“I just happen to be in the right place, right time.”

---

I looked up at the house I had once been dragged to. I was standing in the driveway contemplating whether I should knock on the door or turn around a pretend I was never there in the first place.

My mind was telling me to go with the latter.

“What’re you doing just standing there?”

My breath hitched. So much for choice two.

I hadn’t noticed that the front door opened, or that someone was staring down at me from the porch.

“I’m, hey,” I said shakily.

“Hey man, come on in.” He held the door open for me and stood aside as I walked in.

“Hope you don’t mind but we’ve got some friends over,” he said as he led me to the living room. Sure enough, I heard the TV and sounds of game controllers clacking in the background.

“Hey Mike, where’d you go?” someone on the couch asked my retriever as we walked into the room.

“I told you, man, I had a feeling,” Mike answered. “Hey Hime, this is Kellin. Kellin, this is Jaime.”

Jaime paused the game and stood from his seat on the couch. “Hey man,” he said as he approached me. He reached his hand out for me to shake. I found it a bit odd but I shook it nonetheless.

“And you already know Tone,” Mike said as he gestured to Tony. Tony nodded to me and I did the same back. “Did Vic go upstairs?”

“Either there or the kitchen with Erin,” Tony answered.

Mike nodded. “Follow me,” he said.

I let Mike lead me to the kitchen. There was a girl with dark hair past her shoulders standing in front of the microwave. She smiled at us as we entered.

“Erin, you see where Vic went?” Mike asked.

“Um, I think he went upstairs when you went to answer the door,” the girl answered.

“Thanks.”

The girl nodded. “Aren’t you gonna introduce me to your friend?”

“Oh shit, where are my manners? Erin, this is Kellin. Kellin, Erin.” She smiled sweetly at me as I returned an awkward one. I was really bad at meeting new people.

“What’re you making?” Mike asked.

“Tony wanted something other than popcorn so here I am.” She said all of with a smile on her face. I had no idea how she did it. If someone told me to make different snacks I would be pissed but I guess she was a better person than me in that regard.

“Well hell, what’s over here?” It seemed like Mike was more interested in whatever Erin was making than helping me find his brother.

“Uh, is it alright if I go….,” I trailed off. Mike and Erin had begun a conversation about what she was making for Tony. I slipped out the kitchen quietly seeing that neither of them had a reason to talk to me anymore. I managed to avoid talking to Tony or Jaime as I made my way up the stairs of the Fuentes household.

I vaguely remembered where Vic’s bedroom was from the last time I was at his house. It also helped that his door was the only one that was completely closed. I knocked on the door quickly and waited for a response. I got none.

I knocked again, harder this time, and waited. Still no response.

“Screw it,” I mumbled to myself. I turned the knob, happy that it wasn’t locked, and opened the door. It hadn’t occurred to me that Vic could be naked in his room or doing something…inappropriate.

Thankfully he wasn’t doing either of those things. No, instead he was lying on his bed on his phone with headphones in. He didn’t even acknowledge me as I walked in.

I wasn’t sure of what to do so I stood by the door in wait. I didn’t want to move on the very likely chance that he would get upset with me for doing so.

“You just gonna stare at me or are you gonna say something?”

Well, apparently he would get upset with me for trying to be considerate too. There was no winning with him.

“What should I say?” I asked.

“Something less smart-ass-like,”

“Well that’s just impossible,” I retorted. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I could’ve sworn that he cracked a smile.

“It’s about time you got here,” he said as he took his headphones out of his ears. “I was beginning to think you weren’t gonna show.”

I scratched my arm nervously. I originally wasn’t going to go over, but the talk we had this afternoon had me thinking all day. Vic actually wasn’t that bad when we were one-on-one. In fact, there wasn’t a time when he and I were alone that I felt like he would hurt me. Sure there were moments of fear and anxiety but that was because of the displays he put on while we were in front of other people. I still had to keep my guard up though, but when it was just him and me he seemed harmless.

