Gather ye rose-buds while ye may...

***

After band practice, I’m back in the Gator’s passenger seat with an altered mood and the dread caused by the clause of a hastily written contract looming over me. At the very least, Travis is always musically prepared, so I don’t have to sit through the overplayed crap on the radio. Not all of his stuff is particularly to my taste, but it’s absolutely nothing like Selena’s so I can deal with having to hear a Nickelback song every once and a while.

I don’t have a car of my own, so this is all commonplace. Travis is basically my ride everywhere. We usually aren’t too far apart anyway. Both of us live in Woodland Hills in the third quadrant (as bisected by the highways and major streets) where the roads start to mercilessly curve in order to work with the mountains. The bends, levels and hills made it an equally exciting and terrifying experience learning how to drive, so more often than not, I graciously decide to leave that part up to Travis.

I live in one of the two-story homes, which is pretty rare because Woodland Hills is basically made up of single-story ranches that were definitely built during that bold period between the fifties and the eighties – low, gradual rooflines, giant stone on the same building as ugly siding, the whole nine yards. I wouldn’t be too surprised if half of them still have shag carpets, faux wood panels, and flower power wallpaper from the seventies.

Travis pulls into my driveway behind my mom’s car, and we both climb out of the Gator. We head inside through the front door. The smell of spices and grease hits me the instant we step from the LA summer heat into air conditioning. The scents waft from the kitchen in through the living room.

“We’re home!” I call out as Travis and I kick off our shoes. We follow the aroma, and the crackles and pops that start to become clearer, into the kitchen.

My mom’s still in scrubs which means when she got home the hunger and thought of dinner overruled everything else, including changing clothes. She’s standing before the stove with stir fry sizzling on the element.

“Doctor Scott!” Travis uses his standard greeting – a high, breathy, surprised gasp in his best impression of Janet from The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It does not suit his voice at all, but it’s been his go-to hello for my mom since we first saw the movie back in middle school. I’m sure that must be why it’s one of his favourite scenes because, honestly, it’s thirty straight seconds of people yelling names. And it repeats.

“Travis is here,” she states, half sarcastic and wearing a grin. “Big surprise.”

“Yeah, I just can’t seem to get rid of him,” I joke.”

Travis scoffs back teasingly as he drops into one of the chairs at our kitchen table. “Em fo dir teg ot gniog reven er’uoy, Nagrom,” he says in reverse.

“Taht tuoba ees ll’ew, Sivart.”

“Stop speaking in tongues or I’m hiring an exorcist,” my mom chimes in. She turns a bit to look over her shoulder while I open the fridge. She asks, already knowing the answer, “Are you staying for dinner, Travis?”

“If you insist.” I don’t have to see his face while I’m digging around to know that he’s smirking as he says it.

“Intercepting my leftovers before they even had a chance,” she sighs playfully.

“Is it vegetarian stir fry again?” I ask, only because I notice from the corner of my eye that her pan seems to lack protein. I kick the fridge door shut, hands occupied by two sodas. I toss the Cherry Coke to Travis and he, thankfully, catches it. There have been a few tragic instances where one of us has missed, and the can exploded as a casualty, and it really isn’t fun cleaning liquid sugar off of every surface in a seven-foot radius.

In response to my question, my mom lets out a little disapproving hum. “It wouldn’t be if you’d ever listen to me and take the chicken out of the freezer when I ask you to.”

Travis laughs as he cracks open his can.

“At least I know it means you’re eating your vegetables.”

“I mean, I don’t really have many other options. Between driving to somewhere for a burger or staying and eating your rabbit food, this one’s the simplest.”

“Kind of an Occam’s Razor for food choices,” Travis interjects.

“Precisely.”

“You two are weird.” She looks up from stirring the pan and focuses on me. “Work tonight?”

I nod. “At six. Short shift. But I wouldn’t be stuck in CVS purgatory if I already had a car and didn’t have to save for one.”

“I gave you a choice. Car now or tuition later.” She points the spatula at me. “And you, my friend, picked the smart option. Even if it means Travis gets to steal my food and camp out in my home. Will I be seeing him later, too?”

“Likely,” Travis answers. “I am his ride everywhere, after all.” It’s his small attempt at helping my cause and rescuing me from part-time retail, but it ultimately doesn’t end with my mom seeing the light and offering to buy me an alternative mode of transportation.

Travis changes the subject after taking another sip of his drink.

“Coming to the gig Friday night, Doctor Scott?”

My mom has told him many times that he can call her by her first name, or even just call her mom at this point. Travis refuses. She’s stopped trying to fight it.

