouted “HIS MYSTERY LOVER GIRL THAT LIVES IN THIS TOWN TEXTED HIM AND HE DREAMT ABOUT HER AGAIN!”

Ash just stood there embarrassed, a goofy grin on his face. “Really?” I said, amusement on my face and thoughtfulness on Jinxx’s as we all walked out of the motel and we all climbed into a few rental cars to go find breakfast. I got into one with the guys, Jon went into the other and told Jinxx to follow him.

Then we drove off to find somewhere to eat. “Yep I did Andy and yeah we texted each other” said Ashley, a small smile on his face – the one he always got when he talked about this girl he’d met at Soundwave in Brisbane I think it was, but had gotten to know way better at Download in the UK. I looked to see he was staring at photos of them on his phone.

When I asked about them a few months ago he explained she’d sent them to him after downloading them off her camera onto her computer. “Dude you’ve got it bad for her. What was the dream this time?” said Jake who was also looking at the photos. Ashley was currently looking at one of her holding up a bowling ball, she’d struck a ‘badass’ pose as Ash put it and she was smirking evilly.

“Yup, I know I do… honeymoon this time” Ashley replied before focusing on his phone again. He’d also said she beat him when they went bowling, but he’d won at a game of pool. Now he was looking at a photo of her concentrating on a pool shot she was about to make. He told us that he’d been a bit cheeky and deliberately broke her concentration making her sink the black 8 ball, making him win by default.

“Ashley, Ashley, ASH!” I shouted at him, breaking him out of his trance. “What?” he asked, a little annoyed that I’d interrupted him, but we’d pulled up at a McDonalds and we were all hungry. “We’ve stopped at McDonalds for breakfast” said Jinxx, looking at him in the rear-view mirror before getting out.

“Oh ok” said Ashley before he got out and stretched, me following. Then we all went inside and ordered. I had a coffee with 2 bacon & egg McMuffins – YUM! Jinxx had the same but added a hash brown. Jake got pancakes and a sausage wrap with a coffee, Jon had the same.

Ashley got a McMuffin, pancakes & a hash brown also with a coffee. CC being the guy who eats a LOT got 2 lots of pancakes, 2 hash browns and 2 McMuffins along with a coffee. I swear he has a bottomless pit for stomach sometimes... then we got our food and we sat down to eat. While I ate, I looked around me, sipping my coffee now and again. I noticed that while Ashley ate, his mind seemed to be wandering back to the dream CC said he had, going by the nostalgic smile he had.

“Uh-oh” said Jake, kicking me in the shin and indicating to Ashley. We all looked over at him as he looked up. “What?” he asked, taking a mouthful of his coffee and finishing his McMuffin. “Ashley Purdy... I never thought I’d say this but... you’re in love man” I said, grinning at him. I knew he was because that was the look Jinxx had whenever Sammi was around, when he talked to her or when someone mentioned her. Jake got the same look about Ella and they say I do too with Juliet.

“Maybe we should see if we can find this girl so they can be all happy together” said CC, taking a huge bite of pancakes. I grinned, that seemed like a good idea – Ash was head over heels for her and from what I see of the messages and tweets I get a glimpse of, she’s crazy about him too. The letter she left for Ash who’d showed us also confirmed that... Looking over at Ashley again, I saw his face split into a HUGE smile which he tried to hide behind his coffee cup but Jinxx spotted it and said “Ha-ha Ashley likes that idea! He’s got that ‘goddamn I love that girl’ smile again!”

Ashley just shook his head and finished his coffee. We all got back into the cars and decided to have a look around town seeing as we didn’t have to be at the school until 11:15 and we had some time to kill. So we drove around for a bit and found some places to check out then we made our way to the school and got there at 10 past 11. We looked at the sign and saw it said ‘Centenary Heights State High School’ I looked at Ash and he seemed to be really nervous.

I mouthed at him ‘Are you ok?’, he just shrugged and texted me saying ‘for some reason I suddenly got really nervous’. I read it and quickly replied, ‘maybe this is the school she goes to or something? We’ll have to wait and see, gotta talk to this head of yr 12 guy first’. He looked at me and nodded then we all turned our phones on silent as we went into the office and got our visitor passes that we had to wear while we were here.

Then we sat down for a few minutes before hearing a door on the other side of the office open. I looked up to see a teacher approaching us, holding some papers. “Black Veil Brides right?” he asked, we nodded, standing up. “I’m Dave McMillan, co-head of yr 12, good to meet you” he said, introducing himself to us all and leading us to a nearby classroom after texting someone which I'm guessing was a music one, going by the piano, drum kit and acoustic guitars around the room.

“Is this the music classroom?” I asked, looking around then sitting at a desk, the rest of my band doing the same, Jinxx cringing slightly from the size I’m guessing. “Yeah though the music block’s the smallest of all the blocks here with only 2 classrooms, one of our yr 12’s is pretty annoyed by that actually, even though it’s not her dream job sort of thing” said Dave.

Ashley looked up at that for some reason, must have something to do with his mystery girl. “Anyway I’m Andy Biersack” I said, introducing myself, same with the guys. “I know, you’re featured in a lot of our students work, mostly in Art & IT” he said, before sitting down himself. “Sorry but what's with the yr 12 stuff, I mean why not just say seniors or whatever?” Jake asked, tapping his foot on the floor.

