Andy

"Ash?"

I stood there with my back pressed against the door, catching my breath before replying. "Yeah?"

"Dinner's almost ready." My Dad called, before appearing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Everything okay?" He inquired, raising an eyebrow. He clearly had his doubts in me right now, and I couldn't blame him, I guess.

"Yeah," I breathed, "I'm fine."

~~~

When I woke up the next morning, I found myself relieved when I looked out my curtains and saw the overcast skies. It hadn't been cloudy since Andy was here, and it was a soft reminder, I guess.

I changed into an old grey t-shirt since I'd be home alone all day, and changed from my pajama pants into the same pair of white shorts from the night before. I grabbed my song lyric journal and a pen before heading downstairs.

When I got to the kitchen, there was note from my Mom, telling me she had to get to work early this morning to deliver her dress to the modeling agency on Main Street. At the bottom of the note, was her friendly reminder she was going shopping this evening if I wanted to get my hair dyed.

I set down the note, and began to search the cupboards for breakfast when the doorbell rang. No one ever really visited, so it was a bit of a surprise.

Walking into the foyer, and peeking through the peek hole, I saw a familiar face, and was certainly surprised, as to why he was standing on my porch, hands tucked in the pockets of his hoodie, swaying slightly impatiently, looking over his shoulder at the Tuesday morning neighborhood.

I pulled open the door. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh," CC snorted sarcastically, "Good morning to you, too."

"Good morning." I amended flatly, "Now what are you doing here?"

He raised his eyebrows in surprise. "It isn't my fault you never read your damn texts. You might've noticed I asked several times if I could come over."

"Oh... Sorry. Dad took away my phone." I mumbled, stepping aside and gesturing for him to walk in. He walked in and closed the door behind him, looking around the spacious room in surprise.

"I didn't peg you for a rich girl." He told me with a chuckle, looking up at the high cielings.

I groaned, "How did you even get my address?"

"Mr and Mrs. Turner." He replied simply, still revolving slowly, taking in the room. "They were reluctant at first until I told them I was working on some music with you, then they were all for it." He grinned, "Needless to say, your neighbors could get you robbed and abducted." He flashed a wink before heading towards the kitchen. "Got any food? I'm starving."

"Uh... I was working on that. What are you hungry for? I'll make something."

"You don't have to." He said with a disapproving tone, looking through the fridge.

"Well I have all day, so..."

"Huh?"

"Grounded." I reminded him, "And expelled, so... No school." I shrugged.

He looked appalled and amused. "You got expelled?!"

Groaning, I paced away from him. Maybe this is why Andy and him were such good friends, they were very similar in the reactions department. "Yeah... I'd rather not talk about it, I've already had to recite it to my parents and the school principle."

"Okay, I can respect that... But can I at least ask for a keyword?" He hinted in curiosity.

I crossed my arms, leaning agaisnt the cabinet opposite to him with a dissapproving look. "Girl fight." I responded.

He laughed, "Sorry, sorry, not funny." He struggled to restrain his grin. I smacked his arm and smiled, "Laugh already, asshole. Scooch."

He stepped aside and I reached into the fridge and grabbed the carton of eggs, the pack of uncooked bacon, and the gallon of milk and orange juice, and placed them on the island, heading to the stove to heat up a pan.

"How do you like your eggs?" I called to him as I began cracking a few into a bowl absently.

"Scrambled is fine." He replied, I glanced up at him, and he was walking around the kitchen, still taking in the decor of the house. I nodded and cracked three more eggs into the mixing bowl, before turning to rummage through the tool drawer beside the stove for a whisk.

I got to work stirring up the egg batter while the pan warmed up on the stove beside me. "Okay-"

I turned around and CC stood at the island, flipping casually through my journal resting on the countertop.

"What are you doing?" I choked out in surprise and he looked up in confusion. "What?"

"That! Why are you reading those?" I asked defensively, crossing the kitchen in two broad steps to snatch the journal out from under his hands.

"Um..." He hummed awkwardly. "If I could say something, I'd say those lyrics are really good." He hinted, but I was too embarassed that anyone but myself had read it to accept his compliment.

