Mickey's POV:

I, just like every other teenager, expected to have a nice Saturday evening. Some would think of staying in and watching movies in their pajamas, others spent their time studying and doing extra homework, and then there were the ones who liked to hang out with friends. Although I was legally considered an adult, I was the person who enjoyed the latter. However, my view of hanging out of friends might be a bit different to anybody else’s view. You see, to me, it wasn’t going to the movies or going out to dinner or anything of the like. Whenever there was a party, I’d go to it like everybody else, but when there wasn’t one I’d be getting together with the friends I had and would be hanging out at one of their places. The lights would be dimmed, the bottles of liquor would come out, and weed would definitely be smoked. It always led to the best night of the week including a one-night stand with one of those friends. Well, if you could still consider it a one-night stand. These friends would find themselves in my bed a bit more frequently.

Yes, yes, I know I said that I didn’t do friends, especially with guys I slept with. Let me clarify that a little. You see, like I mentioned often before, school and friends were separate, which meant that the rules for friends outside of school were different. First of all, I didn’t mind those people wanting to be friends with me, which is pretty obvious; secondly, I’d happily be fuck buddies as long as they didn’t get attached and didn’t mind me sleeping around with other people as well. The only reason why I’m not being gender specific is because I did have a couple of experiences with girls as well. Personally, I liked the male gender more to sleep with, but switching it up sometimes was also pretty exciting.

I just hated making friends at school. They were always so dependent on me and would expect me to be ready to do things 24/7. Bitch, no. I like my alone time occasionally, I’ll choose when I want to hang out with you, not the other way around. At school, I’d never be able to avoid them, even though I was rarely there. I could easily avoid people outside of school if I wanted to. And I didn’t have to worry about them running off to a teacher and starting rumors about me.

You see, so many reasons to ignore everybody at school unless I was planning on going home with them, doing what I wanted, and then leaving as soon as I was done. Why stick around when you don’t have any intention of staying and doing something else?

Anyway, back to what I originally wanted to say about my new friends. I met them at this weird-ass club I went to called ‘The Depot’. It was small and didn’t smell all too great, but I was having the time of my life, the people were definitely my kind. But then Alex had to come and ruin it all for me. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just leave me the hell alone. You’d think that after embarrassing him in front of the school, he’d avoid me, but that obviously didn’t work. Maybe the shower I gave him would change his mind a little. I had beer spilled over me before and it didn’t feel very great, nor did it give off the greatest fragrance. Fortunately for me, my night still ended just as I had planned -- no, scrap that… way better.

The guy I had been playing around with, Devon, followed me to the bathroom where he proceeded the fuck me senseless -- don’t excuse my language -- before taking me back to his scruffy and messy place and going for round two. He was definitely on my top three list and I could see him becoming that one friend I’d hook up with whenever either of us wanted. Now, if Alex had been as good as Devon, I would have probably given him a second thought, but he came nowhere close.

Devon was fighting for first place on my list, while Alex was at measly twenty-five.

So, I was going to meet up with Devon and his friends again that evening doing what I usually did on Saturdays. I wasn’t expecting to come back home until early in the morning when I’d still have to sneak back inside. It wouldn’t have surprised me if I ended up in Devon’s bed again. Actually, it was exactly what I planned on. I wore a dark dress that was a mix between tank top- and skater dress, covered by multiple Deathly Hallows symbols fitting together. The main part was that I was showing the perfect amount of cleavage and my black combat boots made my legs look hot as fuck. It was important to get the attention of the guys and show off my intentions. There was no way I was going home without a good screw.

However, it seemed like it wasn’t even going to get close to happening. Before I could announce that I was ‘going to bed’ and lock my door (my parents knew better than to come in when I did that. They once did and walked in on me, how do I put this, pleasuring myself, which was pretty hilarious), my mom knocked on my door and carefully peeked inside until she saw I wasn’t doing anything deemed inappropriate and opened the door fully.

