Ethan, YA Paranormal Romance

by P. T. Michelle

  He presses his lips together, then nods. “I’ll leave another car, but not this one. My mom gave it to me right before she died.”

  He tries to look tough, but I can tell he’s trying hard not to cry. Sometimes, even armed with tools, everyone needs a little comfort. I smile and hold out my hand. “It’s a deal. Let’s shake on it.”

  Chapter Two

  Afternoon sun shines down on me as I leave the cemetery, making me tense and antsy. My day’s half gone. Tomorrow I’ll start at the new school, Blue Ridge, so I need to make the most of my last day of the “freedom” Central gave me a week ago.

  Thoughts about my last school brought the rag-tag group I hung with to mind. How are the guys doing since I left a week ago? There’s Blade (for his skill with a switchblade), Creeper (for his harmless ability to mentally undress girls in various ways), Mo (for his spiked Mohawk), and lastly Shaun rounds out the group. They all go by nicknames, except Shaun. Actually, he does too, since half the time the guys call him Dead, which is short for Shaun of the Dead. Out of the four of them, Shaun is probably the most normal. Well, if you call a group of total screw-ups normal. Maybe it’s a “misery loves company” kind of thing, but however it happened, these guys gravitated toward each other like flies to the steaming pile of crap they called their home lives. And so they made the perfect group for me to start hanging with halfway through my first year at Central high school.

  Knowing the guys the way I do, now that I’m not there to glue them together, at least one has skipped school part of the week, another is spending his days in in-school suspension and the other two are looking for ways to get in trouble. Before I got kicked out of Central last week, we mostly spent the afternoons hanging in the school parking lot at the end of the day talking about cars and music. The memory of Shaun slapping Creeper on the shoulder last Tuesday has me turning toward the downtown mall. He’d looked at me and said, “Since you like that Southern rock shit, you should check out the Irish pub McCormicks downtown. We go there when we ditch, and every once in a while, the drummer let’s Creep’s here jump in and practice with the house band Waylaid.”

  It’s a pain to make up work at school if I miss, so today might be my only chance to hear this band Shaun mentioned. I’m always looking for new music to add to my collection. I park my car in the parking deck and make my way a few streets over to the brickyard mall. My pace picks up as that grating voice starts creeping in my head once more. You really don’t think music will help, do you? You can never get away from me. I’m always here. In your dreams. In your head. F-o-r-e-v-e-r!

  The back of my head twinges and I feel an image trying to come through. I shake my head and start running, hoping to keep it from invading my sight, but an image floats in my vision regardless.

  I halt so I don’t unintentionally run into a building or pole and squeeze my eyes shut. Grotesque skeletal hands with half sloughed-off flesh and long, dirty nails are reaching for my throat. I grit my teeth and try to clear my mind while mentally chanting, It’s not real. It’s not real. Over and over.

  A bell pings right before someone zooms by. The jarring sound obliterates the image and my eyes fly open in time to see an old woman riding a bike, complete with a basket full of groceries in the front of the old-style handlebars.

  Thankful to be jerked back to reality, I quickly scan for the pub. When my gaze locks on the big M stamped on the shamrock sign nestled in the far corner of the mall, a half smile tugs my lips as Shaun’s last comment about the place comes back to me. “Check McCormicks out. Later we’ll come with. We’ve been banned for a while due to my fist shaking hands with some asshole’s face.” I scrub my overnight beard, glad I’d skipped shaving this morning. I look more like my fake ID this way.

  McCormicks is just like any other pub, yet it still has its own homey feel with a heavy, mahogany bar that spans an entire wall and locals’ beer steins hanging down from the overhead hooks surrounding the bar. The place is dimly lit and cozy despite the large amount of seating that reaches far back from the corner stage. I instantly feel at home the moment I walk in and see the placard touting the house band’s name, Weylaid spelled with an ‘e’. There has to be a story behind that.

  The band of three is preparing to warm up. I weave my way through the tables and take a seat at a round two-person table in the middle of the room. An older guy with short gray hair sits at a table against the wall eating a sandwich and nursing his beer, while two women occupy the table closest to the stage. Every so often they try to talk to one of the band members, but he’s too busy on his phone to pay them any attention.