“Nope. Date night.”

My mom has seen a few other guys since the divorce, but she’s been with her current boyfriend, Derek, for about six-or-seven months now, I believe. Ironically, he was my dad’s best friend all through high school. They were even in a band together back then, too.

“Besides, Ray’s Underground is kind of sketchy. Don’t they pay you in beer?” She gives me a “mom look,” one brow raised.

“They pay us. We get about four-fifty a show. Bryson funnels it back into the band.”

“The free beer is just a perk, not currency,” Travis adds with a grin.

“Why can’t you be like normal teenagers and just lie to me about your illegal shenanigans?” She shakes her head. Her hair is still pulled back, so the low ponytail flops between her shoulder blades. “I’ve heard you guys a hundred times anyway. You’re good. I don’t have to go watch every show.”

“Too bad. You’ll miss Morgan’s lead-singing debut.”

I feel the physical part of me freeze up, and others inside die instantly with that kill shot that came out of nowhere. My mom’s head whips up from the stove and her light, wide eyes spend a second bouncing between me and my best friend. He’s still wearing a smug face. I’m just trapped in that “stay perfectly still and nothing bad will happen” mindset like some stunned piece of prey. Eventually, after what feels like an eternity, her gaze settles on Travis in disbelief.

“Morgan?” she asks. “Morgan Scott? Morgan Jamie Scott the Second?”

My parents are both uncreative, naming-impaired, cruel narcissists. I have my dad’s first name and the middle is my mom’s, so I guess it’s a good thing they were both stuck with unisex names. I’ve been told it would have been reversed if I’d been a girl: Jamie Morgan.

“My son?” The spatula tip is pointed my way again. The tenseness has begun to fade away and now I just want to roll my eyes at her theatrics. “Him?”

“Even signed a contract,” Travis confirms. “He’s going to sing our encore, front-and-center.”

“Wow,” she remarks. “I’m almost sad I’m going to miss that.” Her curious stare briefly finds its way back to me before her focus moves back to her cooking again. “What are you singing?”

Travis jumps in and answers before I can. “Blank Space.”

I notice a second too late that he refused to elaborate on which version we’re doing.

I feel that sinking pressure of remorse mixed with something that’s bordering on annoyance because my mom bursts out laughing after putting the title to a song, and the song to the original singer’s face, and then probably that face on my face. She’s obviously thinking about the overplayed pop version she’s heard a billion times.

“Thanks, Trav.” Monotone. Sarcasm. In response, he just raises his can of Cherry Coke to me like a small, mischievous salute. He’s grinning and practically glowing with schadenfreude.

When she stops mocking me, my mom turns. She shoves her spatula into my hand. “Watch the food, Taylor Swift; I’m going to go get changed.” As she steps around me to leave, she reaches up the height I’ve got on her and messes my hair, only adding to the humiliating taunting. “God, you need a haircut.” She says this about once a month to me, and every few days to Travis – not that it accomplishes anything.

I sigh silently as I take her place before the frying vegetables, and she disappears from the kitchen. I hear her laughter start up again – she isn’t finished basking in the sheer hilarity everybody except me seems to find in the deal I was bribed into making.

“She’ll be calling me Taylor Swift for the rest of my life.”

“No doubt.”

“I hate you,” I say.

“I know,” Travis replies, definitely still smirking.

***

When I get off of work at ten after a scheduled four hours of my local drugstore hell, Travis is waiting for me in the Gator, parked in a space by the door and blaring Sum 41 so loud all of Winnetka is liable to complain. He turns the volume down when I climb into the passenger seat to something more suitable for conversation.

“Fun night?” he asks to tease me.

“I think a piece of my soul died.”

Travis chuckles in response – he’s heard enough of my CVS horror stories to know I’m not exaggerating. He encounters some idiots at his job, sure, but there’s a special brand of general-public stupidity that I’m exposed to every single time I walk into CVS wearing a nametag and a polo.

“What did you do while I was being tortured?”

He’s wearing another conceited look as he backs out of the space in the vacant lot. “I met up with Sweet Caroline Wu for a little while.”

Sweet Caroline Wu goes to our school and had a major Neil Diamond obsession back in the tenth grade, hence the nickname. (She’s hot too, which is also pretty sweet, in my opinion.) Travis and Sweet Caroline have been hanging out as a pair for a couple weeks now, usually whenever I’m working. They both say they’re not dating or fooling around, but they absolutely are. Travis talks about her a lot in that dopey, smitten way. I end up hearing a lot about how her lips taste like strawberries, and how her hair smells like coconut, and how her breasts feel (perfect, according to him).

