If you’ve been following me for a while, you probably know I’m writing a story. In fact, you might remember my first few attempts to share this before I chickened out and stopped posting new chapters. Maybe you remember Stairway to Heaven, which is kind of a prequel to this one. But I’ve basically been sitting on this completed story for several years now — I started writing this in high school after all! I feel like I’m finally ready to let this creation loose in the world. It’s all here, the entire first story arc for the Venona series (and yes, I’m planning a few more installments at least, if my ADHD cooperates). This is huge because this is the first “book” I’ve finished as an adult. I felt like I couldn’t start anything new until this story was out there. As always, if you like what I write here, feel free to share it. I hope you grow to love these characters as much as I do!

FOREWORD

​The year was 2008. It was a halcyon year for absolutely no one, a time when MySpace was serious business, “rawr” meant “I love you,” and the American automotive industry was dying a slow, cruel death. Detroit had devolved into a bleak hellhole, and the suburbs to its south, known as the Downriver community, had become little more than an industrial wasteland.

​It was against this charming backdrop that the band Venona was crapped into existence.

See, I’ve always found myself most intrigued by artists that fell through the cracks of public memory, the ones who found themselves on the cusp of rock-stardom and all its trappings only to recede quietly back into obscurity. The ones who faded away, yet never burned bright enough to even have the option of burning out. After decades of industry turnover and snuffed dreams, popular music is brimming with such “almost-beens.” Venona was just one bloated carcass on the mountain of musical casualties, but having followed their rise and fall through many years, I consider myself most qualified to pen this little memoir, or at least curate the anecdotes you will find here, including many of the writings of the band members themselves. The events recounted in this book are lovingly edited and fact-checked by yours truly to ensure accuracy. Everything in here is true, or at least as true as it needs to be.

​Throughout the years they spent together, Venona experienced many close brushes with fame, but never amassed a significant amount of popularity. These days, the band is mostly forgotten — until now. My aim is not to revive the career of this band. To be honest, the world isn’t missing out on much by not knowing who they are. Musically, they’re average at best, and almost laughably generic. That’s not the point of this small collection of personal stories. Rather, my one goal is to preserve their story to the best of my ability, before all chances to document it have vanished. The saddest stories are the ones that are left to be irretrievably forgotten.

​To be fair, Venona never set out to make a mark on the world, and — probably for the best — they never did.

***

PROLOGUE

Alex

​I never planned to watch my entire life, future, and dreams literally turn to ash from the second story of a shitty motel, but there I was, clad in only boxers, staring out the cracked window at the billows of smoke.

​The air reeked of piss, vomit, and mildew. A menagerie of half-empty booze cans — some of them spilled — littered the rough, speckled carpet (which looked like it hadn’t been replaced since the construction of the building). Casey, Leo, and Shawn were on one of the two guest beds in a tangle of limbs and blankets. Kit was curled up in the bathtub, his mess of wild curls obscuring his face. Brooke was…passed out on the floor, maybe? Charlie was nowhere to be seen.

​I didn’t remember a whole lot about how I got there. It felt like one moment, I was there in the crowd watching Billy’s band, and in the next, I was half-dead and lying in a puddle of my own puke, which had soaked into the garish comforter covering the bed. There was an overwhelming sour taste in my mouth. At that point I would have severed my own pinky toe with a nail file for a toothbrush. And my freaking head. Everything was spinning.

​What the hell had happened?

​Outside, emergency responders were still circling the taped-off property next door like flies on a corpse. The sun began to peak over the top of the buildings, casting a pale, pink, somewhat unsettling glow over the scene. Suddenly, the door to the motel room flung open, and Charlie’s unmistakable voice filled the room.

​Only instead of her typically cheerful tone, her voice was dripping with sheer, unbridled rage.

​“Alex,” she said, almost too calmly considering the harshness in her voice, like she was one thread away from going on a murderous rampage. She was holding a rolled-up News-Herald, boasting a photo — one of the recent promo shots of the band. “We are in deep, deep shit.”

​We were Venona, and this time, we really screwed the pooch. Hard. With something large and sandpapery.

***

CHAPTER ONE

Alex

​When I was a child, my father gave me one piece of advice that shaped my entire perspective on life.

​“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he said, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

​Years later, I realized that line was an exact quote from The Great Gatsby and felt incredibly dumb.

​You see, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but you could say one was forcibly shoved in there shortly thereafter. As infants, me and my sister, Amy, were adopted from a third-world country (well, Ohio, but that didn’t look as nice on the press releases). My father, John Alexander Aponte II, was heir to the Aponte Rubber Co., living comfortably off the family’s tire fortune for years. We had a very not-humble home in Bloomfield, one of the posh, upscale suburbs north of Detroit. I attended a prestigious prep school, where I maintained a 4.0 (a 4.12, counting the AP courses) and played on several of the athletic teams. I had a sizable trust fund set aside for my future college endeavors, where I’d pursue medicine, or perhaps law or whatever else rich kids end up studying. And there was, of course, my beautiful girlfriend, Katie, whom I had every intention of marrying and sharing my own perfect white picket fence life with.

​I realize I sound perfectly punchable at this point, and you’d be absolutely right. Don’t worry — things get much worse in a few paragraphs, I promise.

​You see, I had a lot going for me, much more than I honestly deserved, but my first love was always music.

​After spending years performing for an audience of Michael Jackson posters and Star Wars figurines, I decided to enter a middle school talent show with three classmates and one hastily thrown-together Blink-182 cover. Against all odds, we won. We dubbed ourselves Five Minute Drive, and a few short years and dozens of all-ages gigs later, a handful of labels began to take notice.

​Yet nothing prepared me for the three little words that completely derailed my charming life.

​“We’re cut off.”

​Indeed, after the automotive industry crash and the bankruptcy of the family’s once-lucrative tire company, my father was left without a steady source of income and a way to finance our family’s lavish lifestyle. Thankfully, my grandfather graciously let us live in his waterfront condo in Trenton, one of the Downriver communities, at least until we got back on their feet.

​And it was there that my life would take a turn for the weird.

***

​“The air smells like farts.”

​Amy was brimming with complaints as always as she mindlessly kicked a rock on the ground. A few steps behind her, I glanced nervously around the crowded parking lot. Not wanting to let their darling children attend a plebeian public school, my parents enrolled us in Triumph Academy. Had they taken the time to do their research, though, they would have realized that Triumph Academy was neither triumphant nor academic. Rather, it was the free charter academy you went to after being kicked out — or bullied out — of every other school in the Downriver region. Nestled between a landfill, a highway, and a sketchy flea market, Triumph was a stark contrast to the classy prep school I had become accustomed to.

​A vibration jarred me from my thoughts. Katie. Sighing, I read the small text on my custom gold flip phone:

FROM: Katie (Sent 7:32 am)

Hey sweetie, have a good day at ur new school ❤

​I smiled and for a moment, the world seemed a little more bearable, but my happy little reverie was interrupted by a swift fist to the face.

​“Hey, it’s that new kid!”

​And those were the last words I heard before waking up face-down on the asphalt.

***

​The last place I expected to end up on the first day of school was the principal’s office. There, I was sandwiched between a young man who definitely reeked of a certain herb and a bottle blonde with an assortment of stick-and-poke tattoos littering the visible parts of her body (which, to be frank, was the majority of her body). Sketchy-looking teenagers funneled in and out of the cramped office, interacting with the rather apathetic secretaries. It was clear nobody wanted to be there. Feeling defeated, I sank into the uncomfortable chair, jostled the bloodied Kleenex that had been shoved into my nostril, and began to sift through my backpack. Of course, my wallet was $40 lighter, and my Pop-Tarts were missing, that monster. And then, through the doors, appeared a spark of life in the form of a small, blithe cheerleader with dyed black hair tied up in a shimmering blue ribbon.

​The girl danced over to the PA while relaying some anecdote from cheer camp to the secretaries, who seemed to hang on her every word. Her voice had a sweet, sing-songy quality.

​“Good morning, Cougars!” she said with a grin. Her poorly concealed freckles stretched across her face. “This is your senior class president, Charlie.”

​I’ll be honest here — I would have never admitted it, being so madly in love with Katie and all that, but I was strangely enthralled by this Charlie character, whoever she was. She began rattling off a list of students for…something or other, every now and then glancing over from the list to me. I couldn’t help but feel a welling up of some kind of emotion in my gut, this knowing excitement that somehow, someday, she would go on to ruin my life in all the best ways. And, as you can probably infer by the fact that I’m describing her in such loving detail, she does go on to play a fairly significant role in this story. But, as I would soon find out, she wasn’t the only girl in that room who’d irreversibly, irrevocably change my world.

​“Ain’t you that kid from Five Minute Drive? ‘Alex’ something?”

​The comparatively raspy voice came from the blonde next to me.

​I shrugged. “Yeah, I mean—“

​“Holy shit dude!” she yelled a little too loud, prompting a glare from the closest secretary. “I saw you guys at the Fillmore a few months back! What are you doing here?”

​There went the blood to my cheeks. “It’s a long story.”

​“We’ve got time,” she replied. “Trust me, these people here are slow as f—“

​“Miss Bueller!” a secretary shouted from her desk.

​The blonde scoffed. “Anyways, I’m Brooke. What’s with all the blood man? First day of school and you already got into a fight?”

​“Not—I mean, uh…somewhat,” I mumbled, realizing how pathetic I would sound admitting I got sucker-punched not even five minutes after getting here. “It was a real…um…close one. What about you? Why are you here?”

​“Just smacked a hoe,” Brooke said, almost humorously nonchalant.

​“Oh, um, that’s…nice.”

​Okay, I was definitely sounding pathetic.

​Brooke looked at me inquisitively through dark mascara-ed eyes. “Didn’t you guys sign with Fueled By Ramen? You’re like, all famous and shit now. Shouldn’t you be on a yacht sucking Pete Wentz’s dick?”

​“Look, Brooke…” I bit my tongue as I struggled to avoid explaining the situation. “I’m not in the band anymore.”

​Brooke scrunched her heavily makeup-ed face in disbelief. “You quit?”

​I really, really didn’t want to tell her the truth about my departure, that it wasn’t entirely on my terms. After I had told my bandmates about my family’s planned move Downriver, I started to get a feeling that I was being “phased out” in a sense. They brought on some kid from my old private school to play rhythm guitar in order to “take some pressure off” of me. Slowly, the lead vocals were being split between him and me. Eventually, I came to find out, Five Minute Drive were playing shows without me altogether, and when I confronted the guys about it, they said they were letting me go because I lived too far away to practice as frequently as they wanted. To be fair, I had a strong hunch that there were darker motives behind their decision. I knew I wasn’t as useful to them without my parents’ financial support.

​One short month after I was more-or-less fired, the band signed a record deal. Their songs — my songs — were all over the local alternative rock station, my own words sung by someone who was little more than a stranger. Since the band had written everything collectively, there wasn’t a lot I could do. The songs belonged as much to the other guys as they did to me.

​In the time since being let go, my guitars languished in the corner of my bedroom, untouched. Perhaps I’d pawn them eventually, or donate them to some needy kid. At least it was better than letting them continue collecting dust.

​“Actually,” I began, unable to look Brooke in the eye, “I don’t really play music anymore. I’m kinda just focusing on school and athletics now.”

​“Seriously?” asked Brooke, arching her painted eyebrows. “That’s a shame.” There was a brief silence, and we looked away from each other before Brooke added, “You know, if you wanted, my band’s looking for a lead vocalist.”

​“I don’t think…”

​“Mr. Aponte?”

​I jolted up when the school nurse said my name. Before I could step away, a hand flew up and grasped my wrist.

​“Here, take this.” Brooke scribbled something on a tissue with a Sharpie from her purse. “Just think about it,” she said, handing me the tissue.

​The sloppy script was barely legible, especially with the marker bleeding through the thin material, but I could read her name and a phone number. I shoved the tissue in my pocket and probably would have forgotten about it. But life is weird. Sometimes, I’ve found, the most insignificant moments are the ones that linger, like unresolved feelings. Or, as my little sister would bluntly put it, a particularly obscene fart.

***

​The rest of the week went by in a huge stupid blur. I didn’t see Brooke again and I had no real desire to change that. I tried to keep a low profile and avoid human interaction until that Friday, which was the first football game of the new school year.

​It was a much-needed reprieve from the monotony of the week (which mostly consisted of ice-breakers designed for first-graders and me desperately avoiding eye contact). We actually ended up winning, miraculously, and no one beat me up. My family even made an appearance, and even though I begged them not to show up, it kind of felt nice knowing they gave a crap. After the game, the team, the cheer squad, and some of the marching band were planning to have a celebratory dinner at Ram’s Horn, a place nobody knows or cares about unless they’re from Southeastern Michigan (and even then, I’m pretty sure most people still don’t care about Ram’s Horn).

​My voice reverberated through the dark, vacant hallways.

​“Guys, I kind of need my shoelaces. This stopped being funny. Guys?”

​At that point I knew I wasn’t going to make the dinner, so I leaned back against a locker and took a breath. Something strange was in the air, though, and it wasn’t the janitor’s cleaning products. It was a faint sound — piano? Who would be playing piano at this ungodly hour? I noticed at the end of the hallway, the band room light was on. As I approached the door, the music became louder and louder. It sounded like something I’d heard before. Curiously, I peeked inside.

​Charlie?

​Still in her uniform, though now with her cheer hoodie pulled over her outfit, she sat at the bench, seemingly lost in her own playing. Her small delicate hands danced gracefully over the keys, drawing out a melody I felt like I’d known my entire life, although I still couldn’t put a name to it. The door closed a little harder than I’d intended, startling her. She looked up, visibly flustered.

​“I’m sorry!” she blushed. “I didn’t realize anyone else was here. I hope I wasn’t being too loud.”

​“No, not at all,” I said, coming a little closer. “It was beautiful, that song you were playing. Was that Elton John?”

​She turned even redder. “Uh…it was…um…Radiohead. I love Radiohead.”

​“Close,” I grinned. “Why aren’t you at Ram’s Horn with everyone else?”

​I sat beside her on the bench. This was the closest I’d ever been to her. Her eyes were even more enthralling up close, a deep, bittersweet brown, brilliant even beside the copious amounts of glitter. She continued to play a little tune absent-mindedly as she smiled at me.

​“I don’t usually go to those things,” she said. “Games are already draining enough. That’s why I come here. There’s something oddly peaceful about this place at night, just letting yourself fall away into the music.”

​I don’t know how late it was before I finally left. Charlie and I talked for what felt like years. She moved to the Downriver area from West Bloomfield, which was near my hometown, following her parents’ divorce a few years prior. I guess her mom got a job as the elementary art teacher for Triumph. She said she actually preferred living here, and that in time I’ll probably like it a lot more as well. I told her I trusted her.

​Back in my room, well past midnight, I broke out my laptop and searched Radiohead’s entire discography trying to find that one song. Nothing seemed to fit the chord progression. Eventually, I gave up and picked up my acoustic guitar instead, for the first time in months, and plucked out the melody from memory. I didn’t realize how much I missed the feel of the strings on my fingertips. It had been a long time since I’d felt anything I couldn’t express in only words. I drifted off on the hardwood floor, guitar in hand.

​That morning, I awoke to the crumbled-up napkin Brooke had given me and a text I’d sent the night before.

TO: Brooke (Sent 4:15 am)

hey, it’s alex

TO: Brooke (Sent 4:16 am)

i’m in

***

CHAPTER TWO

Leo

​I’ll be honest, I did not want anything to do with Alex Aponte when I met him. In fact, my first interaction with him involved throwing my fist directly into his face.

​I still don’t regret it. We ate good at Five Guys that night. The Pop-Tarts were a nice bonus.

​So imagine my surprise when I get to the band room after school and I see that asshole sitting there.

​“Guys, this is Alex,” Brooke said, throwing an arm around him and showing him off the way a newlywed flaunts her ring. “He’s our new frontman. I told him he gets full creative control if he helps us make it in the music business.”

​Shawn rolls his eyes. “Him? The Aponte Rubber Co. heir? I’m appalled you’d associate with such garbage. Alex, you realize your family sent millions of jobs overseas. Your daddy supports slave labor.”

​Casey, bless his little heart, had a much different reaction.

​“Wait, I met you when you guys played the Crofoot last year! Y’all were like, my favorite local band! I got your shirt and everything and sometimes I still wear it to bed and speaking of beds I have your poster right above mine and this is really embarrassing but sometimes I think about you when I—”

​“Don’t scare him away!” Brooke scolded us. “We need him if we ever want to be a legit band. Fetus Slurpee hasn’t seen the outside of this room.”

​Alex visibly cringed. “Hey, um, is that the band name?”

​I chimed in. “What the hell is wrong with Fetus Slurpee?”

​I hated the idea of bringing this complete stranger into our circle. As idiotic as the others were at times, they were my idiots, and heaven help whoever threatened our dynamic. I’d known Casey the longest. We grew up in the same neighborhood and our families had gotten pretty close (well, my family liked him — his family were mostly racist hicks though, so I never bothered). Shawn and I knew each other from the school band, where he played trombone and I played percussion. As for Brooke, she was Shawn’s ex. Shawn dated her in middle school because everyone thought he was gay. As it turns out, Shawn actually is very, incredibly gay, but they remained friends. None of us really cared for her though. She was caustic, critical, sometimes violent, and seldom went a single practice without a tantrum.