  The all-business looking dark-haired guy, who obviously leads the band, is yelling into his phone, “Duke, where are you, man? We need to get this new song down before the weekend. You helped write the damned thing, so get your groupie-loving ass down here!”

  As the guy smiles and mouths ‘not you’ at the two girls sitting near the stage, a sleepy bartender with red dreads stops at my table and asks in a heavy Irish accent, “ID please.”

  I hand him my card and say, “I’ll just have a coke.”

  He tosses my ID on the table and heads off, while I turn my attention back to the band.

  The bald drummer raises a pierced eyebrow, then spins a drumstick around one hand. “He was out with Miranda last night. We won’t see him ‘til two hours before show time.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before now?”

  The drummer shrugs. “You were too busy being a prima donna—”

  “Fuck you, Ivan.”

  Ivan blows him a kiss and laughs. “Best offer I’ve had all week. Oooh, I know, Dom, why don’t you ask if anyone out there can fill in for our missing bassist.”

  Dom scowls at him and makes a rude gesture. The quiet blond guy behind him snickers as he tunes his guitar. I can’t help but smile. These guys act like the guys from my old school. No wonder Shaun and Creeper like watching them warm up.

  “Then I will.” Ivan stands behind his drum set and cups his hands over his eyes to block out the spotlights. “Anyone out there know how to play the bass geetar?”

  I snort at his utter smartassness, then frown when the guy named Dom stands and points to the middle of the room. “You know how to play?”

  Who’s he talking to? I start to glance behind me, then realize my arm is raised. I slowly lower my hand as my stomach drops. What is wrong with me? I don’t know jack about playing the guitar.

  “Well, do you?” Ivan asks. Turning, he pulls out a bass guitar from a case against the wall and holds it up. “You can borrow this one.”

  I’ve lost the ability to speak, and while “this is total bullshit” rambles inside my head, my feet pull me toward the stage in the corner of the room. Once I step on the stage, I honestly start to believe I have completely lost my mind, but then my fingers clasp the guitar’s neck and the feel of the strings under my fingers settles my pounding heart with old familiarity.

  “I do,” I murmur and sit down on the stool the other guitar player slides toward me with his foot. The second I settle the instrument on my thigh, I close my eyes and begin plucking and tuning until it sounds right.

  Dom picks up his guitar and tries to hand me sheet music, but I shake my head and ask them to play a song. Once I hear it, I jump in and improvise, while Dom sings and plays lead, and the blond guy I heard them call Chance plays rhythm. Then the real jamming begins.

  I play anything and everything they throw my way. The band’s music easily moves from rock and Southern rock songs in the vein of The Black Crowes’ “Hard to Handle” and “She Talks to Angels” to power ballads that reminds me of Parachute’s “Forever and Always” and “Kiss Me Slowly”.

  I really like the way they mix it up, and the amazing thing is, while I’m engrossed in the songs…nothing is going on in my head but the music. There’s no room for screaming, no space for thoughts about my dreams or freaky images. It’s like the process of creating music overlays the quagmire, muffling al
l my worries to the size of a gnat flitting at a distance, still there but barely noticeable.

  Duke finally arrives, his longish, auburn hair, surfer messy. When the two girls make swoony sounds as he swaggers past them with a cocky grin, Dom’s earlier “groupie-loving” comment seems appropriate.

  Duke presses his mouth when he looks my way, apparently not thrilled I’m playing the bass parts. The band members tell him to get the hell over himself and join in. He grudgingly sits down with another guitar and we play a couple tunes together. As I slide off the stool, Duke shoves his hand toward me. “Great playing with you…” he pauses and raises an eyebrow.

  “Add.” I shake his hand in a firm grip, wondering why the name Add had slipped out instead of my real name.

  “Like one-plus-one?” Ivan looks amused, then shakes his head. “Nah, we’ll just call you Adder.”

  Instead of being offended that he’d renamed me after a snake, an ache briefly twists in my heart. Confused by the whole scenario, I look back at Duke, who smiles and shakes his head like they’ve just shared an inside joke. “May as well get used to it.”

