girl singing in the wreckage ✰ dave grohl

three

cherry had needed a roommate for a long time-- rent in olympia wasn't cheap, and her bartending gig wasn't exactly paying her a lot. so when the girl with the vibrant streaks of color in her hair sauntered over to the bar and began to converse with her, she popped the question. and the girl said yes.

the girl's name was maxine, but she told cherry to call her max. in all the years of being best friends with cherry, april couldn't recall a single time max talked about herself in depth. she wasn't immersed in herself or in how others perceived her. she was always just there; ready for a party, and always, always, able to handle her shit. maxine fascinated cherry, and when the subject of music came up, her interest was double peaked. 

"you know," cherry began, taking the cigarette max had offered her and lighting it. "i always wanted to start a band. a bunch of scraggly girls who could just jam together and go crazy." she tilted her head back and exhaled the smoke.

"what stopped you?" max asked, keeping her piercing gaze set on the redhead in front of her.

"money, mostly." she replied. "then i got too burnt out and depressed with working a nine to five and having to take care of myself i just kinda gave up on that dream." max didn't break her stare as cherry fell deep into thought.

that night, cherry sat on the front stoop of her apartment building smoking a cigarette as she saw the headlights of a car pull up. max stepped out of it and circled to the trunk, pulling something out. a snare drum, then a crash symbol. cherry put a hand over her mouth as she let out a laugh, and max grinned as she made eye contact with her, making her way up the stairs.

"we're gonna have to make a couple trips."

cherry's apartment was on the bottom floor of the building, and as she plugged her guitar into the fender amp, she was grateful for it's location. got knows she would have been evicted swiftly if their sound traveled all the way down from the top floor. she strummed an E minor and max started drumming a steady beat. when she started picking up the pace, so did max, and they were able to seemingly improvise in a way that made a good sound. 

within a couple of hours, cherry and max were sprawled across the floor, pencils and paper splayed around them in a mess of lyrics and tabs the two had written. they had started jamming by playing covers of punk songs, starting with "too drunk to fuck" the dead kennedy's song. as cherry finished playing the last note, max dropped her drumsticks and broke into a round of applause.

"why you ever stopped playing is fucking beyond me, cherry." she spoke, making her way over to the redhead. "you're amazing."

---

"so, you guys met yesterday, she moved in, and you started a band?" april spoke into the blue phone attached to her wall, curling the long chord around her fingers. cherry had just finished giving her the run down of the past 24 hours.

"yeah, basically." cherry replied with a laugh. "it's definitely not the most impulsive thing you've seen me do before."

"oh, this doesn't even make it into the top five, red." april smirked, and cherry could practically hear it through the receiver.

"you should come over-- we can jam like the old days." cherry spoke with a dreamy nostalgia in her voice. april smiled at the memories of them when april was a freshmen in highschool and cherry was a senior. 

the two had met in their shared guitar class, immediately hitting it off and becoming fast friends. cherry didn't give a shit that april was a freshman, and april didn't put cherry on a pedestal, or look at her differently because she was a senior. that was the kind of friendship they had. 

after cherry had graduated, april's highschool life had significantly gone downhill. a string of shitty boyfriends, loneliness from a lack of friends, and the crippling insecurity that weighed down on most girls her age. april starting smoking in sophomore year, and after she started, she didn't stop. she had grown up looking out of her bedroom window after dinner, as her father smoked marlboros on the porch, the scent of them wafting up to her and providing her with an odd comfort.

she supposed that smoking them provided some sort of nostalgic warmth to her-- the smell reminding her of her father. their relationship was never super stable, but sophomore year was when it went off the deep end. 

april would often wonder if her dad still loved her. it had been years since he had said it, and she knew in her heart that she was to blame. she was a shitty daughter. but in her young mind, the relationship was too far gone to be worth fighting for. and so, she didn't. each one of her rebellions was in some way an excuse for her to get some sort of her father's attention. but it was never in the way she wanted.

"that sounds great, red. i'll come over in a bit." she spoke with a smile, softly, as she feared her voice might break. 

"yay!" cherry exclaimed, grinning in excitement on the other end, not being able to see the sullen expression on her best friend's face. "i'll see you soon!"

april put down the receiver, walking to her bed and sliding down to the ground, leaning against it. and she cried. she cried and cried, letting every emotion she had been letting simmer for the past couple of years come to the surface. sobs shook her body and she tilted her head backward, looking at the ceiling. 

she shut her eyes tight, hoping that when she opened them she would be somewhere else. and open and empty field, with only an abundance of flowers and grass-- no people anywhere. and she opened them and was once more faced with reality. she stood up, making her way to the vanity mirror on her dresser and wiping the tears from her cheeks. she grinned widely, though it didn't spread to her eyes, which were still glassy and red with tears.