​The band was Brooke’s idea, so none of us had the heart to kick her out. And to be fair, we enjoyed playing music together. It was the one thing I had to look forward to. She played guitar and was, up until that day at least, our de facto leader. I played drums, natch. Shawn picked up bass and Casey … Casey was something else. We gave him the role of “unclean vocals” since he could do some pretty okay metal screams, but our band didn’t have any screams. So he didn’t really do anything.

​“Whatever,” I said. “I don’t care. We need to get this over with. Casey and I have to meet … someone after this.”

​“That’s vague,” Alex said. “Are you guys like, drug dealers or something?”

​“No—“

​“Yep!” Casey said, cutting me off.

​“Fine. Casey’s a grower.”

​“And a shower!” Casey beams.

​Alex looks like someone shot a kitten in front of him. “You—I—I was just kidding! I didn’t think—Frick…” He takes out his fancy-ass gold-plated Razr and starts dialing furiously.

​“What are you doing?” I snapped.

​“I don’t feel safe,” Alex said. “I’m calling someone.”

​“No you’re not.” I rip the phone from his hands and set it on top of the projector, which was up way too high for him to reach. Kid was maybe like 5 feet tall, and even that was being generous.

​Alex sat on the riser, defeated. “This is ridiculous.”

​Brooke stood on a chair at the front of the room, commanding all attention to herself, which wasn’t unusual. “Alright, you pieces of shit. We have important things to discuss. I’m sure you all are excited about our upcoming first show in two weeks opening for Arkelly.”

​“R. Kelly?” Alex asked, eyes wide.

​“No, dumbass. The band Arkelly. Shawn’s brother is the drummer. They invited us to perform at their EP release show at the Meltdown. And it’s going to be a huge freaking deal, okay? Their lead singer is Billy Reuben. He made it to the ninth round on American Idol last year, so let’s not screw this up.”

​“Wait, the Billy Reuben?” Alex piped up. “We went to Cranbrook together!”

​“Cranbrook? Alex, you went to Cranbrook?” Just when I thought this couldn’t get any better. “Shawn, it’s Clarence from Cranbrook!”

​Alex was visibly confused. “Clarence? What?”

​“Do you live at home with your parents?” Shawn laughed. “I bet they have a real good marriage.”

​“I feel like you guys are referencing something I don’t—“

​“Shut the hell up, Clarence.”

***

​To the surprise of absolutely everyone involved, our initial session went swimmingly, resulting in the skeletons of a few original songs. As irritating as he proved to be, Alex had a natural chemistry with us. At the end of the evening, we even started making plans for the next time. I was hesitantly excited for this project, although I was enough of a realist to have my doubts.

​“Something’s off about him,” I said to Casey as we walked home from the party store that night. “I don’t trust him.”

​Casey brushed a greasy dishwater-blond strand of hair out of his eyes. “Why not? We get to work with the Alex Aponte! We get to be friends with like, a minor celebrity!”

​“Friends? No, he’ll never be our ‘friend.’ Colleagues at best. But people like him don’t become ‘friends’ with people like us. To them we’re just a pestilence to society.”

​I shoveled a handful of Better Made chips into my mouth as we kept walking. I felt a twinge of guilt, not the kind one usually gets from eating potato chips but the kind that came with how I obtained them. I hated stealing, especially from the quaint little party store down the street, but it had become a method of survival for Casey and me. The second-worst feeling in the world is not knowing where your next meal will be from, second only to not knowing where your family’s next meal will be from.

​My mom used to make enough to provide at least basic meals for us, but she lost her job when the Kmart she worked at shut down, and it wasn’t easy finding another position. As for Casey, after his mother died, his older siblings were put in charge of the townhome, and they were probably the most useless pieces of shit I’d ever met. Casey learned to play Mom quickly, taking it upon himself to cook for his little siblings and provide basic needs however he was able to. This was usually through less-than-legal means, plenty of shoplifting and, of course, our gardening business.

​Back in our neighborhood, the kids were out enjoying the last glimmers of summer before the occasionally cruel Michigan autumn set in. Casey’s younger brother Brandon, who had just turned 10, ran up to greet us.

​“How are you liking that game I gotcha?” asked Casey. “Call of Duty or whatever?”

​“April took it away,” he lamented. “And she threw away your cool plants you always tell me not to touch.”

​“Wait, what?”

​Before his brother could say anything else, Casey stormed into his townhome. I could hear them screaming from outside. Sitting on the steps, I wondered where we could even go from here. Those “cool plants” were important for my family’s well-being but absolutely crucial for his, especially since April and Mike started making him pay rent. If he couldn’t stay with Brandon and his two younger sisters, there wasn’t a guarantee they’d even get taken care of.

​Casey finally huffed back out, the left side of his face an angry red. April and Mike were notoriously aggressive at times. At night I could hear them scream at each other and at whatever flavor of the week was staying with them through the shared wall of our townhouses.

​“They’re such hypocrites, Leo,” Casey said, his eyes watery. “April’s been drinking all day.”

​“Sounds like her,” I said.

​Brandon had wandered off and was now playing basketball with several of the other neighborhood kids, wearing Casey’s hand-me-down Pistons jersey. All he ever talked about was how he wanted to play professionally someday. I was envious of that innocence, to be able to live in this hellhole and not lose that sense of hope. I’d lost it years ago.

***

Alex

​Charlie and I had exchanged numbers and talked frequently throughout the next week. I kept telling myself I wasn’t falling for her, that my fascination with her was strictly platonic, but I couldn’t help but light up whenever I saw her name on my phone. We talked a lot about music, how she spliced together all the music for the cheer routines and occasionally made her own remixes with her laptop. I mentioned that I’d started playing with a band that met after school in the band room, and she seemed interested in checking us out sometime. Fetus Slurpee (or whatever we were gonna call ourselves, ugh) wasn’t exactly my thing, but if playing in some mediocre emo band earned her respect, I was okay with that.

​I did, in fact, invite her to the next practice, not really thinking anyone would mind. After all, she agreed to stay out of the way and not interfere with practice itself. Friday afternoon came quickly and we walked down to the band room together.

​“I see you’re getting along just fine here,” she grinned. “I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

​“I mean, I’m not going to say it’s been easy, but you’ve helped a lot,” I said.

​“Dude, I’ve been there before. I remember switching schools and trying to find my niche. You just have to make the best of it. I was actually kind of excited to get the chance to start over, you know? I didn’t really have a lot of friends at my old school.”

​I laughed. “I can’t see that. You? Not having friends? That’s ridiculous Char. You’re so … cool.”

​“Clearly you don’t know me very well,” she said, and then smiled again as her hand brushed against mine. “But I guess that just means you’ll have to get to know me a little better.”

​I touched her hand. Panic. Immediate panic.

​Thankfully we were at the end of the hallway. Casey, Leo, and Shawn were already in the band room, setting up. Well, Leo and Shawn were setting up. Casey was playing GameBoy.

​“Brooke’s late,” Leo whined, looking up from his drumset. “Again.”

​Shawn’s eyes met Charlie’s, then darted to mine. “Wait, ain’t that Charlie?”

​“Yup” I said. “She’s just here to watch. She wanted to check out the band!”

​“Brooke is going to be fuming,” Leo said disinterestedly, and immediately went back to playing paradiddles on the snare.

​Charlie sat down at the piano bench, probably out of habit, and I took out my phone, stomping out to the hallway. I guessed I had to be the one to yell at Brooke. I furiously typed her name into my contacts.

​“Where are you?” I asked, exasperated.

​Her mouth was clearly full. “Relax, I just got a friggin’ Baconator. Tell the guys I’ll be there in a minute.”

​“This is insane,” I said. “We have the band room for what, two hours, max? And I have someone here who wants to meet you.”

​“Ugh, Alex, you can’t just invite randos to practice. I put you in charge of the band and you already act like you run everything.”

​“I thought that was the point? You wanted me to … Brooke? Did you hang up on me?”

​I sighed, slammed the phone shut, and leaned against the locker until I slid to the ground. This was going to be harder than I thought. Then I heard it. Charlie?

​Back in the band room, Leo, Shawn and Casey were gathered around the piano. Charlie was dancing around, playing “Bennie and the Jets” and screaming along. Her hair bow was on the ground as she whipped her head about. The guys were enthralled.

​“I forgot how good she was at piano” Shawn exclaimed. “She’s amazing!”

​“She can even play that Tupac song!” Casey added.

​While we waited for Brooke for what seemed like an hour, Charlie regaled us with snippet after snippet of whatever song the guys yelled out. She wasn’t just a talented musician but quite the performer as well, jumping and kicking and dancing, channeling her inner Jerry Lee Lewis while never missing a beat. She got along with the others too. At one point she even had Casey sit next to her on the bench, and she tried to teach him some easy four-chord song (he didn’t pick it up that easily, but bless his heart, he tried). But then…

​“What the hell is she doing here?”

​ Brooke.

​“Hey, Brooke!” Charlie excitedly yelled across the room, eyes bright. “I didn’t know you were in Alex’s band!”

​Brooke huffed over to the piano and grabbed Charlie roughly by the hair. “If it isn’t Charlotte Rose Lipschitz herself.” She spat out her full name (that was her full name?!) with enough venom to poison an ocean. “You must be Alex’s special guest.” She then turned to me, not letting go of Charlie, who let out a tiny whimper. “Get her out of here. Now.”

​“Let go of her!” Leo shouted as he leapt across the room. “She’s done nothing to you, Brooke.”

​Brooke was practically steaming with fury. “Oh, so you’re defending her? How cute. Remember, I’m your best friend!”

​“Look, she’s actually kinda cool,” Shawn interjected. “And you’ve been nothing but horrible to us the entire time we’ve known you.”

​The considerably larger Brooke threw Charlie to the ground, the chunk of black hair in her hand proof enough that it wasn’t a light push. “I want her gone. Or I’m walking.”

​“Walk,” I said sternly. “We can find another guitarist. But you do not hurt Charlie.”

​The guys nodded. Brooke turned even redder and ran to the door.

​“I can’t believe you’re choosing this dumb bitch over me,” Brooke said bitterly. “You’ll be sorry, all of you.” And with that, she slammed the door behind her, leaving the rest of us in shocking silence.

​After about a minute, Leo sat back down and took a breath. “Is it weird I’m actually kind of relieved? We’ve been trying to think of an excuse to get rid of her for months now. And now that we have Charlie, I mean…”

​Charlie pushed herself up from the ground. “Wait, you want me in the band?”

​“We mean, if you want,” Shawn said. “We could use another person who actually knows what they’re doing.”

​Charlie’s lips curled into a small smile. “I’d love to.”

***

​Hello again, dear reader. It is I, your nameless, faceless, omniscient narrator. So here we are, with the band that would eventually become Venona finally taking shape. In the time between the practice Brooke left and the following week, Alex and friends were busy distributing flyers to recruit another lead guitarist in time for the Arkelly show. Meanwhile, in Dearborn, an industrial town just north of the Downriver area, another Triumph Academy student, Khaled Hachem, stared down at the tacky lime green sheet of paper.

​Guitarist wanted for pop-punk/emo/post-hardcore project. Contact Alex A. for audition info.

***

CHAPTER THREE

Shawn

​Alex said he recognized the kid who came in to audition from football, although I didn’t see how. He was just barely taller than Alex, with a mess of dark curly hair obscuring a good portion of his face, and appeared nearly skeletal in stature. But he could play. We watched in awe as his long, scrawny hands moved across the fretboard of his white Les Paul. He swayed to the sound, his body almost becoming an extension of his instrument.

​“We’re playing a show in a week,” Alex said after the kid finished. “Are you sure you can commit to this band … uh … Kit Katastrophe?”

​Kit looked up and we could finally see his face. He had dark, brooding eyes and almost feminine features. I would almost go as far as to call him pretty, which feels incredibly weird to write.

​Casey chimed in. “What’s the matter? No habla ingles?” Casey, of course, said this in the whitest way possible, like pronouncing the “h” and everything, which resulted in eye rolls from everybody in the room.

​“Casey,” I sighed, “he’s Arabic.”

​Kit and some other guy were the only people who actually showed up to audition, and the other guy was awful at everything, so Kit was our only real option. This was cemented after Leo threw his shoe at the other guitarist who came in. And so the “classic lineup,” if you will, was complete — Alex, Charlie, Kit, Leo, Casey, and I.

​We had one week to get a six-song set playable in front of other people, so we spent the every school night rehearsing at my place. Alex, Kit and Charlie would all come together after football and cheer practice was over and we’d run over the songs we’d thrown together — a cover of “Lose Yourself” by Eminem, a few Five Minute Drive songs Alex suggested, a song Casey wrote about Captain Crunch which blew chunks, and our first song written all together, “Fiesta Fist,” which was lovingly written to be about absolutely nothing.

​My parents managed a self-storage facility, which was where we relocated. A few years back, a dead body was found in one of the units, so nobody wanted that one. This unit is where we chose to set up our new practice space. Of course, I never told anyone about the dead body. Especially not Casey. Casey’s a frickin’ wimp.

​Here is the part where I’d give some sad backstory about myself, but honestly, my life hasn’t been so bad. My dad’s an elder at a church, but it’s one of the cool Episcopalian ones that accepts us gays. I’m personally an atheist, but I’ve never felt uncomfortable there. My mom’s a former nurse and homemaker and remarkably normal in every way. And then there’s James.

​James is the one sore spot in my life. He was always the golden child, straight A’s, conventionally attractive, ridiculously popular among pretty much everyone, and now that Arkelly was starting to take off, he couldn’t help but be even more of a cocky bastard about it.

​Speaking of Arkelly, Alex had gotten back in touch with Billy Reuben, who seemed to be pretty stoked to work with us. This only exacerbated my fears about the upcoming show. I didn’t want Billy and Arkelly to see how awful we really were. I wanted to hold onto one shred of dignity, and judging by how practice was going, that dignity was not long for this world.

​Thankfully, our new addition of Kit gave me a sliver of hope. Charlie and Alex were talented, but Kit was hardly human. We knew so little about him, not helped by the fact that we’d never heard a word out of him that entire first week. I was beginning to wonder if Casey was onto something about him not speaking English. Or perhaps — the most likely explanation — Kit was just weird as hell.

***

Kit

​My first language was not English or Arabic; it was music.

​I remember my mother bringing me to the doctor as a young child, concerned that I hadn’t yet spoken my first words. I was bored with their conversation, so I crawled from the table to the floor to the waiting room, where a grand piano sat gathering dust. Bringing myself up to the keys, I placed one finger on a key and stretched my hand to reach another key, trying to find something that sounded … right. Soon, my mother and the doctor came rushing out, finding me sitting on the piano bench, plucking out simple chords.

​You see, in Lebanon, there are two things considered more valuable than any worldly possession — family and honor.

​My father was born in Detroit, but he was the son of immigrants. My grandfather took great pride in his heritage and traditions, a trait he was sure to bestow upon my father. My mother was an immigrant herself, leaving her war-torn homeland in search of stability.

​This wasn’t something she discussed much; there are some memories that are better left forgotten.

​For me, music was the force that drove me. Not tradition, like my father, nor stability, like my mother. Not pride, like my older brother Ali, or respect, like Yousef, who was older than us both. I believed that the careful arrangement of sound was more mystifying and powerful than most of what the world had to offer.

​As a child, I remember watching my grandfather lose himself in playing the oud. The way his fingers danced so effortlessly over the strings bewildered and enchanted me. At the age of seven, I stumbled upon a dusty Led Zeppelin record that would change the course of my life. As I listened to the songs, one by one, I was entirely captivated. I begged for months for my father to buy me a guitar until he finally relented. It was a Les Paul, like I’d recalled Jimmy Page playing, except it was the brightest white I had ever seen. That guitar remains my truest friend.

​From the evening I’d first set my eyes on it, I can scarcely recall a memory in which I didn’t have a guitar in my hands. On school nights, I’d stay up until three in the morning, running through scales until I could play them as effortlessly as my heroes. I’d play until my fingers were raw and red. Sometimes, I didn’t let up until they bled. I missed out on a lot of the things Ali and Yousef took part in, but I had no regrets. Nothing was more important to me than the music. It was more than a hobby or a phase; it was the only way I knew how to connect with something bigger than myself.

I immediately fell back into one particular date — I believe it was the first week of school. It was my first year at Triumph. I had previously attended one of the high schools in Dearborn, until circumstances I’d rather not relive forced my parents to transfer me out of the district.

My mother understood that some memories were meant to be forgotten.

As it happened, I rested in my room. The wood-paneled walls were far from bare, adorned with colorful vintage Zeppelin posters, vinyl records, and pictures of the artists I’d grown to admire most that I’d cut and framed myself. The floor was littered with Dr. Pepper bottles, most empty, or left with just a drop or two that I hadn’t bothered finishing. I kept the room dark and quiet, though as I lay on the handmade quilt my mother had brought from Beirut many years ago, I strummed a four-chord song and sang softly to myself.

Ali slammed the door open, barking, “Hey kid, you’re going to the gym with us,” which wasn’t a request but a command. I reluctantly followed him to his car.

“Ya habibi! Stoked for the game Friday?!”

Ali had more energy in his over-muscled body than I could comprehend. He kept raving about the game and my need to “get pumped” to the point where it was all he’d talk about with us. Yousef came with us, although since his injury in the Marines, he hadn’t been able to work out as strenuously.

I groaned. I never saw what the big deal was. The three of us were running on treadmills. Me, I could barely keep up. It wasn’t a secret that I was faster than them, but stamina was a quality I lacked. After ten minutes of running, I could almost feel my heart begging me for mercy.

