Andy

I conversed with CC and Elizabeth about tomorrow’s plans for a bit while sitting curled up in one of the lawn chairs on the back porch. I did look up at my bedroom window occasionally, half expecting to see him there whenever I felt I was being watched, but he never was.

CC surprisingly didn’t have much to say. He asked for a loose description of the acts that took place in the cemetery last time he called, and when the details were too much he begged for silence. Regardless of how weird it all was, he still remained as supportive of it as possible, asking me the question I’d been asking myself: After all of this trouble, are we finally safe?

Elizabeth confirms her attendance and asks for more details on the festivities, which I oblige. Prom comes up briefly and I notice how she dances around the topic of Reece taking her. She never says it directly, but I pick up on him asking her when they were hanging out after I’d come home.

Talking to her brings back the vision of her pregnancy tests. Each one bearing the life-ending plus sign... Still, she remains her normal perky self with no sign of being distraught or lost. She’s the same Elizabeth as always and I don’t know if that should relieve me or worry me.

I shoot Jake and Jinxx confirmation texts as well, which they respond to during the time I spent outside. Jinxx lets me know that they’ll be taking his van to the lake since it seats the most people and we won’t have to take an entire caravan to the lake.

Of course, I have to tease him some more off the existing ‘creep’ factor. When we’d hung out together at the bar, he told me he recognized me from church when he watched me from his porch across the street. So now I am teasing about having a creepy van to complete the look.

When I wasn’t texting back one of the four, I was sitting cross-legged in my seat, staring at the edge of the woods where I could swear I saw the foliage near the edge sway as though something was pushing through it.

That thing... That Andy fought in the woods, it didn’t even resemble a human. The way Andy’s fingers wrapped around its elongated snout while prying snapping teeth back from his face, the images your mind can come up with are pretty terrifying.

I sit there trying to imagine what the rest of it looks like... Is it elegant or graceful? Or is it the clumsy, bulky animal/human hybrid it seemed to be that day?

I also keep thinking about Eden. Yet another plothole in Andy’s past which he’d never mentioned. How many other people were there in his past life that played important parts in shaping him into the person he’d eventually become? From what I could tell, Eden loved Andy and his family dearly even though in a fit of teenage angst on his part, he gave her Hell when she had to watch him and keep him out of trouble.

Does he resent her now or regret his actions?

It’s late afternoon now, and it’s been two hours since we got back from the river. Part of me wishes we’d walked further upstream to get a good look at the bridge and the destruction brought on by all the water. But I knew that it’d just give me nightmares and I’d get sucked into Andy’s theory so I decided it was easier to look the other way.

What is it, though? Andy’s right, it can’t be all coincidence.

After a while I get up and head back inside. I go through the door that leads into the music room and I linger by the piano, hitting a couple odd keys before I catch myself and realize that the notes are adding up to The Mortician’s Daughter.

I play a bit longer, my fingers absently poking across the ivory keys, each note sounding distant and out of key without the assistance of the piano pedals. Just hearing those soft notes lulls me back into the memories from that spring afternoon spent at the park, Jake playing guitar for me while I played piano, Andy lying a few feet away in his casket, completely defaced from the night before when we’d broken into the mortuary.

At that time, all I had to worry about was Andy’s impending departure. I never once thought about things long term and how they could be or end up.

Maybe moving to California will be a good thing? Maybe if we can get away from here, everything will go away and go back to as normal as they can be.

I drift away from the piano and head toward the adjacent door that leads into my Mother’s sewing room. She’s left the door open and my prom dress remains on full display at the center of the room. I approach it, circling it like I had last night, except now that my head isn’t clouded with excitement and giddiness, I can get a good look at it.

The skirt drapes toward the floor, the sheer blue fabric flared out like a mermaid tail trail behind the dress form. I run my fingers over the lace and boning of the bodice, trying to imagine myself in it... Trying to imagine myself arriving at prom in this.

I’d always been pretty excited for the occasion. I’d seen the photos from my peers posted on Facebook and Instagram. Photos where they were all smiles, embracing their dates in pretty gowns and crisp tuxes, a limo waiting along the curb in the background.