  While I lean over to set the guitar back in its case, Ivan nods to my arm. “Nice dragon.” He shoves his sleeve up to show me the ink at the top of his right bicep. It’s some kind of Asian symbol. “Means Persevere.” Respect flickers in his dark eyes as they slide back to my forearm. “That had to have taken a while. Must have a high pain tolerance.”

  I glance down at the dragon on my arm and give a self-deprecating smile. “You could say that.”

  Dom claps me on the shoulder before I leave. “Thanks for playing with us. We’re happy to have you join us anytime, Adder,” he finishes, sliding a grin to Ivan.

  I nod and address the four of them, “Where’d Weylaid come from anyway?”

  Dom laughs. “Wey is Duke’s real name. He threw out the name Weylaid for the band name and we thought it was funny.”

  I raise my eyebrow. Duke’s a stage name? I don’t feel so bad about lying now.

  Ivan rolls his eyes. “It’s about how music hijacks your life, man, but sex sells so we kept it.” With a wide grin, he pushes back his leather vest for me to read his t-shirt underneath. Have you been Weylaid? Once will never be enough! “Let me know if you want one. I can hook you up.”

  Duke snorts and jerks his head toward Ivan. “Iv’s our marketing spin doctor. How do you think I ended up with the name Duke?”

  More than likely Chance’s name is made up too. I probably don’t want to know how Dom ended up with his name if Ivan dubbed it. Chuckling, I turn to leave.

  After such a surreal experience, joy and disbelief swing wildly through me, but as I walk out of the bar a cold sweat breaks out on my body and my hands start to shake. Now that my mind isn’t consumed by the music, questions boomerang in my head. How did I know how to do that? It’s like my body knew what my mind didn’t and acted on instinct. As much as the past several hours of playing music had improved my mood, it also brought on a different kind of anxiety I’ve never experienced before. Guilt.

  Heading for the parking deck, I frown as I turn down the alley that’ll save me walking time. How can I revel in this amazing day when this talent isn’t mine? It’s like enjoying the exhilarating feeling of finally learning to ride a bike while skipping the scrapes and bruises stage. It feels like cheating. Same as going by Adder instead of Ethan. It’s all bullshit…and I don’t trust it, which is why I’ll never go back to McCormicks.

  Decision made, I slide into my car and pull out of the deck. But as I turn onto the highway I can’t seem to get what just happened out of my mind. Confusion tightens my hands on the steering wheel, turning my knuckles as white as the moon lighting my path home. I can’t believe I’m right back where I started this morning, anxious and full of doubt. I glance up at the full moon with a wry twist of my lips. The paper mentioned that a lunar eclipse is supposed to occur in the early morning hours tonight. Why do any “feel good” moments I have seem as rare and fleeting as that impending celestial event? Setting my jaw, I screech around the corner into the entrance of my neighborhood.

  Just as I pull into our driveway, my headlights shine on Shaun’s wavy brown hair. What’s he doing here? He turns and ambles off my porch toward my car as I cut the engine.

  Shutting the car door, I turn his way and a fist jams into my shoulder, knocking me back. “We miss your intense ass!” He says with a grin. “How’s life on the outside?”

  I rub my sore shoulder and smirk. I think of school as a kind of “jail” too, but for an entirely different reason. “I’ve only been gone a week.”

  Shaun scrubs his messy hair and frowns. “It didn’t take long for things to go to shit once you left though.”

  I don’t know what to say. I’m out of their lives now, so I shove my hands in my jean pockets, lean back against my car and change the subject. “How’d you know where I live?”

  Shaun flips his dark hood back up over his head—the mode I’m used to seeing him in—and adopts a mischievous grin as he taps his temple. “Creeper distracted the secretary by flipping out about the ‘unfair and egregious’—can you believe he pulled that word out his ass?—detention his teacher had given him. While ‘old gray hair’ wasn’t looking, I hopped on the school’s computer and looked you up.”

  I cross my arms and stiffen. “Why?”

  “Did you really think we’d let it pass, Harris?” Shaun pulls off his backpack and unzips it.