Ali was quick to note my silence. “Any thoughts, runt?”

I shrugged. “I just don’t get it. It’s just a game.”

“Just a game?! What about when homecoming rolls around? Will that be just a game to you?”

“Well…yeah.”

“Wrong!” He was indignant. “It’s only the pinnacle of your school years.”

“If that’s the pinnacle, what do you have to look forward to?’

He thought for a moment. “Graduation. Hah.” Ali then turned to Yousef. “Doesn’t it feel weird knowing those days are behind you now?”

“A little,” said Yousef. “But Kit’s got this, right habibi?” Then he looked at me. “You better bulk up, runt,” he spoke sternly. “The family legacy is on you now.”

“Fun,” I said unenthusiastically.

The gym was where I felt like I spent most of my time now. My brothers practically lived there. They looked the part of the dedicated athlete; I was smaller than most others who were my age and had to pull my hair back into a braid whenever I did anything strenuous.

“I bet you won’t even find a date for the dance,” Ali mocked.

“Inshallah, I will find a date to the dance.” I guess my dull tone gave away how little I meant that statement.

Yousef wiped the sweat from his brow. “You can’t tell me there’s no girl you would take to the dance.”

“I am apathetic,” I said.

“By apathetic, do you mean gay?” asked Ali.

“No.”

“Do you dig chicks?”

“No.”

“Men?”

“No.”

“Do you have weird fetishes?”

“Ali!” shouted Yousef. “You don’t just ask your brother if he has weird fetishes. Now Kit, what do you look for in a lady?”

I thought for a moment, and replied, “To tell you the truth, I never really cared.”

“What do you mean, you don’t care?” asked Yousef. “Everybody cares. It’s like human nature or something. Don’t you want to get married and have a family one day?”

“Maybe,” I said.

“You don’t care about chicks,” said Ali, “and you don’t care about sports. All you care about is your stupid guitar. Where do you think that’s going to get you?”

I stepped off of the treadmill and slung my towel over my shoulder. “Hopefully far away from here.”

​Over near the drinking fountain, I pulled up my sleeves, revealing rows of healing scars, and dug my nails into my delicate flesh of my inner forearm until the pain washed over any other feelings I had.

​Music aside, pain was the only true respite from my existence.

***

Alex

​Despite our protests, Brooke seemed to weasel her way into our everyday lives, even after her exile from the band. She continued sitting with us during lunch, initially at the opposite end of the table, but gradually creeping her way toward us, until she raised the white flag at last.

​“Guys, I hate this,” she said, head in her hands. “Can we be friends again? I … ugh … I miss you guys. I’m sorry I was an ass.”

​“What do you want, Bueller?” Charlie growled, not giving her the dignity of looking her direction.

​We all traded glances, before I realized I had to be the spokesman for the group. I pushed a lone pea around my styrofoam tray and sighed.

​“Look, we don’t need you anymore. We’ve got another guitarist, and he at least hasn’t freaking assaulted anyone.”

​“Yet.” Brooke almost laughed. “If you’re talking about Kit, I wouldn’t put it past him. I’d vote that human mop most likely to bomb the school.”

​I’d never seen Leo more furious, and this is the kid that socked me in the face.

​“Why in the everloving hell would you say that, Brooke? Because he’s an Arab? I always knew you were a racist-ass bitch.”

​“No, because he’s crazy. Ever notice how he’s not in any of your classes? That’s because he’s in the classroom for emotionally disturbed kids. I heard he takes like twelve pills a day to function. And I heard he spent like, two months in an insane asylum.”

​It was at this exact, very inopportune moment that Kit came and sat beside us, looking silently but warmly at us.

​“Whether you like it or not, you guys are going to have to work with me,” Brooke smirked. “James just asked me to fill in on guitar for Arkelly.”

***

CHAPTER FOUR

Alex

​Two major accomplishments happened between Brooke’s botched apology and the show at the Meltdown. For one, we decided on a name for the band that wasn’t god-awful. One of our after-school practice sessions was almost entirely dedicated to finding a new moniker. We holed up in the (almost certainly haunted) practice space and thumbed through every book we had on hand, mostly assigned reading from our classes. Everything from poetry to “The Grapes of Wrath” to my American history textbook, which Casey immersed himself in, despite, as Leo informed me, he was “functionally illiterate.” That didn’t stop him from fixating on a random word he found on one of the pages, in the Cold War section. “Venona.” No one bothered to look up what it meant, and all Casey could glean with his limited reading skills was that it had something to do with “some spy shit.” But Fetus Slurpee set the bar pretty low, so anything that would look halfway decent on a flyer was a step in the right direction, as far as I was concerned.

​Also, we were starting to cultivate an image. My little sister decided she would take on the task of promo photos. Armed with the fancy DSLR she received for her birthday, we all lined up against the plain brick wall of the school, looking as smug as we could muster. The final pictures were given a dark filter, and she penciled in a makeshift logo, which was basically just some typeface she found online. We’d finally have a basic social media presence before the show. We were finally, marginally, a legitimate band.

​The day of the release party came quickly, and I made the poor choice of carpooling with Shawn and his brother. Unfortunately, Brooke was the one driving. We all piled into the rolling eggplant, as she affectionately named it, and she threw a Happy Meal at me. I assumed it was another half-assed peace offering, especially considering it was clearly already rummaged-through. There were maybe ten fries left. Maybe.

​I wasn’t in the mood to say much, and I really wasn’t looking forward to the show, if I was completely honest. I kind of wanted the whole thing to blow over, and maybe we would quietly disband and all forget that any of this ever happened. Clearly this wasn’t the case. Oh, if only I had known.

​Now, the Meltdown wasn’t a new setting for me. Five Minute Drive had played there countless times, as it was the only all-ages venue in the Downriver area at the time. It was a small family-owned place, two main rooms. The front room was used as a thrift shop, mostly for vintage clothing the higher-end boutiques wouldn’t accept, riddled with holes from moths and cigarette ashes. The back room had the stage, as well as a sizable balcony area, which was where the girls would run away to during the heavier sets, when the lower level would become overrun with moshing dudes waving their arms about like flightless helicopters. There was also a tiny concessions booth, but aside from the straight-edge kids buying Red Bulls, no one paid much mind to it. The “cool kids” brought as many Four Lokos as they could shove into their backpacks.

​Before you ask, yes, I was one of the straight-edge kids.

​Billy Reuben greeted us outside the load-in area. Now, Billy was the kind of guy you’d picture as the frontman of a post-hardcore band — tall and lanky with dark brown hair that just covered his ears, with bangs that delicately swooped atop his comparatively thick eyebrows. He was sickeningly pale with sharp features and high cheekbones and piercing blue eyes. Imagine the pop-culture image of a vampire dropped into a pair of skinny jeans. I felt just a little inferior next to him, if I’m honest.

​(Please edit all of that out. I never said any of that.)

​Anyways, Billy was all friendly toward me at the start, thanking us for coming on at the last minute and all of those kind pleasantries.

​“How’s the new school, Alex?” he asked, sucking down a Red Bull. “It’s weird not seeing you in the hall every day.”

​I shrugged. “Different. It’s not Cranbrook, that’s for sure.”

​“I assumed,” he grinned. “Much different demographics, eh?”

​I wasn’t sure what that was supposed to mean. I was one of the few not-white students in our class, although that never really registered with me. I was adopted by the whitest family in existence, after all. Like, birdwatching-for-fun white.

​“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “It’s different.”

​“Well, I’m interested to see who you’ve thrown together for this show, Aponte. I bet there’s some real undiscovered talent Downriver.”

​I started rattling on about the guys and Charlie until I realized he wasn’t actually listening, so I decided it was easier to just walk away. Billy had the depth of a shower.

​Speaking of Charlie, she was inside the load-in area, which was a garage just behind the stage area. The walls were covered in stickers and graffiti from every band that had ever played the venue. Charlie was doodling a tiny picture in the corner with a Sharpie.

​“We don’t have a real logo yet, so this is just us as little stick people,” she smiled. The picture looked like the tiny decals soccer moms put on their vans to depict their broods. She even added the little blond streak in my bangs. “I wanted us to leave a mark on this place.” 

​Little did she know, we would definitely leave a mark on that place.

​Inside, I met up with the rest of the band. Kit, who came with Ali, had already set up his gear and wasn’t concerning himself with fraternization. He and Ali were sitting on one of the filthy couches in the back of the auditorium area, puffing on a hookah Ali brought, since he clearly wanted something to do other than chaperone his brother. I guessed smoking was prohibited in the venue, but alas, the Meltdown was a lawless land, a punk-rock speakeasy of sorts. It’s a wonder they never got shut down.

​At this point, Leo and Shawn were dragging their instruments onto the stage. Charlie had emerged from the back room to set up her keyboard and shot a smile at me. A small crowd had already begun to trickle inside. I didn’t realize how nervous I was until then. A pit started to form in my stomach. We were the opening act, and the show was set to start soon. I beckoned Kit to follow me to the front of the room.

​Looking out over the audience, I didn’t recognize anyone, save for Ali, who was still puffing away in the back, entirely disinterested. Then—

​“Amy? What are you doing here?”

​My sister was in the crowd, with a few of her friends I vaguely knew from Cranbrook. She came up to the front of the stage.

​“Don’t flatter yourself,” she pouted. “I’m here for Billy.”

​I noticed Billy’s little sister, whose name was too stupid to remember, was with her too, along with a pack of whiny fangirls who were too busy squeeing over Billy to care about the other bands. Amy did a heel-turn and walked back out into the store area of the building, leaving two disinterested dudes in the “crowd.”

​“Who are you pricks?” one of them called out.

​I went to the mic, slinging my turquoise Telecaster around my shoulder. “Hi! We’re Venona, and we’re gonna play you guys some songs, alright?”

​“Really? I thought you were gonna knit sweaters.”

​“That’s a good one,” I laughed awkwardly. Every bit of confidence I had from my Five Minute Drive days had shriveled up and died. I felt like I was back on the stage of the middle school auditorium, mouthing the words to “What’s My Age Again?” in a sad effort to not forget them until the curtain opened. Kit and Shawn had already checked their instruments and were started to noodle mindlessly. I knew if we were going to make any kind of impression, we needed to start soon.

​“Leo?” I whispered. “Count us off.”

​He wordlessly clicked his sticks together, and Kit launched into the opening riff. The first song was a FMD song, albeit altered a little to fit our new band’s style. It was freeing having this many musicians — my old band was simply drums, bass, and me on lead vocals and rhythm guitar. Kit and Charlie added a whole new layer to the sound.

​Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad, I thought.

​If you’ve been following this story at all, however, you’d realize how painfully wrong I was.

​Kit, while incredibly talented, had no performance experience, and stayed within a tiny square of the stage, his eyes never leaving his pedalboard. Charlie, who was a gifted performer, could hardly move around at all, both due to her being stuck behind the keyboard and the limited room on stage. Shawn had all the charisma of a pool noodle, and Casey was simply a trainwreck, getting in everyone else’s way and screeching incomprehensibly over every song. I tried to hide how hard I was cringing, but I think it showed. By the last song, not even Ali was in the room. We were playing to absolutely no one.

​If I had my way, that would have been our first and last performance. Any desire I had to ever play music again had been entirely quashed.

​Billy snuck into the auditorium at the end of our set, grinning and clapping.

​“Hey, good first performance!” he said.

​I leaned down to him from the stage. “That has to be sarcasm,” I lamented. “I don’t know how this could have gone any worse.”

​“Chill, dude. It was your first gig together. It never goes as planned. You’ll smooth things out in time.” He gives me a fist-bump. “I hope you’ll all stick around for the rest of the bands. We’ve got a good line-up. The Virtue is playing right before us. You know, the Canadian Christian crunkcore quartet. They opened for Skillet.”

​“Exciting,” I said, unenthused. “Look, we’ll stay ’til the end. I want to support you guys.”

​“I appreciate it, man.” He fist-bumped me (again?!) and disappeared into the crowd, which was starting to steadily grow.

​The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur, for multiple reasons. I was in a funk for a while after the performance, and no amount of pep talks and fist-bumps from Billy Reuben himself would fix that. After we hauled our equipment back out to our cars, the band all walked together to the Little Caesars down the road for several Hot N Ready pizzas. I was quiet the entire time. Everyone else seemed to be in good spirits, however. I was starting to wonder if I was being irrational, if we did better than I’d initially thought. In all fairness, the others had never played a show in this kind of setting and had nothing to compare this performance to. I remembered opening for big-name acts and selling out large theatres. This gig seemed so below me. Maybe I was just being an entitled dick.

​We took the pizzas back to Meltdown and hid in the corner with Ali and his hookah. A few of my bandmates partook, but I’d never smoked anything in my life. Leo and Casey broke out a bottle of booze, which they all began to share, laws and communicative diseases be damned. After a while, I took my slice and went to sit with The Virtue instead. I’d played a few shows with them in the past, and they were completely straight-edge. I didn’t feel all that comfortable around substances.

​“You look parched, my dude.”

​Andrew, the lead vocalist of The Virtue, handed me a spare water bottle. He took a liking to me because he’s Filipino, and he swears I am too, although I have no idea what my actual heritage is.

​We caught up for a while. Five Minute Drive would often open for them when we’d play over in Windsor, and we became pretty tight since we were the rare few in the scene who didn’t get drunk or high after every show.

​I kept glancing over at my band, who looked at me, confused. The confusion started to turn to contempt after some time. Maybe they really did think I believed I was too good for them. Charlie waved me over.

​“Do you wanna go watch the band that just went up?” she asked. “I heard they’re pretty good!”

​“Of course!” I grabbed her hand and helped her up.

​Brooke intercepted our walk to the front of the stage.

​“Hey, Alex,” she started. “I got these for everyone. You’re welcome.”

​She slipped a large can into my hand and walked away. Four Loko. I slipped it into my backpack with every intention to toss it into the trash when the night was over.

​At the front of stage, Charlie and I stood side by side. At one point, I felt her hand brush against mine, the way it had when we were walking to the band room that one fateful day. I considered it for a moment, but then—

FROM: Katie (Sent 7:21 pm)

Hey babe. I miss u ❤

​I pulled my hand away, but smiled at her. She bumped me with her hip, playfully. Then, a familiar voice broke through the loud music.

​“Hey, Charlie, right?” It was Billy. “I wanted to ask you about your gear. I’m in the market for for a new key—“

​Suddenly, the two of them disappeared. I refocused my attention on the band that was playing. I’d never heard of or played with them before — I think they were from Ohio. They were pretty forgettable, but I needed something to distract me from this night. I was standing so close to the speakers, I could feel the bass in my chest. All I wanted was to melt away into the sound.

​Several minutes later, Charlie reemerged from the back room, absolutely glowing.

​Here’s where things took a turn.

​She smiled at me and went on about how cool Billy is, about what an accomplished musician he is and all that. I couldn’t help but wonder if something else had happened back there in that dark room. I felt my fist clench. I had no reason to be angry at Billy, but something perturbed me about the way he could just make her wander off with him so easily. I felt … protective. I know I sound like a dick, but my stupid brain wouldn’t let me let it go. And the next sentence—

​“Billy really is a great pianist.”

​—is what Charlie actually said to me.

​However, in the sheer loudness of the music, I heard:

​“Billy really has a great penis.”

​Enraged, I stormed away, but not before glaring at Charlie.

​“I don’t want to hear about it, okay?”

​I pushed my way through the crowd and past the concession area, back to the bathrooms. I collapsed onto the disgusting floor, panting and throwing my backpack onto the ground. The Four Loko rolled out, seemingly tempting me. I knew I shouldn’t. I knew it. But I was so blind with anger, I needed something to numb my brain. As I cracked it open, the sound of the fizz intermingled with the buzz of the yellow fluorescent light and the dulled sound of the band outside. I held my breath and downed the entire can in a single gulp. It burned going down — I’d never had alcohol before, so it was a gross, foreign feeling. The taste was akin to fruit-flavored bathroom cleaner. People do this for fun?

​After a minute on the ground, I stood up, crushed the can, and tossed it in the wastebasket. I didn’t feel all that different, but I was starting to cool down a little at least. I meandered out through the crowd, which was dissipating somewhat, as the Ohio band had just finished playing, and headed straight to the exit. I needed air. 

​The night sky was clear and star-speckled. I could hear the distant chatter of concert-goers taking a smoke-break, but I couldn’t focus long enough to decipher any words. Right next to the venue was a motel, the kind of run-down place drifters would take refuge in. A tiny tricycle stood outside one of the occupied rooms. Pulling my legs up to my chest, I sighed. After this night was over, I’d retreat to my grandfather’s three-story waterfront condo. Who was I kidding? I had nothing real to worry about. I wandered over to the trike and placed a folded up 20 into the basket. Smiling to myself, I went back to the Meltdown, where I could hear The Virtue soundchecking.

​Only now, for some reason, things were starting to feel a bit weird. My limbs felt light and barely attached. The scenery started to seem unstable. Was this what drinking felt like? Was the Four Loko finally hitting me? I felt altogether uncomfortable yet calm.

​In the corner, my band was still occupying the couches, now playing a game of Apples to Apples and passing around a bottle of clear liquid.

​“C’mon Alex,” Casey prodded me. “Stop being a prude!”

​Nothing bad had happened, right? I could take a sip or two. Or three.