So, yeah, they’re totally dating.

“Is she coming on Friday?” I ask. I know Sweet Caroline doesn’t really like the kind of music we play, but she likes Travis enough that she’ll sit through an entire band practice just to fawn over him.

“Of course. I promised her a backstage tour after the set. And she can be another witness when you dump your girlfriend.”

Those words sound like a choir of angels to me. I almost expect the night-darkened heavens to part, and a beam of light to shine down on the promise of mine and Selena’s contractually-destroyed fake relationship as it’s so close to coming to an end. It’s the clause of my agreement with Bryson, however, that stops this from happening. It weighs heavily on me like a cloud of smog blocking the Godly illumination’s full radiance.

By the time we’re back in Woodland Hills and pulling into my driveway, the music has shifted to blessthefall. Travis shuts the Gator off in the middle of Hollow Bodies. He hauls a familiar overnight duffel bag over his shoulder as we walk to the door, which means that, at some point between making out with Sweet Caroline Wu and coming to pick me up from work, he went home, at least for a few minutes.

“How is it over there?” I ask him.

“Not safe. Have to wait it out another month.”

Travis’ older brother, Tyler, is home for the summer. He’s majoring in structural engineering at UCB, which means that Travis’ parents are asking him about his courses, and also asking Travis what his plans are after he graduates high school. They don’t like the answer that he gives.

Both Longfield brothers got in part-time at this garage during the summers, and, while Tyler sees it as a source of a few extra bucks, it’s what Travis wants to do – I mean, not the cleaning and administration stuff he’s stuck doing, but the fixing part. His parents think he can do better than “just a lowly auto mechanic,” even though he’d definitely have an apprenticeship lined up after vocational school, and a guaranteed full-time job after that. When his brother is home, that all goes out the window, and he has to spend most days and nights over at my place. He’d end up in a straightjacket otherwise.

My mom is still awake in the living room when we enter. She’s sitting in front of the TV, watching one of her recordings of some drama on NBC that makes her cry. I always tease her and tell her she should stop watching if she can’t handle the tragedy they’ve scripted, but she holds true to her claim that it’s all just too beautiful, and intricate, and deserves to be viewed. She keeps watching and crying over fictional characters.

“How was work?” She’s already dabbing at her eyes with a tissue.

“Hell.”

“That’s nice.”

She’s not really listening.

Travis and I go upstairs and leave her be.

I think my bedroom is relatively normal for a teenager – posters, books, clothes, a mother who’s constantly trying to make me clean it all up to no avail. The only uncommon thing is Travis’ bed. It’s a futon, but it’s never put back into couch mode, nor do the extra pillows and blankets ever leave it. Travis sets his bag down at the foot of it.

“What magnificent wonders of the past are you forcing me to watch tonight?” I pull off my polo – my glorified prison uniform – and toss it aside. I’d burn it if I didn’t need the money in my car fund.

Travis already has three DVDs in hand. He’s sort of a movie buff, which means I’ve seen just about every piece of cinema produced between 1927 and the present, regardless of whether or not it’s actually good.

“Psycho, The Searchers, or Casablanca?”

“Psycho.”

“Shower scene. Implied nudity,” he remarks. He’s smirking, mostly because he’s an ass, and also because he isn’t wrong.

“Beats cowboy racism and a movie I’ve watched a hundred times.”

“Casablanca is a classic,” Travis defends, already putting in the disc for Psycho. “Three Academy Awards.”

“I know,” I say, teasingly, “Because I’ve seen it a hundred times.”

He flips me off playfully, and we fall into something familiar and comfortable, despite the creepy motel vibe and plenty of chocolate syrup blood.

“Yeah, okay. Sorry I upset your girlfriend here. I won’t dirty her up.”

“I’m not really worried about that,” he says with a smirk. “You’re not even the one dirtying up your own girlfriend.”

His comment makes my mood immediately plummet, and, as we pull into the Mechis’ driveway behind a sleek, black Lexus, my mood suddenly becomes a satellite that drops from the stratosphere, falling down, down, down toward the earth at thousands of miles per hour and on fire. Travis parks the Gator and we both climb out. He takes a moment to pull his guitar case from the back seat before we go about picking our way around the aforementioned Lexus and Cole’s hopelessly-stained, wrapper-littered Grand Cherokee to reach the side door to the garage.

