“Where do we go?” Scott sang out with confident enthusiasm. “Oh, where do we go now?”

Scott, Beth, and I were all currently hanging out in the large detached garage next to Scott’s house. Whenever we’d all get together for a jam session, we usually picked this spot since it was decently large, and the neighbors were either far enough away not to really hear us or we were just lucky and they didn’t care about listening to our loud fumbling attempts at playing music.

“Oh, where do we go?” Scott continued crooning.

Beth’s house and garage was our backup location, but Beth lived in a duplex with lots of other houses around. Unfortunately in her case, her neighbors very much cared about our persistent and loud attempts at covers to various famous and not-so-famous songs.

My house technically had a nice decently sized garage that we could probably use, but my mother was very much against the idea of ‘obnoxiously disruptive’ music going on right next to our home.

“After a long day at work, I come home to relax, not be bombarded by banging and screaming happening in my garage.” Were the exact words she said to me.

So here we three were in Scott’s conveniently situated garage, playing out our crappy versions of other people’s popular music.

“Now, now, now, now, now, now, now.” Scott’s voice continued to belt out the lyrics of the song, almost reaching its end.

Last night’s mishap with the tree had thankfully not escalated into anything dramatic, for me at least. Unsurprisingly, my parents and little brother were all woken up by the noise, but I was thankfully able to hide myself and my book in a nearby bush and wait for everyone else to exit and walk past me as they went to go look at the scene of my crime.

Once everyone else had walked by, I surreptitiously exited the bush and walked up behind them, pretending I had just left the house right after they did. There was some debate between them about what had actually caused the large branch on the otherwise normal and healthy tree to break off. My mother immediately accused the neighborhood kids of playing a prank and breaking the branch off intentionally. Elliot guessed that maybe a cat or even a black bear had tried to climb up into the tree. Dad’s concern was the tree might not be as healthy and strong as we had previously thought it was.

I tried to put forth the idea that it might just be the wind that did it, but my parents claimed that the weather reports said that the weather was supposed to be quiet and calm that night. They reinforced their point by indicating that currently there weren’t any strong winds going on, and also that there was no other debris outside of this one spot in our yard.

Not feeling the need to argue with whatever theory they came up with, I left them and returned to my room, finally willing to go to bed. I did manage to sneakily grab up the book I had left behind in the nearby bushes next to the house, but only after I made sure to check that the coast was clear first.

“Sweet child.” Scott’s attempt at a melodious sounding voice brought me back to the present.

It was currently only the day after all the events with Gunderson and the IDPA. While it was a Tuesday, and a school day, the school board decided that everyone should get another day off to continue whatever grieving and healing process they needed. According to my mom, this came about after many parents, including my own mother, complained to the school district about having their children go back to school so soon after the tragedy that happened last week.

While the complaining parents were probably just a loud minority, the sheer number and volume of their calls were enough to convince the school administration to relent and give everyone an extra day off. I and the other members of the student body were certainly not going to protest.

“Sweet child of mine.” Scott sang as he finally reached the conclusion of the song.

I turned to look at the others as we each ended our parts of the song. Scott still had a cast on his arm, so he was sans bass guitar at the moment, but he seemed pretty happy with himself after this most recent attempt at singing that particular song. Looking at Beth I could see she was equally happy, but also a bit winded from thrashing on our drum kit, perhaps a bit too hard for what was needed for this specific song. But, she looked like she had fun, so who cared. That is what we were here for after all.

“So, how was that you guys?” Scott asked us excitedly.

“I thought it was great!” Beth eagerly replied.

“Yeah, I had a good time with it, and I thought each of our parts turned out pretty well.” I explained.

“Yeah, but did you have fun?” Beth inquired with a special emphasis placed on the word fun.

“I did, it was a lot of fun being able to hang out and play music with you guys again.” I told them, my voice not quite as enthusiastic as Beth probably hoped for.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

This was the first time all three of us had been alone together since the party. We had sat next to each other at the memorial, but there obviously wasn’t any chance to talk or go over what had happened to each other that night.

When Beth called me this morning about us all hanging out because school was canceled, I quickly agreed with her idea. Despite not getting nearly enough sleep last night, I was actually feeling pretty alright today. Definitely not like 100% alright, but I was more like 80% to 90% mentally. Beth had already gotten permission from Scott to meet at his garage, and she even offered to have Scott and her come pick me up.

That idea was thoughtful of her, but I was honestly still a little anxious about meeting up with them again. Distracting ourselves and just playing music was one thing, stopping and confronting each other over what had happened to all of us last week was another. There was so much I wanted to ask them and even more I wanted to tell them, but I wasn’t sure I could or should say anything to them about it right now.