​Whatever they were drinking burned even more than the Loko, but I was flying too high to care at that point. I gleefully guzzled half the bottle, slamming it down on the table hard enough to spill quite a bit.

​“Damn, man,” Leo said. “Careful with the everclear.”

​I hooted loudly and slammed myself down on the couch, throwing my feet up onto the table in front of us and knocking over the rest of the bottle.

​“Yeah, he’s cut off,” Shawn mumbled.

​We stayed there for the rest of The Virtue’s set, smoking and drinking. I joined in the game, but I was almost too inebriated to contribute. The others seemed to be amused by my drunken ramblings. To be fair, they were pretty tipsy themselves. Somewhere between me sitting down and Arkelly taking the stage, I completely lost all sense of time and being. Honestly, I don’t remember much about the rest of the night at all. All I remember was rushing to the stage when I heard Billy on the microphone, clumsily knocking the coal off of Ali’s hookah in the process.

​At the front, the lights were bright. Charlie came beside me, looping her own arm through mine and laying her head on my shoulder. Arkelly began playing their opening song and the music overtook me. Everything began to fade to white. The credits were rolling.

​And then, the alarms and sprinklers began. The music came to an abrupt halt. I passed out.

​And with that, the entire trajectory of our lives would be altered forever.

***

CHAPTER FIVE

Alex

​I never planned to watch my entire life, future, and dreams literally turn to ash from the second story of a shitty motel, but there I was, clad in only boxers—

Leo

​Um, they already read that part. Anyways, I guess I’ll take over from here.

​When I woke up, I was crushed between two sweaty half-naked masses in the forms of Casey and Shawn. After peeling myself from a tangle of hairy limbs, I sat up to see Alex at the window, wearing nothing more than a pair of cartoony heart-print boxers and an expression that could only be described as despair.

​The night before, the dumbass knocked over a lit coal into a puddle of highly flammable liquid. No one noticed right away, since we were all drunk and high off our asses, until Arkelly started playing. When the sirens went off, everyone who was NOT Alex scrambled to grab their belongings and flee the building. Me? I had to carry Alex’s incoherent carcass outside.

​Charlie was smart enough to get us a room in the next door motel, which was just barely large enough for all of us to comfortably fit inside. Obviously, we couldn’t have driven home in the shape we were in. Somehow, Brooke ended up with us as well. Even with all the hate between them, part of me wondered if she and Charlie still cared about each other.

​Charlie was also the one who ventured out to bring us snacks and shit. She stormed through the door like a freaking tsunami, slammed a case of Tim Hortons on the table, and waved a newspaper in Alex’s face.

​“Alex, we are in deep, deep shit.” She paused. “Also, touch the blueberry bagel and I will end you.”

​“I…uh…what happened?” Alex sputtered stupidly. “I seriously don’t remember anything.”

​“You did this. You spilled the alcohol. You knocked a burning object into it. And we’re all getting blamed for it. ‘Downriver area band torches local all-ages venue.’ Our faces are on this!” She waved the paper in his face. “Because of a stupid thing you did! You’re really lucky they’re not pressing charges, Aponte, because they’re estimating $40,000 in damages. The PA system, all the furniture. All smoke-damaged beyond repair. You might not think that’s a lot, since you’ve been living in your little gold tower your whole sorry life, but the family that owns the Meltdown? They’ll never be able to recoup all of that in their lifetimes.”

​She sighed deeply and sat on the bed we were all piled on, jostling Casey awake. Cradling her head in her hands, she started tearing up. Alex came over to comfort her, throwing an arm around her neck, but she shoved him away.

​“You don’t understand, Alex,” she went on. “The Meltdown was the last all-ages venue in the Downriver region. Music was one of the only things we had left around here.”

​There was a frantic rustling and a single arm reached out from the pile of stained sheets.

​“Man, last night was WILD!” Casey said, stretching. “Ugh, gotta pee.”

​Casey staggered into the bathroom, flicked on the light, and shrieked like a little girl.

​“GUYS. KIT’S DEAD.”

​Alas, our guitarist’s emaciated form was contorted inside the confines of the grungy bathtub, his face obscured by a mess of thick black hair. I couldn’t blame Casey for freaking out, since he looked like a still from a horror movie.

​“Hold on,” Charlie said. “I’ll handle this.”

​She pushed Casey out of the way and kicked at the edge of the tub. A skinny hand emerged and Kit pulled himself out, brushing his long bangs out of his face. He stumbled out of the tub and fell into Charlie, who in turn tumbled into the radiator by the window with a clang.

​Another voice called from behind me. “Can you guys…urgh…keep it down?”

​And there was Brooke, flat on the carpet, of course, groaning in her hungover stupor. She managed to push herself up just enough to vomit, then immediately smashed her face back into the mush.

​We sat in the motel room for a few hours, until Brooke insisted she was well enough to drive Alex and Shawn home. And for the rest of that morning, no one dared to say a word.

***

Casey

​I guess this is the part I get to narrate! Yay me! Anyways, this isn’t a fun chapter. This is the chapter where I go back to my house and Mike beats me up.

​So anyways, Leo drives me home and April and Mike are sitting on the front porch, and they look mad pissed. Mike’s got that paper Charlie had earlier, and he’s all like “What the hell did you do, man?” and I’m like, I don’t know, I just tried to walk past him, but he got all defensive and shit. And he’s like “You stayed out all night and burned down a building? I told you you’d never amount to anything!” Which to be fair, he says that to me a lot.

​And I told him I just wanted to play in a band and have fun, you know, and pretend I’m like, Poison or something. When I was little I used to put my sister’s pom-poms on my head and dance around and put on a show for my mom and she’d always really love it and tell me I was her little Bret Michaels and like, that shit sticks with you. But Mike didn’t like that answer and shoved my face into the toilet bowl. I think I passed out for a minute, I don’t know.

​Then he was all like, you can’t live here anymore until you give us the 500 bucks you owe us for rent and I’m like, where do I go, dude? You can’t kick me out. I’m the one who does all the cooking around here. Like, the kids are gonna starve. Last time April cooked something she put the ramen in the microwave without water and it caught on fire and yeah, that’s why we don’t have a microwave anymore. So now I had a black eye and had to sleep on Leo’s couch for a minute, which Leo’s little sister didn’t like because she liked to stay up late in the living room and play video games. Also, she liked to eat Cheetos on the couch and that dust gets everywhere, you know. I was finding that shit in my belly button for days. It was a real bad time.

​So yeah, that’s what happened. Did I miss anything?

***

Alex

​Casey did, in fact, miss quite a few things. When school resumed, we were practically ostracized by the rest of the student population. Whenever someone did deign to talk to one of us, it never progressed past “Did you guys really burn down a building?” We now bore the scarlet letter of delinquency. We were the kids you absolutely do not want to associate with.

​Because of this, in spite of the tensions between us, we were still confined to the lunch table we’d been occupying. For better or worse, we were stuck together. This band was truly a marriage, and there were no divorce lawyers.

​On the Monday after the unfortunate string of events, we compared notes on our families’ reactions.

​“My mom grounded me from the computer and she’s making me stay after school and clean her classroom,” Charlie said.

​“You’re lucky,” said Shawn. “My parents are making me go to youth group at my dad’s church. It’s so boring.”

​“You guys are complaining?” Casey’s usually vapid expression turned angry. “I got kicked out of my house!”

​We all looked at him in a somber silence. No one really knew anything about Casey’s home life, save for Leo. Then, it happened. A tiny voice spoke up from the other side of the table.

​“Maybe you can stay with my family.”

​Kit?

​“My mom’s looking for someone to work in her cafe, and we’ve got a spare bedroom. It’s Ramadan. She won’t let you sleep on the streets.”

​“Hell yeah, dude! I’ll do anything!”

​Brooke, who was at the opposite end of the table, as per usual, scooted down to our end. “Guys, I have an idea.”

​“No one wants to talk to you, Brooke,” Shawn snorted.

​“Are we just going to ignore the fact that Kit said words?” Charlie interjected.

​Brooke continued, shoving a flyer into the center of the table. “SlayFest. It’s the battle of the bands 89x is hosting. Arkelly is competing, but I wanted to invite you guys. $50,000 grand prize. You know, if you guys win, you can pay for all the damages at the Meltdown, and even have some left over. Just an idea, but what do I know, right?”

​“Give us one reason to trust you,” I said. “This sounds too good to be true. What’s in it for you?”

​She scoffed. “I’m just trying to do you a favor, okay? Forgive me for trying to raise the white flag. It’s free to enter, but spaces are limited. Just say the word and we’ll write down Venona’s info when we go to sign ourselves up. And, I hate to say it, but I think you guys have a chance. You’re easily the most talked about band in the area right now. I can even help you get your shit together. The fire affected me as much as it did you. As much as I love the guys in Arkelly, you’re the realest friends I have.”

​“She’s right,” Leo said. “We’ve literally got nothing to lose. I’m in.”

​I sighed. “Whatever. Sign us up. But we need a plan. If we’re going to do this, we need to figure out how to grow a fanbase — fast.”

​The rest of the lunch was spent planning gigs for the next month, leading up to SlayFest. I recognized the date as the date of the football playoffs, but I seriously doubted our mediocre team would even get that far. And part of me had doubts that this SlayFest was even a real thing. Something felt a little suspicious about a contest I’d literally never heard of with an absurdly huge grand prize, but I pushed aside that odd feeling for the rest of the band, who were now buzzing with excitement. I didn’t trust Brooke, but I didn’t see any real reason for her to lie to us about something like that.

​Brooke scribbled a list of bands and venues to contact and assured us she’d get us on the bill for a number of upcoming shows. She wasn’t the easiest person to deal with, but it turned she did have some decent managerial and networking skills. With the help of our questionable new ally, we fleshed out a plan to gain a following, flip the public opinion of our band, and actually have a chance at winning SlayFest.

​My mind slipped back to that photo in the newspaper. We weren’t going to manage this feat without a new image.

***

Kit

​I convinced my mother to let Casey temporarily stay with us. It may have been a mistake.

​The first night, while my mother was downstairs in the cafe, I caught him in her closet, wrapping one of her scarves around his head while pretending to ride a broomstick, screeching that he is, and I quote, a “babushka.” Later, he badgered me to play one of my guitars, my seven-string Schecter, which he insisted was pronounced “sphincter.” Then, I caught him with his face shoved under my bed, mumbling something about vampires.

​Again, this was the first night.

​He wasn’t a bad busboy, though, so I figured my mom would let him stick around for a while. During his break, she offered him a shawarma, which he stared at for at least a minute before cautiously biting into. Then, I heard the bell on the front door ring. It was Tessa, the one person in the world I didn’t mind seeing.

​Tessa was two grades below me, but Triumph was small enough that the middle and high school “special” classrooms were combined. She was the only person I talked to in the class. Tessa was the one who first reached out to me, actually, when she noticed my Led Zeppelin tee. She, too, was interested in music, but from another angle — her dream was to be a band photographer. When she came to visit, her DSLR was hanging around her neck.

​My mom greeted her warmly and offered her the usual — a chicken shawarma without pickles — and she slid into her typical spot in the corner.

​“Who’s the new guy?” she asked.

​“He’s from my band,” I said, sitting beside her. I was technically on the clock, but I didn’t mind, and my mother typically didn’t either. She loved Tessa.

​I look over at Casey, who now had some handheld game out on the table. He shushed me.

​“I’m feeding my Nintendogs.”

​“Your what?”

​“You saw nothing.”

​Tessa twirled a Kool-Aid-dyed strip of hair between her fingers. “Your new friends are weird.”

​“Anyways, um, I was kind of thinking we need your help,” I said. “We need new promo pics, and I, uh…”

​Tessa laughed. “I thought you’d never ask.”

***

Casey

​But like. They don’t eat during the daytime, and they speak some weird language, and his mom even has to cover up outside. There’s only one explanation.

​Vampires.

***

CHAPTER SIX

Kit

​Prior to the photoshoot, Brooke wanted to “hang out” with me, alone. This, along with many of the decisions I had recently made, was a mistake.

​She came to the cafe with a Meijers bag and immediately dragged me up the stairs and into my family’s apartment. My parents and brothers (including my insufferable new adopted brother) were downstairs working, so it was just the two of us. Once in the living room, she pulled several papers from the bag, and I immediately recognized the pictures as screenshots from my MySpace profile.

​“So, 26,000 ‘friends,’ huh?” she snarled. “When were you gonna let us in on that little detail? When were you going to tell us we were working with a minor internet celebrity?”

​“I don’t know,” I shrugged. “No one asked.”

​“I have to admit, your Photoshop skills are impeccable.” She pushed the profile picture toward me. “Kind of sad though. This looks nothing like you in real life.”

​She wasn’t wrong. I never felt comfortable with my own looks, if I were honest. Whenever I posted anything, I worked meticulously to make my nose smaller, my skin whiter, my eyes blue. I suppose the most egregious lie was my hair. After straightening it into submission in real life, I would always edit it bright red. It was kind of my trademark online at least.

​“What if I told you I can help you? Every band needs a good image, you know?”

​“What are you planning, Brooke?”

​“I’m gonna dye your hair.”

​Twenty minutes later, I was sitting on the ledge of the bathtub while Brooke texted mindlessly on the toilet.

​“Is it supposed to hurt?”

​“Beauty is pain, my dear Kit. You’ll be a ravishing redhead in no time!”

​“I hate this.”

​I think she left it on a little too long, since my hair was almost straw-like and lifeless when she peeled off the foils. At first, it was a terrible orange, but she mixed up some other concoction that left it firetruck red, not unlike the pictures I’d post. Once dry, she straightened it and cut a few layers into it. At last, she was happy with her creation. I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror.

​To this day, I’m not sure how I got away with it. My mother simply uttered “Ya allah, this child…” and went back to sweeping the cafe. I think I’d already disappointed her enough.

***

Tessa

​So, the photoshoot. Where do I even start?

​We shot at an old insane asylum I frequented a few towns over. My specialty, aside from band photography, was urban exploration. There were several abandoned storefronts and homes within walking distance of my house, and when I was feeling especially adventurous, I often bribed my older brother’s friends to drive me to more exciting abandoned places further away. Sometimes, Kit would come along. I felt better having him, despite the fact that he wasn’t exactly large and intimidating. I valued his presence more for the companionship than anything. If I was gonna get murdered, I didn’t want to die alone.

​When we all met the afternoon of the shoot, the others seemed skeptical to say the least. Especially Brooke. I did not like this Brooke character. The moment we met, she was all like, “Oh, Strawberry Shortcake is shooting you guys?”

​“I know what I’m doing,” I retorted. “I’ll show you my portfolio.”

​“Aw, she’s so cute,” Brooke mocked. “She can say big words.” She turned to Kit. “I’ll admit, I didn’t know what to expect when you said you found a photographer, but I at least expected someone who’d already hit puberty.”

​“I’m thirteen, thank you. And my work is way better than anything else you’d find around here. See, this camera is top of the line. I saved up all the money I got from my brother’s friends whenever I sold them my Adderall.”

​“Wait.” Alex looked concerned. “You’re telling me even the kids sell drugs around here?”

​“What are you gonna do, narc on me? You have the energy of a middle-aged woman named Susan and frankly, I do not like you.” I looked over at the rest of the band. “Everyone, against the wall, before I change my mind.”

​I staggered them according to height, Leo, Casey, and Shawn in the back. It should have been simple, right? Like, how hard is it to look badass in an abandoned loony bin? Kit had the advantage of having gone with me to shoots in the past at least, and whenever I did shoot people, he was typically the model. The others weren’t so cooperative, paying absolutely no attention and generally not understanding the concept of shutting up and looking fierce. It was a constant stream of “Stop smiling, Charlie” or “Shawn, stand up straight” or “Casey, please put down that toilet seat where did you even find that?!”

​And they think I’m the child?

​I endured probably thirty minutes of this nonsense. The “golden hour” for photography was coming to an end and I hated being in that building after the sun set. I flipped through the shots I got, content I had a few that were passably okay.  I sighed. There was always Photoshop.

***

Kit

​After the shoot, Tessa and I waited on the front porch of the asylum for our rides.  We watched as the sky dimmed to a deep, speckled indigo, with streaks of silver clouds illuminated by the light of the moon. She wordlessly laid her head on my shoulder. These were the moments that made surviving worth it. I lamented the fact that I rarely had any time alone with her anymore, my truest friend, the only person I’d die for.

​Late summer had just begun to give way to autumn, and whether it was the changing of the seasons or the ghosts who remained on this cursed ground, this night felt particularly chilly. I unzipped the white jacket I’d been wearing and placed it over Tessa’s shoulders. She placed her hand on my now-bare arm, delicately tracing the pink scars, including the one that ran perpendicular to the others like the fifth line on a tally. They say if you truly want to die, that’s the way to make the cut.

​It had been exactly one year to the day since the night I tried to end it all.

​I didn’t like to talk about it. Not to anyone, not even Tessa, although she had a vague idea that it happened. Someday, I would tell her everything.

​“You haven’t been doing it lately, have you?” she whispered.

​“Sometimes I still dig my nails into my skin. No more cutting though. I just want to be okay.”

​“I think you’ll get there eventually. It’s not an overnight thing. You have to fight for it. I think this band is really good for you, Kit. You seem happier than you’ve ever been.”

​“I suppose.” My gaze dropped back down to the long scar that ran down the length of my forearm. To think I came so close. Had my brother barged into the bathroom a minute later, I likely wouldn’t have lived. “I guess I hate having so many reminders.”