We enter, and we’re the last two to arrive. Cole is sprawled out on the duct-taped loveseat by the wall that’s way too tiny to fit all of him. He looks over and his shaggy and badly-highlighted hair flips naturally as his head turns. Still, our appearance isn’t enough to steal his attention away from loudly strumming a progression of power chords on his guitar in order to mess with Matt. Matt is attempting to tune his bass on the other side of the room in spite of the noise, but probably isn’t having an easy time without anything that resembles quiet. Bryson is on the beat-up couch opposite of Cole, scribbling in a binder that’s full of schedules, sets, general to-do lists, and other notes that he says are necessary and need to be kept – though the entire thing is so crammed with papers that it will explode one day.

My satellite mood fails to brace for impact and crashes against the ground, colliding in a hellish, freak disaster with burning rubble and no survivors when I see the Lexus’ owner practicing the screeches that she calls “vocal warmups” by her mic stand, front and center. Saying she’s my mortal enemy undoubtedly makes me sound like some sort of comic book supervillain, but I’ve never come up with anything more accurate and less theatrical and childish to describe what we have. Our rivalry would probably take an entire war map with battalions and flags to comprehend.

I met Selena Walton when we were in seventh grade – briefly – but truly got to know and dislike her the following year when our feud officially ignited. It was just shortly after that, during the same year, that the rest of us really jumped on the idea of forming the band and, by the end of eighth grade, we’d seen it through.

There was just one problem. I play the drums. Travis is lead guitar, and Cole is on second. Matt plays bass. Bryson covers keyboard when we need it for certain songs, but otherwise acts as our manager. We were good on our own, just the five of us, but when things started getting more and more serious, we had a debate about lyrics.

Cole is an incredible singer – when he’s singing unclean vocals (the screamo parts). When it comes to singing regularly, he may as well just strangle a bird on stage; the sound it would make is more or less the same. Our preferred genre of punk and its “close-enough” offshoots (we’ve found that a healthy mixture brings in a bigger audience) are starting to blur the lines a little, but we all agreed that we wouldn’t be a full-fledged screamo band. We resolved to use his talent conservatively. The rest of the guys couldn’t carry a tune to save their lives.

I can sing, but drummers stay at the back of the stage, and squishing the two roles together makes the show lose a certain kind of energy. The audience generally likes to see the singer while they’re singing. I can sing backup, but there needs to be someone up front. A hype man.

Enter Selena Walton. Unwelcomely welcomed to the band after our first five months of minimal lyrics with a three-to-two vote.

And whom I hate more than anyone else in the universe.

And maybe it would be slightly better if she didn’t front our band. I have nothing against female punk singers, or really just female singers in general. Many of them are good, even pretty great. Selena, however, is an exception. She hates the vast majority of the music that we perform. And, though what she does is technically considered singing, she is an alto who thinks she’s a soprano, which is the worst kind of alto and does not make for a spectacular – or even subpar – show. Her signature style is going up a few too many notes at the end of nearly every line, regardless of whether or not she can hit them, and it is such a pain to listen to that I’m surprised my head hasn’t shattered like glass, or exploded like Bryson’s band binder is going to do. This is all in addition to her entitled, annoying, spoiled brat attitude which is all wrapped up into one short, oblivious, bitchy, brunette package.

I wish that was the end of it, but, devastatingly, having Selena as our lead singer isn’t even the terrible part. I can deal with that. But about a year ago, band practice went from being the few hours a week that I had to tolerate the fact she exists to my own, personal hell.

Bryson’s managerial skills are sharp, but PR-wise he tends to run things like a scripted reality TV show in order to make us stand out from other local acts so people can invest in our “personal” lives. I don’t know what celebrity dating scandal gave him the idea, but a fake inter-band relationship was proposed and, by some weird misfortune, not immediately vetoed. After a ton of arguing, I literally drew the short straw.

Selena Walton is my fake girlfriend.

And I hate her.

At the very least, after a year of playing pretend (and having her hang off of me during shows after spitting in my face behind the scenes), I haven’t actually been forced to kiss her or anything yet. I think I’d have to tear off my lips and cauterize the wounds if that happened.

Bryson still sticks to his delusional claim that having us fake date is a good thing for the band, even though it causes more drama when we’re alone together than it ever does when we’re out in the public eye. I’m not sure how much longer we’ll be able to keep it up because Selena only acts like she’s staying faithful to me when, in reality, she’s probably slept with every guy who’s ever looked at her for more than five seconds. Pretending that I tolerate her is a tough challenge, but I deserve an Oscar for acting like I love her.

