The Melodies of a Misfit [SAMPLE]

Chapter 2

I stood there, a mix of dread and anticipation bubbling inside of me. Had he even heard me? Maybe not. No, he couldn't have heard me. What I said was a mistake anyway. That "yes" was only supposed to encourage him to say his favor, to spit it out. Not to respond much-too-late to the one question I least expected to come out of his mouth.

    "I'm... sorry, what?" I cranked my chin up and to the side, inch by inch.

    "You can? You can sing?" He guffawed, a wide, toothy grin spreading across his face and at once he grabbed at his head. Even in my stupor, my eyes immediately went to the armpit hair. "This is great! Thank you! Thank you. No-- like actually-- thank you." He repeated, looking at me as if I was Gandhi himself.

    "Wait-- no! No, that's not what I--" I was jerked forward, nearly tumbling to the floor as he still had his hand locked on my wrist, pulling me towards the front room of the house. There were significantly less people in the living room than when I first arrived. That all changed within seconds of the mic testing.

    "Aaaaaalright, there were some technical difficulties backstage but things are all good now. Sorry for the wait." Pretty Boy stepped back from the mic and grabbed a guitar that was leaned against the wall, messing with the rounds on the amp.

    The few people left in the room were all dressed similar to him, and looked at me with equally confused expressions. Not liking the attention, I brought my eyes to my off-white laces.

    "Uhhh..." One started.

    "Who's that?" Another finished.

    Pretty Boy was pretty intent on tuning his electric, so it took a good minute before any of us got any acknowledgement. "Our replacement."

    All eyes were on him. The guy with jet hair who stood stoic at the keyboard, the dude plucking at an unplugged bass guitar by the wall furthest from me, and the guy with silvery blonde curls who shot up from the floor in exclamation. "What?"

    The guy leaning on the wall shook his head and resumed plucking. "He's kidding."

The blondie approached Pretty Boy and forced his head in his line of sight. "You are, right? I mean, I know our situation but--"

"But what?" Pretty Boy challenged him with a glare, not a trace of the excitement in his eyes from earlier present, and he backed away.

"Can they even sing?"

How long do they plan to keep talking like I'm not standing right here? I was beginning to feel as though I didn't even exist. Maybe they wouldn't notice if I...

"Where do you think you're going?" The brunette propped his guitar against stairs, the tuners holding the body up between the gaps in the railing.

A tall figure slid into view, blocking my path to the doorway. "Yeah, let's not get hasty now. Don't take what I said to heart."

"Don't go trying to apologize to her! What for? You asked a legitimate question. Listen, can you sing or not? We're not running a circus here. We're on in five minutes." The brunette unclasped his watch from his hand and threw it in his front pocket, rolling the sleeves of his oversized tshirt up so it mimicked the muscle tee look.

There was a lump larger than coal in my throat. I had to force myself to swallow past the gritty feeling to get any kind of word out.

"I can... but what does that have to do with anything?"

The brunette let out a short, hysterical burst of laughter. He sounded like a hyena. "They're kidding, right? This is ridiculous."

"Are you calling me ridiculous?" Pretty Boy directed his glares at him this time around.