While all that glamorous stuff is great and all, I’m excited about my humble arrival to prom. Rolling up in CC’s battered and war-worn black 1968 Plymouth Barracuda. The thing would rumble into the parking lot and me and Andy will climb out, striking a stupid pose, acting like dorks because that’s the only way we get through any social situation.

One perfect night to look forward to...

I close the door behind me as I leave, headed for the kitchen. My Dad is seated at the island, listening to how my Mother’s appointment went while she’s making dinner, busy dicing up onions and scraping them off the cutting board into the saucepan on the burner.

I sit down and twiddle my thumbs for a bit, enjoying just listening without having to play a major role in the conversation. All of that came to a screeching halt when my Mother brought up something unexpected, the earlier conversation with Eden brought back to mind when she needed the counter space beside the sink and the flyer was in the way.

She picks it up for a moment and studies it before poking back into the back of the mail sorting bin. Oh, if she only knew how much I loved the boy in that photo now... To her knowledge, I merely tagged along to his funeral to play a song for him because his distraught uncle asked me to. Nothing more. Oh, if that were still the case.

“Eden used to be pretty close to the Biersacks, apparently.” She brings it up in such a nonchalant way, causing my dad to perk up at the name.

“Oh? How so?”

“She used to babysit their son when he was in his early teens and getting into trouble. She was still living in Idaho getting ready for her move back when the accident happened.”

“Huh...”

My Dad’s attention is mostly wrapped up in today’s newspaper. He scans the pages with his reading glasses hanging low on the bridge of his nose.

“You know... Since that funeral, I just cannot get that family out of my head.” She sighs.

You and me both.

“I feel so bad for them. They’re good people! Why does bad stuff always happen to the nicest people?”

“I’m sure that God had a reason for it. May it have been to motivate someone or to provoke change in the people he surrounded himself by, we’ll never know. It’s awful news, but at least he doesn’t have to live here anymore. I mean, he gets to go home.”

My heart sinks in sadness. I peek up at my Dad’s face and his eyes are bright and hopeful like he genuinely believes that Andy went happily to heaven, the end... But that was not the case. I wonder though, what might’ve happened had he decided to cross over? What life would have been in store for him, if any?

“That’s true.” My Mother agrees, washing vegetables in the sink with a thoughtful look on her face.

