The Drumbeat Years (girlxgirl)

Interlude

Interlude

9th. June 1989 - At The Same Time

With his arms spread along the other seats, Kyle disappeared into his own little world. Head tilted backwards, he began to run over the lyrics for the new song that had disturbed his sleep for days. He hated it when that happened. He loved it when that happened. Inspiration was great, so long as that inspiration led to something good and cool. Something he could imagine David Lee Roth singing. Well, maybe not David Lee Roth. This song was a bit too ... deep for that spandex-loving, wild-haired rock monster.

To the side, he could hear the murmurs coming from the office and opened his eyes. He wondered if he should have told Tina about Dawn. That she had filed into that office along with the others when the Principal had given him the task of finding Tina. He had thought it would come as a nice surprise, but, now he thought about it, shock might be closer to her reaction. Shock. Embarrassment. Anger?

The discussion started to get a little louder and he could hear Tina pleading her case. Real pleading. He didn't want to hear that, so he stood and edged further along the corridor, away from the office. After a few seconds of leaning against a wall. He shuffled a further good ten feet away. To make sure no-one could accuse him of eavesdropping.

That song came back to him and he began to hum the tune. He wasn't an instrumentalist, he couldn't pick up a guitar and strum along until something clicked. His instrument was words and, though he wasn't as good as Tina (by a long shot), he knew he had some talent. A degree of talent. Some. If anything came into focus, he had his trusty notebook and pencil tucked into his pocket, ready and waiting.

He never even noticed the guy approaching. Nor did it occur to him to stop humming. He didn't get embarrassed easy, like some people he could mention. People took him as he was, or they didn't. Quirks and all. Though that had tended to leave him almost friendless most of his life. People had a thing about frowning and squinting their eyes at him when he talked. He got it. He was weird, but, he liked to think, awesome weird.

"Nice tune." The guy had stopped, looking at Kyle. In his hands, he held a stack of papers. "I don't recognise it. Is it new?"

"Oh, hell yeah. Newer than new. So new, the vinyl is still wobbly." That felt like a lie. He scrunched up his forehead, thought about it, and tried again. "It's something I'm working on. I do lyrics."

"Oh? Anything I might have heard?" The guy didn't look ready to walk away, scowling, as most people did. He smiled, instead. That was new. "I'm a bit of a rocker, too. I'm Matthew, by the way."

With a struggle, the guy, Matthew, moved all the papers onto one hand and held the other out towards Kyle. Kyle looked down at the hand and nodded his head. It looked like a very nice hand, but he didn't know why the guy, Matthew, showed it to him. He nodded again. Then it dawned on him and he rubbed his own hand on his jeans and grabbed the guy's hand, shaking it a little too hard.

"Kyle." Once he ended the shaking, that lasted a little longer than Kyle figured was necessary, he moved that hand to his pocket, took out his notebook and waved it in the guy's face. "Tell me what you think of this."

"I wish I was a superhero,
So I could fly you away,
And save you from all of this pain.
But I'm just a man,
Who can't find the words to make things better."

Once Kyle stopped singing, or his attempt at singing, he looked at the guy, hoping for some decent feedback. Tina was cool, but she didn't get lyrics. If he told her it was poetry, she could talk about it, but lyrics had a different rhythm to them, a different timbre. She simply couldn't wrap her head around them.

The guy blinked. His mouth opened and closed a couple of times and Kyle wondered how awful the lyrics must have sounded. Or perhaps it was his singing. Next time, he'd have to get someone else to sing the words. A good singer made all the difference in the world. He raised both eyebrows, urging the guy to give him his honest opinion.

"You have a nice voice." That didn't sound like an honest opinion to Kyle and he gave a little, pouting scowl. The guy coughed and then gave a slow nod. "They're good. A little niche, perhaps, but, yeah, good. I'd love to hear the rest sometime."

The guy had stepped forward, which felt a little like he had broken through a barrier. Kyle had nowhere to back away, so tried to look cool. He hardly liked Tina entering past that barrier, but he tolerated it, because she was amazing.

"Well, you can't." He scratched his head, then flipped a couple of pages over in the notebook, seeing other versions of those words scribbled out with big 'No!'s written at the side. "That's all I've done so far. I'm thinking other verses have stuff like wizards and stuff saving the person, but I'm struggling with how. One day, maybe."

"That'd be cool." The guy looked up and down the corridor as though searching for something. "I've seen you around with that girl. The one that thinks coming to class is a suggestion. She not around?"

"Tina? Yeah." He hooked his thumb towards the office down the corridor. "She's getting a bollocking right now, but she'll be out soon if you want to talk to her."

"No, I was just wondering ... I mean, you and her, you're together a lot." Now the guy dipped his head as though he were the one that had embarrassed himself by singing badly. "Are you two, like, together? Or something? I don't know. Like, going out?"

That seemed to come from nowhere and Kyle found himself scowling again. He had never thought about it. That he and Tina spent that much time together. Yes, they had the same classes, mostly, and, yes, they ate lunch together every day, and, yes, they went to Brownies together, every day (pretty much), and ... come to think of it, they did spend a lot of time together. But, going out? That almost made him laugh. In fact, he did laugh. He felt the idea deserved it.

"God! No!" The guy looked confused and Kyle flapped the hand holding his notebook, dismissing the idea. "She's like ... imagine a sister, but, like, one that is brilliant, not annoying. You know, a sister that you actually like hanging around with, not one that torments you and thinks you're weird, because who wants a sister like that hanging around all the time? No-one. No-one wants that."

"Okay." It looked like the guy wanted to laugh, or at least chuckle, but he seemed to hold it in well. Kyle liked that. Liked people with a good sense of humour. Like Tina. "So, not your thing, then?"

"Nah." He thought about laughing again, but that might border on over-kill and, maybe come close to 'really weird'. He clamped his mouth closed.

With a little nod to himself, the guy looked around, finding a set of chairs further up the corridor. Not the ones Kyle had sat on and he wondered why he'd stood against the wall when there were a perfectly good set of chairs he could have slumped on to while he waited. The guy put his pile of papers down and then came back to Kyle. His arms must have become tired.

With a little smile, looking up at Kyle from under a fringe of hair that dropped over one eye, they guy took Kyle's notebook from his hand and his pencil. Using his thigh to rest upon, he wrote something down on a clean page when he could have found a page earlier in the book with enough space to write on. He only wrote one word and a number, anyway.

"Call me, sometime." He gave Kyle the notebook back and then headed back to his pile of papers, talking over his shoulder. "We could go for drinks? Maybe you can sing some more of your songs?"

"Sure. Cool. Cool." Kyle tapped the notebook against his forehead in a salute as the guy began to saunter away, looking back at almost every step. "Tina doesn't like meeting new people, but she'll be fine. We'll probably catch you in Brownies, yeah?"

"That's not ... I ..." The guy had stopped, half-turning, shaking his head. Then he sighed, for some reason. "Yeah. Brownies. Bye."

As the guy disappeared around the corner, Kyle felt quite happy with himself. His mum kept telling him he needed more than one friend and it looked like he'd hooked another. He doubted the guy would turn out as well as Tina, but he couldn't be that bad. Score another for rock bringing people together! He lifted the Motorhead t-shirt to kiss and realised it needed washing.

Down the hallway, he heard the unmistakeable sound of an ominous door opening. He took one last look at the number and name on the notebook page before flipping it closed and tucking the notebook back into his pocket. 'Matthew', the guy was called. Who knew?