"Yo, dude, can I borrow your homework?"

"What homework? We didn't have any homework!"

"Like hell we didn't! It was, like, three pages from the book and then those stupid problems in the back and-"

"Here," I say, rolling my eyes as I hand my math homework over to Nate and Luke. One of the snatches it before copying down the answers quickly. I look over to Abbie, smirking at Nate and Luke, only to find her frantically staring at the clock. The teacher is in the front of the room, setting up the board in the front for today's lesson.

"Hey, Abs, you okay?" I ask, tapping on her shoulder. She looks worriedly over at me.

"Have you seen Mark?" she replies with her own question. Nate and Luke are too distracted by copying down answers to notice the question. I shake my head, pushing my hair from my eyes.

"No. I haven't seen him since practice yesterday. Why?"

She bites her lip, looking back up at the teacher before over at me again. "He called me this morning, at about four o'clock. He sounded drunk and was wondering if I would pick him up. I ask him where he is and before he can answers there's this weird sound and..." She hesitates. "And the phone call ends. I tried calling him back but it goes straight to voicemail. I'm scared something happened to him."

I reach over my desk and rub her back, frowning at what she's said. Mark rarely ever gets drunk, and when he does, he only does it at his house. What was he doing out, drinking while underage?

"I'm sure he just dropped his phone or something, you know?"

Suddenly, a large commotion comes from the hall. We all look up, trying to see out through the small window on the door. The teacher stands and walks over to the door with a huff, opening just as another teacher runs up. They whisper to each other before a loud ding sounds over the school speakers.

"Code red. I repeat, teachers, code red. Lock your doors and allow no onein or out."

There's another ding and the voice disappears. The door to the room is shut and locked, with the small curtain being pulled over the window.

"What's going on, Mrs. Q?" someone asks from the front of the room. Nate and Luke look up from the homework.

"You think it's a bomb threat?" Nate whispers, leaning toward Abbie and me. I shake my head, but don't show my curiosity on my face.

"No. It's probably something like that cow from last year. You remember that?" Luke laughs, but by the dreadful look on Mrs. Queens' face, I know it's not another escaped cow or something of the sort.

"They found a body in the gym..." she tells us, and it seems like the entire school has gone silent. The room then bursts into harsh whispers as students try to figure out who it may be, if it's a student. I can see the emotions on Abbie's face transition from one to another until she's forced to lay her head on her desk so not to vomit. Nate and Luke have abandoned the homework while they try to figure out what is going on.

Ding.

"Nate Ulrich, Lucas Franklin, Abigail Dennis and Owen Sanders, if you are in the building please report to the front office."

Ding.

Everyone turns in their seats and looks back at us. Nate, Luke and I share another look, before slowly standing up. Abbie still has her head on her desk; her shoulders are moving up and down quickly, as if she's panting for breath. I walk over and help her stand, keeping an arm around her shoulders. She's paler than usual, and it scares me.

Mrs. Queens opens the classroom door for us and we walk down the hall together. It's almost as if this is our last walk - I can hear the Death March being beaten in the back of my head. Abbie is shivering, and for once, Nate and Luke aren't saying a single word. The walk seems longer than it really is, and it's slowly killing all of us.

We arrive in the front office of the school, and simply stand by the door as police and crime scene investigators run about. We stand there for a few minutes until one of the office assistants notices us and gives us a remorseful look. I'm scared to ask why we're here. She walks over and ushers us into the conference room off to the side of the main offices. Standing on the inside are our families and the principal.

Mark's mom and dad are huddled together in a corner, holding each other as they cry.

"NO!" Abbie screams, doubling over as she falls into hysterics. It's then that we realize just whose body was found in the gym just a while ago. I do all I can to keep her from falling to the floor, but suddenly, I'm on my knees beside her, burying my face against her hair.

Abbie's sobs are the loudest in the room, but she's not the only one.

"No," she whispers, her tear-stricken face pressed against my chest. "No, this can't be happening..." Nate and Luke find a place beside us. Our parents have not moved from where they were standing. Our small group, now four instead of five, kneels together, trying to calm down the hysterical Abbie, trying to be strong for her, because it's only a matter of minutes until I know we'll be crying with her. "He never got to know... never got to know how much I loved him..."

I press my face deeper into her hair, feeling the sting of tears. My arms tighten around her, and it hurts me that something like this had to happen. I wish it were a dream. I wish it was some type of sick nightmare that my mind had made up in the efforts of scaring me silly. I wish it wasn't true.

