The Only Medicine

I wake at ten o’clock, well before Vic, so I lie in bed and read one of his books by the light coming through the curtains. He’s flat on his back, snoring gently. He looks like an angel. I feel a surge of affection when I look at him, like my heart is swelling in my chest. I love Vic like a brother—I don’t know where I’d be without him. He put gum in my hair on a school trip when we were eight and nine respectively and our friendship blossomed from there.

After about an hour of reading and no livelihood from Vic, I slip out of bed, get dressed and slip some jewellery into my stretched lobes and head upstairs to the lounge. Mama and Papa Fuentes are at the dining table, drinking coffee and doing the crossword in the newspaper.

“Hello, Mia,” Papa Fuentes says warmly. “How did the gig go last night?”

“It was good,” I yawn, helping myself to the plunger of coffee on the table. “Goth Grandpa was there again.”

Mama and Papa Fuentes love hearing about the characters we get at our shows. Sometimes I like to pretend that they’re our greatest fans rather than the bar regulars, like their presence is driven by our music and not alcohol addiction.

“Vic said you were going to play one of your originals last night?”

“Oh. We didn’t.” It’s hard to get up the nerve to play originals, especially when you’ve played covers for so long. Strangely enough, most of our original music has more of a metalcore slant and we really only play punk rock and hardcore covers. “Maybe next time, though, when we’ve practised more.”

I can hear someone coming up the stairs behind me.

“Morning, mijo,” Mama Fuentes says.

“Morning,” Mike grumbles, heading straight for the fridge.

I had almost forgotten about the embarrassment of walking in on him in the bathroom, but his presence brings it back. I try not to blush, burying my face into my coffee.

“Do you want some breakfast, dear?” Mama Fuentes asks me, touching my arm. She doesn’t give me time to reply. “Mikey, make Mia some toast.”

Mike cocks his eyebrow at me but puts a couple of slices in the toaster for me. “What do you want on it?”

“Umm, peanut butter and banana?”

“You’re so weird.”

“Mikey!”

“What? She is! Why can’t vegans eat regular things?” he insists.

“Peanut butter and banana is an awesome combo. You should try it,” I take another sip of my coffee. “And anyway, half the shit you eat is vegan anyway, dummy. Vegetables are vegan. Grains are vegan.”

Mike rolls his eyes and fetches the peanut butter out of the pantry.


Vic surfaces about twenty minutes later, wearing only pajama bottoms, rubbing his eyes and yawning dramatically. He sits down between me and Mike and helps himself to the plunger of coffee, which is now cold and grainy. Mama and Papa Fuentes left not too long before he woke up, off out for the day.

“I hope you realise that’s cold?” I say through a mouthful of toast.

“Ugh.” He gets up and starts boiling some water. After a while, he says, “hey, do you wanna go see a movie today?”

I nod. “Yeah, that sounds like fun.”

“Cool. Well, I’ll go get dressed and we’ll head out.” He pours himself a fresh coffee and heads back downstairs.

I can feel Mike’s eyes on me as I get up to put my plate in the sink. I try to ignore it.

“Uh, so am I invited then?” he asks.

“Yeah, sure. I don’t even know what we’re going to watch.” I finish cleaning the plate and hurry down the stairs after Vic. Ugh, why is it so awkward? It was fine when everyone else was there.

I almost bump straight into Vic in the hallway. “Oh, shit, Mia. You ready to go?”

“Yep, just gonna brush my teeth. Oh, and Mike wants to come.” I flick open my phone when I get into the bathroom—no texts from Jane. I can’t tell if I’m happy or disappointed. She’s probably still asleep, prolonging the eventual hangover.


We end up getting tickets to some new horror movie—I don’t have high hopes, but it should be entertaining. Vic buys me a soda and I get myself a bag of pretzels and some plain popcorn. We stand in the lobby, killing time until the movie starts.

“Hey, hold my drink for me,” Vic says, handing me his drink and popcorn. “I’ve gotta go pee.”

He leaves Mike and I standing there. I try to think of something clever and not-awkward to say but fail and just resort to sipping my soda.

“Aren’t you going to apologise to me?” Mike asks.

I frown at him. “What? What for?”

He smirks. “You know. For walking in on me.”

Eek. My cheeks burn. “Ugh … I’m sorry. I didn’t even think you were in there. Why don’t your parents put a lock on your bathroom?”

“It’s okay, Mia; I know you were just trying to catch a glimpse of my package, and I don’t blame you.”

I spray a mouthful of my drink. “That is not what happened!”

He just shrugs and gives me a cocky smile. At that point Vic comes out of the bathroom and looks between us.

“Uh, we ready to go?” he says. I hand him his popcorn and drink. We’re about to head into the auditorium when Mike sees some people he knows.

“Oh, hey, Jaime!” he calls, waving. The guy he’s waving to weaves out of his group of friends and comes over.

“Hey Mike,” he grins. He has an infectious smile and hair gelled up into spikes.

“Um, Vic, Mia, this is Jaime. He plays in a band called Trigger My Nightmare,” Mike says, gesturing to Jaime.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve heard of you guys,” I reply. “You played at Joe’s the other day, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says, grinning. Does this guy do anything other than smile? It’s ridiculous. “Are you guys joining the Battle of the Bands?”

We look at each other. I’m not sure about Vic and Mike, but I know nothing about the Battle of the Bands. However, I do know that we’re definitely going to be playing in it.

“Of course,” Vic says. I can tell by the tone of his voice that he doesn’t know anything about it either.

“Sweet—I guess we’ll see you there, then,” Jaime says. He looks over his shoulder at his friends gesturing for him to hurry up and come back. “Okay, looks like the movie’s starting soon. Hey, there’s a party at my house tonight—come along if you want.” He points a finger gun at Mike. “I’ll text you the deets. See you guys later!”

“Uh, did either of you guys know about that?” I ask once Jaime leaves. They both shake their heads. “I wonder if we’ll have time to enter. And if we do, we’ll probably need to just play original songs.”

“I’ve been writing a bunch of lyrics,” Vic says. “We could do some practice after the movie?”

“Man, my throat’s still kinda crispy after last night … what about tomorrow instead?” I suggest.

“Yeah; I kinda want to go to Jaime’s party. We could go there for a bit, and then Mia could stay over again and we’ll practice in the morning,” Mike says, running a hand through his long dark hair.

“All right. Sounds good,” Vic says, and we head into the cinema.


Mike and Vic sit on either side of me in the cinema, making a kind of Fuentes sandwich. I know they only did that so they could steal my pretzels and popcorn. I mindlessly crunch popcorn while the trailers play—I always end up eating half of the box before the movie.

Mike leans over to whisper something to me, his lip ring tickling the helix of my ear. I flinch away, then turn to face him. “What was that? I didn’t catch that.”

He rolls his eyes and grabs a handful of my pretzels. “Don’t worry.”

Notes