“Oh, good, you’re dressed already!” She smiled as she saw me dressed up and wearing more makeup than I’d wear on normal days. You see, I actually took my time to create an intense dark brown smokey eye and red lips. I just didn’t understand why she was so happy about it.

“Already?” I challenged and didn’t bother taking out my earphones as I continued to doodle a black and white dragon-like figure. All I really worked on if I sketched was new tattoo ideas. Many of them were just left on paper and never made reality, but occasionally I would really consider putting it on my body, only having problems with finding the money to be able to afford it.

“Yeah, the neighbors from across the road are coming over for dinner. They have a son just a little younger than you who’s coming as well, maybe you can become friends.” She told me hopefully, walking further into my room and visibly noticing I added more posters to my walls.

“Since when?” I groaned and put my pen down. This was not my plan for my evening. I was not going to have some boring old dinner with people I didn’t care about. They were probably going to tell on me anyway if they ever saw me climbing back into the house. “I really hope you’re not expecting me to come downstairs. I was actually hoping on going to bed soon.”

She rolled her eyes and reached out to unplug my earphones from my iPod (it was one of those super cool new 2005 iPod classic ones, which I had ‘saved up’ for. That basically meant money I got for other things was spent on it). I glared at her as she kept hold of it, not showing any signs of giving it back to me soon. “I know you better than that. You look way too dressed up to be going to bed anytime soon. But thanks for telling me that it wasn’t because you were trying to make a good impression on potential friends.”

“Mom, I already told you. I am not willing to make friends other than the people I actually am interested in. I found those people, there is no need forcing me to make new fake friends. If I don’t like somebody, I’m not going to try to get them to like me. I don’t need any more ‘friends’.”

“Excuse me! When did you find these so-called ‘friends’. If I recall correctly, you are grounded this week.” She scolded, slipping the iPod into her pocket. I looked at it, already trying to figure out how to steal it back.

“Oh, please,” I scoffed and leaned back further into my hair while crossing my arms, “both you and dad haven’t been home most evenings of the week, what do you expect?”

Her eyes softened as she retreated a little. “Right… I, um, I’m going to finish setting up.”

With that, the exited my room and I was left without any music to keep me company. The shitty old CD player I had didn’t work since drunk me thought it would be a great idea to use it as a soccer ball. I also used to have a stereo system, but that got confiscated after my parents found weed in my bedroom two years ago. The only thing I learned from that was to hide everything better and not be the stupid idiot I was thinking that underneath my mattress was the best place to hide everything I didn’t want them finding. At least I was smart enough not to hide everything in the same place, or I would have been screwed. Holy fuck, if they had found the cigarettes I kept, they would have been absolutely furious. Oh, and don’t forget about the condoms. That would have been amazing!

I continued working on my sketch without my music. It absolutely sucked without my own personal playlist blasting all my favorite songs. I just couldn’t get into the groove of putting down pencil strokes without it.

Apparently, I didn’t have to worry about it too much because the doorbell rang soon after. I sighed, hoping I could just hide out up here for the entire night and sneak out anyway, even though I knew my mom would be checking frequently now that she knew what I was going to do. But also that thought was cut short by my name being shouted up the stairs, calling me to come.

If only I had decided to go out just a bit earlier, this could have all been avoided.

Nonetheless, I got up from my desk chair and walked down the stairs. In the hallway just in front of the closed front door were three people. It was obvious which one was said son my mom was talking about. I already knew there was no way we were going to be friends. How did I know? Well, I recognized him from the group Alex hung out with after having eaten lunch with them just to get closer to Alex. Any friend of Alex was not going to be my friend.

Not that I would have wanted to be friends with him anyway. First of all, he went to my school; second of all, I wouldn’t even be attracted to him outside of school. He had this short hair that caused him to have weird curls and stupid-ass bangs. Like, I didn’t want to judge his looks, but I basically chose my friends through the people I was sexually attracted to. For example, Devon was hot as fuck, so his friends were also now mine. Alex, while I used to think he was pretty good looking, was no longer on that list. Easy as that.