"Never got to know about the baby..."

"Oh god," I hear Nate choke, and I feel his arms tighten around us. I'm sure none of our parents heard us, but things are beginning to make some inkling of sense; why Abbie was always tired, why Abbie was always getting sick in the middle of class, why Abbie and Mark had been more tense than usual. It all explained it now. He knew something was wrong and she wouldn't tell us. And now he would never know.

Sooner or later, from the exhaustion and roaring emotions, Abbie falls asleep against my chest. Nate and Luke are leaning against the wall, on either side of me, as Abbie stays in my lap. I can't take my eyes off her tired looking face. So much has happened in the past few weeks, and it all ended because of Mark's death. After weeks and weeks of phone calls and auditions, Mark got us a show, and now we couldn't play. What's a rock band without a lead singer?

The school was released early, everyone leaving sometime after noon. The door opens and Delia comes running in, make up streaked down her cheeks from her obvious crying.

"Oh my god, Owen, we just found out it was Mark," she says hurriedly, kneeling down in front of me and wrapping her arms around the knocked out Abbie. She's too drained to wake up, and I don't blame her. I would rather be anything but awake right now.

"Do they know what happened?" she asks quietly, sitting in front of my crossed legs and as strokes Abbie's hair. I shake my head.

"A janitor found him on the bleachers. He had been stabbed in the chest, twice. They're trying to get the tapes, but something's wrong with the security system."

Delia doesn't say anything more. After a few minutes, Abbie's parents walk up and look down at us with sad eyes.

"Hey guys," her mother says, giving us a sad smile.

"Hey, Mrs. Dennis," I greet back, but it's in a low, cracked voice.

"We should take Abbie home. She needs the rest."

My arms tighten around Abbie. "I got her, don't worry about it. The last thing we need to do right now is be apart from each other."

They're hesitant at first, until my parents walk up behind them.

"Don't worry about it, Kayla, we'll watch after them. They really shouldn't be apart right now," dad says, clasping a hand on Mrs. Dennis' shoulder. She looks up at my dad with knowing eyes before nodding and takes her husband's hand in hers.

"Alright, we understand. Just... please, Owen, make sure she calls us," her mom pleads before I give her my word. "We'll talk later."

Mark's parents do the same, with us giving them each a hug to the best of our ability, and slowly, the rest filter out of the room until it's just mine left. Nate and Luke are sitting beside me, looking down at Abbie as she sleeps away. Her arms are placed protectively around her stomach. Delia lays against my other side, smoothing her hand over my lower back. It keeps me calm in this frenzied moment.

"Where are your keys, sweetie?" Mom asks. I shift Abbie in my arms slightly to dig in my pocket and pull out the keyring. She nods and smiles over at Delia. "Hey, Delia. I'll take your home sweetie."

Delia looks at me, almost uncertain if she should go, and I nod. "I'll call you later, okay, Del?"

"Okay, Owen..." She gives me a kiss on the cheek, one that I halfheartedly return it. "Sure, Miss Violet." Mom leaves the room with Delia at her side. Now left, is our broken group of four and my dad. He sits on the floor in front of us, his hazel eyes dark with sadness.

"It hurts. I know..." he says, causing me to take in a deep, broken breath. Luke bends his knee, bring them closer to his chest, and rests his arms on them. Nate stares down at his hands, twiddling with his fingers, not daring to look up. I stare at the wall behind his head, breathing in deeply. Abbie shifts in my lap, but doesn't wake up. "You think to yourself, 'how could this happen to me? What did we ever do to deserve this?'"

My eyes close just as I feel the sting again.

"And then, slowly, you start to remember all the small things that you should have paid attention to, or the times when you shouldn't have fought and yelled at each other."

Luke drops his head to his knees, and his shoulders start to shake.

"You cry, you scream, you find someone or something to blame for your misery, but in the end... In the end, nothing is the true cause. You think 'God just hates us', but that's how you deal with it. You write angry lyrics, angry letters, you scream angry words at those that are closest to you. You let the emotions build and build until they burst the dam you've built. Don't build a dam, guys. Don't explode at the very last straw. Just let it go when it comes."

"It's not that easy, dad," I say, finally looking him in the eye.

"I know it's not, but listen to someone with experience in a situation like this."

I cringe at the allusion to Uncle Jimmy.

"Does it get better?" Nate asks, not looking up from his hands.

