How To Rule Your High School

Chapter 21: Band Practice

     "I shouldn't be doing this,"

     "Stop it," Ethan said flatly, for the fiftieth time that night.

     "I just need a second," I said, pausing in my tracks and looking down the street to the house at the center of the congregation of parked cars.

     "This is the third time we've stopped," Ethan said, getting visibly annoyed with me as he adjusted the guitar strapped to his back, "Do you want me to drive you home or are you going to suck it up and just come with me?"

     Okay, so maybe this was all my own fault, but I was starting to regret having called Ethan at all. Despite my refusal that day at school, Brandon had showed up later and had continued to pester me to go to Crystal's party with him and Brett. I was so desperate to avoid an A-lister gathering that I'd asked Ethan for help, only to have him tell me to "be ready in 5 minutes. Don't wear anything too nice."

     Whatever that meant.

     Now we were here, in a part of Clairview I'd rarely visited where the smaller houses crowded together on smaller lots or in other words, a place that I never dreamed I'd be spending my evening. Little did I know, Ethan played guitar in a band and had been on his way to a rehearsal slash get-together when I'd phoned for assistance.

     "There's no need to yell," I said huffily, shoving my hands into my coat pockets.

     "You're the one who wanted an out," Ethan shrugged, "And if you want the antithesis to the popular kid party, well, this is it,"

     I fought from rolling my eyes. He'd harped on and on about how I had to "give people a chance" and "let go of your misconceptions". But try as I might, it was hard to change up my thought process from the years of being an A. In fact, I'd been sure Ethan was about to kick me out of his car halfway across town when I told him I wasn't looking forward to spending my night with "a bunch of losers".

     "So what exactly am I supposed to do while you're practicing?" I asked, kicking a rock across the sidewalk. It skittered into the gutter by the side of the road, throwing dancing shadows in the hazy orange streetlamp light.

    "Listen," Ethan said. I gave him a shove and he shot me that annoying lopsided grin of his.

     "Is it anything that I'll actually want to listen to?" I persisted, mentally bracing myself for a night of auditory torture.

     "Don't worry Buttercup, you'll hate it," Ethan grinned, reaching over to give my nose a little tweak. I batted his hands away.

     "Just my luck," I muttered. We passed one final shitbox car in the myriad of shitbox cars along the street as we came to the teeny weeny little house.

     All right, fine, so it wasn't teeny weeny. It was...I don't know, average? It was a little two-storey thing with half a porch out front and an old Corolla in the driveway. The house was crowded between its neighbors, just like every other house along the street, and was too close to the curb for my liking. But hey, that's what you get when you cross the bridge into the other part of Clairview, the one my old friends used to pleasantly ignore.

    "This is it?" I asked, surveying the house from the curb.

     "Yes, Madison, this is it. Welcome to the rest of Clairview," Ethan said, pausing briefly beside me before jogging up to the door. I joined him as he rang the doorbell, feeling the most uncomfortable I've ever felt in my life.

     "Duuuuude, you made it!" said a guy with shaggy brown hair that hung down around (and most of the time in) his face. He did the whole macho, "I'm-a-real-man-who-handshakes-THEN-hugs" thing with Ethan, then ushered him inside. Apparently I hadn't been noticed.