At that moment, I wished that I could confide in them and exclaim all the things that had been weighing down on me over the last couple of weeks. The weight of things that they could never know.

~~~


Andy and Ashley never came down for ‘dinner’. They don’t actually eat when they are seated at the table, but it’s kinda nice to have them there. When they’re seated, talking amongst themselves, I have the opportunity to imagine that they’re really there and all of this is real. It makes it all feel a little less lonely.

Of course, the curtain has to be pulled back again, eventually... And suddenly everything is over again and I’m facing my tired reflection in the bathroom mirror, tugging at my black roots with stressed fingers, combing them through the space where the black transitions into dark green. I meet my own eyes and every time I do, their sullen pale green shade shows me all the awful things I have seen and done.

I scrub away the remainder of my makeup and refuse to look at myself again before leaving the bathroom and returning to my bedroom.

I close the door behind me when I enter and flick on the lights to unveil Andy sitting in the middle of the bed, in the pitch black darkness for who knows how long.

He blinks and looks up at me. I stare back at him in silence, waiting for him to speak first, but he does not. I sigh and go to the window to pull the curtains open again, allowing some of the bright moonlight to shine in.

“Are you alright?” I ask him as I tie back each curtain, glancing over my shoulder at him to make sure he’s still functioning.

His eyes flicker up to meet mine for a moment and his gaze concerns me. He’s not saddened or mournful... He looks embarrassed.

“What?”

He winces a bit, shuffling in his silence for a couple seconds. “Okay so... I made a strange discovery earlier and I don’t know what to do with this information.”

I stare at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

“I need you to be 100% serious about this, alright?”

I nod. “Sure, okay... What is it?”

He gets up off the bed and pulls off his prophet jacket, tossing it aside, following it by pulling his t-shirt over his head, revealing all his chest tattoos. He looks me in the eye with a very stern expression.

“Well?”

He turns around slowly so that he’s facing away from me. I look at his back, my brow pinching in confusion when I don’t see anything note-worthy.

“Um... What am I looking for?” I hedge sheepishly when he doesn’t say or do anything to indicate the problem. He flexes his back and in the movement of his muscles, I spot it... The small bump located right between his shoulder blades. When he relaxes his back again, it goes away.

“What is that?” I ask him, stepping closer to get a better look at his skin. He stretches his arms backward again and it prompts the little bump to make itself known again. Its no bigger than a quarter, and only a half an inch high when he strains his back, otherwise it is completely unnoticeable.

“I noticed it earlier... I felt it there in between my shoulders and went to the mirror to investigate. What the Hell is it, Ash? I can’t have any diseases or health defects now.”

I take a deep breath and hold it for a couple seconds, thinking hard and trying to come up with an answer that would satisfy him.

“Are you sure it hasn’t always been there? Like from your human life, too? And it just carried over?”

“No... No way. I would have felt this fucker if it’d been there longer. Do you think this is related to that damn shapeshifter?”

He turns halfway toward me to see my expression. I’m sure I’m very pale and sickly looking, cursed with the possibility that all our efforts were in vain and it still found its way back into my home.

He sighs in frustration, turning to sit back down on the edge of the bed, resting his head in his hands for a solid few minutes of silence.

“Maybe it’s a side effect of using the healing ability?” He wonders out loud, not lifting his head to look at me.

I get down on my hands and knees and pull the book out from under my bed and go to work flipping through the pages in search of something useful. Granted, I’m not sure if the author of this book had a best friend who was a ghost, too, to bounce these weird things off of.

“I’m thinking that this might be something that not even Google can help with.” He jokes, attempting to laugh but he just sounds like he’s suppressing the stressed, panicked giggling fit.

“The book isn’t much good, either...” I sigh, “Is there anyone we can call who might be knowledgeable on this type of stuff?”

“You mean foreign lumps growing on ghosts? No.”

“You said to take it seriously.”

He sighs and hangs his head for a few more seconds before peeking up at me again. “It’ll probably be a fruitless effort, but what about Juliet?”

I don’t waste time confirming back and forth on her knowledge with him. I grab my phone and immediately begin to construct the text that is sure to confuse the Hell out of her.

A few minutes later, my phone dings and we scramble to read her message from the pull-down bar.

Okay, that sounds really weird. No, I don’t personally have any experience with it but if I had to guess, it’s not dangerous to his health or wellbeing or anything like that. It’d be my guess that this is apart of his ‘ghost evolution’ or something along those lines. Sorry, I don’t have a better answer for you.

“Evolution?” Andy echoes in disbelief, concentrating hard to try and recall anything else that had happened to him or changed in recent times.

“What kind of evolution could you be going through? You’re dead.” I say flatly, tossing my phone back onto the bed, watching him reach over his shoulders, trying to feel it between his shoulder blades.

“Does it hurt?”

He shakes his head. “No, it just feels like it isn’t supposed to be there... Like having a pebble in your shoe.”

“When did you notice it was there?”

“Shortly after you left to do the holy water. I was lying here and I started to feel it there.”

I look closely at his back again, completely and utterly confused. “Any chance that Ashley knows what it is?”

He shrugs. “Couldn’t hurt to ask, I suppose. I’ll go ask him.”

He leaves and I put the book back into hiding, pacing my floor for the few minutes that follow before he returns, trying to think of a single thing that could have triggered this new development.

Is it related to stress? If so, what is the result?

I have my knuckles pressed to my teeth in deep thought when Andy finally comes back in, wearing the same face of confusion as before.

“Well?”

“He has no clue.”

I sigh and stop my pacing, crossing my arms across my chest. “We’re never going to catch a break, are we?”

He shakes his head no simply to humor my question, but we both know in our hearts that things will forever be difficult for us.

~~~


Today is Saturday.

I wake up to the sunlight streaming through my window and in my waking moments when all is blurred and confusing, I almost believed that I was still in California.

I roll over and grab my phone, powering on the home screen to check the time and there I discover a text from CC telling me that they’ll be by to ‘collect’ me and Andy at ten. The time is currently 8:45.