And so, when Travis and I walk in, she pretends to ignore me, but I watch her in my peripheral when she thinks I’m not paying attention. She gives me a look; it’s a spiteful, almost disgusted scowl. For what it’s worth, I’m glad she can just barely endure my mere presence. It’s the one thing about this entire situation that makes me feel all happy and light inside.

Travis sets his case down to take out his guitar, and I go sit on the arm of the couch next to Bryson. Since we cleared out his garage to act as our rehearsal space, my setup has lived here permanently and I’m the only one who ever touches my drums. They only move for gigs, and I don’t have much to prepare before practice.

Cole gives me a subtle nod, but doesn’t stop strumming one of our originals. “S’up, Scott,” he greets me. He uses my last name instead of my first. Bryson, Matt, and Cole have all done that as long as I’ve known them – apparently, the single syllable of my surname is easier than having to waste energy saying the two in Morgan.

I glance over Bryson’s shoulder after nodding back. The paper he’s mentally wrestling with has July twentieth – Friday’s date – and the time of our show at the top. The rest is the final setlist he’s been compiling that has only just been finished. It takes us a long time to decide which songs we’ll be playing, and in what order. (I blame Selena.) The one thing that Bryson has left blank is the space after encore:.

We always do an encore. And it’s always a Paramore song because they’re the only non-objectionable option Selena likes. Paramore is an amazing group, and I do like their music, but if she doesn’t learn to like literally anyone else, I’ll start to lose my goddamn mind.

Bryson taps his pen against the paper for another minute, and then grabs the list and, leaving the space empty, shuts the binder. Our logo is on the front of it, slipped into the plastic cover. It’s just a black circle with our band name, Full Stop., inside of it in an all-caps, blocky, white font. We let Cole design it – we’d said we wanted something simple, and, though it looks like something that was created in Microsoft Paint (and it probably was), he’d delivered. Selena thinks it’s too plain, which is why I think it’s the most wonderful graphic in the world. I wear one of our T-shirts as much as possible and I’m met with her judgy glare each time.

I watch Bryson set the binder aside and look over the setlist another time before rising. “I guess we can start,” he announces. Cole’s instrument abruptly stops. The garage, however, is not entirely silent. Matt and Travis use the absence of guitar riffs to actually tune their instruments. At the very least, Selena shuts up.

I proceed over to my kit, and purposefully bump Selena’s shoulder with my arm as I pass. She’s about five-foot-four – about a head shorter than me – and it irritates her when I “accidentally” run into her. It makes my whole day. I sit on the stool and the others slowly start to claim their positions. Cole drags his amp over from the loveseat, and Travis pulls the elastic from his hair so it falls just to his shoulders. He claims having it loose helps him rock harder. I fail to see the correlation, but he’s a damn good guitarist, so I try not to question his methods.

As Matt takes his place, and Selena taps her microphone to make sure no one (me) has muted it behind her back again, I put my earplugs in and grab my sticks. They feel like an extension of my body when I hold them – like having just a little bit more to my arms. My nerves begin to hum with anticipation. I saw the first song and I’m pumped to play it.

Bryson gets started and reads the set from the paper like always: song title, and then the artist for Selena’s music-illiterate benefit. He only skips the artist if it’s one of our originals – at least she knows the titles of those. And she seems to tolerate singing them. Sometimes.

“Okay, open with This Could Be Anywhere in the World – Alexisonfire. Selena will take a sec to introduce everything, then Silver Bullet – Hawthorne Heights, right into Bring Me To The Light. Selena can improvise something after that. Green Day’s Holiday smoothly into Boulevard of Broken Dreams, then You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid – The Offspring, and this is the working title for the story of two crazy kids.”

“We never really found a title for that, did we?” Travis says teasingly. He throws a small smirk my way.

“No,” I agree in a similar manner, “We really didn’t.”

If he’s going to make fun of me, I’m taking it in stride. I wrote that particular number, and a fair chunk of our other originals. I think that sometimes my titles are pretty good, even when they’re just chorus lyrics. But sometimes – well, they’re that.

“Selena improvises something, and then we go to the Red Block,” Bryson continues without missing another heartbeat. I’m pretty sure I hear his voice raise a little to grab our focus again. “Red Flag – Billy Talent, Red Sam – Flyleaf, and Something Different – Red As Dusk. Selena says stuff. Changing – Saosin. Pressure – Paramore. Selena talks. Be Like The Zeros. Kiss Me, Kill Me – Mest, and Selena introduces the final song. Strong finish with Postcards – Amber Pacific. Got it?”

Four of us nod, or make our brief sounds of agreement. Selena ruins the unanimous confirmation.

“And my encore?”

