< HSoS 29 | High School Of Scenes | HSoS 31 >
< HSoS 53 | H So S Timeline | HSoS 33 >
Antares hangs around as practice breaks up, not saying she wants to stay but taking longer than necessary to pack up.
Maia slouches around as everybody else picks up their stuff -- since she lives here, she doesn't have to do anything. She exhales loudly, and looks to Antares hopefully. "So whaddya think?"
Antares nods. She looks tired but unusually contented. "I think it'll work," she says after thinking for a few seconds. "Sorta rough, but good."
Antares She hesitates a second, then adds, "Mind if I hang a bit? Things are weird at home."
Antares Then she looks annoyed at herself for adding the last part--way to guilt trip.
Maia "Sure."
Maia looks concerned. "Wanna talk about it?"
Antares shrugs, sitting down across from Maia in an almost perfect mirror-slouch. "Same old shit, different day. I'm between assholes with the move and all, though. Boys, fuck 'em."
Antares "What happened with you and what's-his-name, the one you met at that show? Said you had a good sound?"
Maia snickers. "I hear that. Can't live with em..." she pauses, then shrugs. "Yeah, can't live with em."
Maia "Oh man. I didn't tell you about that?"
Antares "Well, you SAID you were gonna hang out with him, and then there was this sorta black thunderous silence afterwards. Spill."
Maia "So he shows up, and we're just chatting, and I'm about to maybe suggest something, when he goes, 'So your band is pretty good, but have you thought about having a guy do the singing? I have some material I've been working on, you guys could be my backup band.'"
Maia "Also, he was a Mormon."
Antares chokes. "Ahahaha! That's great. Did he even LISTEN to your show?"
Maia "Obviously not very well. I dunno. Sometimes, I'm just like, why even bother with boys."
Maia "Hey, it's freezing out her. Come on into the kitchen."
Antares pushes herself up and ambles after Maia, still snickering. "Girls are just as crazy, though. No winning."
Maia "At least they're crazy in a way that you can kind of, like, understand. A lot of the time."
Maia sticks her head in the fridge, hesitates, and comes out with a bottle of IPA. "You want something to drink?"
Antares "You pour it, I'll drink it," Antares says, perching on a stool and drumming her hands on the seat in a fragment echoed from practice. "You've always got better beer, anyway."
Maia grabs another bottle and hunts down a tumbler. "You're so weird that you won't drink from the bottle."
Antares "It's the trash in me. I finish a bottle, I get this reflex to throw it, and that'd just be rude in your parents' kitchen." While Maia pours, she says meditatively, "AND, guys are mostly crazy in a simple way. Once you figure the pattern, it's easy. Girls get all complicated."
Maia "Just because you know HOW they're crazy doesn't make it okay. Remember that guy you met in the city that one time? The knife-thrower?"
Antares "Mm. Yeah, and him getting in a fight the night we met him 'cause the other guy called him 'Twitch.' That was a good one."
Maia "Man. Now that was a pickup line. 'Hey, I'm going to the emergency room and then to jail, wanna come?'"
Antares looks vaguely guilty. "Yeah, uh, I sorta hooked up with him afterwards. I mentioned that, right?" Nope.
Maia snorts into her beer. "Eew, Anty, seriously, why!?"
Antares rolls her eyes. "Because, hello, did you SEE his ass? Rest of him wasn't bad, either."
Antares She takes a long drink. "I told him if he ever even thought about hitting me like he did that guy, he'd better make sure to do it right the first time." She shakes her head. " Nobody ever listens."
Maia "Oh, you're kidding. He did NOT."
Antares shrugs. "Not twice, anyway. And you know my rule. If you stick to dating assholes, you never have to feel bad about breaking up with them."
Maia "Well, as long as you've got a system."
Maia "Speaking of which, what's up with you and Furud?"
Antares looks at Maia warily. "Nothing's up. What's that supposed to mean?" She answered a little too quickly.
Maia shrugs, putting up her hands. "Nothing, I mean...you guys are going out to the Hole together, you're telling me how hot he is. I don't think I was making a huge LEAP there."
Antares "Well he is, I'm just SAYING." Antares says, then looks down at her beer. "He gave me a lift from school after that shit with Johnstone. He was being nice, that's all." She looks uncomfortable.
Maia "I mean. Whatever. I'm not going to date Furud, he's like my retarded brother. I don't care what you do." She drops her eyes as she says this.
Antares snickers. "What are you talking about? Even retarded brothers are good for blaming things on. When we were kids, he wouldn't even sit still for that." She toasts Maia with the last of her beer. "To boys--fuckin' useless, all of 'em."
Maia "To boys, kind of," she echoes, and throws hers back.
Maia "Anyone'll sit still if you knock em down and sit on em."
Maia "So, you been working on any songs yourself?"
Antares sets her empty glass down with a clink and looks at it instead of Maia. "I fuck around a bit, playing, but I never have any words." She hesitates, gripping the glass tightly. "It's like... there's this music that I can't get a hold on, I know how it should go but it doesn't come out right."
Maia is also looking at the glass. "Yeah. I feel that."
Antares "I think about it at the weirdest fucking times--when Johnstone was looking down his nose at me and Dad, when I'm lifting too much weight and it's about to fall." She hesitates again, still looking down. "On Trudeau Bridge." She shoots a look at Maia. "Retarded, huh?"
Maia flinches a little when Johnstone is mentioned, but recovers. "No, I don't think it's retarded. I think it's just..."
Maia "I don't know. I don't know I don't know."
Maia "That's why I got into music in the first place."
Maia "To try to get that sound out of me. But I can't."
Antares Antares, who was tensed up waiting for Maia to laugh, looks at her with unguarded surprise. "No shit?"
Maia "Yeah."
Maia "I don't know. Maybe everybody feels like this."
Maia "Or maybe it's just...you know. Us."
Antares unfolds from her stool with a sudden thump, rocking forward on her feet like she's stopped just short of rushing out. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said anything."
Maia looks up at her with a rather desolate look. "You don't wanna...talk to me about it, I guess."
Antares clenches her fists, clenches her jaw. "It's not like that."
Maia "Whatever, you don't have to lie to me." Maia gets up to storm out, makes it halfway to the door, and then huddles on the floor near the exit.
Antares stands still for a second, her face anguished, and actually sways toward the door before dropping to her knees next to Maia. "Hey," she says in a choked voice, wrapping an arm around Maia's shoulders. "There's some shit I've gotta tell you."
Maia turns her head to Antares, but doesn't otherwise move.
< HSoS 29 | High School Of Scenes | HSoS 31 >
< HSoS 53 | H So S Timeline | HSoS 33 >
Stryck Wiki