​“Maybe you can get a tattoo or something over these,” said Tessa. “Turn them into something beautiful.”

​“Right. Like my mom needs more reason to kill me. Besides, I can’t even think of anything I care about enough to get etched into my skin forever.”

​“Well, you etched your own death wish into your skin forever.”

​She wasn’t wrong, and I hated that.

​But someday, I would tell her everything, even the parts I desperately wanted to hide.

***

CHAPTER SEVEN

Alex

​The photos taken by Tessa ended up on the flyer for the first post-Meltdown gig we played, at a skatepark/venue hybrid on the southern border of Dearborn. I wasn’t too familiar with the bands, save for The Virtue, who were the headliners. They were mostly other Christian bands from the area — I was pretty sure a church was sponsoring the show — so I knew we had to be on our best behavior for this one.

​We grinded hard trying to prepare for this gig, rehearsing every single night after our after-school activities for the day wrapped. Shawn’s parents were nice enough to make us dinner or order pizza most nights, and something about eating with the rest of the band was refreshing. I felt like these people were actually becoming friends of mine, which was a feeling I never had with Five Minute Drive. Everything was strictly business with them, and we never really hung out outside of practice. I found myself becoming weirdly attached to this ragtag bunch, who I would have never sought the companionship of had I not gotten back into music.

​The rest of the band beat me to the venue, along with Ali, who’d signed on to act as roadie for us. Ali scared me more than I’d like to admit. I heard he’d beat some kid within an inch of his life at his and Kit’s old school and spent a few months in juvie for that reason. He was polite enough to me, at one point even remarking that me and him had the same name — after 9/11, he and his brothers adopted English names for safety, and his was Alex. But I could tell he was fiercely protective of his much smaller younger brother.

​I found Casey eating fruit snacks while Leo dragged his drum kit out of the moving van Shawn’s family lent to us. The benefits of having a bassist whose parents run a self-storage site, I suppose.

​“Try one, man,” Casey said, offering me a tiny gummy. “Each one has the same amount of vitamin C as, like, ten oranges. Ten! I didn’t do the math, but I think I’m at like, 600 oranges!”

​“Are…are you gonna die?”

​“Alex!”

​A pair of skinny arms wrapped around my shoulders. Charlie appeared behind me with a smile I hadn’t seen since before the Meltdown incident. She was carrying a gig bag with her keytar, which she’d started rehearsing with as of late. I’ll admit, I thought it looked a little dorky at first, but it kind of suited her. Plus, it gave her more mobility onstage, which added significantly to our stage presence. And what other local band had a keytarist?!

​Charlie threw the bag on the ground and unzipped one of the front pockets. “Surprise!” She pulled out a small but fresh-looking apple and handed it to me. “We’ve got a bunch of these in our backyard.”

​She grabbed the bag and skipped toward the stage. I looked down at the apple and smiled before setting it inside the back of the van for later.

​Inside, the auditorium was filled with raucous kids with skateboards zipping around the half-pipes that surrounded the stage area. Girls with teased hair sat on the ledges facing the stage, waiting in anticipation for our sure-to-disappoint opening act. Ali was talking to a large crowd, presumably from his old school, since this area was his old stomping grounds. I couldn’t help but wonder what had happened between him, Kit, and their previous school.

​And it hit me. Eavesdropping on the conversation, I could tell they were talking about Kit, and not in the most pleasant way, using certain lovely epithets rhyming with “maggot” and and speculating about his, uh, sexual preferences. Ali tried to seem unbothered by it all, but I could tell he was restraining himself from doing something rash. Hell, Amy drove me nuts half of the time, but even I would have decked someone who talked about her like that. I looked over at poor Kit, tuning his guitar in the corner, entirely unaware of the assholes talking about him fifty feet away.

​“Last one!” Casey interrupted my thoughts with yet another orange gummy.

​Sighing, I took the gummy from him. “Did you eat…all of those?”

​“Yup! It’s not playing nice with my tummy though. I think it’s all the sugar.”

​“Where did you find those, Casey?”

​“They were in Kit’s mom’s bathroom cabinet. I thought it was weird too. Like, who keeps candy in their bathroom? Must be a lesbian thing.”

​“They’re…Lebanese. And that’s not candy, Casey!”

​“Whatever you say. Anyways, gotta poop. Come get me when the show starts.”

​“Casey! We go on in five…Casey? Casey!”

​During Casey’s extended vitamin overdose-induced potty break, I found Andrew in the green room in the back, sipping on a Red Bull.

​“I’m so glad you guys could come out tonight,” Andrew said. “It was kind of risky putting Venona on the bill after, you know, everything, but I know you, Alex. You really are good at what you do. I heard you guys are even competing in SlayFest.”

​“SlayFest is real?!” Andrew looked at me as if I’d suddenly sprouted a second head. “Oh, yeah, SlayFest. It was kind of a last minute decision. I don’t think we’ll actually win or anything.”

​Andrew laughed. “Don’t be stupid, dude. I think you have a fighting chance. Just keep at it. To be honest, I’m actually jealous of you guys! We tried to sign up for SlayFest too, but there were too many bands on the list already. So I guess we’ll just have to cheer you on, right?”

​After a brief delay thanks to Casey’s poor choices, we found ourselves onstage together at last. This time, we were armed with a few new songs, including our second collectively written song, “The Only People That Don’t Like Pirates Are the People That the Pirates Pirate,” and something Casey came up with called “Balloon Pimp,” which was mostly just him screaming improvised nonsense over an extended breakdown. To be clear, we did not like this song, but Casey locked himself in the trailer until we agreed to play it. We kept the Eminem cover, which was the only song that earned us any applause during the Meltdown performance.

​Immediately, the jeers began.

​“Didn’t this band burn down The Meltdown?”

​“You guys are what’s wrong with this scene!”

​Before I could say anything, Casey opened his big stupid mouth.

​“Hey! We’re Venona, and y’all are gonna shut up and listen to us!”

​Oh no no no no no.

​We opened with “Pirates,” which could be summed up as a cheap Panic! At the Disco knock-off. Casey had already provoked the audience, who stared at us in hostility during the entire song. Nevertheless, we threw ourselves into the performance, with twice the energy we’d put into the Meltdown show.

​Our second song was “Lose Yourself,” which, by some divine miracle, seemed to win the crowd over. From the moment Charlie began playing the piano intro (which, I may add, looked very ridiculous on keytar), everything was silent. All eyes were on us, and this time, without the antagonistic glare we’d started off with. Before we knew it, we were at the chorus, and the entire room was singing the words in unison. Little by little, concertgoers hesitantly crowded around the stage, gaping in awe at Leo’s drum solo toward the end of “Captain Crunch” and the entirely sweep-picked instrumental break in “Fiesta Fist,” which Kit nailed without looking down once.

​Finally, we reached Casey’s stupid song, which we’d tacked onto the tail end of the set, not expecting anyone to actually stick around that long. I immediately realized this was a mistake. I tried to motion to the rest of the band to play anything — anything! — else, but Leo was already counting everyone off, oblivious to my wild gesticulations. Casey grabbed the mic and started spewing whatever came to his mind, crouching as if he was trying to shit in the woods, whipping his greasy blond hair around. Then, clear as day, I heard:

​“I WILL SHIT ON YOUR GOD’S GRAVE! BOW BEFORE ME, PEASANTS! I AM THE ONE TRUE GOD!”

​In the back of the room, Andrew looked mortified. I couldn’t let this go any further. I leaned my guitar against one of the amplifiers and attempted to grab the microphone out of Casey’s hands. Casey, naturally, did not want to relinquish his time in the spotlight. He edged his way to the other side of the stage, not once pressing pause on his wildly offensive tirade. I crawled over the monitors, trying to get a solid grip on him, before he elbowed me out of the way. He held the mic high above his head. I had no chance — he was a good foot taller than me, possibly more. Desperate, I channeled the energy I’d bring to a football game and tackled him off the stage. I’ll admit, we probably looked more like a comedy troupe than a band at that point.

​“What is wrong with you?!” I yelled loud enough to be heard over the band.

​The band, now realizing we were actually fighting and not miming some ridiculous stunt, stopped cold. The audience looked beyond petrified. There was no way in hell The Virtue would ever let us open for them again. And speaking of hell, I was about ready to send Casey there with my bare hands.

***

​“Are we gonna talk about this?” Leo said, slamming a spoon against his drink, finally breaking the silence that had fallen over the band for the rest of the night.

​Leo had demanded we all go to eat and hold an impromptu meeting following the confrontation in order to “sort things out.” Leo was gradually becoming the “band dad” in a way. As the oldest and most mature, he was even more well-suited to handling conflict than me. I was nothing more than the pretty boy frontman, and I was starting to doubt my prowess in that realm as well.

​“Casey,” I said, trying to stay calm. “You are never, ever doing lead vocals for Venona. Ever again.”

​“That’s all I can do, man!”

​“And you can’t even do that right! Why would you make up lyrics like that when we’re opening for The Virtue?! What made you think that was a good idea? You almost got us kicked out!”

​“Me?! You almost broke my neck! You could have killed me!”

​Charlie hushed us. “This is a Denny’s.”

​Glancing around the table, no one wanted to be there. Perhaps Leo thought it was best to have the meeting somewhere public where the sharpest nearby object was a fork. I sank into the booth, wishing for an instantaneous, painless death. This band had been a horrible, horrible idea. We’d played exactly two shows together and both of them ended with chaos.

​We sat in further silence, the only audible sound being Charlie’s surprisingly loud noshing on a strip of turkey bacon. I passed the time — it felt like hours — watching the lights of the cars on the adjacent highway. Anything to avoid eye contact with the others. If I had my way, Venona would have disbanded right there in that corner booth.

​“SHIT!” yelled Casey.

​“WHAT?” I snapped.

​“I forgot to feed my Nintendogs.”

​I took a breath. It was all I could do to not murder him over his plate of Moons Over My Hammy. “Casey, you’re out of the band. You can hang out with us, you can handle our merch whenever that becomes a thing, I’d probably even let you join again if you’re smart enough to learn an instrument, but as it stands, you are not going back onstage with us. Not ever.”

​Casey looked down at his plate of smiley-face eggs and bacon, which looked hilariously inappropriate in this situation. “I can still hang out with you guys?”

​“Yes!” Leo said, before I could go on. “You’re a part of this family too.”

​Family. I rolled my eyes.

​Shawn chimed in. “And you’re living with Kit now, right? Maybe he can teach you guitar. Alex’s parts are pretty easy. If you take over the rhythm stuff, that will free him up to focus on singing and performing.”

​Kit crossed his arms. “I’m so glad you volunteered me for this, Shawn.”

​“I think after this, we need a night to just hang out,” Shawn suggested. “I was going to invite everyone over tonight for a sleepover, if you guys are still down.”

​I grimaced. “That sounds like a terrible—“

​Charlie slapped her hand over my mouth. “We’re in.”

​***

​We literally raced to Shawn’s house — that’s not a figure of speech. Shawn, Casey and Leo piled into the moving van and Charlie, Kit, and I jumped into Ali’s bright blue Mustang after Shawn bet he’d make it there first, even with his big stupid van. We careened across the highway recklessly, as the van swayed precariously in front of us. I looked over at the speedometer, which was clocking 100 mph. I’m not sure how either of the vehicles crashed. In the back of the car, Charlie’s hand found my lap.

​“Scared?” she asked, grinning.

​“Just a little.”

​“You’ve been screaming this entire car ride. Look!” She opened the sunroof and popped out her head. “See, Alex! You gotta loosen up a little!”

​“You’re crazy!”

​“Maybe you’re just a bore!”

​I don’t know what got into me, but I lightly brushed the bare back of her knee, playfully. She giggled and fell back into her seat. Her hair was a ratted-up mess, and I’m pretty sure the bow she’d been wearing all day flew off.

​“That’s what you get for calling me a bore, Charlotte.”

​“I calls it as I sees it, Alexander.”

​Following a very exhilarating, adrenaline-fueled ride I wished to never repeat, we wound up at Shawn’s once again. After loading our gear back into the practice space, we set up a blanket fort and piled several sleeping bags and quilts in the living room. Shawn’s parents had gone out of town, so we had the house to ourselves. The rest of the guys had gone outside to smoke, which wasn’t my thing, so I went back out to the van to find my apple. In the parking lot, I could see the faint glow of the back porch and the voices of the others mingling happily. Everyone seemed to be in a better place now, I supposed. I smiled to myself. Everything had gone better than expected.

​I looked around near the spot I’d left the apple using the tiny bit of light from my phone.

​My phone!

​I hadn’t checked it all day, but Katie had been blowing it up. Lots of “hey, what’s up?”s that eventually turned into “where are you”s and “is everything okay?”s. A twinge of guilt overcame me.

TO: Katie (Sent 12:07 am)

sorry, was busy all day

TO: Katie (Sent 12:07 am)

i’ll tell you everything tomorrow, okay

TO: Katie (Sent 12:07 am)

love you <3​

​The apple wasn’t there, and clearly, neither was my head. I slipped the phone back into my pocket with no intention to look at it for the rest of the night and found the living room still empty, save for a now-slumbering Charlie. I pulled the bundle of blankets I’d called dibs on into the fort, where she was sleeping. I nudged her awake.

​“What’s wrong?” she mumbled.

​“The guys are still outside smoking. I was just, um…”

​“Lonely? Here.” She cleared a spot next to herself.

​“Thanks.”

​I lay beside her and pulled the sheets over myself, facing away from her. She rolled a little closer to me, pressing her body against mine, and draped an arm over me. Her hand searched for mine and sought out the spaces between my fingers.

​We fell asleep that night, hands interlaced, with the dull light of the TV peeking in through the cracks in the blanket fort.

***

CHAPTER EIGHT

Leo

​“The Blind Pig!” Casey ran up to the legendary venue with glee. “Nirvana played here!”

​I groaned. “That’s not where we’re playing tonight.”

​Ann Arbor. The cosmopolitan college town a half hour west of the Downriver area. It was a welcome change of scenery. My pipe dream since I was a kid was to study there and eventually make a living as a professor. Of what, I wasn’t sure. I enjoyed literature, or perhaps I’d study music and march in the prestigious U of M band. These were all thoughts I had as a naive child, mind you. At my age, I’d already realized things of this nature were unachievable missions for people like me and Casey.

​Especially Casey, who, I loathed to admit, was the stupidest human I’d ever met.

​We got there early, so we walked around the town, exploring all the quaint little shops we could barely afford to breathe in. In lieu of lunch, which we definitely couldn’t afford in this city, we raided one of the gift shops that specialized in Michigan cherry, well, everything. It was a frickin’ buffet. Cherry jam, cherry barbecue sauce, cherry salsa, cherry cherries, all laid out for us. They were samples, too, so it’s not like we had to finesse these treats into our possession. The lady working did follow us around pretty closely, to be fair. I bought a dollar’s worth of cherry-covered cherries, which came out to two cherries, to throw her off.

​ Afterwards, we stopped by a cafe, one of the fancy-ass ones where you can add flavors and toppings and shit. Casey demanded the cheapest thing on the menu along with the cheapest topping, which happened to be water with a dollop of whipped cream.

​He’s real lucky he’s my best friend. I didn’t think I could ever show my face in Ann Arbor again.

​Finally, we found the others at a little rec center for at-risk youth, whatever that’s supposed to mean. We were playing a benefit for some kid with cancer, which meant, once again, that we had to be on our best behavior. I was starting to think Brooke was purposefully booking us at shows we couldn’t get drunk at.

​Brooke met us at the front of the building.

​“Remember, dying kid.” Brooke squinted at us, Casey in particular. “Just trust me guys. This is good for PR. Nail this event, and you’ll have everyone in this town singing Venona’s praises, alright?”

​We set everything up as usual, this time with a hastily put-together merch table consisting of T-shirts painted by Charlie herself. They all featured a new logo that may or may not have been the Freemason symbol now that I think of it, surrounded by a handful of colorful roses. We also made up little cards with our social media info on them. The MySpace band page was gaining more and more traction, thanks in no small part to Kit’s rabid online fanbase, most of whom were in Japan and could obviously not attend SlayFest. It was a start, at least, and having 1,000+ internet fans made us look somewhat legitimate.

​I found Alex in the green room, aggressively biting off a piece of Pop Tart and sneering at the setlist he’d scribbled on printer paper.

​“We need new music,” he said.

​“What?”

​“A new song. None of these are really doing it for me. I just think we can do better as a group. We’ve got the talent. We need that one great song.”

​“Well,” I start, “you’re the songwriter. All the great songs are about love. Write about your girl.”

​Alex sighed. “I guess I could write about Katie.”

​“Yeah, write something for…Katie? Who the hell is Katie?”

​“Forget I said anything, Leo.”

​“Alex. Who is Katie? I was talking about Charlie.”

​“Katie was…is…my girlfriend. It’s complicated.”

​“Well, you should probably mention that to Charlie. I think she’s really into you.”

​“For real?!” Alex almost choked. “I mean, for real? I really like her too. It’s just hard, you know? I built a life with Katie. We’re gonna get married once we graduate. Maybe I should tell Charlie.”

​“I won’t tell you what to do, but I think that’s a good idea, man. The last thing we need is that kind of drama in the band. Don’t want to Fleetwood Mac up the situation.”

​Alex looked away. ”I’ll talk to her.”