“I thought I heard Mike say that you were hanging out with the people downstairs,” I said, avoiding the original topic of conversation.

“Yeah but that’s kind of a daily thing. We always hang out after school.” He moved around the room, organizing his desk and straightening up his bed. I could tell he had a hint of OCD.

“The same gang?” I questioned.

“Mhm,” he hummed. “We’ve all been inseparable since, shit, I don’t know, but we always find a way to hang out every day. Even if it’s not the whole group because then we’d just piss each other off.” He chuckled a little as he got a notebook and pen out of his backpack. “What about you?”

“What about me?” I questioned.

“Do you have some people you’re that close to?”

“I mean, there’s Lynn and that group. I’ve gotten pretty close to them.”

“What about from back where you’re from?”

I thought about it. Although I did have friends back in Oregon and Michigan, I couldn’t say that we had the same kind of relationship Vic had with his friends so I said nothing.

“Anyway,” Vic said when he noticed that I wasn’t going to answer, “let’s do this.”

I nodded and walked away from the door, further into the room.

“You can sit on the bed; I prefer to work at my desk.” I nodded again and sat on the edge of Vic’s bed. I took out my notebook of song lyrics and my pen.

“How are we gonna start this?” Vic asked.

I shrugged. “Maybe think of a style of music and work from there?”

He nodded. “Sure, why not?” He turned toward his desk for a moment and picked up a textbook.

“You’re actually using that?” I asked, referring to our music appreciation textbook that was now sitting on his lap.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I? They gave it to us for a reason.” I chuckled softly. “What?”

I shook my head. “Nothing, I just didn’t think I’d hear you say that.”

“Why not?” he asked with a playful smile on his lips.

“You just don’t come off as the type of guy to use textbooks ‘because they gave it to you so why not’,” I said with air quotes. He chuckled at me this time.

“Well apparently there’s a lot you don’t know about me.”

I hummed. There was no doubt that I didn’t know much about the guy sitting in front of me. Part of me wondered if it was because I didn’t want to know. To me Vic had always seemed like an ass so why bother?

“What’s up?” he asked

“Hmm?”

“You look like you’re thinking pretty hard.”

“Oh, just wondering what genre we should do.” He stared at me, his eyes clearly saying “bullshit” to my response, but he didn’t question it. He just turned his attention back to his book and flipped through some pages.

“I think the Romantic Era is a good place to start,” he said after too many moments of awkward silence.

“Why the Romantic?” I asked.

“Think about it,” he started, “the Romantic was all about new discoveries and breaking away from the norm. Bigger orchestras, more chromaticism, new harmonies, and most importantly, new themes. Love and loss, more expressive tragedies, more storytelling. It was a great time for music. Basically where our current music comes from.”

I watched his face as he talked. Not only did he know what he was talking about, but he seemed so excited about it. His eyes sparkled as he explained the appeal of the era and a small smile rugged at the corners of his mouth. It was refreshing to see.

“But yeah,” he finished, “I think we should do that one.” He looked down at his lap nervously, as if he was caught stealing a cookie before dinner.

“Let’s do it,” I said causing him to look up at me.

“Really?”

I nodded. “Yeah, it sounds cool. Plus you obviously have a passion for it and you know more about it than I do. We can make this work.” He smiled brightly and put the textbook back on his desk.

“Awesome, so here’s what I was thinking.” He rolled his chair closer to the bed. “We could work on the lyrics together and I could work on chords and stuff.”

I nodded. “Sounds good.”

“You got any lyrics we could look at now?” Vic asked. I looked down at my closed notebook nervously and bit my lip.

“Um, no, sorry.”

He shrugged. “No big deal, we can work on lyrics next week.”

“You want me to come back next week?” I asked skeptically.

“Duh,” he scoffed. “This project is gonna take a lot of work, and since you don’t play any instruments we’ll need to meet up often to make sure we’re on the same page.”