  My brows drop into a deep vee. “Let what pass?”

  Shaun yanks a plastic bag out of his backpack and throws it at me. “Happy Birthday, you suspicious ass!”

  I catch the gift with my chest and cough before the box falls into my hands. I’m so surprised my hands tremble a little as I withdraw the headphones’ box from the bag. “These are expensive, Shaun.” I meet his gaze, my own slightly narrow. “How’d you pay for them?”

  “What?” Shaun scowls and jerks his backpack onto his shoulders once more. “I don’t look like I can afford two-hundred dollar headphones?”

  I slide the gift back into the bag, my lips twitching. “Yeah, possibly for yourself, but not for someone you barely know.”

  “And whose fault is that, Ethan, huh?” Shaun’s face is strained, the grooves around his mouth more pronounced than I’ve seen since I first met him. Has his dad lost his job again? Has his mom finally left like she’s been threatening to do if that happened? “You barely tell us about yourself, yet you somehow manage to ferret out all our dirty secrets. I still want to know which of the douchebags spilled the beans about my shithole life.”

  He’s clenching his teeth, working himself up, so I grip his shoulder and squeeze. “Does it really matter? Thanks for remembering my birthday and for the gift. It means a lot.”

  Shaun dips his head and takes a couple of deep breaths, then meets my gaze. “You’re welcome. We all pitched in.” He digs his hands deep into his hoodie pockets. “Came up a little short, but I left an IOU in the envelope of money at the register where they’ll find it.”

  I snort to keep from laughing. This is total Shaun. He tries to do the right thing, but does it by skating a very gray line. “Um, how much short?”

  A sheepish look crosses his face. “Just twenty.”

  I release his shoulder and shake my head, smiling. “Well, it’s the thought that counts. Thanks for making my birthday not totally suck.”

  Shaun flashes a wide grin. “You’re welcome. And just ‘cause we don’t go to the same school anymore doesn’t mean we can’t hang. That’s what friends do, you know. We’re there for each other.”

  Friends? I straighten and try not to let the apprehension show on my face. People say they want to know about you, but when the truth comes out, they suddenly can’t meet your gaze. If your own parents can’t deal, how can you expect friends to? Sharing is never a good idea. The less these guys know about me, the better.

  Shaun nods to the bag and starts to back down my driveway. “I wrote
my number on a piece of paper and threw it in there with your gift. Call me sometime.”

  I frown after him. He told me he lives in Arbor Creek apartments, which is a good five miles from my house. “You want a lift home?”

  “Nah, I like walking.” He shrugs and taps his temple. “Clears the head.”

  I watch Shaun walk away and try to ignore the twinge of worry in my chest. He said he sold his car because the upkeep costs too much. I know the real reason he walks everywhere, though. Six months ago his dad sold his car to pay bills after he lost his last job. The shitty part is that Shaun had worked three jobs to buy the car himself. It might’ve been a clunker, but it was his POS. When he tried to confront his dad, he ended up a punching bag for his efforts.

  Even though my baggage isn’t anything like normal people’s crap, in some ways, my life is easier. At least I tell myself that as I unlock the front door. The house is quiet. Samson won’t be home for another hour.

  An envelope sits on the table in the kitchen with Happy Birthday! written on the outside. I stare at it for at least a minute before I tear along the flap.

  As I flip open the card, a receipt from a local electronics store falls into my hand. It’s for car speakers.

  Forget the phone. Just know I’m here for you. New beginnings need a path. Let the music lead you down the right road, little brother. The speakers are in the garage.

  Samson

  My lungs constrict then expand with gratitude. Even though he can’t possibly have known what I’ve been doing for half the day, my brother has developed this knack for knowing what I need. Just like he did two years ago, and then again when I turned sixteen. I stare at the receipt as memories of my sixteenth birthday rush forth, bringing with them a deluge of conflicted emotions.

  The moment I walked in the door late from school, Samson heaved a sigh while sifting through the mail at the kitchen table. “Bad day?”

  Shrugging, I grabbed the loaf of bread, then retrieved the jar of peanut butter from the cabinet. “Seems to be the way the year’s going.”