3 months later...
Mike's POV
The funny thing about high school is that it is one of the least important times of your life yet is given pretty much the most thought. You've seen them, the old guys with beer guts and flecks of white in their beards droning on with a nostalgic look in their eye about the wonders of their teenage years. This age is considered the best in your life. Jesus, how could it get any worse?
Billie and Tré and I had always known the fundamental fact that high school is bullshit. Especially Billie. Music was it for him, he couldn't see himself doing anything else. I couldn't see him doing anything else either. He wanted to drop out from day one of Pinole. I almost felt the same.
However, the problem that was looming ever so conspicuously in the back of all our heads since the beginning of semester wasn't the usual run-of-the-mill growing pains. Yes, you could disagree, as it was surrounding a girl, but it didn't feel like that. It didn't feel like a stupid kinda "girl problem" (whatever the hell that means), it felt like a pretty big fucking problem. And I began to realise the severity of it about a week after a party with said girl who we had stolen away for a night.
Annabel was not like any person I had ever met before. It's hard to explain, but I suppose she had this kind of charming chaos about her, this kind of brightness yet brokenness. There seemed to be something torturing her behind those wide sapphire eyes that flashed with immense energy, regardless of emotion. She was fairly mental. I realised I liked her, but then I also realised that Billie loved her. It sounds fucked I know but I could see it, I could see how he looked at her and how he talked about her and the way his face distorted when I told him I was gonna go out with her. It was bizarre, I had never seen him like that, I had never felt his aura shift so suddenly with her presence. I knew he loved her, and he knew I knew it, he just didn't know that he did himself. I don't know if I'm even making sense.
Anyways, that being said, after the party something had shifted. There's no other way to describe it. All I knew is that suddenly he wasn't showing up to practises, and he wasn't having spiels about how much bullshit is in the world and he wasn't going to Gilman. He just kinda wafted through life, as if a ghost of himself, as if nothing mattered. Well, the difference was that now "nothing" included music and me and Tré. We had both tried in vain to bring this sudden lapse up in conversation, but he didn't respond to anything we said. Just stared ahead, cigarette burning down to his fingers, somewhere far away.
Then after about a month he started to return. He laughed more, he cracked his usual nonsensical jokes and he began to play again. There was still something behind that crooked smile though, some absolute melancholy that would not leave his eyes. Still, a bit of Billie was better than no Billie, and I kept myself from prodding around in his psyche too much before one day, just before the Christmas holidays, he let something surface.
"Have you seen her recently?"
We were sitting in the burrito shop, waiting for Tré and our drinks, relishing in the warmth radiating from the heaters and grill. I realised by his tone and his sudden interest in watching two raindrops race down the window who we talking about.
"Not really. I haven't seen her in music for about a week."
He nodded absently, putting his hand against the window, his print seared there by the cold.
"Did you see the mark on her collarbone?"
That perked my interest.
"What?"
"It's a scar or something..." His voice trailed off, and then our coffees came and the conversation was immediately dropped.
After that, I couldn't get shake an unwavering curiosity concerning a certain mark on a certain girl. Rationally, I knew scars can come from anywhere, but nothing about Annabel had been anywhere close to normal. I didn't see her at school that entire last week until break, but I did see her on the last day, as I was walking lazily through town to get a coffee and saw a recognisable figure, bundled in a coat too big for her, hunched over alone at a booth in the local diner.
"Hello Anna Banana." I tried to say the pet name in the chirpy way Tré had, but it came out in a sad sigh of sympathy, and her wide eyes met mine as I took the seat across from her. The first thing that struck me was how pale she looked, how hollowed her cheeks were, highlighting even further the permanent rings under her eyes.
"Hi Mike.' She said in the same sad tone, but something in that soft, tired voice of hers hinted that she was happy to see me.
"How are you going?" I asked as I waved the waitress down for a coffee. She shrugged, smirking down at her hot chocolate.
"Could be worse."
"Could be better?"
She shrugged again. Maybe.
"You've been away for a bit now. I'm missing our jams in music, although I don't think many of our classmates are."
She cracked a smile at that.
"Been sick."
"Oh."
We both knew she was lying.
"How's Billie?"
"He...could be worse."
A flash of something shone in her eyes then. Guilt, sadness, shame. I had enough sense not to comment on it.
"You guys haven't talked for a while have you?'
She shook her head to confirm. She knew I wanted her to elaborate, but she didn't. I pivoted.
"Excited for Christmas?"
"Not as much as I used to be in the day. What about you?"
"Well I hope Billie gets me some weed and a new E string for my bass."
She chuckled at that, muttering "pot head" under her breath and in that moment I saw a bit of her old self return.
"He misses you."
I don't know why I said it, and the moment I heard those three words leave my mouth I regretted it. Her smile dropped, and her face fell into some tormented state. She stared at a spot in front of her for a moment, before in a whisper I barely heard:
"I miss him too. I barely know him and I miss him."
We sat there in silence for a second or two. I didn't know what to say.
"Hey, Billie said you have a scar on your collarbone?"
I meant it as just another route for conversation, like she'd tell me she'd fallen off her bike as a kid and we'd maybe have a laugh. Nonetheless, I didn't expect her to simply stare at me, her eyes as if she'd seen a ghost. After a moment or two, she seemed to break out of this stupor, and a sad, broken smile eased slowly onto her face.
"You know, on the night of the party, I slept on a bench in that old park near the school."
"Why?"
"Had no other choice. Sometimes you just don't. Please tell Billie that, tell him that sometimes there's no other choice."
Then she got up, and began towards the door, only to stop and turn back to me. Her sapphire eyes were glassy and her smile began to tremble.
"And Mike, maybe after Christmas I'll tell you where I got that scar, and the others, and the ones that will be added to the collection real soon."
And then she left.
A/N hello sorry for not updating (as usual). thanks for 2k (!!!!) and for reading! love me a bit of mikey
