lLfe as we know it •

#1

            Andy
                    
groaned as quietly as I could possibly manage and turned off the obnoxious alarm clock beside my bed, which had been beeping its hideous little siren song for the past ten minutes. I pulled myself out of bed, stretched, and wished really really hard for a nuclear bomb to kill us all.

I tried to stand up, stopped and winced in pain. I had to grab my side before I could properly stand, deciding I'd assess the real damage later and for now ruling it off as a liability injury. Andrea Hills. If she called me that one more time, I was going to puke.

The voice that had called had been mom's so I knew I had better get up right now. There wasn't really a choice in the matter.

I opened my wardrobe, yawning sleepily. Red converse... nah, not today. I needed a longer shirt, and my red jeans had to have the blood washed from them, so I shrugged and picked out something of a childish manner in purple and black. Hot Topic, eat your fucking heart out, I thought, doing a stupid dance that was sort of almost ironic when you considered the situation I was in as a whole. Almost all of my wardrobe was red, both a mockery and a compliment to my fire-engine coloured hair.

This outfit wasn't red, but it would fit nice and loosely and hopefully not put too much pressure on my fresh bruises.

Yeah, yeah, okay, I had a thing with the 3 colour red. A slight affinity, even. Could you blame me? Red was my favourite colour.

I straightened my hair, considered doing my makeup and laughed at the prospect of having to stare at my own eye lashes until they were soot black, grabbed my iPod and headed out the door.

"Get in the car, fatass, I'm driving you."

I didn't look at my mother as I passed her, instead just walked to the kitchen and mumbled, "breakfast."

"No," She said. "You don't need the extra calories. Now, get in the car, I'm driving you and Rebecca today."

sighed, and climbed in the back seat next to my sister, who looked almost as sleepy as me. Rebecca. No, fuck. She hated that. Rocket, was exactly ten months younger than me, and looked like she'd been birthed from a catalogue of exotic Romanian women and devil-may-care punk chicks all at once. Long, black hair that she always wore straight in choppy layers. She had brown eyes instead of green like mine. She had never not gotten the object of her affection that she was after, should there be any. They were mostly guys, though I knew on some occasions she had been inclined to kiss more than a few of the preppy little sugar-mouthed sweethearts who came from expensive grade schools and thought that high school was going to be a lot more fun than it ever ended up

being. Bored. She didn't love any of them, but she sure as hell liked to drag them into Janitor's closets. I didn't care of the power she had over boys, though; Rocket knew I was gay.

I turned up my iPod as loud as it would go and settled back in to my seat, closing my eyes as an All Time Low song started to play.

I'd say that music was my life, but I didn't want to be one of "those" people. Music was definitely a large part of my life, however, as it let me drift away from my harsh reality... God, that sounded emo. I wasn't emo, I was...I think the term was clinically depressed? I didn't know. I had a habit of thinking far too much and I knew the names of all of the gangly-legged boys who worked in the music stores. I hung out with stoners and wannabes for the pure with stoners and wannabes for the pure thrill and made fun of hipsters despite pretty much being one.

02:20

6

I listened to about a million different genres and hadn't yet found one that I hated, though I couldn't honestly say that I loved all of what they played on the radio. I was more in to college rock and boys who wore war-paint and screamed words I couldn't always understand. I had a thing for drums.

We got to school, and Rocket and I jumped out of the car just in time to avoid being run over by our psychopathic mother. When the car was gone, we simultaneously flipped it off.

We grinned at each other half-heartedly, and made our way inside.
Every high school group had another group that existed specifically to hate them, and in the case of my friends and I, that group was made up of a girl named Danielle and her best counterparts, the overusers of slurs and bad grammar. There was a chorus of mumbles from said group upon my entry, like, "Lez," "Emo slut," And my personal favourite, "Emo whore-bitch-face" as we entered, and instead of ignoring them I nodded along like they were lyrics to my favourite song, shooting thumbs up and wry smiles at the people who thought they were cooler than me as I skipped my way over to greet Kim and Damien.

"Hey," I said, and Kim turned to me, eyes wild with excitement.

"Oh my gosh did you hear?!"

Kim was a wannabe and we both hateu ne same kind of people.

I frowned. "No?"

She hugged me tightly, and I choked, out of breath. "Kim! Can't. Breathe!"

"Oh," She let me go and giggled, childish and too cute for her own good. "Sorry." Bubbly little blonde girl, Kim had all the potential to be the most talked about piece of ass in school and all the spunk to pull off her own nonchalance anyway.

I shrugged. "S'okay. So, what's this apparently awesome news?"

Kim beamed. "Guess who's performing live at the Just Let Us Scream festival?" Up until now,, I had been so completely happy with not knowing what the name of the festival I was attending was. 9

"Who?" I asked, narrowing my eyes. We'd been waiting for this festival for months.

"Green Day!" She screeched, her voice breaking a bit.

"Oh my god! That's awesome!" I laughed. "Wow! We get to see them live?!"

She nodded. "Uh-huh. But that's not the best part! Just. Ee! Picture every glam punk band you've ever known. Are you picturing it?"

"I'm picturing it."

"Fall Out Boy."

"Fucking. Fall Out Boy! And I'm 99% sure that Black Veil Brides are making an appearance, and-"
Damien shushed her, patting her face. It was always funny when he did that, because it was so affective and it really shouldn't have been. Kim shut up, eyes glazing over, and smiled.

"Is this, like, some dream concert I haven't heard about?" I asked dazedly, directing it at Damien since he was the sane one. Stoner. Forgot where he lived last Christmas and woke up two cities from here in some family's backyard with a phone full of missed calls from his parents. He was 19, repeating senior year, and notorious for just about everything. He was the sane one.

We all jumped up and down like the idiots we were then, and then the bell went and we hurried off to first period, beaming.

At least there was one certainty I could hold on to, to get me through the mundane repetitions of math class. Tomorrow night was gonna be awesome.

              ****