​I pushed that conversation to the back of my mind for the remainder of the night. As for the performance itself, it surprisingly went on without incident. Unsurprising was the fact that “Lose Yourself” was the showstopper once again. Perhaps Alex had a point — our most popular song wasn’t even our song. Still, the originals were well-received this time. Not having Casey was a notable boon. I hate to say it, but his presence was the weak link that kept us from being taken seriously.

​***

​I drove the moving van we’d been using to schlep our stuff around that night, Shawn in the passenger seat and Casey squashed in the not-quite-seat in between us. Thankfully, they were almost completely conked out the whole ride home. Leaving the Ann Arbor city limits, a strange sadness came over me. That post-show low was something I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to. How, after the rush of performing and being part of something greater than myself, I’d return to the same run-down townhouse, the same dying city that shat me out and have to pretend none of it ever happened. What if we did “make it” in music, whatever that even means? Would I still feel like the low-class kid who had to smuggle ramen noodle cups out of the local party store so my own family wouldn’t starve? And worse, what if that wasn’t who I wanted to be? That was absurd, right? Who wouldn’t want a better life for himself and his family?

​That night, I brought the tips I’d made from the show into the party store I’d frequented. I snuck into my little siblings’ rooms and left them candy bars, all of which I’d actually, legitimately paid for. I’ll never forget their faces the next morning, or the way my mother beamed at me.

​These were the moments that was what made it all worth it.

***

Alex

​So, I didn’t tell Charlie.

​In fact, I asked Charlie to hang out with me later that week.

​It was a normal…Tuesday? Was it a Tuesday? Maybe it was a Wednesday? Either way, I wound up in the front yard of the Lipschitz family, in a quaint Taylor neighborhood, not too far from Triumph. The house seemed even closer to the unfortunately placed landfill than the school. Every building appeared copied and pasted, each perfectly replicated, down to the brick.

​Ms. Lipschitz greeted me warmly. “Welcome to our little home!”

​Charlie’s mom was a copy-and-paste of her, or rather, the other way around — dark hair, dark eyes, and a slight frame with pale skin, marked only by splotches of freckles. She wore a long dress that brushed the floor and a plaid scarf with covered in splats of paint. Although noticeably older than my own mother, she retained a youthful aura.

​“I made an apple pie and some pizza rolls, and if you want anything else, just ask!”

​“Mom! Leave Alex alone!”

​Charlie emerged from just beyond her, smiling, wearing nothing more than an old cheer T-shirt and a pair of red shorts.

​“Come on! I have so much to show you!”

​The world of Charlotte Rose Lipschitz was not quite what I was expecting. Drying paintings hung over the room on a clothesline, houseplants everywhere, and a huge box of a tv near the fireplace. People still had television sets like this? This seemed so unlike what I was used to. And who just lets you eat in the living room? Her mother put on a film, some hilarious musical biodrama that happened to be even cheesier than the hors d’oeuvres. Hah, perhaps we’d be the subject of some kind of biodrama some day. Who would be unlucky enough to play me? I laughed a little to myself at the thought.

​A huge orange cat greeted me as we sat together, curling up practically on top of the pizza rolls I’d been snacking on.

​“That’s Freddie Purrcury,” Charlie said. She scratched behind his ears as he pushed his head into her hand, craving more attention. “We found him near the dump and he followed us home. We thought he was a Maine Coon, but it turns out he’s just fat and hairy. And also a bit of an attention whore.”

​Halfway through the movie, Charlie grabbed me by the hand and led me down the hallway, showing off all the family pictures and heirlooms on the way.

​“That was my first recital — surprise! I’m naturally a ginger!— and that’s my mom at Woodstock. You’d never believe it now, but she had a wild streak when she was my age. And that one there is my grandmother.“ She pointed at a black and white photo of a young woman with a familiar face seated at a piano bench. I would have believed it was Charlie herself if I hadn’t been told otherwise. “She wanted to study at the Paris Conservatory. Unfortunately, Europe wasn’t a great place to be a Jewish girl at that point in history. It’s a miracle she survived at all. After the camps were freed, she came over here and started a family. She died two months before I was born, though.” Her solemn expression bent into a tiny smile. “When my mom was pregnant, she’d ‘play’ for me, and my mom swears she could feel me dancing.”

​She continued down the hall, stopping at a photo in a polka-dot frame. Two girls, no older than 12, were wearing oversized coats and several colorful scarfs, their hair teased into ridiculous ‘80s puffballs. “You’ll never guess who this is!”

​“I’m assuming you’re going to tell me.”

​“The other girl, that’s Brooke! Way before she started bleaching her hair, obviously. Believe it or not, we didn’t always hate each other.”

​At last, we reached her room at the end of the hallway. She kept a gallery of even more paintings on clothespins and ceiling galaxies mapped out in glow-in-the-dark stars, just barely outshone by the strings of lights on the walls. Just outside, you could see the outline of the landfill. From here, in the light of the setting sun, it wasn’t a heap of trash but something of beauty, a set of rolling, graceful hills. I guessed anything, from a far enough distance, could be beautiful.

​She put a vinyl record on the vintage stereo she had set up in the corner of her room. Everything in her house seemed years, decades even, behind, but I could have gotten used to the aesthetic. The wood paneled walls, the orange shag carpet, there was even a stack of VHS tapes by her bedroom TV. She flopped onto the bed, and I cautiously sat down beside her, not wanting to give her the wrong idea.

​The song that was playing though…

​Was that the song Charlie was playing the night we met?

​“‘Your Song.’ Elton John,” she grinned. “Don’t tell anyone, but he’s kind of my favorite.”

​“What happened to Radiohead?”

​“I like them a lot too but, you know…I have this theory, right? Everyone has two favorite artists. Their favorite, and the one they tell people is their favorite. So tell me,” she says as she grabs my hand, “who’s your favorite?”

​“Blink-182.”

​“That’s the one you tell people. Don’t worry Alex. I’m good at keeping secrets.”

​“I don’t have any secrets!” I blurted. Oh, if she only knew.

​“Really? You know you can trust me.”

​“Fine. Michael Jackson.”

​“There it is.”

​“I used to have a Michael Jackson cardboard cut-out in my room. Seriously. And when I was little, my parents got me this little replica Thriller jacket, and I’d dance around and pretend I was him. I know, I know.”

​“That’s adorable though. No judgment here.”

​She took me by the wrist and pulled me down to her level with a playful giggle. Her brown eyes never looked so bright as they did under the faint glow of the string lights. Threading her fingers through my hair, she gazed up at me mischievously before leading my lips to hers. An excited panic flooded every single nerve inside me as she drew me even closer, until I was lying on top of her. I kissed her like she was oxygen and I was gasping for air. This was so far removed from anything I’d ever done or felt with Katie, and I won’t lie and say I wasn’t scared. I was about as virginal as you can get — Katie and I never progressed past light makeout sessions, and here was Charlie, her hands beneath my shirt, tracing my form with her fingertips, her hips bucking against mine. But then, without warning, she pulled away.

​“Alex, I want to show you something.”

​She pushed me off of her and tumbled to the edge of the bed. Still smiling, she began to pull off her shirt. I looked down out of instinct.

​This is really happening. Oh god, this is really happening.

​When I looked up, she had her shirt hiked up to reveal a little turquoise bag taped to her belly.

​“What is that?” I asked, trying to hide my shock as to not sound like a dick.

​“Ostomy bag. I got it when I was younger because my Crohn’s was getting to be too much to deal with. My old school made my life hell because of it. Well, that, and liking Elton John. That’s why I was so happy to move to Triumph. No one here knows about it. Not even the cheer team. Except Brooke. And you now, I guess. Told you I was good at keeping secrets.”

​“So…it’s a poop bag.”

​She sighed. “Yes, Alex. It’s a poop bag.”

​I reached for her hand. “Charlie, I don’t care if you have a poop bag. I think you’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

​We didn’t get back to making out — I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved — but we spent the rest of the evening showing each other music we’d written. I showed her some of the old Five Minute Drive songs, stuff we hadn’t played in eons, and I tried to tiptoe around the fact that so many of them were about my secret girlfriend. I hated that she’d just revealed this personal, painful part of herself to me and I couldn’t freaking man up and tell her the truth about Katie. I absolutely hated myself for it. And then, she showed me her songs. Including the one about me.

​“I wrote it the week we started talking,” she said, sitting at her keyboard. “I had the weirdest feeling you’d ruin my life in all the best ways.”

​You make me wanna try again

​Even though I know you know the road is rough and my heart is restless

​You make me wanna fall in love

​Later, up in my room, I found myself at my computer, debating whether or not to send that message to Katie. It seemed so easy. Just break it off. But it wasn’t. Katie and I had history. Katie and I were going to start a family. I couldn’t throw it away for Charlie, could I? But Charlie represented everything Katie wasn’t. Where Katie was safety, Charlie was a nosedive into a different world. Katie was familiarity, while Charlie…Charlie was adventure, and isn’t that what love is supposed to be? Charlie made me want to fall in love, and that was terrifying. And captivating.

​In the end, I watched stupid Flash cartoons until I fell asleep, the message to Katie left unsent.

***

CHAPTER NINE

​Once again, it is I, the faceless, nameless narrator who has no further function in the story.

​Anyways, life had been fairly awesome since the Ann Arbor gig. Alex and Charlie’s little “relationship” was chugging along, never mind the fact that Charlie still had no idea about Katie. The poor soul, she had no clue of the shitstorm to come.

​Every Saturday until the big day, the band played its little heart out. Sunday too, if they were feeling feisty. As football season ramped up, life became a delicate balance, plotting around practices and games. It was absolutely not a great time. Football games are unjustifiably soul-suckingly boring, no matter how much Alex insisted otherwise, but spirits remained high as the team continued to win.

​The weekend of the homecoming dance, the band decided to forgo the festivities in favor of playing a show in Westland. This was a very easy decision for Alex, who was panicking over ways to invite his real girlfriend to the dance in lieu of his fake one. This was also a very easy decision for everyone else, who collectively hated such frivolous things. Everyone else except Charlie, that is, the would-be homecoming queen, who angrily wore her dress in ostensible protest.

​But this show was arguably the most important, barring SlayFest itself, as Arkelly and The Virtue were co-headlining. This was Venona’s chance for redemption in the eyes of the very bands it had embarrassed itself in front of, and there was no way anything would go wrong this time.

​Right?

***

Alex

​“What do you think?”

​Charlie did a little spin, the fringe of her silver flapper-esque dress glowing in the dim light of the club.

​“Fit for a queen,” I smiled.

​We had just finished loading in. Kit and Casey were in the green room, wrapping up a lesson that was punctuated by frustrated groans. Leo and Shawn had gone next door for pizza. For the first time that night — and likely the last time that night — Charlie and I were alone.

​“You really think they’re going to like this new song?” she asked, studying the chessboard tiles on the floor. “We haven’t done anything like this before.”

​“Well, it’s not like what we were doing before was working,” I said.

​I placed my hand over hers, and she curled her fingers around mine. The club was blasting classic rock through the loudspeakers. Some old Journey song came on, the only song I really recognized in the mix, and there, in the tiny backstage area of this dingy club, it was clear what I had to do.

​“May I have this dance?”

​Her glossy pink lips twisted into a sly smile. “I thought you’d never ask.”

​It felt silly, and I hoped to God no one else saw, but there was something cathartic about twirling around behind the stage with her. Somehow, this felt even more intimate that what had happened in her room what seemed like forever ago. She laid her head on my shoulder, and I felt her soft breath on my neck. I could have stayed there forever, and I probably would have, if Billy hadn’t barged in.

​“Oh! Alex!” he began, turning red. “I, um…”

​Shit.

​Billy went to my old school. Billy knew Katie.

​I pushed Charlie away and tried to muster a surprised face to cover up the utter panic I was feeling, but Billy was already gone by the time I looked back at him again.

​We relocated to the front of the stage as the opening band began to soundcheck. I don’t remember who they were — some random metalcore band from Ohio again. I didn’t bother to learn their name. The entire time, I was panicking about Billy, which was probably just my overthinking getting the best of me yet again. What were the chances he’d say anything to Katie? For all I knew, he was too stupid to put it it all together. Maybe he’d think nothing of it. Maybe.

​Who the hell was I kidding? Even if he said nothing to Katie, I was on a sinking ship. I couldn’t keep this up with Charlie. But I couldn’t bring myself to stop her hand from creeping into mine as the first song began, and I hated myself for it. As the center of the ballroom opened up into a violent pit, we edged off toward the wall. I watched cautiously as Billy eyed me, unsure whether or not he could see our joined hands.

​At last, the band ended its final song and it was our turn to take their place. Charlie ran ahead of me to set up her equipment, but I lingered in the crowd. I didn’t want to do any of this. Perhaps Venona was a mistake. I wished with everything within me I was back home, back with Five Minute Drive, back with Katie, back before I gave Billy any reason to stare suspiciously as I sauntered toward the stage. It wasn’t too late. I could end this. I could focus on my academics and athletics. I could take the lump of tuition money saved up in my name and become a doctor, or lawyer, or something respectable, anything besides the frontman of some mediocre emo band busting its ass trying to win over sweaty adolescents in some trashy club. But Charlie and the guys were already in their places, and my fingers found the fretboard of my guitar as I stepped into the spotlight.

​“We are Venona,” I spoke into the mic, my voice quivering. “And we’ve got something new for you tonight.”

​Some jackass yelled “Play that Eminem song” as I began to play the opening riff of the tune Charlie wrote. I mouthed the counts to myself, one-and-a-two, closing my eyes and letting the hum of my guitar drown out the jeers and my own self-doubt.

​“I never was one for giving away affection,” I sang. “I couldn’t bother with the simple things like that.”

​The crowd grew silent, their collective gazes burning into my bones. Shawn and Leo came in and the mass of humans in front of me began to sway ever so slightly.

​“You make me want to fall in love.”

​Charlie steps up to her own mic. She’d never sang before, not with Venona. This was new.

​“You make me wanna try again,” we sang in harmony as the chorus kicked in, our voices blending over the PA. “Even though I know you know the road is long and my heart is restless.”

​This was about me, wasn’t it. My heart sunk, but this was not the time to dwell on it. Not when the audience was wide-eyed at our band, hanging on our words like moths to a porch light. I tried to hide my own amazement. This silly pop song that made Taylor Swift look heavy in comparison managed to win over this crowd of hardcore kids, against all odds.

​The second verse went by in a haze, and Kit played the solo flawlessly. At the head of the last chorus, Charlie leapt into the middle of the stage, right beside me. Together, sharing a mic, we belted out the lyrics to a mesmerized crowd.

​“You make me wanna try again, even when I want to run, I look at you and remember the reasons you make me want to try.”

​Finally, the last chord rang out through the speakers. Charlie smiled at me, gave me a chaste peck on the cheek, and returned to her post. Leo hit play on his MacBook, triggering the intro to “Lose Yourself,” and the rest of the show went as planned. Still, a strange energy echoed through the air. Something was different now. Venona was no longer some mediocre local emo band. We were a force to be reckoned with, and Arkelly was forced to take notice.

​I knew this, because Billy confronted us at the end of the night.

​“Ah, Mr. Aponte,” he sneered as we were loading out. “You’ve really stepped up your game.”

​The poor innocent soul I was, I took this as a compliment. “Thanks, man.” I didn’t bother to look up at his insolent face as I shoved my amp into the trailer.

​“You certainly seem at home with these…degenerates. I’m glad you found your place.”

​“Excuse me?”

​“Face it, Aponte. They’re scum. White trash. To think you went to Cranbrook. Absolutely laughable. Just so you know, I haven’t forgiven you for the CD release. And neither has anyone else. You’re the laughingstock of the Downriver music scene. Hell, you’re the laughingstock of the Michigan music scene. And no one is going to take you seriously at SlayFest. You know that.” He leaned in so close I could taste his breath. “So just. Give. Up.”

​With that, he turned and disappeared into the dark of the night. I shivered. We weren’t on good terms, and this solidified that.

​As I turned back toward the building to collect the rest of the band, a now-familiar scent overtook me as a small cloud wafted out of the trailer. I heard coughing, and Leo’s voice echoed from behind the stacks of amplifiers.

​“I can’t believe he called us white trash. What a prick.”

​Casey’s big stupid voice followed. “Yeah! We’re obviously not all white! We’re like, rainbow trash!”

​I shook my head. Idiots.

***

​“One, two, three, whip your hair, throw the guitar to your left — no, no, the other left — and…”

​“Ow, shit!” cried Shawn, as the headstock of Kit’s guitar stabbed into his girthy midsection.

​“Charlie, this isn’t cheerleading,” Kit said as he inspected the damage on his own instrument. “You can’t just … choreograph headbanging.”

​Charlie looked down at her own notes. “Trust me, guys. It’ll look badass if we get this down. Now Kit, let’s cooperate so we can try the part where we stand back-to-back and I do a backflip over you.”

​We were running low on time, and this would be our final rehearsal before SlayFest, but I figured I’d indulge Charlie’s visions of synchronized stage moves. I sat cross-legged in the corner of the room watching the three of them batter each other senseless with their respective instruments. We were doing alright as a band for the time being, better than I would have really expected from us at this point. Following the show with Arkelly, our online following grew exponentially. The week leading up to SlayFest, we distributed flyers in every mall within 50 miles of the Downriver area. Tessa even took a stack and handed them out throughout several neighborhoods.

​Brooke was at my side as I watched Kit, Charlie, and Shawn lurch over like a bunch of crabs mid-seizure. She scribbled something in her notebook and turned to me.

