The Darkest Days

5. It Broke

As the competition grew closer, Vanessa found herself on edge. Despite numerous attempts of Audrey to calm her, she remained restless.

That eventually showed when one day suddenly, she picked up a fight with Luke.

Little did she know, that she was starting a series of events that will go down like a domino effect. It may have been big for her now, but later this will be so small.. small yet big, in a way that it kick started or gave birth to something big.

She stormed through the auditorium doors and pushed through the people.

"I'm kicking Luke out of the band. Find a new drummer." She announced.

"You're doing no such thing." One of the backup vocals girl said. "Are you PMSing?"

"He's PMSing!" Vanessa shouted. "I can't have him near me."

Luke barged in. "You can't have me near you? After you throw your childish tantrums, you can't have me near you?" He yelled, making everyone in the room go silent and look at them.

"A tantrum? I'm stressing myself out here over the competition and what do you do? Tell everyone, Luke. Why didn't you receive any of my calls?"

"Because you keep repeating the same things! You give the damn competition too much attention and I'm sick of talking about the same things over and over, Vanessa!"

"If we don't-"

The music teacher interrupted her. "What in God's name is going on here?"

"Ma'am, Luke's not in the band anymore."

"Like hell I'm not."

"Vanessa, what are you talking about?"

"He's not interested in the competition. He thinks it's lame and there's no room for such thinking."

The teacher laughed. "The competition is in two days. Even I can't kick him out."

The boy who provided background vocals spoke, "why don't you two settle this somewhere private? And fast, please?"

Suddenly, there was a crowd of students rushing in. Their teacher came up to them and informed. "They're here to see the rehearsal."

Vanessa put her hands on her waist. "They'll get what they want."

Luke glared at her, challenging her to remove him.

"You can stay then. Consider this your last song." Vanessa said and walked past him. She walked up to the platform and spoke into the mic. "Hey guys, what graders are you?"

"Eighth!" They shouted.

"Cool.. well," she said as everyone took their places, "for today's practice, we're going to perform Hot And Cold by Katy Perry."

The crowd cheered and Vanessa smirked at Luke. He narrowed his eyes at her.

The band players paused, unsure what to do with the tension between Vanessa and Luke.

She clapped her hands. "C'mon guys! Start up!"

They all dispersed and the song started. Luke didn't look up from his drums but she knew that he knew that she was singing it to him.

"We.. used to be.. just like twins, so in sync. The same.. energy.. now's a dead, battery.."

She directly turned to look at him as she sang, "now you're plain, boring.."

He kept it in, finished the song and then stormed out.

Vanessa felt her chest tighten but she kept a neutral face.