Groaning, I sit up, looking over to Andy who’s still dead asleep, laying on his stomach, his back to me. The unusual growth invisible now, but just as confusing and concerning even if it is out of sight.

I get up, stretching and trying to wake myself up. I go to the closet and pull out a pair of shorts, changing into those while I scan the rack for a shirt to go with them.

“Oh damn...” Andy’s tired, amused voice comes from behind me as I pull up my shorts and button them, turning halfway toward him to see what the problem is.

“No one told me that we’d reached the stage in our relationship where we can get dressed in the same room.” He says, face propped up halfway on a pillow, a tired, dreamy smile on his face. I roll my eyes at him, digging around in my closet for a shirt.

“I thought you were asleep, you creep.”

I only hear his muted laughter as a response and chuckle to myself, pulling a white t-shirt off the hanger and inspecting it. “And anyway, I’ve seen you peel off your shirt so many times without a second thought that it’s kinda fair... Though on the other hand, you also forced your nudity on me you sick fuck.”

His laughter is more lively now as he sits up in bed, waking up slowly. “Being shirtless hardly counts as nudity. And I by no means forced it on you. You don’t say jack when I strut around in this glorious body-”

Just then my bedroom door opens, and as always, it is not accompanied by the hesitant knock to indicate that someone is about to enter. My Mother barges in with an empty hamper and a proud smile on her face. “Laundry day.” She informs me while I mentally try to assess my room and figure out if everything that is supposed to be hidden is.

I stand in front of my mirror, taking advantage of its reflection to keep an eye on her while I pretend to busy myself with brushing through my hair. While her back is turned on the bed, Andy reaches out and snatches his shirt, boots, and Prophet jacket from the end of the bed, hugging them to his chest so she won’t spot them. That’d be fun to explain.

Regardless of my discomfort, he gets a sly smile on his face that I can see in the reflection. I glare daggers at him to discourage him from doing whatever it is that he has planned.

It was a vain effort as he gets up and stands in the middle of my room, mere feet away from my Mother, shirtless and psychotic, he throws his head back and yells at the top of his lungs “Ash hates nudity!” while whipping his shirt around his head like a lasso.

I give him the coldest, dirtiest glare I can muster, making sure that he feels the burning of it in his soul when he finally meets my gaze. I mouth the words “I will cut you.” to him when my Mother is not looking.

We both get ready pretty quickly, and go to hang out in the music room while we wait for CC to arrive in Jinxx’s designated party van. The last time all of us hung out together was shortly after the flood and Ashley’s sour mood ruined the evening.

“Ashley is coming with us, right?”

“I’d assume so.” He shrugs, sitting on the piano bench. “He never said anything to me, but I don’t think that he’d willingly miss out on a day like today.”

I sit on the bench beside him and turn to face the keys. I mess around a little bit, playing bits and pieces of songs I’d tried to learn but never finished.

“I don’t suppose that you learned any other Black Veil Brides songs?” He inquires hopefully.

“I have not, but we can give it a go? What do you want to play?”

He thinks about it for a bit before speaking. “You’re familiar with Knives and Pens, right?”

“Of course.”

“Do you remember the slowed down version my band played that night we stopped by the bar? Can you do that?”

“I can try.”

His face lights up at this, eager to see what will come of it.

“Sing some of it so I can figure out the notes.” I instruct him, hovering my hands over the center of the keyboard, thumb resting slightly on the middle C key.

“Alone at last we can sit and fight, I’ve lost all faith in this blurring light...” He sings it low and drawn out. I get more caught up in his voice than actually listening for the notes. It’s afterward that I have to smile sheepishly and say I got none of it and he has to sing it again.

He laughs, “Alright... I understand. I’m pretty easy to get caught up on.”

“You’re really up your own ass today, aren’t you?” I laugh, working out the first verse on the keys.

“Little bit... You ready?”

“Yep.”

He sings the first bit again and I pay close attention to the notes he’s hitting, and repeat them afterward on the piano, gaining me an excited bright smile from Andy.

“Okay, next.”

“But stay right here we can change our plight, we're storming through this despite what's right.”

