13Two Thousand Eleventh Year of the Common Era
i hope may gets a mention that would be fucking amazing
Torrie was laying belly-down on her bed. Hers was the only bedroom in the house with an east-facing window not obscured by trees, through which she could now see a bright half moon. To her parents, it had served a dual purpose: they would much rather be able to see the sunset anyway—hopeless romantics as they were—and they figured the sunrise in her face might actually get Torrie up in time for school. For that same reason, they had forbidden her getting shades or curtains. Their plan had only been half-effective.
In a combination of moonlight and the flashing of the television, her room was only sparsely visible. The floor was covered in various detritus—clothes, used plates and glasses, general garbage, textbooks and notebooks. The desk against the wall had once been reserved for those last two—in theory, anyway—but now there was barely enough room for her to use her laptop. She actually laid with her laptop on her bed more often than she used the desk anyway. There were scratches on all her furniture, some created by accident, but most intentional—her mirror even had a big crack down the middle, which she had put there by hitting her own reflection with something hard. There were posters of various things plastering her walls, and most of them had tears in them. One, her favorite, was left unmangled: most of it was black, with a single flower with pale purplish petals, each tipped with what was clearly blood—the poster matched the cover art for Things Made of Flowers.
"You are such a fucking mess."
"More like a natural disaster. Hurricane Victoria."
someone call fema
"That joke wasn't even funny, neither of you. Natural disasters and FEMA are serious business."
well someone has to clean this up and i sure as hell wont so it seems like a plan to me
"You have no soul."
At this time every other Wednesday one of the local stations aired a show they called Local Noise; it was a simple news show focused on various musical groups operating in the area. Though they mainly focused on unsigned groups, they've been following Stat for their whole career. Torrie watched it for two main reasons: for one, it was interesting; for another, her best friend was in a local band, and if she was mentioned Torrie wanted to catch it. The commercials were just now ending, and the title sequence came up. The thing was an amalgam of videos of concerts, with various snippets of songs at high volume; it still sounded a little weird to Torrie: when one of the bands in the old sequence had been signed, the show had taken them off for licensing reasons (she assumed). When that was winding down, a rather unattractive man—Torrie understood he was an unsuccessful pop singer from some twenty years ago—appeared sitting in a chair in the middle of a green room. For some reason, the creators of Local Noise had decided there would be no desk, and that the entire set would be a green screen. Weird people.
"You are such a hypocrite."
and loving every fucking second
The announcer ran through various announcements as announcers do, building up to the main story. This band had this show and it was awesome, this singer made a fool of himself in public—things like that. Each time they showed a picture or video, they laid it over the green, so the announcer just sort of floated in the foreground. The effect was a little strange, but Torrie was sure that was intentional. She had more or less clocked how long these announcements took; she hung on each word with increasing strength as it neared the end, wishing that May's band would be mentioned. But they got to the end, and no May. Then, before the break, he gave a quick intro of the main story for the evening: it was about Broken Line.
That got Torrie's attention, enough so that she was disappointed when the commercial break started. Mostly due to indoctrination from May, she had a lot of music from unsigned bands, and had ended up being more a music connoisseur than she had been planning on. One of her all-time favorites was Broken Line. They had released a few songs on the internet, and had put out one whole album all by themselves—Pink, named for one of the songs within. Rumors were going around that they were about to be signed, though this last week had been strangely silent. Usually the band had a presence on the internet, but they had been absent lately—there was much speculation as to why. Maybe Local Noise had figured out.
Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She flipped onto her back and slipped it out. Another Wednesday, another let down, and a frowny face. That would be May.
what was she expecting a fucking honor guard
"That didn't even make sense."
its my own head i dont have to make sense
She typed, Try not to be too disappoint. There are lots of bands out there. Then she slid closer to the end of her bed, enough that she could hang her head over and watch the television upside down.
A few seconds later there was another text. She held the phone in front of her face to read. But we had that awesome show at Cold. Another frowny face, this one more exaggerated.
im kinda sorry i missed that
"Be real. Your parents aren't letting you go to Cold ever again."
im twenty they dont own me
"You know you shouldn't even be allowed in the door."
they have eighteen plus nights
"None of the good shows are on eighteen plus nights."
"He has a point. You're kind of screwed."
"Fuck you guys," she said aloud. One of them laughed at her, the other just rolled his eyes. How she could tell he was doing that, she wasn't sure.