“Ah that’d be the different education systems, here at centenary, or cemetery as a lot of the kids say, junior refers to grades 8 to 10 and senior refers to the 11’s and 12’s so we just stick to the numbers so we don’t confuse ourselves” “Fair enough” said Jake, sitting back. “Ok so you wanted us to do a graduation concert thing for the yr 12’s is that right? And the formal too whatever it is” I asked.

Dave nodded, “Yes it was the kids idea actually, they were tired of the same old end of year program the year 12’s usually do, so they got together in their PCG groups which for you guys would probably be homeroom and they came up with ideas and a concert was the favourite. Then we ran a survey on who they’d like to see and you guys were picked, it was pretty unanimous” “Oh wow, so we’re pretty well-known here by the sound of it” said Jinxx.

“Yeah you are, particularly with the kids that like referring to themselves as outcasts or misfits and the ‘commoners’” said Dave. “Huh?” we all asked, confused. “Ah well here at centenary, the kids are like in these three main groups along with the usual little groups like drama geeks, math nerds, jocks etc. but the main ones are the commoners, pop brats and outcasts/misfits. The commoners are people who prefer to keep to themselves and stay out of the sticky situations the other factions often get themselves into. They have their particular taste but they’re sneaky about it if that makes sense”

“Ah yeah” we agreed, getting what he meant. “The others are pretty easy to guess. Each of them has a leader – both female, both in yr 12 and most definitely both rivals. One is a ‘pop brat’ according to the other. The other is a misfit as she personally prefers to be called, don’t really know why even though she’s one of the best swimmers we’ve had in a little while” Dave began to explain.

Ashley’s expression was thoughtful. “One likes pop music, the other is practically addicted to rock & roll even though she’s pretty sporty. The first girl likes to read girlfriend & dolly, the other likes Kerrang! and AP when she can get them, otherwise it’s sport and food. One is a typical Barbie doll, the other looks like she survived a mosh pit 10 times over, according to one of the students in my yr 12 ICT class, when she’s not hanging around in a pool.

One likes to gossip about Justin Bieber and One Direction, the other could easily talk about the geeky things she’s into, not so much these past few months, she’s been focusing on finishing her last year at school and getting the ball rolling or waves rolling as she put it. Anyway one of them will be showing you around the school while you’re here, which girl would you guys prefer?”

We all looked at each other, and it wasn’t a hard decision, the 'pop brat' sounds like she'd annoy the hell out of us within 5 minutes. “We’ll go with the sporty misfit” I said, Dave smiled before texting someone and getting a reply quickly. “Well this will make her day, if not year, come on I’ll introduce you guys to her, she’s just finished her English demonstration oral and is packing her stuff up, while getting a bunch of compliments and veiled insults” said Dave, leading us to another building.

Ashley decided to call someone on the way there. “Not much, just being shown around this school, apparently about to be introduced to the ‘sporty misfit’ as Andy put it” he said, laughing a little. I wonder who he’s talking to. “Wonder who Ash is on the phone to” said Jake, looking back at him as Dave told Jinxx a bit about the school so we were walking kinda slowly. “Maybe it’s the mystery girl” CC said, laughing. I swear he loves teasing Ashley about it.

“Yeah sure, see ya” Ashley hung up and caught up with us – he’d stopped walking while on his phone. Before we went in Dave stopped us. “Ok, just so you guys know and her PCG teacher asked me to inform you of this, she has autistic spectrum disorder, specifically asperger’s syndrome. It affects her social skills so don’t be offended if she doesn’t make eye contact much. She also has ADHD and anxiety but isn’t medicated for it. So yeah just a heads up and whatever you do, do NOT treat her like a charity case or pity her, she hates it when people do that and she’ll live up to her nickname of Outlaw, which sometimes is the only thing she’ll answer to if she’s pissed off. Got it?” we all nodded.

I kind of get how she feels even though I haven’t met her yet – I had ADD, which wasn’t too different from ADHD. Though I guess it would suck being treated as a charity case and having people pity you. If she keeps that part of her hidden, I wouldn’t blame her for it.

“Ok she’s in the first classroom there, you’ll know her when you see her, it’s free dress today and she always takes that opportunity to geek out. Good luck with her, oh and be sure to let her know that while she’s still in school you’ll be going to all her classes with her and that for this week she’s excused from all period 3 & 4 classes and will be hanging around with you guys over in the hall which is probably the best spot for you all to hang around in for rehearsing and all that sort of thing”

“Sure thing, sounds good to us” I said, taking the pieces of paper that Dave handed me and the two of us shook hands. “I’ll be over in my staffroom if you guys need me, Queen Purdy-dala knows where it is” he said, walking off while trying not to laugh. I raised my eyebrows at Jake who was standing next to me, ‘Queen Purdy-dala?’ I thought, he shrugged. “Queen Purdy-dala huh? This should be interesting” Ash said, glancing at us, we all had amused expressions on our faces.

I laughed and handed out a piece of paper to each of them, keeping one for myself. It looks like a class schedule to me, just easier to understand than the ones I had when I was in school before dropping out. We put them into our pockets and walked into the library and turned to the first classroom. Little did we know who we were about to meet as Ashley took one look at her and froze as though he couldn’t believe what or should I say who he was seeing.

Notes

Next up, Gab & Ash are reunited :D