"Sorry, I didn't realize it was private... It was just sitting there." He apologized when I'd frozen up, and running through my head, was all the lyrics I remembered writing in there, and wondering which ones he's read.

"I'm sorry..." I apologized back, "I'm acting like a bitch, I'm sorry, I just... Don't have any experience sharing the level of emotion I have in these lyrics with an actual human being."

"I do have a name." He joked, pretending to be offended. A small smile appeared on my face, and I sighed, setting the book down, looking at the cover intently for a few moments. All those personal, heavy thoughts, smothered between two layers of cardboard and paper.

"Uh... Not to ruin the moment, but your pan is ready." CC nodded in the direction of the stove, where smoke was starting to rise in slender tendrils from the pan.

"Oh." I headed over, and dumped the eggs in, sprinkled them in seasoning, and began cooking them, nudging them around the pan as they slowly cooked.

"I ah... Forgot to mention why I came over." CC interrupted my thoughts, his expression sheepish, and his hands were buried in his pockets awkwardly.

"What's up?" I wondered in confusion, my eyebrows pulling together in concern.

"I... I wanted to talk about Andy, if that's okay. I mean, obviously, food is a perk of this trip, and seeing you, too, but... I guess I'm just looking for closure." He shrugged a little, as though he was unsure what else to say.

I looked at him sympathetically, and he rocked on his heels awkwardly. "Then I hope you can find it... I didn't even need closure after his death, and poof, here he was, and now he's gone, and I'm trying to cope with all I learned about himafter he died. Not a problem I ever thought I'd have, honestly..." I shook my head and looked back down into the simmering pan, nudging the eggs were they were starting to thicken.

He didn't reply, but he looked thoughtful.

"Can you grab the plates? They're above the sink."

He snapped out of his haze and nodded, heading to the cupboard and pulling down two ceramic plates, setting them on the counter beside me.

"What was it like?" He wondered curiously, leaning against the counter beside me, watching me shovel the food evenly onto each plate.

"What was what like?" I asked, my brow furrowing as I looked down.

"What was it like, talking to Andy? Like what was the physics of it? Could you see each other? Could you touch him? Could anyone else see him?" He wondered, getting carried away.

I pursed my lips as I planned my answer. "It was like... I don't even know how to describe it, actually. It was justbizarre. He was like having a best friend, but an imaginary friend. The kind only you know about and can be with. He told me so much, and I told him stuff, he was like a living journal in a lot of ways. As for your other questions, the physics, I was never too sure of. But like I mentioned before, if you stood close to him, you'd disappear, so would anything he picked up, like clothing items and such. Yes, we could see each other, when he chose to. Otherwise I could just hear his voice. I could touch him, if he was visible, like he was real. And no, not everyone could. He could choose to make himself visible, but in a limited capacity. No friends, no family."

I sighed, feeling dread telling him this. "At least, that's what he tells me." I add on for a hopeful note, but he looks troubled.

"How long did you see him for?"

"From the day right after the wreck, up until the moment before the casket viewing at the grave. But I did see him on the night of his death, he turned off the light in my room and was standing by the closet."

CC surprised me by laughing. "I'm actually not surprised by that, I mean, Andy had a thing for randomly popping up here and there, just to scare the shit out of you, and he'd laugh."

I handed him his plate and we sat at the island to eat. "What do you want to drink?"

"Got Pepsi?"

I looked at him in confusion, and finally just shook my head, deciding it wasn't worth questioning. I got up and went to the fridge, grabbing a can of Pepsi from the drawer and tossing it towards him in an arc. He caught it and slammed it down on the countertop with a grin.

"Where's your parents?"

"Mom had a modeling job, my Dad works construction." I told him nonchalantly, pouring myself a glass of orange juice to set a good example.

"Your mom is a model?" He snickered in disbelief.

"Oh, no, no, I mean she makes the dresses for the models to wear."

"Oh, gotcha. That makes more sense." He nodded as he dug in.

We ate in silence for a few minutes before he sprung another question.

"So what kind of stuff were you able to do with him? Andy, I mean."