“If I keep thinking about that, I’ll have a fucking aneurysm,” Bryson says with a straight face. He passes her the setlist. He knows if we start having that discussion now, this won’t be a rehearsal, it’ll be a homicide. “Just run through what we’ve got. We can look at that when I know this set is okay.”

She mutters, “Well, for once I’d like to know what we’re doing before the night of the gig.”

“Yeah, then maybe we could do something other than Misery Business, or Still Into You, or Rose-Colored Boy, or – no, wait. That’s about it, huh?”

She doesn’t turn, but she does stick her middle finger up at me. I hear Travis try to softly suppress amused laughter; a small, entertained huff escapes him. She hates me. It’s so great.

“Please just practice the damn set.” Bryson’s voice has shifted to something like exhausted pleading. He’s not in the mood to break up a fight today. I mean, he’s going to have to anyway – there’s not a single doubt in my mind there – but he doesn’t want to. He always gets this way so close to a show. The stick doesn’t come out of his ass until the stage lights go off.

To ease his stress a little, we do as he says.

This Could Be Anywhere in the World is one of Cole’s favourites to perform because nearly half of it is unclean vocals. This means that it’s one of my favourites to perform because Selena’s unstable wailing only has to pierce my auricular space half as much.

And it’s a ton of fun to play on drums.

Once she’s butchered her way through Silver Bullet and one of our originals, I’m introduced as the representative from California by one of Travis’ very few spoken contributions during Holiday. Even though its absolutely necessary, Selena hates the fact that I’m the best she’s got for clean backup vocals that won’t make our audience’s ears bleed. She especially despises this brief part Matt and I share – my voice and drumming and his iconic bass line – simply because it takes the attention off of her for nearly a full bridge. I sing the rebellious lyrics with a smirk shot her way. She flips me off.

Selena hates singing You’re Gonna Go Far, Kid, and sings this is the working title for the story of two crazy kids terribly in an attempt to annoy me. She makes it painfully obvious that she’s suffering through the Red Block, and gets a smidge better during Changing because a Paramore song follows. She always complains that I use too much cymbal during Pressure. I wonder if she’s actually listened to the song, or if she’s just deaf.

I watch her reach for the list again as it comes to a close and beat her to it.

“I Love How You Say We Can Be Anything But Treat Us Like Shit.”

“That’s not what it’s called!” she snaps.

“Sorry. Be Like The Zeros, parentheses: I Love How You Say We Can Be Anything But Treat Us Like Shit.”

She turns a bit just so I have the luxury of seeing her roll her eyes.

“What? Do I need to say it backwards too?”

I can visibly see the rage manifest inside of her head and, with another smirk that I can’t help at this point, and that I can’t say is innocent, I launch into a hidden talent that frustrates her to no end. I don’t know exactly how I came across it, I just know that I’m able to do it and she’s not. Travis can do it as well, and he watches me with amusement as I drive Selena up the wall. I picture the smoke coming out of her ears as she glares at me.

“Tihs ekil su taert tub gnihtyna eb nac ew yas uoy woh evol I,” I recite. “Bryson knows the title – he wrote it!”

“Just start the damn song, Scott,” Bryson sighs rather than taking a side, even though I’m right.

I don’t give Selena the chance to have the final word. The crash cymbal screams beneath my stick in the intro. Thankfully, Bryson purposefully wrote this song in the right key for her alto voice, so I don’t have to hear her try and fail to sing outside of her vocal range.

 “My mind is clouded like a smokehouse / I think I need a light to find what I was gonna say / My body’s numb and feeling funny / Lost here in a strange place / Just another average day.”

 I’m sure Bryson is relieved when we finally make it to the end of Postcards without another interruption. The first hour of practice ends with our finalized setlist played in full and no unstoppable brawls.

“Can we talk about my encore now, Bryson?” Selena demands at the final note, ever the princess.

Bryson starts to look as if he would rather eat his own hand than discuss the encore and incite her wrath, but also that he knows if we don’t talk about it beforehand, we’ll have to pick ten minutes before the show and we’ll end up doing Let The Flames Begin again.

“Okay, fine,” he relents. “Band meeting.”

I set down my sticks and pull out my earplugs as the guys put their guitars on the assorted stands. Selena leaves her mic and goes to take a seat. She hates sitting on the furniture because everything in here is a relic too shitty for a thrift store; it’s all either tearing, patched with duct tape, or just too stained or dusty to be used by anyone other than a semi-successful garage band in LA. Selena’s in one, but she doesn’t act like it.

