I'm With the Band

01. GIRL IS A GUN

"Sawyer?"

I blink out of my daze, suddenly aware of Ms Breslin glaring at me. "Uh, which question are we up to?"

She inhales slowly, her eyes rolling behind the thick lenses of her glasses. No one wants to spend sixth period on a Wednesday in a maths class, let alone a class of seniors who could not give less than a shit about passing the class. With a sigh, she says, "Question 4a. How would you work it out?"

My eyes dart across the room, to the interactive whiteboard. Thank goodness I've already done this question. Nonchalantly, I explain, "Find the derivative of the equation, find when x equals zero, then sub that back into the original equation."

"Great. And what answer did you get?"

"Twice the square root of seventy-nine."

Ms Breslin sets her hands on her hips, her lips pressing together. "Mm, not quite." Her patience is wearing thinner by the second, and my stupidity is not helping.

But her job is to force me to try. Her job is to say, "Don't worry, you're not dumb, you're just behind the rest of your cohort. You've got potential if you just keep applying yourself. There's no way you'll make it anywhere near the top, but at least you'll graduate. And that would make the school look a lot better." Just plain bullshit.

I don't pride myself on being the smartest. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that I'm awful at maths. But being wrong has never been an option for me. So, I've never been one to put up my hand in class–you're never wrong if you never try.

Of course, in doing her job, Ms Breslin proves me wrong again, leaving me to feel as if I've just swallowed seventy push pins. And I swear, I'm not even going to try next time. Next time, I won't even dignify her question with an answer. I'll just shrug and stare blankly. At least I'm not dropping out of high school, right?

Or, perhaps, it's just a matter of time before I stop trying altogether.

***

I find Cara leaning against my locker barely a minute after the last bell of the day. Once I'm within a metre of her, she looks up from her phone screen and flashes me a grin. "Guess what?"

"What?" I mutter, roughly putting books from my locker into my backpack. I can already tell from her intonation that I'm not going to like her idea, even if she proposes watching Hairspray again. But Cara's current excitement is too much even for our favourite musical.

"I got us tickets to Astronomical Dawn on Friday!"

"Who?"

Cara repeats, "Astronomical Dawn—that band you really liked? You know, the one we saw at Morey's in December?"

"Not a clue."

"Yes you do!" she persists indignantly. "You loved their cover of Balaclava and T-Shirt Weather?"

I shrug. "I don't remember. Maybe I had too much to drink."

Truthfully–and rather unfortunately–I remember that night in its entirety. I remember standing in my closet, milling over what to wear, I remember doing up hair and lacing up my boots. I remember the half-glance that Tony threw me as I was clasping a necklace in the bathroom mirror, the only time he looked at me the entire night. And I remember the stinging annoyance that accompanied his lack of attention.

I remember sitting shotgun, playing one of my playlists, and I remember the first song—Balaclava by Arctic Monkeys. As the bassline filled the car, the fingers on my left hand curled instinctively into an imaginary bass as I played along to the song. Tony wasn't a fan of Arctic Monkeys. He'd always found them rather boring and tuneless and impossible to enjoy. But he sat through the song in silent suffering, expecting only to have to hear it once.

I remember entering Morey's, dimmer than usual, but packed with far more people than ever. The stench of alcohol and so many bodies was overwhelming but Cara had paid fourteen dollars for the show and a drink. I remember telling myself, one drink, and I'm out of here. But our drinks hadn't even arrived by the time the frontman, Ilias, was onstage.

The moment Ilias Evangelatos took to the stage was unforgettable. Without even saying a word, he commanded the attention of the packed room. It wasn't just his ruggedly good looks that were captivating, but some invisible aura that seemed to intoxicate the audience. We clung to his every move–the small shake of his head to toss aside his stray strand of hair, his hand drawing the microphone closer to his lips, the small inhale preceding his first words. "Good evening, ladies and gents," Ilias had said with a grin that set my heart racing. His voice glided a low register, possibly from already having sung so much in his practice. "Thank you for having us tonight. We are Astronomical Dawn."

"More like an astronomical failure," Tony had joked. "These guys have nothing on us." I laughed along half-heartedly, trying to convince myself that he was right.

But I remember quickly being proved wrong.

"Whatever," Cara huffs. "I have tickets for their show on Friday at Nineteen Eighty-Four, and we're going."

I slam my locker shut. "No fucking way."

Nineteen Eighty-Four is a rooftop bar and one of the most difficult venues to book for anyone—let alone a band of teenagers. I'd only gotten as far as submitting a performance application for Nocturnal Ghosts before being rejected. The fact that Astronomical Dawn had survived the application, interview and audition rounds is impressive, to say the least.

The corners of Cara's lips curl upwards in a Cheshire Cat smile. She takes me by the elbow, tugging me down the corridor. "So you do remember them." She nudges into me, a smug look in her eyes. "C'mon. At least you remember their frontman."

As soon as the image of Ilias enters my mind, I feel blood rush to my cheeks with a flush of heat. Turning away from Cara, I retort sharply, "I don't remember them being any good."

"Well, they're good enough to play on a rooftop bar."

Her quip is instantaneous and forgettable, but it is like an icicle diving directly through my chest. It seems that she realises this too, as she begins to apologise profusely. And I know that Cara doesn't intend to attack me, but why does it feel like her words had been personally directed at me? As if to say, these guys are great. Nocturnal Ghosts suck. And it's all your fault. They were right to have kicked you out of the band.

But it's not my fault at all. It's not my fault that people believe that Astronomical Dawn is better than us. It's not even objectively true. Until the two bands go head to head in some competition, there's no way of saying which is the best.

In fact, if I could somehow make Nocturnal Ghosts better than Astronomical Dawn, it's possible that they'd let me back in before Battle of the Bands. Then, we can prove once and for all that we are better than them.

Which means that my job is to take down Astronomical Dawn by any means possible.