"Huh?" I asked awkwardly. "Like... What?"

"Sorry, sorry, that sounded... Wrong." He shook his head, laughing, "I mean, what'd you do, while he was here?"

"Oh," I said, busting up with laughter, "We went on walks and stuff. He went to school with me, and would dance on the Jock's desk while they were sitting there."

"Sounds like something he'd do." He sighed in amusement, shaking his head. "Just walks? That's it?"

I sighed and smiled, leaning back in my chair, pulling up my knees to my chest comfortably. "We went to your show, too, if you seem to forget. He used his 'invisibility bubble' to smuggle me in. And it was amazing, and my first concert." I told CC proudly.

He snorted "Well that's why you thought it was amazing- you're an inexperienced concert-goer. I'll have to take you up to Salt Lake City this summer when Scorpions is playing their reunion tour."

"Scorpions? Seriously?" I echoed in disbelief, and he grinned, nodding. "Hell yeah."

"We also snuck out... Twice." I pursed my lips to keep from smiling as I looked down. "Once to go to the school and dig up some box he was infatuated with,"

"You told me about that... Mind if I see it?" He interrupted.

"Er... Sure..." I got up and put the dishes in the sink. "Come on up, there's more where that came from."

CC followed me up the staircase to my room. He snickered, already able to tell it was my room, just because the exterior of my bedroom door was covered in stickers and posters. "Your parents' room?" He joked, and I jabbed his ribs with smirk.

"Sure."

I pushed open the door and flipped on the light, heading to my closet to pull the Batman box down from the top shelf, where I'd put it in case my parents decided to make a surprise sweep of my room, and found it. When I turned and carried it to the bed, CC was standing the front of my mirror, not admiring his reflection, but rather, the photo of Andy and Ashley on his eighteenth birthday, in front of the mosh pit of a Motley Crue concert.

"He gave this to you?" He asked, not in a jealous way, just assuming way.

"Yeah." I sighed, standing behind him, looking at the photo stuck in the corner of the mirror. Even though I plucked it every day just to look at it.

He sighed after a few silent minutes and walked back towards the bed, and sat there, criss-crossing his biker boot clad feet on the blue comforter, looking down at the box in uncertainty. I turned away and went to the window to give him privacy to look through the items.

I stood there in front of the glass, watching the clouds twist and churn outside. The clock on my nightstand claimed it was almost noon. How had it taken us three hours to eat breakfast and talk?... Unless I woke up late, and was just wrong.

"I remember this." He spoke up, and I looked over my shoulder. He held up the autographed guitar pick. He had a grin on his face. "AFI was in town a few years back, and since Andy was the youngest, he had to take someone with him, or his parents wouldn't let him go. So he dragged us all out to Salt Lake City for this show, and literally put his school fighting skills to the test, elbowing guys in the face to get to the front of the stage. Afterwards, he got this signed pick from the guitarist."

He studied it in deep thought.

"School fighting?" I asked "What's that all about?"

"Oh, Andy didn't tell you?"

I shook my head.

"In high school he was bullied a lot, right?"

I nodded, "He told me that much."

"Well, sometimes he had to defend himself. He just learned how to fight, picked up a few things, and one night, we all went to this dance his school was having, we did a group thing, a bunch of lame ass bachelors." He made a sympathetic face for himself, "And Andy gets into a fight with this jock... Austin Waters, I still remember that prick's name." He shook his head in disbelief, "Anyways, Andy came out on top, after he broke the guy's nose. Needless to say, his bullying picked up a lot after that, because Austin was too much of a pussy to come after him himself, so he sent his jock buddies to handle it. And one revenge was never enough... It was repetitive and like clock work. Andy got to the point when he just ditched school after 2:34 in the afternoon, because that was when they were looking for him, a fifteen minute break between classes..."

I crossed my arms and listened to him continue to tell his story.

"-And that's why Andy became all aggressive in the end." He concluded with a sigh, also closing the Batman tin after he'd looked over all the contents.