We make it a habit to sit as far away from each other as possible. Matt and Bryson take the loveseat where Selena’s perched herself on the one not-duct-taped arm that’s probably going to need a layer of the stuff in about a month. Travis, Cole, and I take the couch.

“Thoughts?” Bryson asks. I can tell he’s bracing himself.

I am too, but I keep my mouth shut and wait for Selena to get her terrible idea out of the way first.

“We should do Ain’t It Fun,” she pitches. “It’s always a crowd-pleaser.”

“It would be if our regular crowd hadn’t already heard you sing it a hundred thousand times.”

“What’s fucking wrong with that?” Her angled eyebrows raise, and I can already see her pupils filling up with fire. If anyone else had said it, she wouldn’t be as pissed off, and that simple fact alone is why I argue in the first place.

“Should I say it forwards or backwards?” I demand. She scowls. “They’re getting bored! If we lose the audience at Underground, we won’t get gigs, and Full Stop. is just fucked! Back me up here, Bryce.”

Selena whips her head around to glare at Bryson so fast that I expect her to break her neck, and I’m almost disappointed when she doesn’t. Bryson’s biting into his cheek, not wanting to say that I’m right in order to avoid her fury, but not denying it either. The others show their agreement plainly – Matt’s mouth takes on an uncertain slant, eyes bright, and Cole can’t stop himself from nodding subtly. Travis wears a smirk. He always takes my side in this war.

“Oh, fuck you guys!” she spits. Her defeat is a delicate sound. It’s like music to my ears.

“What do you want to do, Scott?” Bryson asks. His voice is calm, a mediator.

“We already have a Paramore song in the set. We can’t do another. We need to try something new this time. An original, or–” I rifle through my mental music library. I know which songs we’ve done, and all of the options we haven’t ever tried because Selena is a brat with bad taste. “Maybe actually try some My Chemical Romance for once? They’re a fucking staple to the punk-pop genre.”

“Ew, no,” Selena interrupts. “Veto.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Where do I start? They’re terrible.”

“First of all, how dare you.”

“Here we go,” Bryson sighs. He goes unheard.

“Second, do you have a better idea?”

“Yeah, like fifty! We should do something by The Chainsmokers.”

“You’re fucking kidding me.”

“What? They’re good!”

“No, they’re overplayed! The crowd will be asleep before we even start. They’re not even punk!”

“You’re such a fucking snob!”

“Wow! Look, everyone! The pot is calling the kettle black!”

“Guys! Holy fuck – calm down!” Bryson’s voice cuts through us both. He’s rubbing his temples to curb the migraine Selena’s clearly bringing upon him. “Can we all remember that music is subjective?”

For a moment, the silence rests. Travis is clearly entertained and firmly stuck on my side. Bryson’s trying to fight off that brain aneurysm he promised himself. Cole and Matt are somewhere between rolling their eyes and coming up with an excuse to leave.

Selena is on the brink of completely detonating. Her jaw is set, posture disturbed and rigid. She doesn’t remove her beady, flaming eyes from me, and looks like she’s trying to murder me with her sheer force of will. In her imagination, she’s probably stabbing me with one of my drumsticks. Her tiny fists are clenched.

“Marianas Trench,” she says through her teeth.

“Are you joking? You’d need a church choir just to sing half their crap,” I say. “Dead Kennedys.”

“Veto. Ed Sheeran.”

“Worse than The Chainsmokers. Jimmy Eat World.”

“What? With their one fucking song? Vance Joy.”

“Who?”

That one really makes her mad, so I grin as I say it. She knows I know who Vance Joy is – if only because she’s mentioned him four million times and butchered one of his stupid indie songs over and over again with her shrieking.

“Good Charlotte,” I suggest.

She rolls her eyes. “Twenty One Pilots.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Really?” For a brief moment, I watch her little, round face light up.

“Yeah, as soon as you can rap, feel free to buy us all synths and ukuleles. I’m sure your Daddy can afford it.”

She’s so angry that I can nearly see her brain boiling. There are a few Twenty One Pilots songs I would willingly relent to adding to a Full Stop. setlist, but at the moment I know she’s too pissed off to even name one. I almost want to laugh.

“Taylor. Swift,” she hisses, enunciating every single syllable with a seething staccato. She knows I would never agree to it and that’s the only reason why she suggests it. Everything she ever does or says is designed to make me mad. In this way, we’re one and the same.

So, I mimic her tone. “Fuck. No.” And I’m just about to throw out The Gits – not that Selena could ever dream to live up to Mia Zapata’s legacy – when–

“Wait!”