​“You guys made the playoffs,” she said. “You know, SlayFest is the same night, right? I just … I don’t think you guys should go to Slay— I mean, the playoffs. Don’t go to the playoffs. You won’t make it in time.” Her voice trailed off.

​“What? We’ve planned this for a while, Brooke. It’s too late to back out now. Even if we go into overtime, the game should be over by 9 at the latest. We don’t go on until 10, right? You’re the one who signed us up. You’d know.”

​She silently studied the cracks in the concrete floor for a moment before sighing. “Yeah, you’re right. Forget I said anything, okay?”

​After “practice” wrapped, we ventured into the wooded area behind the storage complex. Apparently Shawn, Casey, Brooke, and Leo had a hideout from their younger days. The leaves crackled beneath our feet as we made our way through the pitch dark, illuminated only by the light of Leo’s phone and the full moon over our heads. Leo and Casey took the lead, as Casey rambled on unintelligibly about their youthful misadventures. Even Charlie had gone along on some of them, back before whatever had driven them apart. I never realized how close everyone had been growing up, and suddenly, I felt like a bit of an outsider in my own band. They’d experienced things together I’d never be able to comprehend. I thought back to that framed picture of Brooke and Charlie. Brooke had to have meant something to Charlie for it to have remained displayed in her home for so long.

​At last, there we were, the seven of us, criss-cross applesauce on the wood floor of this shoddy excuse for a fort, amongst rain-soaked porno mags and booze bottles, their labels bleached from sun exposure. Directly in front of where I was sitting was a splotch of what appeared to be a wine stain. Or blood.

​Leo must have noticed me staring at it. “Don’t worry, that’s just blood.”

​“That’s reassuring,” I said, still not convinced they hadn’t dragged me out there to sacrifice me to the old gods of the Detroit suburbs.

​Before I could bolt away in terror, Shawn clarified. “It’s from our blood ritual back in, what, eighth grade?”

​“Was it really that long ago?” asked Leo.

​“Well, Brooke got this idea from a Bon Jovi song—“

​“It was not from a Bon Jovi song, thank you,” Brooke interjected. “It was definitely from a Buffy episode.”

​Shawn scoffed. “Buffy, right. Anyways, we all came up here and took this piece of glass and—“ he mimicked the motion of slicing into his own hand.

​I’m sure I visibly grimaced. “Ew! Why would anyone do that?”

​“Because we were like, thirteen and thought we were edgy,” Leo said. “I guess it worked. We’re all still friends.” He glanced between Charlie and Brooke, who were squinting suspiciously at one another. “Kind of.”

​Casey kicked at a broken bottle. “Hey, Alex and Kit weren’t here when we did it! We should induct them into our clan!”

​This man is even more nuts than I thought.

​“I ain’t doing shit with y’all,” Brooke said, folding her arms in front of her. “I don’t know who all you sluts have screwed since eighth grade. This is a good way to get like, mega-AIDS.”

​Shawn rolled his eyes. “Says the girl who gave herself stick-and-poke tattoos with her aunt’s heroin needles.”

​“I mean, we could always just say a few words or something,” Leo mused. “Renew our vows.”

​“This isn’t a marriage, dumbass,” said Shawn. “What are you going to say? ‘I, Leonard Antoine Marshall—’“

​“Do not call me Leonard.”

​As the night wore on, we all sat around the lights of our phones, placed together in the center with the flashlights on, creating a makeshift campfire of sorts. The others reminisced about wild band camp pranks and how when Charlie’s mom used to doodle on her lunchbags, she’d take Casey’s lunch down to the art room before school to have her draw him something too, and the one time Leo beat up some kid for calling Shawn the f-slur, even though he couldn’t compete in that year’s solo and ensemble because of it. After a while, we all began to open up to each other. I learned their stories. How Casey was the one to find his mother dead of alcohol poisoning when he was only eleven, and how Charlie’s father walked out on her family. How Kit had attempted suicide, and how Shawn came pretty damn close a few times as well. Even Leo, who had become our rock, shared his insecurities, how his uncle, a Motown drummer, died penniless in the streets of Detroit, and how he was scared to death of meeting the same fate.

​My stomach twisted and I felt something akin to guilt. I’d lived this charmed life. The worst thing that ever happened to me was my dad losing the financial support of my grandfather and having to move to some low-class suburbs. I’ve never had to fight for anything. And when this whole band thing blew over — and it inevitably would — I’d leave them all behind and take my trust fund and go to some prestigious college alongside some fake-ass dudebros in Abercrombie polos.

​As much as I wanted this nightmare to end, part of me wanted to hold onto the warmth and realness of it for as long as I could.

***

CHAPTER TEN

Leo

​Ah yes, our biggest show yet.

​The playoffs, mind you. Not SlayFest.

​I ran through the warm-ups with the rest of the drumline, rudiment after rudiment. Somewhere in the distance, I could hear Shawn’s section leader barking out orders, this scale and that scale. Farther in the distance, Casey was adjusting his stupid mascot costume, a big blue housecat we tried to pretend was a cougar. The gym teacher caught us smoking behind the bleachers one year and promised not to rat us out to the authorities if Casey agreed to act as the mascot, as he was one of maybe four students in the entire school who was tall enough to fit in it.

​Let’s go Triumph High School

​Silver, blue and white!

​Claws out, mighty cougars,

​Ready for the fight — rah rah rah!

​“Ever notice how the fight song is basically just ‘Jolly Old Saint Nicholas’?” Shawn blew the spit out of his instrument. “Just, ya know, marchier?”

​“I try not to think about Christmas songs in the middle of October,” I said. “But thanks. Now I can’t unhear it.”

​We were now in our little corner of the field. The air was thick with the typical pre-game noodling, the occasional discernible melody poking through the cacophony of sound. This would continue until the drum majors took their place in front of us, commanding our attention.

​The band played the usual, the national anthem and fight song and all that. To me, it was running through the same motions that had been rattling through my brain for four years now. We marched through the clouds of mosquitos and stood at attention as the bugs feasted on our exposed flesh. At last, we were released to our stations on the sidelines. To our left were the cheerleaders, Charlie at the front and center, with a corny-ass smile plastered on her face. I knew she was terrified of what would happen. So was I. So was everyone else who knew what was really happening.

​Let’s go Triumph High School

​Silver, blue, and white!

​We were the first to score. Fight song, then “Seven Nation Army.” It’s always “Seven Nation Army.” The teams geared up for the next round. Are they called “rounds?” I’m not much of a football buff. My extent of football knowledge begins and ends with whatever I witness as part of the marching band. Another few minutes of running back and forth. I recognized the members of our team. I knew when people I had AP literature with caught the ball. I wanted to root for them. I wanted to cheer on Kyle K., whose presentation on why “The Great Gatsby” sucks managed to hold my attention somehow. Or Cody D., who actually read “The Grapes of Wrath,” unlike literally everyone else in our class. Or Alex, who I’d go on to perform in the SlayFest competition with later that night.

​The other team scored. Shit.

​“Seven Nation Army.” Again.

​Just score already.

​7-7. A tie.

​I left with Shawn to get a hot dog. The rubbery kind. Its foot-long length did not compensate for its inferiority. I doused it with enough mustard to make disguise the taste, if not make it edible. The sky was fading into a pinkish purple as the temperature noticeably dropped several degrees. As we settled back in our places, we watched nervously as the players hustled from one side of the field to the other, then back again, as the score remained the same. Then, a startling silence.

​What the hell?

​One player was lying motionless on the turf. We all traded glances — Shawn and I to Brooke in the stands, and Charlie and Casey in front of the stands, to Kit on the bench. Something had gone terribly, terribly wrong, and time came to a halt as the emergency responders on deck rushed the field. My hands felt cold around my sticks as I pressed them to my chest, trying to keep my heart from falling out of it. A listlessness fell over the crowd as we realized the still silhouette on the field was Alex.

What followed was the longest five minutes of my life.

​As the moths danced in the light above us, we stood somberly while the EMTs assessed the damage. Alex was carried off the field and taken into the ambulance, and we all stared in anticipation of the lights and sirens. Instead, the door opened once again and a disheveled Alex emerged with a twisted look on his grimy face. As he sauntered past the band, he stopped and looked up at me specifically.

​“I think I fractured something in my arm, but I told ‘em I’m fine. Just said I can’t afford the hospital bills and they let me go.”

​“You’re absolutely insane,” I sighed. “The show’s not that important. Go to the hospital, dumbass.”

​“We’ve come too far.” He made a face as he bent his arm. “I’ll have Casey play rhythm for me tonight.”

​“Yeah, we lost.”

​“The game or the battle of the bands?”

​“Yes,” I said, stifling a laugh.

​As Alex took his place on the bench, I noticed who was missing from it — Kit? There he was, on the field, braid sticking out of his helmet and looking comically small compared to the rest of the players.

​We were definitely losing tonight.

​We played “Seven Nation Army” a-freaking-gain as the players took their places. The music came to a stop and the game resumed, the big 7-7 looming over us on the scoreboard. There was some running about, some cheering from the stands and from the cheerleaders, and the occasional sound of the whistle. The fourth quarter was down to little over a minute as the sky blackened. This was the end. I snuck a look at my phone. 9:16. I twirled my drumsticks anxiously. Then—

​Kit?!

​He was at one end of the field, ball in hand, as the other players stood like statues. A member of the opposing team looked down at the braid in his hand, which had clearly come straight from Kit’s head.

​Did…did Kit’s hair just win us the game? Does this even count?

​Kit removed his helmet and shook out his now-shoulder-length locks. The refs looked around in confusion. He had gotten the ball past the other team’s goal line, which counted for something. That much I knew. He’d outrun everyone, even if one of them managed to grab him by his braid — which broke off, I assumed, because of the damage from Brooke’s impromptu makeover. From what I’d later learn, it’s an entirely legal move, grabbing your opponent by the hair, as the hair is considered part of their uniform. We played several of the tunes in our repertoire as the referees debated whether or not what had just happened would result in a point for us.

​And, as they decided, it did. We’d won the game, quite literally, by a hair. But there was no time to celebrate. For us, the night had just begun.

***

Alex

​By the time we made it out to the parking lot, stealthily evading the attention of the coaches and zealous observers, my arm was throbbing. We had the same arrangement as before when we’d raced down the highway to Shawn’s, only this time, we were en route to Detroit. The clock read 9:39. I held out my arm and Charlie made a makeshift sling from her undershirt, not even phased by being half-naked in front of Ali and Kit.

​“Don’t worry,” she said, wrapping the shirt around my forearm. “My mom packed us some clothes in my bag.”

​“Us?”

​“That was supposed to be a surprise,” she smiled. “My mom made us ‘uniforms.’ She said we need a schtick. All the good bands had a look, ya know? I told her not to, but she insisted.”

​Even if it was a dorky idea, I couldn’t turn down Ms. Lipschitz’s act of generosity. “Your mom is too good for this sinful earth.”

​The suburbs gave way to the lights of the city factories and the edifices of Detroit came into view like Oz at the end of the yellow brick road. I watched as Kit attempted to make some kind of sense of his new shorter hair. Ali had quipped that his new look was part of his “character development.” Kit brushed him off. He was going to grow it back eventually anyway, he said.

​We arrived at 10:05 sharp. As we congregated in front of the venue, we heard the sound of another band on stage, and I immediately recognized the vocalist as Billy Reuben. Weren’t they supposed to be done by 9:50? Inside, we saw him and Brooke and the rest of the band performing, presumably eating away at our time slot. We quickly loaded in, throwing our gear haphazardly in the backstage area while Charlie gave us all our new shirts, a set of navy blue baseball uniforms, lovingly sewn by her mom. There was our band name on the back and a new logo, a pair of interlocking triangles, embroidered on the front. I have to admit, they looked pretty good on us.

​Charlie came up beside me and grabbed my hand without a word. Her strawberry-scented hair fell onto my shoulder. I kissed the top of her head and gave her hand a squeeze. Maybe this adventure would be worth it after all. I had Charlie now. I had the band, and even if they hadn’t been my first choice of companions, they’d proved to be some of the truest companions I’d ever had. Somewhere out there, Five Minute Drive was selling out enormous venues and traveling the world, and for the first time, I didn’t even care. I had everything I could ask for inside the walls of this dingy club. All that was left to do was win this prize.

​At last, Arkelly was finished. My stomach dropped as the house lights came on and we were given the cue. We dragged our amps and instruments onto the stage and scrambled to assemble our setups. Casey was to my left, a foot behind Shawn, my Tele hanging from his shoulders. To my right, Charlie was stretching and Kit was frantically tuning. Leo shot me an “OK” and I signaled to the sound guy that we were ready. This was easily the biggest crowd we’d ever played for, probably the biggest crowd I’d ever played for, Five Minute Drive included. Leo pressed a button on the laptop, clicked his sticks together, and it was time. What happened in the next ten minutes would decide our fates, as a band and as individuals.

​We had two songs — “Lose Yourself” and Charlie’s song, “Try.” As the intro to “Lose Yourself” ended, Kit began playing the main riff. Thankfully, Casey didn’t have much to do on this one, but I was worried for our next song, which required him to play the intro. With all the energy I could summon, I prowled around the front of the stage, enjoying the freedom not having to play guitar myself afforded me. Sure, one of my arms was useless, but I was much more able to interact with the crowd now. As the song came to a close, I saw the door burst open with another swarm of onlookers. Amy and Ali barged in, followed by the would-be Ram’s Horn crew. I saw Kit smile, probably for the first time ever. In the quiet between songs, I heard one of Ali’s asshole friends mutter “Isn’t that your faggot brother?” To which Ali responded with a well-deserved swift fist to the face. I couldn’t help but smile myself. Kit wasn’t the only experiencing character development.

Tessa skulked around snapping photos of us while Brooke stood aloof in the corner. It was like the entire world had come out to see us. All except my entire world, that is. Katie wasn’t there, and as I looked over at Charlie, who was waiting in anticipation of Casey’s opening lick, I felt that familiar twinge of guilt. Charlie was beautiful, and fun, and talented, but Katie was my person, and I hated that I was living this double life without her. I shouldn’t have led Charlie on like this. I was going to say something after the performance. It would kill me, but I needed to.

I heard the intro to “Try,” Casey’s clumsy hands somehow managing to play the intricate part I’d written for it. The rest of the band kicked in and I sang the first verse, awaiting Charlie’s second verse, which she’d sing without the knowledge that I was planning on breaking her heart once this all was over. But we went through the motions, her deep brown eyes gleaming at me as we shared a mic. FInally, the last line — “You make me wanna fall in love” — and the crowd went wild below us. We were shuffled off the stage almost as quickly as we’d been corralled onto it, but there was no time to rest. We were the last band on, so the MC took the stage to announce the winners and runner-ups.

We waited patiently at the foot of the stage, Charlie taking my hand into hers once more. I saw the others scattered throughout the audience, watching in anticipation as the lights went down. I felt Charlie’s fingers curl around mine as the names were listed off. Third place, that Ohio band I can never remember. Second place, Arkelly. First place — wait, there must have been a mistake? But my feet took me to the stage once more, the rest of the band meeting me there, I saw Ali and Tessa and Brooke cry out in glee. Charlie leaned in to kiss me in celebration.

“Your 2008 Slayfest Battle of the Bands Winner is Venona of Taylor, Michigan!” the MC shouted into the mic as the crowd erupted into cacophonous applause. “This year’s winner will open for 89x’s annual Christmas extravaganza and win a hefty sum of $500!”

Here’s the record scratch and the subsequent mood whiplash. There really had been a mistake.

“Wait, $500?” I say, looking down at the little black numbers inked onto the check.

Brooke mouthed from the audience “I can explain.”

I knew I shouldn’t have freaked out the way I did, but in that moment, I knew Brooke had lied to me. There was a reason I’d never heard of Slayfest. The check read “SleighFest.” Did she change the spelling so I couldn’t search the name and find the information? She’d definitely bent the truth, but why? Those questions didn’t matter to me in that moment. All that did matter was that I was furious. But just then, the worst possible thing that could happen, did happen.

Katie!

She stormed right up to the stage and grabbed Charlie roughly by the neck of her shirt. Her mom’s craftsmanship tore slightly from the force.

“Who. Is. This?!” Katie, who I’d never seen any more than mildly perturbed in my life, grasped Charlie with sheer menace. Charlie tried to defend herself, and put up a decent fight to be fair, but she was much smaller than Katie. The two of them struggled for a minute until Charlie tumbled ungracefully to the ground. She lied still and dazed, flat on her stomach, until I realized what had happened. Her bag!  

When she stood up, we all watched in horror as the…fluid…dripped from the seams of her baseball tee, her eyes watering. She darted out of sight, and I was tempted to run after her, but then I remembered the check in my hands.

“Fuck this!” I yelled, ripping the check in two and throwing it to the ground.

But by the time I turned the corner into the backstage area, Charlie was nowhere to be seen.

***

Charlie

It’s about time I get to tell my side of the story. But my side of the story starts way back, back before Venona, before Alex, before any of this. Like Alex’s story, it started with a swift fist to the face — of my middle school bully.

I looked up to see who had defended me from the cheap jabs I’d grown used to. Standing before me was a large girl with long dark hair and Spongebob pajama pants.

“I don’t think you have to worry about that bitch anymore,” the girl said. “I’m Brooke. I just moved here.”

“Charlie,” I muttered. “But…why? Why did you do that?”

She grinned. “Just wanted to smack a hoe I guess.”

