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Andy

Understanding.

Mike sulked.

We walked.

We walked up the block from Trevor and Mike’s house to a clearing by a duck pond with a playground and a skate park. Trevor carried both skateboards, while Mike brought up the rear, face sullen, hugging the crushed remains of his small drum. He cradled it his chest, expression distant, glaring at the back of Trevor’s head.

“We come here every day at 5:00 like it’s a religion.” Trevor says, swinging a long, lofty branch infront of us thoughtfully. Sweeping the extending twigs across the concrete of the sidewalk, giving out quiet screeching. “Mike won the skating competition last year. Biggest event in the East Bay, came in first because he was able to successfully execute the infinity loop trick he’d been working on... Mike, you’re damn fortunate you didn’t break your neck doing a trick like that.”

I glanced over at Mike, walking in tandum with me, clutching the shattered remains, his face in shock as he marched in lockstep.

“Do you do a lot of competitions?” I asked Mike out of the kindness of getting him out of his own head. His eyes remained unblinking, frozen on the concrete ahead of him, no sign he’d even heard me. I jogged forward a few steps to get next to Eva.

“Does he do stuff like this often?” I whispered, she slowed down to a pause to look at him. “No, not usually.” She whispered back. “Mike!” She called to him, raising her voice. “You okay?”

He gave a stiff nod in reply, saying he was okay, but he never lifted his eyes or showed any sign of coming out of his shock.

“It was only a drum...” I murmured to her. Trevor overheard me, letting out a startled gasp.

“How can you say that?!” He demanded in a shrill voice, one hand spread across his chest as though he were offended. “Mikey-moo’s had that kit since before he was potty trained. It’s death is not one to be taken lightly.”

I glanced back at Mike, my gaze lingering.

“Hey!”

I looked to my otherside, about to tell off whoever the flatfooted fuck was that had joined our stroll, when I saw the towering, beautiful boy with the blue eyes, tattoos and Black Veil Brides t-shirt cut into a makeshift muscle top.

“Holy sh-!” I shouted in surprise, clamping my hands over my mouth. Eva’s steps slowed and she looked back at me in concerned confusion. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I say dully, struggling to remain neutral. I wanted to scold him for popping up out of nowhere. But then... I suppose I should have been used to it by then. “How much further.” I lowered my lids to look bored but content with the walk, looking up to see the darker shade of grey creeping across the sky above us, making me feel right at home in Pendant.

“One more block.” Trevor replies cheerfully, not at all carrying the weight of murder. Hypocrite... Scolded me for saying the drum wasn’t special, when he was, in all fairness, the one who knocked it out into the street to die.

“I got all sorts of things done.” Andy continued when I didn’t say anything to him. “Visited one of my old college friends, saw the Venice Beach motorcycle shop where I interned, and visited some shops on the boardwalk... I’ll tell you about that adventure later. Also, I thought of a change of plans.”

“There it is.” Trevor pointed ahead. The outline of the skating equiptment just down the hill from where we were walking. “We should have drove...” Mike mumbled, numbed.

Once we’d gotten there, I deviated away from our group. There were a lot of other kids around, skating, chatting, and younger kids on the swings and playground. I stepped behind one of the picnic shelters, and Andy was already there, his lips pulled up into a polite smile.

“Change of plans?” I asked warily.

“Yes, of course. There’s more places to go than we have time for, so tonight we’re going to-”

“No breaking in!” I interupted him, pointing a finger at him. “Because it’d be my luck, I’d get caught this time.”

“Aw, come on, Ash, the mortician didn’t see you.” He cooed, trying to convince me. I glared at him. “You left, thinking it was just hilarious.” If I had been caught, I’d miss the better half of my college years.”

“Pshhh I could have broken you out.” he waved off my concern.

“Oh yeah?” I challenged him, “And how would I explain to my parents that I broke into a funeral home to see your corpse?” I raised my eyebrows and he pressed his lips in a thin line, silently admitting failure.

“Okay... I see your point... But that won’t happen, wanna know why?”

I looked at him warily before sighing in defeat. “Why?”

“Because we’ll be sneaky...”

And he was gone.

I groaned, turning to head back, and there he was, in the aspen tree behind me, sitting up on a high branch, kicking his boot clad feet childishly. “So? You in? I think it’s time we resurrect our nighttime adventures.”

“They never died...” I murmured in response.

“You in?”

I rubbed my palms together in thought before clapping them against my thighs with a sigh and a smile. “Sure.”

“Yay!” He exclaimed, pumping his fists in the air, narrowly avoiding falling off the branch backwards.

He lunged from the high branch and fell down in front of me, landing silently on the balls of his feet. “So what did you do today?”

“Eva hasn’t changed much.” I clarified, “So I just settled back into old habits... Mike and Trevor... They’re a little...” I waved my hand, searching for the word. “Wishy washy, to say the least.”

“Mike seems odd. What happened to his drum?” His forehead creased in thought and concern.

I tried not to smile but faded, chuckling, I put my hands on my hips. “Trevor managed to get it run over by a car, therefor traumatizing Mike.”

He winced. “Shitty luck.”

He still had on his white, sleeveless Black Veil Brides muscle top, black skinny jeans and enough belts and chains around his waist that a deaf person could hear him. He’d abandoned his Prophet jacket sometime between the time I’d seen him this morning and now, had changed up his makeup from simple eyeliner to the explosion of spikey edged makeup around his eyes from the early era of his band.

In some ways, it was sad that he still dressed that way, still paying tribute to the early days, when his dreams were his future and his horizon was endless - not hindered by death or drugs. He didn’t seem bothered by it, though.

“They’re probably looking for you.” He says in a low voice, nodding towards the direction where I’d left my friends.

“Probably.” I agreed quietly. “I don’t know if I really like Trevor and Mike.” I shrugged.