The single word from Cole breaks our staring contest. I still feel my blood thundering from the rush of adrenaline that comes with pushing Selena to her breaking point, but I turn my attention on him. Cole’s straightened up from his lax slouch and, even though he’s sitting, he’s still a human tower – it’s no wonder the football coach spent nearly two years trying to recruit him. His eyes are stretched wide with an idea.

“What?” Travis asks.

He takes the question, but turns to me. His massive hand is slapped against his forehead, an indication of an epiphany. “Punk Goes Pop.”

“Excuse me?” Selena demands. Her teeth are clenched, and her brows are high.

Cole doesn’t need to explain it to me – I’ve caught onto his idea the second my mental music library dredges up the collection. He elaborates for everyone else.

“Yeah, okay, so Fearless Records has this series where they have punk bands cover pop songs, and, like, they’ve done some Taylor Swift stuff. Uh, You Belong With Me, Trouble – oh!” – he claps abruptly as the next idea enters his head and, again, his eyes turn on me, full of excitement and what appears to be an ego boost due to his own perceived genius. He’s gesticulating with the approximate energy of a German Shepherd – “Blank Space from the volume six rerelease! Dude, I Prevail goes so fucking hard on it! I had it on repeat for a month, and I can do Eric Vanlerberghe’s parts no problem!” He’s practically already playing air guitar.

“There. See? It’s a compromise,” Matt agrees.

And maybe it seems too good to be true…

Because it is.

“Yeah, too bad we can’t do it,” I object. Bryson sighs audibly and mutters under his breath. “If we let her sing the clean vocals, it won’t sound anything like a punk song! She’ll just try to sing it exactly like the original and fuck it up!”

“Fuck you!” Selena fires at me.

“Then you sing it, Morgan.”

I give myself whiplash turning to look at Travis, and the energy of the garage turns palpable – a thick, stunned tension that I could slice through with a razor blade and a ton of effort. Arms crossed over his chest, Travis shrugs, completely relaxed and completely, unbelievably serious.

In an instant, the initial surprise melts away, and I’m more confused by his proposal than I am shocked – or maybe it’s just an intense mixture of both. But the point is that I can’t sing it! I’m a drummer! That’s the only reason she’s even here in the first place!

“What?! No!”

“Yeah! ‘What?! No!’” Selena parrots me. For once, we’re actually in agreement on something.

“Why not? You’ve got a good voice, and I know you know the song.”

“Who’s going to play the drums?!” I reason. “That’s why she’s here!”

“I suggested Taylor Swift! I don’t want him singing it!” Selena protests.

“Exactly! Then she can’t hog the stage and be an attention whore and has to settle for being a regular–”

“Morgan,” Travis interjects (scolds), still calm despite presenting me with an insane idea just a moment ago. Selena flips me off with a look of pure hatred. I generally don’t like to push it that far, but I stand by what I was about to say. Her name is synonymous with it.

“I’ll find someone to drum for you,” Bryson says.

I scoff. “What? Am I that easily replaceable?! You’re all fucking ridiculous!”

“Scott,” Bryson starts in his middleman voice. I look at our manager and lift a brow. He seems to wait until everyone has copied me and all eyes are on him.

And then he supports Travis’ idea.

Using some of the most glorious words I have ever heard in my life.

“If we can just get this over with – pick the cover of Blank Space with you on clean vocals so this discussion will fucking stop – you can dump Selena.”

I have no idea what to say.

So it comes out unfiltered.

“Oh, screw you, Bryson.”

Not meant to be hurtful. Just… I can’t even explain it – just some sort of instinctual, astonished reaction.

I would be free of Selena Walton. And I would get to steal her encore.

But I would have to sing front-and-center. Even though it’s a cover, it’s still a Taylor Swift song. I wouldn’t have to sing all of it – about half the vocals in I Prevail’s version are unclean, so Cole would take them. But it’s still a tough debate.

I can’t really feel my body. I guess the shock is still settling in. Or it has settled in pretty deep and fried my nerves or something. But, while I’m internally wrestling against my own opinions, I dare to steal a look at Selena that ends up lasting longer than just a glance. Her eyes are narrowed, her jaw is tight, and her back is rod straight. She’s still inconsolably pissed at the idea that she could end up without an encore even though she’s had plenty already, but I see something else underneath that.

She wants me to take it. She doesn’t want to have to pretend to be shackled to me any longer. The feeling is mutual.

They’re all staring at me as I weigh the pros and cons a few more times.

In the end, I look Bryson dead in the eyes using what I can only describe as a defeated, cold glare.

“I want it in writing.”