But anyway, she was supposed to be typing. They covered that show on the website. Didn't you see?
The commercial break was probably ending soon, so she hoped May would get through her text quickly. It arrived: I did, but I wanna be on TV. A face that was clearly pouting.
Beggars and choosers. Now shoosh, I wanna hear about BL. Torrie set the phone down next to her hip, and looked back up—or down, whatever—at the television. Even as she brought the screen into focus, which was rather difficult with her inverted position, the commercial was ending. Soon the announcer was there, blabbing away basic information about Broken Line—everyone watching Local Noise should know this already—while in the background played a grainy video of what was clearly a concert. When the announcer shut up and disappeared, replaced by solely the video and the audio to go with it, Torrie realized it was Broken Line performing Pink. The audio quality was horrible, and the video was so grainy Torrie could barely make out the band members as multi-colored silhouettes.
That was soon replaced with much higher quality video. In what looked like someone's living room, five people were sitting on a sectional couch, four men and one woman. Torrie recognized the woman immediately as the person Local Noise usually used to actually talk to bands and other people—Sara Something. Her wardrobe was very much variable dependant on who she was meeting with, but today she was just wearing jeans and a tee shirt; the four men were dressed more or less the same. But someone was missing: the head of Broken Line was a girl named Sammy. Where was she?
"I think you have an unhealthy attachment to queers in general."
hey its the way i was raised
But anyway, she didn't recognize the boys. She was sure none of their fans would—they always wore stage makeup. "This is Sara—" She never used her surname. "—with Broken Line."
"Most of it," one of the men interjected.
"Yes," Sara said with an easy smile, "most of it. I can't tell who any of you are without your makeup, so if you could introduce yourselves quick."
The men glanced between each other, as though wondering who should go first. "Fine, me," one of them said after a moment. This man was clearly tall—Torrie could tell that even upside down and with him sitting—and he had a friendly-looking, self-deprecating grin on his face. He looked strangely normal—in fact they all did—considering he was in a gothic metal band. Well, more or less—Broken Line was one of those bands that was hard to pin a single genre to. "I'm Kenth Brooks. I play guitar, and sometimes I back up Sammy, when I feel like it. And this is my little bro..."
Kenth received a shove in the shoulder from his brother, a rather small boy with a much softer face, though his was scrunched in annoyance. "I can introduce myself, Kenth." Torrie jolted in surprise; that was a girl's voice. Low for a girl, but the tenor was obviously feminine. "I'm Erick, and I hit things."
i wonder if his legal name is erica
"Does it really matter? He's cute either way."
you have a point there
The other two members of the band introduced themselves. There was Ikelo, the bassist, a wiry man with sharp facial features—Torrie couldn't think of what the racial origin of that name could be. The second guitarist was Garen, a short, rather muscular man with a high forehead. "And of course," Kenth said when that was over with, "we're one short. Our lead, Sammy, couldn't make it today."
Sara apparently felt she needed to qualify. "Samantha is your vocalist, and also writes most of your music, correct?"
"Sammy," corrected Erick, rolling his eyes.
"That's right," Kenth said with a glance at Erick. "She's also the most sociable of us, which is why this whole thing with the interview and all makes us all a little uncomfortable." The other two, Erick excluded, gave little signs that they agreed—a nod here, a grimace there. "I mean, the internet we can do. But I-R-L? No."
"You are somewhat well known for your internet presence, but you have all been withdrawn the last week," Sara said, pouncing on the internet reference. "Us at Local Noise and all your fans, I'm sure, are curious why this is. I understand it has something to do with Sammy."
For a moment, Kenth—he had clearly been chosen as their spokesperson—hesitated, glancing at the other three. He nodded. "I'm not sure how public Sammy's drug use is."
shes a drug user i didnt know that
"Of course she's a drug user. She's a musician."
"Yes, let's be flippant with the deficiencies of others. Very classy."
Kenth continued, "Last Wednesday she overdosed—heroin. She's in the mental hospital right now."
At those words, Torrie frowned at the television. That was worse than she had expected. She had thought Broken Line was just taking a break or something; she had never thought it would be something so serious. At least Sammy had survived. She had been looking forward to every song released by the group, and she didn't know what she would do if they lost their vocalist.