When I finally decided to make my appearance, the guy immediately recognized me as well. He had to take a double-take, but his eyes widened when he realized that I was the girl that moved in across from him. In spite of that, he still decided to question it. “Mickey?”

“You guys know each other?” Mom directly took the chance the further my ‘friendship’ with a guy I had no intention of even talking to.

“Well, we go to the same school,” the guy whose name I still couldn’t remember said. He really was one of those polite guys; not talking in a rude manner, answering whenever an authority figure asked him a question, actually caring about school. Basically a complete opposite of me.

“I’m glad she’s actually showing up and not just ‘going to school’.” My mom used air quotes to emphasize what she said instead of explicitly saying I skipped school on a regular basis.

“I always go to school,” I rolled my eyes in an annoyed way, like every teenager would they when they were not understood, “I just don’t always arrive.”

“I can assure you that, as far as I know, she’s been there every day.” The guy confirmed with a smile. It was almost as if he was trying to make me seem like a good person here. I did not want that.

“Anywho, I’m going to go now.” I turned on my heels and went to go to the kitchen, only to be stopped by dad.

He was coming out of the same room I was heading towards, and noticed what I was trying to do. So, he put his hands on my shoulders and turned me back around to the direction I came from, and shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“Fine,” I sighed and walked back to be beside my mom. I reached out for her pocket and carefully pulled out my iPod with my fore- and middle finger. The guy from my school saw it happening but I glared at him to keep his mouth shut. “I’ll be going to my room then.”

I started making my way upstairs when my mom called out for me one last time. “Take Rian with you!”

Oh, right. Ryan. Or however you spelled his name. I remember Alex and Jack telling me that it wasn’t spelled the usual way when I was introduced to him on my very first day. It was something like Rayn or Rain. No, no… the spelling still made sense if you said it out loud. Rian. Yes. That was it.

His footsteps soon followed me up the stairs and into my room. I let myself fall back onto my desk chair and looked up at him, raising an eyebrow. He just frowned back and I gestured towards the door with my head. However, he didn’t seem to get it, so I huffed as I got off my chair and made it very clear that I was closing the door.

When I sat back down while he just awkwardly kept standing there, I gave him a serious look as I made my fingertips touch in a steeple-like position. “Ok, so here’s the deal. I don’t want to be here, I actually have other plans. So, I’m going to climb out of this window and you’re going to cover for me. I don’t know how you want to do it, but you’re going to do it.”

“Um…” He squinted at me as if he was trying to see if I was making a joke or not, but I was being 100% serious.

“Good doing business with you,” I thanked and got up once again. This time, I picked up my black bomber jacket and went right for the window. Maybe Rian being here was going to be an advantage; if it had just been his parents, I would have been screwed.

But, once again, I was wrong. Before I could even reach the small lock to open the upward sliding window, Rian was in between me and my destiny. I scowled at him, staring right at his face. I wasn’t that much shorter than him, meaning this was basically us staring each other down.

“No way.” He shook his head disapprovingly.

“You don’t understand, I will go out no matter what.” I drilled into him, reaching out to try to open it again, but he moved his body so that my arm was pushed away. “Oh, I get it. You want to have something in this for you. How about a blowjob, would that be good?”

“I have a girlfriend.” He stated.

“I’ve slept with married men before and it doesn’t stop me,” I shrugged nonchalantly, “but I get it. It’s not like I would have actually done it. I mean, I don’t exactly have the desire to. At least you’re not one of those creeps.”

Rians face fell at my words, but not for the reason I thought it did. “Are you sure you’re ok?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I laughed and threw my flip phone on my bed while putting my iPod on my table. “But, fine. I’ll stay, but only because you’re too afraid to get into trouble.”

“I’m not stupid, that’s not going to work on me. Try to guilt trip me as much as you’d like, I’m not going to give in. Of course I don’t want to be the reason why you’re going to be out doing whatever you do.”