He laughed, surprisingly amused by my statement. “Then why the hell are you hanging out with them?”

“Because Eva has this dream that I’m going to be best friends with her best friends and we can have this big friend group like in every teen movie ever. The small group of nerdy teens people avoid and they defend each other against the people who don’t like them.”

He looked taken back, his eyebrows raised, he cracked a grin. “Wow... You have them down to a science already.”

I leaned back against the brick wall of the picnic building, sighing. “They’re easy to read. Even Eva, unfortunately. I don’t know... I think I expected something more diverse, something closer to what I remember he being like. She hasn’t changed much, but just enough that things aren’t the same. The preps we used to shame, she became one.” I laughed, but it sounded tired.

“So what? The trip was a waste or?...”

I hadn’t found myself questioning it yet. Maybe I’d blocked the possibility from my thoughts. I thought about it before answering. “I still value her friendship, of course, but she isn’t as outright, blunt and random as I remember.”

He nods in understanding and purses his lips, looking like he wants to say something else but doesn’t want to.

“What?” I murmur, reading his face.

“Don’t get made, okay?”

I nod slowly, hesitant.

“Maybe Eva’s different now because she’s grown up since you saw her last, and adapted to who she wanted to be. Don’t be mad - I’m just thinking that if you accept, and settle into your own groove, maybe you’d understand her more.”

I didn’t get angry, just surprised when he proposed it that way. In a different frame of mind.

“Please don’t abandon your friend because she’s changed. I can’t tell you how many people abandonned me.” His blue eyes looked up at me, pleading. And I could feel a fracture spread through my heart. Sympathy and guilt churning together, making me nod quickly before looking down.

“You’re right.” I agreed.

After a bit, I looked up, and saw Eva, across the park, talking to a group of teenagers around her age, Trevor and Mike both on the skating ramps, Mike slowly drifting around the sidewalks on his skateboard, awkwardly gripping his flattened drum. Strange...

I stopped paying too much attention to what was going on around me once Andy had returned. His words replayed in my head over and over, and although he’d said it very kindly, the voice in my head repeated it like a scold.

“I tried skating once...”

“Yeah?” I ask, looking at him, staring at the skateboarders on the equiptment, pulling off neat moves through the concrete tunnels and half pipes. “How’d that go?”

“I fell off.” He finishes with an unenthusiastic tone.

I laughed at him, and he peered down at me out of the corner of his eye. “Hmph, let me guess, you were one of thosekids, all bundled up in padding. I lived for wounds and broken bones.”

I glared at him, mostly in embarrasment... It was true, and I would not admit that.

“Uh huh, thought so.”

“I didn’t say anything!” I said in defense, but his smirk only grew, as he proceeded to scan the playground with cheerful blue eyes.

“You didn’t need to.”

Had it just been us, and no one was looking, I would have punched him. His grin grew wider and he chuckled. “You can hit me.”

I narrowed my eyes at him again, but then looked ahead of us, where a small child stood, staring at Andy in fear and curiousity. He gave a small wave. To my surprise, instead of the child running away screaming and crying, he continued to stand there, wide-eyed at Andy. All I could figure was that he had seen him fabricate into existance.

“Nice slip up.” I snickered under my breath, nodding towards the kid. “Years of therapy is ahead for him.”

“He didn’t see.” Was all he said, too transfixed with the facinated child to pay much mind to my poking of fun.

Andy slowly sank to a crouch, balancing on his toes without swaying, looking at the child. The child took a hesitant step towards him, the fear slowly disappearing from his eyes.

I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was caught up in the strange oddity of the moment. The kid held onto a torn up stuffed bear, about the size of his forearm. His arms fell until the bear lied in the grass beside him, suspended by his left arm.

Two more steps, Andy’s bright, unusally blue eyes trained on the child and he gave him an open, friendly smile. Another three steps, and the kid was within arms reach from Andy, confusion, and curiousity still in his eyes. He raised his hand, about to reach for Andy’s slightly outstretched hand, when a woman came up behind him and swooped him up into her arms, scolding him for running away.

She turned to look at Andy, and gave him the maternal death glare. “Stay away from my child, weirdo.”

She hurried off with her kid in her arms, his face visible over her shoulder, eyes wide, longing as his mother packed him off.

My eyes fell on Andy, and his hand fell, hanging over his knee as he rocked backwards and dropped into the grass, draping his wrists on his kneecaps, the sun breaking through the storm clouds long enough to illuminate his features. Disappointment was visible in his eyes, but there was also understanding.

I sat beside him in the grass, looking at his arms, the small cat scratch scars that littered his arms, mostly on the underside, closest to his palms.

“I expected that.” He finally says, his voice ringing with understanding. “It’s what always happens. People judge a book by it’s cover, and they won’t even give anyone a chance... How could she know I was a psycho? Or that I wasn’t?”

“She didn’t.”

“Exactly.”

My eyebrows pulled together in confusion while I waited for him to elaborate.

“But that’s the thing about love, isn’t it? That you love so much you wouldn’t even want to take a chance like that.”

Notes

Mhawwwww

Chapter inspired by The Age of the Young and the Hopeless by Blood on the Dancefloor

I was curious, out of every character presented up until this point, who is your favorite?

Shoutouts!

- anathema

Comments

I just want to say, I am here to support you no matter what you do <3

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/12/20

Oh gosh, I'm getting weird vibes towards this "sketchy" part of town.

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
5/8/19

I am absolutely in love with this book!

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/30/19

Poor Ashley. Poor Andy. Poor Asheen. Wow, what a story! :)

Merelan Merelan
4/29/19

I am conspiring so many theories about this book my head hurts... lol... anyway, great chapter as usual! Can't wait to read what happens next

Mezzy18 Mezzy18
4/25/19