"Your room is obsessive... And girly." He wrinkled his nose up, looking around my room from his position on my bed. "Like, you even out all the band posters you have with the purple walls and neon decor, but there's still that nice touch of an alternative rock fashion." He nodded in approvement.

I grinned then, "Actually, Andy nicknamed me Emo bitch queen. So it's fitting, I'd say."

He was rolling back on the comforter in laughter, I grinned, and watched him have a fit. "Holy crap..." He snickered, kicking his feet, "That's the best one you've told me yet!"

My smile shrank a bit as I remembered why I'd gotten that name in the first place. We'd been talking about his past briefly, he told me he'd been a brat to his parents, I laughed, and he told me I understood it. Saying then that I understood it because, I too, was a needy child, then he told me like every other emo bitch on the planet. To which, instead of becoming offended, I laughed and accepted it as my personal nickname.

"Hey, want to go play some music?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"My parents have a music room downstairs. Come on."

I was a little jittery to get him out of my room, my private sanctuary. I didn't really like anyone being in there, though.

We got down to the doors of the music room and I pushed them open, and to his surprise, it was more than just a record player and a few cassettes.

"Holy crap..." He sighed, "Well now the puzzle pieces are all coming together. I know how you were able to learn The Mortician's Daughter so fast... You have a freaking piano!"

I laughed at his reaction, as he bounced around the room like a little kid in a candy store. First, to turn on a Kiss album my Dad owned on the speaker, then he went to play some showtune thing on the piano, then he went to the rarely used harp by the window, one that we had just inherited from my Grandmother, who's arthritis prevented her from doing what she loved, which included playing harp.

"You have no drums." He finally stated the obvious, after having played with everything in the room. "Asheen, this cannot be an acceptable music room without a decent set of drums."

"I'll put that on the list." I commented, giggling. He looked flabbergasted, looking around the room once more before going to the piano to play some quick scales.

"You do realize your house is the coolest place I've ever been, right?"

"Ash?"

When I realized the words hadn't come from CC, I spun around, to find my Mom standing in the doorway, carrying two grocery bags under her arms. "Christian, right?"

"Mom! You're home early." I sighed in surprise.

"Am I?" She asked innocently, looking firmly at me.

"Yes, ma'am." CC replied with a satisfied smile. "Let me grab those for you."

He hopped up from the piano and grabbed the paper bags from my Mom and went to the kitchen. My Mom shot me a look of daggers.

"You had someone over?" She hissed low enough that CC wouldn't hear. He wouldn't, anyways, because he was whistling so loud in the kitchen.

"I didn't realize it was apart of the whole 'grounded thing'." I mumbled.

"It's not that, it's just that he's a boy, Ash. And not only that, but he's a boy a lot older than you!" She whispered.

"Only by a few years." I corrected, and her eyes narrowed. "Nothing happened, I promise. He just came over to ask if I wanted to play piano at his band's show tomorrow night, but I told him I had to ask you, so he just hung around and we jammed out, waiting for you to get home." I lied innocently.

Her expression softened a little, but she was still suspicious. "I'll talk to him."

I followed her into the kitchen. CC turned towards us upon our approach, and helpful smile on his face. "Miss Hunter." He greeted my Mom, but she was wary of him. I shot him a frantic 'just go with it' look.

"Ash told me you came over today to ask her to play piano for your band tomorrow night. Correct?"

"Uh... That's right. We really like what she did for Andy, and wanted her to come play a few more songs with the band."

I shot him a grateful look, and sighed in relief that he went with it instead of getting confused, and then getting me caught in the act of lying, the day directly after the day I told her I wouldn't get into trouble again.

"Well, I'm glad to hear that. But I'd prefer to wait until my husband gets home to make that decision, if you don't mind?" She suggested. Of course, they wanted to discuss the loop holes of my grounded issue.

"Absolutely. Mind if I hang with Ash until then?"

"Sure." My mom replied, but she still shot me the protective mother of daggers look before we headed back to the music room.

"That was close." CC whispered when we were out of her hearing range. I nodded. "Thanks for covering for me."

He gave me a genuine smile then. "It's no problem. A friend of Andy's is a friend of mine."

Notes