"Because what's important about her tragedy is your enjoyment."
its not like i know her well enough to be personally interested
"Only because you forgot."
"What?" Torrie's question was answered almost immediately. As Kenth and Sara continued talking about Sammy, a picture of a young woman faded onto the screen. This was a girl with piercings littered all over her face, her arm flung over the shoulders of another girl that looked remarkably like Erick, wearing a wide smirk. Her features were stunningly beautiful, enough that it seemed grossly unfair. That must be Sammy, but it was hard to tell without her makeup on. There was something strangely familiar about that face cleaned of makeup. Torrie shifted in her bed so she was sitting cross-legged, upside-up, watching the television. A few seconds later, another picture faded in. This one was of Sammy sitting on a stone staircase, smiling at whoever was holding the camera. The familiar feeling worked at the edge of Torrie's consciousness, distracting her enough she wasn't hearing the words anymore.
Then she placed her. There was a strange combination of sensations—her skin tingling, her stomach sinking, her mind buzzing.
"Finally, you remembered."
"Cut her some slack. She was pretty drunk."
"Inebriation is no excuse."
Torrie immediately reached for her phone, and held down the speed dial button for May. The phone rang again and again, as Torrie watched the interview continue on the television, the video occasionally interrupted by a picture of Sammy. Each one intensified the weird feelings she was experiencing. Was it excitement? fear? what? She hadn't the first idea.
Finally, May answered. "What the fuck is it?" May had a rather feminine voice, which Torrie had always thought was funny. "I thought you wanted to see this BL thing."
"I'm about ninety-five percent sure I made out with Sammy Day." No point not getting straight to the matter, after all.
There was a long silence from the other end. Then an exhale—like a sigh, but not a sigh. Then a long inhale, and, "I'm not sure how to feel about that. And you're sure? It couldn't be a mistake?"
Torrie considered a moment. "I'm pretty sure. I didn't recognize her at the time because she didn't have her makeup on."
"And you didn't catch her name?"
"I don't think we said a single word."
That one was definitely a sigh. "You are such a slut, Victoria."
Torrie rolled her eyes; people only called her Victoria when they felt she had done something stupid. "You're just as much a slut as I am. Only a straight slut."
"I think you're more of a gay slut than I am a straight slut."
"How many times do I have to tell you I'm bi?"
"You're not bi. You're just an enormous slut. Like, monuments could be erected in honor of your slutness."
Torrie rolled her eyes some more. "Are there any local drummers you haven't fucked?"
There was a short silence, as though May were thinking through a list. "Other than the girls, just Erick. And I'm kinda sorry about that, 'cause he's pretty cute."
"You know he has a vagina?"
"No," May said with a laugh, "he does not. You totally just made that up."
"I'm ninety-five percent sure he was born a girl. He could be trans, but I suspect by the picture with Sammy that he's bigendered."
"You're not joking, are you?" A pause. "Bigendered? Is that even a thing?"
"It's a thing. Wiki it."
May fell silent again. After a short time, Torrie heard typing in the background, followed by another silence. Apparently she was wiki-ing it right now. "That is so fucking weird," she eventually said. "How does that even work?"
it works exactly how it sounds how is that hard to figure out
"Not everyone is as queer as your family."
well they should be
Following a short laugh, Torrie said, "You're just a cis girl, you wouldn't get it."
"You're cis too, you know."
"Yeah, but I'm still queer. My whole family is queer."
"That's not true. I thought Jaydon and Xuě were both straight."
Torrie shrugged. "Well, yeah, but three of us are queer. Majority queer."
"Like majority rules, but with queerness."
"Exactly."
Torrie could practically hear May roll her eyes. "Well, the show is over, and it's late, and I have class early in the morning, so I want to go to bed."
"Fine, don't talk to me. I don't need you."
"We all know that's not true."
shut up
"I am wounded."
"Love you too, Torrie."
Torrie smiled, even though May couldn't see it. "'Night, May." Upon hanging up, Torrie considered her options for the night, then reluctantly decided to go to bed herself. She had class in the morning as well, and Mother would be annoyed if she skipped. So she quickly set about getting ready for sleep.
"I am in you. You are mine."
Ignoring the especially strange voice, Torrie laid down, and was soon unconscious.
Here's a new story. This one involves a few of the same characters from Butterflies (namely, Sammy and Natasha). Hope you like it.