My Brother's Band

prologue: a change of scenery

Music was an escape for me. Ever since my parents were murdered while on their second honeymoon in Italy, the only friends I could trust included Joan Jet, Buddy Holly and the Beatles. We didn't really talk much.

Making friends at school wasn't really an option, seeing as I was bounced from family member to family member. They said it was because everyone wanted a piece of someone as 'adorable' but I knew it was because I was a depressed child, and it irritated them.

My parents had died when I was eight, and my brother, older by seven years went off on his own, with his band Burning Embers, to tour. He had his ways of forgetting, and I had mine.

No, I didn't cut. Frankly, it was because the sight of my own blood disgusted me. I was Hemophobic- the technical term for fear of blood.

I didn't drink either. Well, maybe I would, on occasion, if given the chance. But no friends meant no life, and no life meant no partying. Not that I would be a party girl, even if for some strange reason, I did find myself having a life. The music at those parties was ridiculous. I didn't even classify it as music, it was just...noise. No harmony, no chords, no notes, just beat and auto tuned crap mixed with words they called 'rap'.

Bullpoop.

Oh, another thing? I don't like to swear. I don't mind if other people do, really, I don't, I just have some sort of fettish with using other words as replacements.

The trees flashed past the car windows as we sped down yet another long winding highway, in search of my new home.

"So, Haley, I want you to remember you always have a home with us," Pat smiled, tapping on the steering wheel to the beat of a Hedley song on the radio. I believe it was 'For The Nights I Can't Remember' or something. Not too bad of music, but nothing compared to the husky rolls of Joan Jet's voice.

"Mhmm."

Yeah right. A home with them my pa-too-tee. My mother's cousin was glad to be rid of me. When she heard at first that I was coming, she thought of pink walls and girly hair styles, and make up and boys. That, obviously, never happened. She got a girl who wore ripped jeans, band t-shirts, and left her hair blonde in a bun 24/7.

It wasn't that we didn't get along, because we did. It was more that I prefered to be in my room playing guitar and writing music, and she prefered to be getting manicures and talking about clothes. Girly stuff. I was not girly.

Despite this though, I wasn't expecting this. We had gotten along fairly well, and she had taken care of me like a mother. So when she suddenly came and told me I was leaving, needless to say, I was shocked.

Now, for the eighteenth time in nine years, I was being sent to another family member. Hence the zero life

"Who am I going with?" I asked, in a monotone voice, keeping my gaze firmly out the window.

"Well, you might find this unbelievable, because I did, but I came home last Wednesday to find a message on my machine. From your brother." She paused dramatically, before sending me a look. I kept my face strangely composed, though the mention of my brother had me sneering inside. He had abandoned me at my utmost time of need, to go off gallavanting around the world. In my booKs, I was an only child the moment he left without contacting me.

"Oh," I stated, refusing to meet her gaze. "What did he want?"

"He had a proposition. Are you interested to hear it?"

Not particularly.

"What was it?"

"Well," Pat began, leaning over to fiddle with the dials of the dashboard. "He started off with saying that he missed you..."

"That's good for him."

"Oh, I wish you wouldn't be so bitter Haley, he is your brother."

"He stopped being my brother the moment he walked out the door when our parent's died," I spat. I pushed away the guilt when I saw her flinch. Hell, she was sending me away.

"Alright," she continued, a few moments later. Her fingers were tightly wrapped around the steering wheel, her knuckles white. Oh this was not going to be good.

"He wants you to come live with him."

Oh hell no.