So in the end, I told Beth that I’d get my own ride, but thanks for offering.

While my mother may not have approved of loud music near or in her house, she was still nice enough to give me a ride to Scott’s place since she had decided to take another day off of work. I was beginning to worry that the stress of that night was starting to affect her more than it was me now.

Once I arrived with dad’s hand-me-down guitar in hand, all three of us quickly got into playing different songs we liked and actually knew how to play pretty well.

“Don’t be too hard on her Beth, she’s still got a lot on her mind. We all do.” Scott said in my defense while giving me a friendly punch to the shoulder with his good hand.

“I’m not trying to give her a hard time, I was just checking that she had as much fun as I did.” Beth insisted.

“I did, promise.” I told her, but having said the words, I wasn’t sure how valid my promise actually was.

Beth had always been more enthusiastic about us playing together. In fact, it was originally her idea for us to make a band when she had heard that my dad had been teaching me how to play guitar. At the time I was pretty uncertain about the idea, it would mean having to take more time away from schoolwork and other priorities. Beth countered and crushed my flimsy reasoning by pointing out that this was just a fun way for all of us to hang out and spend time together. After a brief and futile resistance to her suggestion, I quickly relented to her enthusiastic proposal.

Beth eventually got her mom to buy her a cheap used drum kit of her own. She had to contribute some of her personal money, but she’s never complained about having spent that money so far. I guess she must still consider it money well-spent.

Scott was our first choice for the singer in our little three-person pseudo-band. I, of course, immediately vetoed any and all suggestions of me singing, and Beth was dead set on being the drummer from the outset. That left Scott to take up the vacant position of singer, and also to play the bass. It may not be popular or traditional for the lead singer to play the bass guitar, but there were still plenty of famous examples of successful bands and singers who also played bass guitar. After our reassuring, Scott agreed to get and learn how to play the bass guitar. Convincing him to sing on the other hand took no effort at all. If anything, he seemed eager to do that part.

If only Beth’s and Scott's considerable eagerness directly equated to musical talent, we’d already be famous rock stars by now. This wasn’t to say we all sucked at playing music, but we were still very much a group of teenage amateurs messing around in a garage together.

“So, do we want to play another song? Does anyone have a suggestion?” Scott asked us.

“Um…” Was all I offered.

While I enjoyed playing guitar with my friends a lot, they both knew I hadn’t been as enthusiastic about it as them. Originally, I only began learning the guitar because my dad had decided to show me his old guitar one day. I had asked him about it, and he offered to teach me if I wanted. Eager to spend more time with Dad back then, at the young and rambunctious age of 12, I agreed with his idea.

He even let me have his old guitar once we had been practicing together for a while. It might not have been the most expensive and it might be slightly well used and not in the best condition, but it was still one of if not my most treasured possessions.

Spending time playing guitar with my dad, just him and me, was some of the nicest memories I have with him. These days, both of us are busier though. Him at work, me at school. It was a nice excuse for me to keep playing when Beth had organized these little jam sessions in Scott’s garage.

“Oh!” Beth exclaimed excitedly. “Why don’t we play that song you wrote again.”

“Uh…I don’t know.” Scott answered with uncertainty. His free hand rustled his hair in apprehension.

Scott did manage to write a song not too long ago, that he reluctantly decided to reveal to us one day. Beth was immediately enthralled and demanded we have an “emergency jam session”.

Having played it and listened to Scott sing the lyrics, I considered it an okay song. The lyrics were pretty good, but Scott didn’t seem to know what to do with the music part and seemed to hope we would mostly just figure that part out for ourselves.

Still, I wanted to be supportive of Scott’s creative attempts, regardless of how good they were. Plus, I still wasn’t eager to start any actual serious discussions, and more music meant those talks could be put off for that much longer.

“I think we should play it actually, it’ll be fun.” I said.

“See! Even Jenni thinks so, and if she says so, it must be true.” Beth insisted.

“Well, I don’t know about that…” I questioned awkwardly.

“Shush you! So, are you in or not Scott?” Beth asked Scott, her eyes willing him to accept.

“Fine, let’s do it.” Scott quickly relented with a large smile on his face.

“Yes!” Beth yelled. “Let’s go!”

She immediately started to count us off with her drumsticks and Scott and I both quickly had to prepare ourselves to jump in once Beth started to play.

“We’re the teenage rebels, wild and untamed.” Scott’s impassioned voice began, as Beth and I both joined in to play our respective parts. “Living our lives on the edge, we won’t be restrained.”

The three of us all continued to throw ourselves into playing Scott’s song, each of us eager to let the music and our instruments take our thoughts away from our normal everyday lives.