It had been quite an ordinary day for Lisa already.

She’d ignored her Dad and her brother in the morning, choosing to leave the house while both of them were still in the Zombie Morning stages of their waking up process. She walked to school, despite the hour it took her to get there, but it gave her a chance to clear her head. She wanted to live with Jimmy, because at least he was straight with her, rather than fucking around with her feelings and lying about her past like her Dad and siblings had been doing.

Hell, she didn’t even know who her own mother was. That, in itself, was sad.

Her last class of the day was Math, the only thing she could never be bothered with doing. The numbers confused her and it was like whenever she stared at them, they danced around the page and started getting drunk, rather than doing what they were meant to do and standing still.
As she walked in, she saluted to her teacher, something she and the old man had worked out many years ago. He knew she didn’t like his subject, but that she tried, so he didn’t give her shit when she got the answers wrong. He got it. Unlike most of the other idiots around here.

She slipped into her empty chair, and noticed that beside her, someone different was sitting there. Usually, the seat beside her was known as a replacement chair, the one that if there weren’t enough places to go around, someone would have to go there. It was right by the trash can and nobody particularly wanted to sit there. She didn’t mind where she was- because she’d spent the majority of her childhood on tour buses with five guys- all of whom knew nothing of basic hygiene.
She could handle a trash can full of pencil sharpening’s.

“Alright! Attention everybody. Before we begin, I’d like to introduce Blaze, he’s a transfer from upstate. I want you all to be nice, and if I see anyone picking on him, I will escort them personally to the principal’s office. Now, Algebra! Just imagine I’ve got four bottles of whisky in my desk drawer, which isn’t that hard because you can see them, and we call that X…” Mr T said, clapping his hands together and pointing at the whiteboard beside him. Lisa watched him for a moment, letting the math talk float into her ear when she felt the boy beside her nudge her.

“Hey. Mr T told me about how you find Math a little challenging. I’m here to help you” Blaze whispered to her and she smiled, her heart fluttering a little. He had the most brilliant green eyes, sort of like the ones her Uncle Zacky had. She still called all her brothers’ bandmates Uncle, because technically she was still a child, and she liked the innocence of calling these complete strangers her family.

“Good. I’m flunking this class already” Lisa replied as Mr T finished explaining whatever it was that he was talking about and started to hand out text books, letting the class talk freely.
“It’s OK. I suck at playing guitar, but I don’t give up. It just takes a little time, a little patience and a whole load of practise” Blaze said, handing her a textbook. And as she took it from him, their hands brushed slightly and she jumped, like an electric shock had just passed through her body.

Was this what Lizzy and Brian had always talked about when they saw certain people? Was this…a crush?

***

When Zacky slammed shut the door to his house, he automatically tuned out the sound of his fiancée yelling at him from the kitchen, where she was banging pots and pans around like she was trying to learn how to play drums.
“Where the hell have you been? Your own mother called me four times asking me if I’d driven you away! I thought we were keeping the cracks a secret until after the wedding” Anna snarled as he waltzed through the hallway of his house, slinging his jacket over a chair.
He couldn’t stop smiling.

Lizzy had been so beautiful in the weak sunlight that had poured through the windows as their bodies had moved together, every curve and crevice meshed together until they were one person all over again. It was so reminiscent of old times, and the way the two of them used to feel. But there had been no awkwardness, no speaking of feelings that were or were not there. Instead, they’d held each other for little over an hour after they’d made love, talking.

She’d even left him something to remember her by, which was currently tucked in his back pocket and out of sight from the fuming woman in front of him.

“Why bother lying? Nobody wants to spend a fortune on a wedding that’s only going to end in divorce” Zacky muttered as he turned away from her, starting up the stairs. He needed a cold shower, and then probably a hot one- he could still smell the hay on his shirt. Not that it was a bad scent, because it reminded him of Lizzy, but he didn’t particularly want to walk around smelling like Eau de Farmyard.

“Where are you going?!” she screeched, stamping her foot on the ground like a child.
“I’m going to shower. Go stamp your feet somewhere else, Anna, you and I both knew it was doomed from the start. It’s only a matter of time before everyone else works that out” he said and disappeared into the bedroom. He stripped off his clothes, laying them down on the large double bed that he hadn’t slept in for weeks because she had made him sleep on the couch, intent on not sharing a bed with a man that she hated.

As soon as he got into the steaming hot shower, he sighed and let the water relax his muscles, as his mind flickered to the girl he’d had just made love to.

What he didn’t realise was outside in the bedroom, Anna had crept in and was staring at his clothes suspiciously. There was some hay in the collar of his shirt, mud on the cuff of his jeans. Something was making a bump in the back pocket and as she slipped her hand inside, careful to listen out for whatever Zacky was doing in the shower, she pulled out a crumpled up note and a pair of small, lacy black underwear. She gasped.

Anna never imagined that Zacky would cheat on her, even though their relationship was falling apart. She hated him but she still stayed faithful. Unfurling the note, she read the cursive script slowly.

“A little something to remember today by. We’re defiantly doing that again. L xx”

She thought for a moment, wondering who on earth the mysterious ‘L’ could be, until she finally got it. That little bitch was going to have hell to pay, not just from the cheesed off fiancée, but from the shit she was about to sling. Slowly, she slipped the underwear back into the back pocket of Zacky’s jeans and walked downstairs, picking up the phone and dialling Brian’s number as she did.

He’d always been the most civil out of the members of Zacky’s band, and she had the feeling he’d be most interested to hear what his slut of a sister had been up to.

“Anna? Did you find Zacky yet, I haven’t heard back from Lizzy” he said almost as soon as the line clicked and she sighed, hoping to sound distraught, though she felt rather pleased with herself.
“Yes, he came back a few minutes ago. But I have some information for you, Brian” she smirked, glancing up at the ceiling where she could hear Zacky’s footsteps walking around their bedroom.

“It’s about Lizzy”