True to You

Genius

1999

Elliot nearly jumped out of her skin at the sudden intrusion of a body into her personal space. Pressing a hand to her pounding chest she took a moment to recover her breath before turning to Jimmy who'd flung himself down beside her and wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

He plucked the headphones from her ears and asked, "Whatcha listening to?" Without waiting for her to answer he clapped them over his own ears. His eyes grew wide as he listened. "What the fuck is this?"

"In A Gadda Da Vida. Seventeen minutes of tripped out rock glory. You get to the drum solo yet?" she nudged him. She'd stolen the CD from her dad who'd played it every Sunday morning throughout her childhood saying that the organ solo was the closest you'd ever get him to a church. She watched Jimmy as he closed his eyes and nodded along with the song. He was right, he really was different and that was definitely not a bad thing. Eventually the song finished and he extended a long finger to punch the off button on her Discman.

"I like your taste in music Elli," Jimmy grinned approvingly.

"Yeah?" It was hard to keep the neediness out of her voice. She really wanted Jimmy to like her. With his crazy laugh and eccentric ideas he wasn't like anyone else she'd ever met before. He was so focused and certain about things that interested him and so completely disinterested and unreliable when it came to things that didn't. Jimmy was the guy that she really wanted to be her friend. Not that she didn't have friends already back home, she had plenty, it was just that none of them really got her. She had fun, she socialised but none of them were her people. Over the last week she had developed a strong feeling that Jimmy could be her people.

"Oh yeah, you listen to some cool stuff. What else have you got in there?" he reached for the messenger bag she'd taken to carrying along with her and dug inside for her CD wallet. Unzipping it he flicked through the leaves nodding or commenting here and there until he slid a CD from its sleeve and said, "We have to listen to this. Pantera? Cowboys From Hell? Hell yes I say!" He made gimme fingers in her direction until she popped open the Discman and passed him the Iron Butterfly disc and slotted in the Pantera one. He slid the headphones back over his ears and lost himself in the music.

Elliot knew she should have been annoyed that he'd commandeered her music, if Brian for instance had done the same thing she'd have been wild with fury, but instead she just watched him, enjoying his immersion in the music. Her smile grew wider the longer she watched and waited for the moment when he realised that he was the only one who could hear anything.

Nodding away he turned his head toward her and only looked slightly abashed as he took in her grin and the gently mocking look in her eyes. His lips curled up into a smirk as he pulled the headphones off and handed them to her. The sound of the music pouring out of the headphones into the afternoon was loud but couldn't compete with the racket pouring out from the garage. She jammed her finger on the stop button.

"We should try listening to that on a proper stereo system sometime," he said as he drummed his fingers on his knees.

Elliot liked the sound of that, it wasn't a question, it was a statement of fact. Like he'd already made the decision that they were friends, like she wasn't still auditioning for a part as someone in his life. "We really should," she agreed.

Jimmy looked around, "Why are you sitting out here?" Out here was the path that ran down the side of Matt's parents' garage and led to a gate into the backyard. Elliot's legs were stretched out in front of her, her back was pressed up against the brick of the garage wall and as she'd listened to music she'd been alternating between reading and watching the cat from the house next door prowl up and down the fence between the two houses.