I translate his voice to the basic keys of the piano, incorporating some extra notes this time to make it more lively and stand-alone.

“One final fight, for this tonight, with knives and pens we made our plight.”

We both shoot up to the sound of snickering in the doorway. CC is standing there in a loose-fitting black tank top and Hawaii patterned blue swim trunks, really getting a kick out of our little jam session.

“How the Hell can he see you right now?” I shoot Andy a look, to which he responds with a gleeful smile and I sigh. He knew CC was watching us... Of course, he did.

“Yo, Ash, you should definitely come do another show with us sometime. The piano was a nice touch last time.”

I appreciate that he’s not going out of his way to bring up the elephant in the room about that night. He’s already apologized profusely for Ferguson’s creepy advances and it’s behind us now. Plus Andy’s around to provide protection, so I don’t feel too weird going out and trying it out again.

“When’s your next show?”

“Sunday night, actually... At midnight at the Daisy Chain bar.”

“That’s prom night,” I look at Andy briefly then back “Are you in the mood for some late night chaos?”

“Always.”

“Isn’t your parents going to freak if you’re out late?” CC inquires, breaking up the plan making.

“I can craft a cover... Say I’m staying at Elizabeth’s or something.”

“That would be lying.” he says in a jokingly accusive tone, jabbing a finger at me. “And anyway, that’d be cool. We all need to hang out a bit more, maybe it’ll be enough to warm that heart of ice Ashley’s got.”

“What’d you say, punk?”

We all look at the hallway behind CC where Ashley stands. But for once, he isn’t looking defensive or menacing, in fact, his lips are curled up into a smirk.

CC throws his arms around his departed pal, swaying all over the hallway with his arms in a choke hold-like embrace, while actually managing to evoke a laugh out of Ashley as he pats CC’s back.

“Dude! Today’s going to be great! The sun is shining, the gas tank is full and it’s a Saturday which means a whole beach full of babes.”

“You truly have no morals.” Andy sighs, shaking his head sadly, getting up from the piano bench and helping me scoot it back underneath.

“How did you get into my house?” I ask CC, narrowing my eyes at him.

“Your Mom let me in.” He replies proudly.

“Did she glare at you this time or was she friendly?” I ask, cracking a smile, knowing her and my Dad’s strong distaste for him and the rest of the BVB boys.

He gives me a thoughtful shrug. “I think she’s warming up to me. Just a bit.”

“How do you know?” Ashley asks him.