I nodded. That made sense, right?

Vic got up and stretched a bit. “I’m gonna go get something to drink. You want anything?”

“Some water I guess.” He nodded left the room without another word. That gave me a chance to look around the room.

It was obvious that Vic was into music. His walls were lined with posters of Thrice, Green Day, Blink-182, and Third Eye Blind. In the corner of his room stood an acoustic and electric guitar and an amp.

There was nothing out of place in this room. His books were organized on his desk; his backpack was beside the desk. The closet was organized as well. His shoes were lined up in rows on the floor. Maybe this kid had more than “a little OCD”.

I looked down at the notebook in my lap and sighed. My audition was coming up and I still had no idea what I was gonna sing. Maybe I should just bite the bullet and the damn song I wanted to avoid. It was the only one on my mind and the only one that held enough passion and significance to be deemed acceptable.

But that was why it was horrible.

More memories flooded back to me as I thought about the lyrics. I thought about the darkness, the cold, the rough hands on my skin as I struggled to escape. My throat closing as I was unable to talk or breathe. The world fading away as my body went limp.

The want for death.

“You okay?”

I looked up with a start to see Vic standing in the doorway with two bottles of water in his hands. He had an eyebrow cocked and his face twisted in a confused expression.

“Huh?” I asked.

“I asked if you were okay. You were zoning out pretty hard.”

I shrugged it off. “I’m fine.” I could tell he didn’t believe me but he let it go and handed me one of the bottles in his hands. “Thanks.”

“So what’s in that notebook?” Vic asked.

“Why do you wanna know?”

He shrugged. “You took it out of your bag but you haven’t opened it. Just wondering what the deal is.” He opened his bottle and took a sip. He stared at me as he put the bottle on his desk, expecting a response. I wasn’t sure what to tell him.

“I have to sing a song for Mr. Urie on Friday and I’m out of ideas.”

“Just sing your favorite song,” he said as if it were that simple.

“The thing is the song has to mean something to me. It has to be important.”

“And your favorite song isn’t important?”

I shook my head. “Nope. At least not in that sense.”

“I’m not sure if you’re religious or not, but I would say sing one of those hymn things. Those mean a lot to people with faith.”

That would’ve been a great idea if I was religious in the slightest.

“That won’t work,” I sighed. “I have some ideas but they probably won’t do me any good either.”

“Why not?” Vic asked with a cocked eyebrow.

“It’s too personal. The song is.”

“In my experience, personal songs get the best results. You actually feel the lyrics rather than just singing words on a page. You know why you wrote it or thought about it so you have a strong connection to everything you’re singing.”

I hummed in response. “There’s just too much with this song,” I said quietly.

“No one’s asking you to tell Mr. Urie the meaning behind the song, just sing it. I get that some songs can be more personal than others but that’s what makes them meaningful. As long as you know what you’re singing for then you’ll be fine. Let the song speak for itself.”

I shook my head. “It’s not that simple.”

“Sure it is.” He rolled his chair over so he was sitting right in front of me. “Music itself isn’t simple but your reason to perform a song is. You either want to perform it because you want others to hear it, you want to get some emotions out, or it’s been stuck in your head for forever and performing it is the only way to get it out.” He chuckled. “Point is, if you’re thinking about singing that song it’s for one of those reasons. Just decide which one it is and sing the damn song.”

I thought over all that he said. Was it really that simple? Maybe, and maybe I was making all of this harder than it needed to be. I had been afraid to relive the memories associated with the song so I tucked it away along with the moments that inspired it, and vowed to never go back to that time. Maybe it was time to let that go. Maybe.

I put my notebook back into my backpack and stood up, grabbing the water bottle I had yet to open.

“What are you doing?” Vic asked, confusion written all over his face.

“Sorry but I’ve gotta go,” I answered. “I’ve got an audition to practice for.”

Notes