I'm a Fallen Angel

Chapter Two

Weeks passed by and Hayden's presence in my life almost immediately brightened my days. It was easier to wake up in the morning, knowing that I would get to see my best friend that day. It was a strange new feeling, being excited to get on the bus and go to school. Every day I couldn't sit still in homeroom as I waited for him to walk through the door. And when he did, an ear-to-ear grin would spread across my face as well as his. Even my parents noticed the change in my attitude. They mentioned it at dinner one night.

"You seem a whole lot happier these days Angel," Andy, my dad, mentioned, seemingly out of the blue. My mom, Danni, agreed with him.

"Have you started making some friends? I know it hasn't ever been that easy for you," she asked sympathetically.

"Uh... yeah. I have made one actually," I said nervously.

"That's awesome! What's her name?" Danni asked excitedly.

"Well actually, his name is Hayden. He's alternative, just like us." I described him to them and told them all about how he was treated like shit in his old school, much like myself, and how his family had to move to the United States for his dad's job. Before I knew it I was going on about how he made it easier to wake up in the morning, how our meaningless talks about nothing in particular meant the world to me, how I was once again excited to go to school. I told them about how I already felt comfortable enough to share my insecurities with him, and that he told me about his own in return.

By the time I was done talking my parents were speechless, not knowing that I could come out of my shell so quickly to someone who I'd only known for a few weeks. It took them a while to find words. "Well," Danni started, "I'm happy that you two have made such good friends in such a short amount of time. Just remember though, some people may not be who they seem to be at first." Andy nodded in agreement.

"You've only known this boy for three or four weeks, don't be too quick to trust him completely," he added.

I gave them both a small glare. Like most parents, neither of them understood. Sure, they understood my style and my troubles, because they too had been and still were a part of the alternative community, or what was left of it rather, but I finally had a friend after all these years that I felt like I could trust with anything. Why couldn't they just be happy for me?

I quickly finished my dinner, washed my dishes, and then excused myself to my room. I wanted to Face Time Haydon but I knew that he was at his guitar lesson. He had them every other day after school until eight. I looked around my bedroom, my wandering eyes landing on my closet door. I walked over to it, kicking various pieces of clothing and magazines out of my way. I swung the door open and pushed my hanging clothes aside, reaching to the back corner and feeling around in the darkness, the sunlight shining through my two windows providing little help. Finally, I felt what I was looking for and pulled out the old blue and black marbled American Special Strat.

It was the first electric guitar my mother had ever owned, bought for her by my uncles the day she left her life behind to join Black Veil Brides on tour to escape her abusive father. As my fingers gently ran down the dusty, old, unchanged strings, the story as my mother had told it rushed back into my mind like a waterfall.

It was almost twelve o'clock midnight by the time I made it home. My hand clutched the ticket like before, but for a very different reason this time.

I made sure that my father's car wasn't in the driveway before entering the house. I slowly made my way up to my room and flopped down on my bed. I pulled the ticket out of the back of my phone case and read the note for the fifteenth time, still not believing that Andy Biersack had given me his number willingly.