“She didn’t narrow her eyes at me this time and asked me how I was, which is improvement to me!”

~~~


I say my goodbyes to my Mother, which includes a lot of warnings and low-key threats as she slips a fresh bottle of pepper spray into my bag. I sigh and hug her a third time, knowing in my heart that she means well.

“Don’t forget, the wedding is tonight at the Royal Court Gardens. They’re exchanging vows at 5:00 and the reception starts at 6:00.”

“I got my change of clothes handy,” I hold up my bag. I’d packed my iconic white summer dress. That thing is way too entwined in the tales I and Andy share these days. All the same, it wasn’t too dressy and fit the occasion nicely. “I’ll clean up before coming over.”

One more hug and a firm chat with CC later, and we’re out the door, squeezing into the second backseat beside Jake. CC sits up front in shotgun while Jinxx is driving. He shoots us a smile as we get in.

“Right... We’re grabbing your friend too, right? Where does she live?”

“Right up the street here... About five blocks.”

The windows are rolled down, warm air blowing my hair back, Andy’s tattooed arm over my shoulders, pulling me close to his side all while some Alkaline Trio is playing on the stereo. It feels like a cliche teen movie scene in the best possible way, a stark contrast to the things we’ve been dealing with these last few weeks.

I tap my green nails on the windowsill, pulling down my sunglasses and embracing the moment, milking it for every drop of petty teenage aesthetic. Andy seems happy and at ease when I smile up at him, the sunlight catching his eyes.

Jake is even happier than I’ve seen him in the past. Every time I’d seen him since meeting him, he’s always come off as distant and cold. It makes sense to me now that Andy has confided in me why that is... He carries the weight and guilt from those days during Andy’s youth when roles were reversed and Jake was sort of the guardian angel for Andy.

We pull up in front of Elizabeth’s house and I climb out, skipping to her front door and knocking three times, wondering idly in the back of my mind what I’d do if Reece is here with her and causes trouble.

Luckily, that was not the case. She answers the door, wearing a black crop top with blue shorts. Her hair bundled up on top of her head in a country-girl messy bun, all packaged up nicely with a bright, cheerful smile on her face.

Before either of us can say anything, CC turns the volume up loudly on the radio. I look back at them to see them all thrashing their heads to the Ramones. That’s when Elizabeth’s Mother appears in the door behind her daughter, squinting out at the van before spotting a familiar face.

“Christian Coma! Turn that racket down. I think your Mother would be very interested to know what you’re up to.”

The music immediately seizes, followed by CC yelling back a polite “Yes, ma’am!”

Elizabeth says her goodbyes and we both get into the van. I lean over the shoulder of CC’s seat to look at his face. “I thought you were in your twenties?”

“I am.” He replies, looking up into the rearview mirror as Jinxx pulls away from the curb. “But my Mother terrifies me.”

“CC’s Mother is one of the sweetest, most maternal women you could ever meet.” Jinxx elaborates, “but she’s also got a vicious side for keeping her quirky son in line.”

“That’s code word for her smacking me upside the head when I cursed in front of my Grandmother,” CC says with an amused grimace. “She’s a force of nature. You don’t cross her.”

The cityscape dwindles away as we enter the road the winds through the woods. We will have to backtrack a bit to the bridge that’s currently still in working order, but it aids in prolonging the adventure and making it all the more exciting.

CC shows us some new bands he’s discovered while Jake and Jinxx share a tale about an incident that happened the day prior. I keep Elizabeth company, talking all things prom with her.

Even that, though, proves an uncomfortable topic when her date of choice gets brought up, prompting Jinxx to meet my eyes in the rearview mirror. He knows about that punk, and knows the mutual distaste we all share. Elizabeth seems to be oblivious to the outstanding level of hate for her boyfriend in the immediate vicinity.

After a bit, the most surprising relationship forms when Jake starts to chat with her about some mutual family friends they have. This must have been pretty significant to both of them because they get completely absorbed into their conversation, chatting back and forth, leaning forward a bit to see one another in front of Andy and I squeezed in between them.

We get to the bridge and cross over into the second half of Pendant. Once we’re driving through the busier part of town, Andy shares that he spent more of his youth in this side of town than the one that his own neighborhood exists in.

My family ultimately avoids the ‘big city’ part of Pendant in favor of the little community feeling. Looking around at the bustling streets and chain stores, I could easily imagine Andy escaping to this place just to feel like he were further away from home than he actually was.

“Hey Ash, remember we used to frequent that place?”

Andy points out the window to a big empty looking warehouse alongside the road, any walls within six feet of the ground covered in heavy, rainbow-colored graffiti and scribbles.

“I remember that was where you got into your first petty fight.” Jake replies, snickering. “Ashley had to talk you out of that one.”

I hear Ashley laughing in the row of seats behind ours and peek back at him. It’s a welcome sight to see him smiling, laughing, and engaging instead of being the cold and stoic one.

“I got into a lot of petty fights.” Andy agrees. I imagine by that he means him attacking people for saying he looked weird.

They all comment on places we drive by, sharing short and vague stories about how they played big parts in Black Veil Brides’ early history and humble beginnings. I took in each one, trying to imagine Andy stomping around half naked with body paint smeared all over himself to make up for the tattoos he didn’t have yet, black hair all tangled and long, paired with tired makeup-ringed raccoon eyes, swearing to himself that he’d make it and prove everyone wrong.

Even when he did become popular, did it matter to those who doubted them? Did they crawl back to him afterward to apologize? The reality of it all is quite sad. He got caught up chasing this dream just so he could hold it above everyone and prove to them that he had the potential for greatness all along and they’d be sorry for how they’d treated him.

The sad truth is this: There is no true revenge.

Notes

Thank you Mezzy18, Merelan, and Whiny Emo Batman for commenting!