“Suit yourself,” I said as I put the iPod in the speakers I had, “but we’re playing my music and I’m not going to acknowledge you unless I feel like it.”

I didn’t wait for Rian to reply. He sat down at the foot of my bed, just looking around my room. I wanted to tell him to get off and sit somewhere else, but I didn’t have another chair around, meaning he’d just awkwardly stand there. I’d rather have him sitting somewhere I didn’t want him to while just looking at all the posters I had than have him stand and stare at me.

I took out my black fineliners to start going over the pencil I had drawn before, inking the marks down forever. Any wrong move and my whole drawing would be ruined. If Rian would be the one to cause it, he would have wished he’d never been my neighbor, let alone had shown up with his parents for dinner. I was seriously considering putting the artwork on my body, I did not want to fuck it up and redo it all only for it not to turn out the same.

We were consumed by silence, other than the music that was playing quite loudly, until Head On Collision by New Found Glory started playing.

“Hey, this is the song my band’s named after, All Time Low,” Rian remarked.

“Hmm, ‘kay.” I nodded, acting not interested at all. He obviously already forgot about one of the rules. However, the fact that he was in a band did seem to intrigue me a bit. You see, I had a beautiful electric guitar that I had once gotten for my birthday a long time ago, but I never really learned how to play it. We moved too often for me to take lessons and there was no other way for me to learn it myself except for buying books. But who wanted to read all that shit? So, it was unused, even though I had been dying to play it for years.

“You guys any good?” I asked Rian, only briefly looking over my shoulders to see him staring at one of my large Nirvana posters.

“I mean, I don’t know…” He shrugged, “the others are insisting on us getting serious and getting a record deal, but I have my doubts. I’m definitely going to make sure my grades are good enough for any of the colleges or universities I want to go to. I feel like it’s just going to be another high school band that never really turned into something big.”

“What do you play?”

“Drums. A guy from another school, Zack, plays bass, Jack plays guitar,” he started telling me about all the members, already making me less interested when he said Jack’s name, but then it got worse, “and Alex does lead vocals and also plays guitar.”

“Well, forget I asked then.” Anything that included Alex was a complete turn off to me. I didn’t care if they sounded decent, the fact that he was in the band already made it horrible. There was no way I would listen to songs with his voice in it, knowing he played some of the guitar parts, and that he wrote the songs. No way. Never. Nunca.

“What do you have against Alex?”

“Are you really asking me that right now?” I asked in disgust and decided to put down my pen before I screwed up because of my rage. “I made my intentions very clear. I started off nicely, but he won’t listen. All it was was a one night stand; I told him I didn’t want to be his friend, which then had to turn into me telling him not to talk to me because he didn’t get the hint. But he still follows me around like I’m the keeper of a secret he needs to know. I just want him to back off and let me do me without him interfering.”

“Well, you are the first girl to do that to him… maybe he's just confused,” Rian tried to reason, but I wasn’t having any of it.

“His problem not mine. He should learn to deal with it.”

“But--”

Rian was cut off by my cellphone ringing. I rolled my eyes at his stupid attempts of trying to defend his friend. Never in a million years would I think differently about Alex. So, to show that our conversation was officially over, I took my iPod back out of the speakers and listened to music through my earphones. However, Rian continued to talk.

“Some person called Michael is calling you.” He was holding the open flip phone in one hand, looking at the small display.

“Michael as in California-the-one-with-the-abs Michael? Or really-good-at-oral-sex Michael?” I inquired, not knowing why either of them would desire to call me. I hadn’t had contact with them since I had to move away from the cities I met the two in.

“It just says Michael…”

“Oh, decline the call then. It’s just my father.”

Rian looked towards me with a questioning look. “Isn’t he downstairs?”

“It’s really none of your business,” I snapped back.

Were all guys in Baltimore so nosey and annoying?

Notes

I feel like I've been writing this for ages now, but it's only been a couple of days... What the hell is going on? Is time slowing down or something?