I smiled awkwardly. I’d never heard anyone my own age use that kind of language. A tiny bead of steel gleamed from the side of her nose. She seemed so effortlessly cool, unlike me at the time.

Still, we became inseparable from that moment on. I remember the first time she came over to my place after school. My mother greeted her at the door with apples from our backyard and ushered her into the living room, where she excitedly showed off my paintings. Brooke looked in awe at our walls, covered floor to ceiling with artwork, family photos, and miscellanea from our years of collecting things we found fascinating. She focused in on one particular canvas.

“Woah,” she said, tracing the letters. “Is this Russian?”

“Hebrew,” my mother smiled. “It’s a Jewish blessing.”

Her dark brown eyes opened wide. “Are y’all Jewish? My aunt says you guys rule the world!”

My mother laughed. “Well, if that were true,” she started, “we wouldn’t be living in Taylor, Michigan.”

In my room, she started flipping through all of my CDs, loudly declaring which bands she liked and which were lame. At one point, she stopped her exploration of my music stash and looked up from the hardwood floor.

“Okay, favorite artist of all time.” It was a demand, not a question.

“Radiohead.”

“That’s the one you tell people,” she said. “Now what’s your real favorite?”

“Radiohead. Why do you—“

“Be honest. I won’t judge you.”

“Fine. Elton John.”

“There it is.” She laughed. “Mine’s GNR.”

I flipped the question back onto her. “Real favorite?”

“Bon Jovi. When I was a kid, I’d watch the Behind the Music of them religiously. It always made me feel better somehow.”

“When you were a kid,” I laughed. “You’re like, twelve.”

“I’ve lived a lot of lives,” she said, half-jokingly.

We would do this a lot after school. One of our favorite things to do following her “confession” was to play Bon Jovi. It sounds absolutely absurd, and it was. Most of the time we’d argue over who got to be Jon Bon Jovi and who would be relegated to Richie Sambora status. Most of the time, I was Richie. When we both decided to dye our hair (with the help of my mother, of course), my fate as the Richie of the two of us was cemented. “You’re the dark-haired one now,” Brooke would say. “You have to be Richie.” But I’d grab my fake guitar (read: broomstick) and she’d grab her fake mic (read: hairbrush) and we’d lip-synch the entire Slippery When Wet album every Friday night until my mom yelled at us to stop.

We had a lot of firsts together. I remember when I got my first period — she’d had hers way before me — and she guided me through all of the awkwardness of that experience. She got her first boyfriend, Shawn, and along with him came his dopey friends, Leo and Casey. We became a little family, so much so that we had a “ceremony” in the woods one night. And of course, Brooke spent the night every Friday after we’d finish hanging out with the guys.

“Have you ever kissed a boy?” Brooke asked during one of our weekly sleepovers.

“Ew, no!” I yelled, and then my eyes got big. “Have you?”

“Duh,” she grinned. “I’ve kissed lots of ‘em. Do you even know how to kiss a boy?”

“I’m sure I could figure it out,” I lied. “it’s supposed to come naturally, right? Like sex.”

“It’s kind of like…um…drinking from a pop can.” She took the can of Coke she’d been sipping on and held it to her lips. “The can is the boy’s lips.” She made out with the can, rubbing her cherry-glossed lips over the rim seductively. Then, she handed the can to me. “Wanna try?”

I grabbed it and looked at the greasy lip-splotches hesitantly. “It’s got your germs all over it now, weirdo.”

“That’s the fun of kissing! It’s supposed to be slobbery and gross.”

We were tired and slap-happy at this point, and I fell onto my bed, wheezing. Then, out of nowhere, she leaned in and kissed me — not the icky kind she’d just demonstrated, but a sweet, delicate, chaste kiss. I was young and socially awkward and not sure if this was a thing normal straight female friends did, but I didn’t mind it happening. I loved Brooke more than anyone, and something about the moment just felt right. Gay, straight, friends, lovers. It didn’t matter to me. No one got me like she did, and no one ever would.

I also remember the one time I went to her place. I don’t think I could forget it.

The entire place reeked of cigarette smoke, the smell clinging to the ugly shag carpeting. The trailer was a wreck in general, and in the center of the living room, like a filth queen, sat Brooke’s aunt, Scarlett. She was scarily pale and skinny with neglect-clumps of red hair. Her arms were wracked with what I could only assume were track marks from drug use.

“Ah, you must be Charlie,” she rasped from her throne. “Brooke told me a lot about ya.”

I took a second to investigate the surroundings. A makeshift meth pipe — promising. Rat droppings — lovely. A Confederate flag — maybe she likes Dukes of Hazzard? A book collection — at least she was well-read. Mein Kampf — yikes.

I picked up the book and laughed uneasily. “I take it you’re a history buff?”

“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Did Brooke ever tell you her grandpa died in a concentration camp?”

“Really?” Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all. Just into the darker parts of world history, that’s all. “My grandma actually—“

Before I could finish my sentence, she cut me off. “Fell out of a guard tower.” She laughed as if that was the funniest possible thing she could have said in the moment. I cringed. “Ay Brooke,” she added. “You forgot to do the dishes again. If you wanna live here, you gotta do the work.”

“Scarlett—“

“Aunt Scarlett, you mean?” She tried to stand up, but her knees buckled and she fell back into the decrepit recliner. “You’re lucky I’m not feeling good. I’d beat your ass right in front of your friend.”

Brooke turns to me. “Let’s just go to my room.”

Once we’re safely in Brooke’s room and out of earshot of her aunt, I whispered, “What’s her problem?”

“She’s not used to company I don’t think. Don’t take it personal.”

“Does she really beat you?”

“Don’t worry ‘bout it. Let’s play Mario Kart.” She booted up the N64, looking away.

“Brooke. You can talk to me.”

She didn’t remove her eyes from the load screen. “It’s better than my dad’s place, trust me. She lets me stay here as long as I do all the chores. Sometimes I feel more like a slave than anything, but whatcha gonna do?”

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t know where this girl came from or what she’d been through. I just wrapped my arms around her and wished I could protect her from the world.

One time at my place, we watched Bring It On, and that’s when she confessed her real deepest, darkest secret — she wanted to be a cheerleader.

“They’re always so cool and confident. I wish I was like that. I think I could do it.”

I shrugged. “It can’t be too hard. Can you do a cartwheel?”

So we went out into the front yard and helped each other tumble about until we were both dizzy and laughing our brains out. Then, we took turns making up the most obnoxious “cheers.” “2, 4, 6, 8, let’s watch porn and masturbate!” (Give us a break, we were middle schoolers and thought that was hilarious.) And then we made up a dance. 80s music, natch. “What a Feeling” from Flashdance to be precise. We were convinced we were going to take the cheerleading tryouts by storm.

And…we did. We somehow, miraculously did. I didn’t even want to try out — it was more of Brooke’s thing. She was so excited to be part of something, and especially to be part of something with me. We were going to be the Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora of cheerleading. Except…

The cost. She couldn’t afford the uniforms we were required to buy.

I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to be part of something as well. I’d been teased my entire life, and here I was, handed my big break. Maybe I should have handled it differently. But Brooke…

She definitely should have handled it differently.

After I broke the news to her that I was going to go forward and join the cheer team without her, she berated me with a fervor I’d never seen from anyone, not even my childhood bullies. All of this ending with a certain slur that rhymes with “bike.”

“But wait, Charlie,” you say. “There are at least two slurs that rhyme with ‘bike.’” And whichever one you’re thinking of, I can assure you that she did, in fact, use that one.

And there you have it. Of course Brooke made off with our mutual friends, and I made my own on the cheer squad, but there was always a hole in my heart where she should have been. Part of me never wanted to forgive her, and the other part of me wanted nothing more than to see her when my world was crumbling, sitting on the curb in the rain just outside of the Sleighfest venue.

Suddenly, a familiar voice. “Hey, Richie Sambora.”

***

So now, we meet with our heroine Charlie, despondent in the rain and covered in her own filth.

Or should I say, I meet with Charlie. The narrator was me, Brooke. Surprise!

And I guess I have a lot of explaining to do.

For one, SlayFest — or should I say, SleighFest — was real the entire time. The only thing I lied about, barring the spelling, was the prize money.

Okay, there were a few other things too. Like how I signed Venona up out of the kindness of my little heart. That wasn’t true. Not at first, at least. Only ten bands could enter, and I knew Arkelly would easily beat anyone who competed — barring The Virtue. In my humble attempt to keep them from entering, I volunteered Venona, convinced they’d absolutely bomb as they’d proven entirely capable of.

My ruse about the prize money wasn’t going to stick for long, not with everyone that wasn’t named Alex Aponte. The thing about Alex Aponte is that when you grow up rich, you really can’t tell $500 from $50,000. It’s all chump change to him. But we all knew. Charlie, Kit, Leo, Shawn, even Casey, as dimwitted as he is. Everyone figured out I was lying to them about the real prize. And the real prize, as corny as it seems, wasn’t the $500, but the friends we made along the way (cue the sappy music, whatever). That’s the reason no one filled Alex in on the sham. If he knew we weren’t actually competing for money to pay back our debts to the Meltdown’s owners, he would have backed out. But this stupid little family we’d built for ourselves was too valuable to throw away, so they all played along until the very end. We all played along.

None of that mattered much to me as I ran out to the shaking mass of human that was Charlotte Rose Lipschitz, who was as fallen from grace as one could get, sitting there on the curb.

I wrapped my jacket around her shoulders. “You smell like shit.”

“I wonder why,” she half-smiled. I couldn’t tell where the rain stopped and her tears began, but it looked like she’d been crying for a good minute.

“I’m sorry about everything,” I said. “Everything. Everything everything.”

“That’s vague. Why did you follow me out here?”

“Because no matter what, you’re still my best friend. I hate that I hurt you. I know I said some things that I—“

“Brooke, it’s okay. It’s over. I just want to be—“

“I’ll be there for you,” I sang softly.

“Oh god—“

“These five words I swear to you.”

Her big brown eyes locked with mine. “You came out here to quote Bon Jovi at me, like that’s going to magically fix everything?” Then, her face softened into a real smile. “Because it’s working.”

I put an arm around her, ignoring the fact that she smelled like death crapped itself. “I’ll be Richie Sambora this time.”

“It’s okay,” she giggled. “I kind of like being the Richie. He was the better singer anyways, and he was cuter if we’re being honest. And he gets to make out with all the hot blonde chicks.”

“Like me?” I joked.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Jon.”

I stayed out there with her until her mom came to pick her up. At last, I felt some semblance of peace. We were going to be alright.

***

Alex

Those next few days, I felt like nothing short of a pariah.

The band continued to sit together, but I was an unperson of sorts to them. Casey was pissed I tore up the check, and understandably so. That $500 would have been his ticket back into his family’s townhouse. The others couldn’t get over how arrogant I’d behaved. And Charlie, God, I was never going to make things right with her. It was bad enough that Katie blocked my number, but Charlie wouldn’t even look at me. A full gray cloud loomed over those days. Band practices had ceased, or so I thought. Turns out, the rest of the band continued practicing without me. Even Brooke was welcomed back into the loop. But I was, for all intents and purposes, dead to everyone.

The Friday after everything went down, I found myself in Kit’s mother’s cafe, puffing away at a hookah I had no business even accessing. Kit knew I was down, so he promised not to tattle to his mom that I was underage. Kit was at least attempting to be civil with me, for what it was worth. Casey stayed in the kitchen, avoiding eye contact.

“I just don’t know what to do,” I moaned, taking another hit of the hookah. Might as well start another bad habit, I thought to myself. What’s the point in trying to be the golden child anymore? It all backfired in the worst way. “Everyone hates me. I feel like a failure.”

“At least you’re finally seeing what it’s like,” Kit said, sitting in the booth across from me and staring out the window at the bustling Dearborn streets. 

“What do you mean?”

“To be human. The worst thing that’s ever happened to you was moving here. For us, being here was the starting line, you know?”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He leaned in toward me. “Listen Alex, do you really want to make this better? There’s this Lebanese proverb — he who took the donkey up to the roof should bring it down. Do you know what that means?”

“What does it mean?”

He blew smoke in my face before crossing his leg. “I don’t know either.”

***

I debated on disbanding Venona, but it was no longer mine to break up. They’d given it a life of their own, and I was stranded on the outskirts of this community they’d built.  At least I had athletics — not like our team made it past the next round of playoffs. And I had academics — not like my family had any money left to send me to a prestigious school. Except, I did have money. The savings account my father had put together years ago, which had been left alone, even with all the financial turmoil. That was something I could fall back upon. I’d apply for Harvard, or U of M, or Notre Dame, or any number of schools that would be fighting over me, and I’d go on to live the charmed life I knew I was destined for.

But who would I be leaving behind?

I flashed back to the night we cut our hands in the old clubhouse. This was a bond I couldn’t easily break, and I knew it. Before I moved on with my life, I had to do something to make it up to them.

We had one more show.

EPILOGUE

Alex

“Alex.”

Charlie looked up from her whirlwind of wires and cables, her big brown eyes gleaming under the stage lights.

“This is our biggest show yet.”

I sighed. “We’re opening.”

“Yeah,” she grinned. “For Fall Out Boy. At the freaking Filmore. Look alive, stupid.”

“We’re playing two songs.”

“While opening for Fall Out Boy. At the freaking Filmore.”

I guess I could have been a bit more appreciative of how things turned out. Sure, I drained my college fund in order to rebuild the Meltdown, better than before I should add. The Downriver music scene was flourishing more than ever now that we’d spearheaded the reopening of the venue. The owners were even kind enough to bring on Casey as a barista for their newly refurbished coffeeshop, and I’d sent in my own application. I had to recoup my tuition money somehow. Then again, pre-med was the last thing on my mind. Perhaps my calling really was music after all. 

I reached into my guitar case and felt a bundle of envelopes.

“Guys. Quick band meeting.”

The rest of Venona (and Casey) circled around me. Maybe it was just the stage lights, but something was different about every single one of them. I couldn’t help but smile a bit as I gathered the envelopes in my hands.

“Listen. I had a little leftover after I paid off the Meltdown. So—” I handed everyone an envelope with their names written on them. “This is for your hard work in the band. Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, blessed, uh, Kwanzaa? And Ramadan?”

“Hanukkah is next week,” Charlie mumbled.

“And I know I’m black and all,  but my family doesn’t do Kwanzaa,” Leo said, suppressing a tiny laugh.

“And like, do you even know what Ramadan is?” Kit rolled his eyes.

“Whatever. Happy Sunday. Just take the damn money.”

Casey about leapt in excitement. “I can pay off my sister! Heck yes! But…” He looked over at Kit. “I wouldn’t be here without you and your family.”

Kit flashed a rare smile. “God Casey, it’s not like you can’t visit us. You know you’re part of the family now.”

“We’re all family,” I said. “Which reminds me, there’s someone I need to talk to.”

I crawled off the stage and searched the crowd for the signature tuft of bleached blonde hair. Brooke was mulling about in the back corner of the ballroom area.

“Hey.” Two heavily eyelinered eyes peaked up beneath a thick fringe.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“No, I need to talk,” she countered. “I know I lied. We all lied. We knew the prize money wasn’t going to be that much. The thing is, we were all scared you wouldn’t want to go through with it if you found out the truth.”

“That doesn’t matter, Brooke. Here, it’s not a lot but it should cover a few community college business courses. Consider yourself the official manager of Venona.”

“You’re lying now. There’s no…” She opened the envelope and watched as several bills flickered through the air to the ground. “Alex. I can’t believe it.” Suddenly, her sloppily tatted arms wrapped around my neck. I thought she was going to break my spine. “Now I just gotta make it through senior year.”

I heard a voice ring through the PA. Casey was hooting and hollering into the microphone, trying to get my attention. 

Why did we ever let him back on stage?

The lineup was finalized. Casey’s lessons with Kit paid off and he was able to crank out a couple of power chords, enough to play barebones pop-punk at the very least. On my left was Shawn, who, even with his signature scowl, looked lighter than air for once. Leo reclined in the back on his throne, clicking together his drumsticks with the confidence I imagined his late uncle had. I knew he would have been proud. There was Kit to my right, his now-natural black hair falling down to his shoulders. The scars on his arm were now covered in a tattoo Brooke had done for him a few weeks prior. He told me it was Arabic — “I suffered, I learned, I changed.” And by my side was Charlie, who I’d be splitting lead vocals with. She slung her keytar around her shoulders and stepped up to her mic, looking as ravishing as the first time I’d seen her in the principal’s office, a day that seemed like centuries ago. To think this was just the beginning! I could already envision late night practices, long recording sessions, and more post-show Coney Island outings than I could count.

“I never was one for giving away affection,” I started singing. “I couldn’t bother with the simple things like that.” 

It felt like coming home.

I don’t remember much of the rest of the night. I briefly met the guys from the other bands, which should have been monumental, but everything was overshadowed by one sentence spoken by Charlie as she packed up her gear.

“It will take a long time.”

“What?”

“I won’t say never it’ll never happen again. But it will take a long time.”

I knew what she meant. “I’m glad we can at least be friends.”

The air was cold as we loaded everything into the trailer. Tiny snowflakes began to fall from the sky. Casey tapped my shoulder and handed me a tiny rolled-up something.

“You gotta try this man. These famous guys know where to get the good shit.”

“It’s okay,” I laughed. “Last time I tried something new, I burned down a building.”

“I’ll give ya that.” He disappeared into the trailer. “Ay Leo, do you think you can score another one of those apples?”