"Sometimes," Dad answers. "But sometimes the pain gets worse and worse until you feel like there's nothing to keep you going."

"How did you get over with Jimmy's death?" I ask after a pause between us. Dad's gives a sad, nostalgic smile.

"I never did."


Three months.

Three long, heart breaking, sleepless months.

Sometimes I could get up in the morning and drag myself to school and get through the day while ignoring the sad looks I was given, but on other days, I simply laid in bed and stared at my ceiling.

Mark's funeral had been a week after he was found; he was buried just outside Huntington Beach where his family had a plot of land already reserved for the next few generations. We couldn't bring ourselves to go through his stuff - to clean out his locker - to go back to the garage where we last all saw him. Our instruments stayed untouched, and it seemed to only make the pain worse.

I had already filled up half of a new notebook with lyrics, with small stories and reminders of Mark.

Abbie wouldn't leave her room for anything. She told her parents and Mark's parents about her pregnancy the day before Mark's funeral.

I haven't heard from Luke and Nate much lately, but I'm never surprised to find them at my doorstep in the middle of the night, drunk out of their mind, and crying. The first month was nothing but a constant sleepover at one of our houses. Nothing but constant, endless nights filled with no sleep.

And when we did sleep, all of us would awaken from a nightmare or someone screaming from a nightmare.

We weren't the same.

They hadn't found the one that killed Mark. They did have enough evidence to pin it on anyone.

Graduation was three weeks away.

Three months.

Three long, heart breaking, sleepless months had passed, and it was slowly killing all of us.

That was when our parents decided we should see a group therapist. It worked at first, and the nightmares eased up, but then they started again when Mark's eighteenth birthday passed and we couldn't make ourselves talk anymore. They separated us into different secession, and so every Tuesday, mom or dad would drive me down to Long Beach and I would sit in an office for an hour and a half, 'talking' to Dr. Leanne Ortiz.

And during the whole three months, I had not seen or heard from Uncle Jimmy once.

"I'll see you at five, okay, sweetie?" Mom says, pulling me from my thoughts. I nod, and slowly make my way out of the car and into the office building we pulled up to. For the past month and a half, I had gotten into the routine of see Leanne.

"Hello, Owen, how are you feeling today?" she asks, greeting me as she usually does as I fall into the leather couch that she has set up for her patients. I stare at the coffee table in front of me, resting my elbows on my knee as I look at the nameless magazines on top of the glass.

"The nightmares are back," I tell her, and she frowns. Her pen scratches against paper.

"Are they the usual ones?"

I nod.

"Any differences?"

I shake my head.

"Has the medicine helped you sleep?"

I cringe at the mention of the little white pill that haunts me every night. "They made the nightmares start, again."

Leanne deepens her frown and begins to write again.

"And your drinking?"

I shrug. "I get the occasional beer from dad's cooler, just one or two. Enough to ease the sharp pain from exhaustion."

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

"How's school?"

"The looks are still being given to us, but it seems harder and harder to get through the day with that empty seat in front of you, and knowing that your best friend won't be at his high school graduation in three weeks."

Scratch.

"Have you written anything new?" I nod. "May I ask what, exactly?"

"Two songs," I tell her, wringing my hands. "Just lyrics, though. I can't bring myself to touch a piano or guitar, still."

"I think it would help," she tells me, and I finally look up from the coffee table. "Try that. Try and make yourself make music. Have you talked to your dad about any of the things he did?"

"The same things we're doing..." I mumble, sighing and running a hand over my face. "Well, they were writing an album when it happened, so they had to write music. They had to continue Uncle Jimmy's legacy. That's what he would have wanted."

"And I believe Mark would have wanted the same for Exile Prolonged. Get together one day and go to the garage and simply sit there and make music. I heard you have a good voice."

"But I play drums."

"I never said you had to be the lead singer."

"We're not getting a replace-"

"And I never said anything about a replacement." I shut my mouth. "Simply sit there and make music. It's your last option, isn't it?"

The rest of the session is spent in silence as I think over what she has told me.

Notes

The body of a student was found today, Friday the 11th, rolled up in a mat in the gym of a high school just an hour from mine. There was a stab wound to his chest, and authorities are treating it as a homicide. He was a senior, much like me. He only had five more months until graduation. Now he will never get the chance to walk across that stage and get his diploma. My prayers go out to his family.

inspiration: the entire album "Nightmare" by A7x. that's all I listened to while writing this chapter.