chapter one: it'll probably be fabulous

It was hot like the deep end of July as I stepped out of the cool air of my Mom's car. The heat hit me like a mildly boiling wave of water from a warm ocean and I began to sweat immediately as I squinted my eyes, lifting my hand to shade myself from the sunlight. It was June, but it felt like July and was humid like August. Whatever. It was summertime. I glanced around South Street looking for my missing companion, but my Mom distracted me a few seconds later.

"Regan, are you sure you'll be okay? You don't want me to wait with you?"

I rolled my eyes. She always asked me that even though I was always there to meet up with someone in center city. It's like she never believed me when I said I was meeting up with Billy in Starbucks or going to find Janie in front of a venue for a concert. And she never paid attention to anything I did at home, but once it came to the thought of me walking the streets of Philadelphia on my own for even a millisecond, she jumped into her fake Super-Mom mode and started worrying about me.

"As always, I'll be fine. Billy's probably inside waiting for me. That's his car over there. And it's daylight out, remember?"

She released a very over-dramatized sigh, even for her. "Call me if you need a ride home."

"Don't worry, Billy will give me a ride. I'll see you later." I waved good-bye to her and backed up onto the sidewalk. Hugging my messenger bag to my side, I straightened my hat as I walked through a small crowd of teenagers that was passing by. I looked over my shoulders at them and smirked; I could tell by their dirty shoes, their messy hair and their tight clothes that I'd see them again soon, later that night.

I walked up the steps and opened the door to the Starbucks café, and I saw my Mom finally drive down the street out of the corner of my eye. I stepped inside and my skin froze up - it was so much cooler inside, especially cooler than inside Mom's car. With a hesitant smile I looked around the café for a familiar face. It wasn't very crowded in there. I recall there usually being more people during the winter when people came for a warm cup of coffee to go as they shopped along South Street. I didn't drink coffee much. Cappuccino's and frappuccino's were my thing. Regular coffee was too strong for me. But my best friend Billy couldn't go a day without a cup of black. In fact, only sixteen years old, he refused to go a day without one. As a result, he was only five-foot-six, or perhaps seven, only a few inches taller than me.

I didn't see him anywhere, but I had seen his car outside, his 1964 Volkswagen Bus. It was an old classic, white on top and banana yellow on the bottom with the chrome Volkswagen emblem on the front. It was his baby, which he'd restored with his dad and named Lucy just in time for his sixteenth birthday. I knew he was somewhere around there, most likely wandering South Street to kill time while waiting for me. He could be very impatient like that.

Billy was my best friend. He had been for six years now, since we were ten years old. We hated each other before we became friends, and had a typical boy vs. girl relationship in our neighborhood, and he always thought it stupid that I was always around the other boys. He felt that the boys had betrayed him somehow by spending so much time with me. But to them I was barely a girl - I did all the things they did. I rode my bike through the mud and played baseball in the park and raced them through the streets. I lifted rocks in my backyard and collected the dirty worms; I climbed the highest tree that others were afraid to climb. As far as my friends were concerned, I was a boy. But that didn't sit well with little Billy.

I don't really know if it's right to call them my friends, though. They were all one to five years older than me, and they were my brother's friends. I just pursued them because they seemed so cool. At least, so much cooler than the girls my age who wanted to play house and make me be the Daddy. That always sounded lame to me, and it always pissed me off. They gave me the Daddy title only because I was a tomboy, and they never even thought about how I didn't have a Dad myself.

A war raged through our neighborhood between my end and Billy's end. Water balloons flew through the air and squirt guns battled during the summer time, leaves and dirt were thrown in the fall, and the snowball fights were the worst during the winter. I'd go home red-faced at sunset and my mother would ground me for getting into that kind of trouble, but forget about it the next day and not realize that I'd come home late from school due to another snow battle on the way home. Billy always started it.

But when we were ten years old, we were put in the same class and the same group for some project. So we had to get along, our grades depended on it. We grudgingly went along with it, but everything changed when I had to walk home alone one day and he saw me. Being ten years old wasn't easy for me. My body had started to change and my brother, fifteen at the time, ditched me for girls and music, so I had no friends.

I was just a little tomboy walking home with holes in my jeans and a hat on my head when things between Billy and I changed. He was riding home on his bicycle, and stopped to see a bunch of fifth graders picking on me. They stole my hat and never gave it back. I cried. Billy walked me home, and never made fun of me for my tears. Thus began our beautiful, occasionally complicated and most unlikely best friendship.

We were sixteen years old now. We did everything together. We watched each other grow up, and he was more of a brother to me than my real one ever was. There were no secrets or lies between us, ever, there were silly arguments and blunt statements and me smacking him on the head all the time, followed by him tickling me. We were practically joined at the hip, and everyone around us always accused us of being in love.

I did love him. Of course I did. He was everything to me. But I wasn't in love with him, by any means. He was Billy. He was my guy. He'd always be there. Once we crashed our bikes and scraped our elbows together. He pressed his against mine and said that we were blood brothers now, and we'd die on the same day. I saw no reason to disbelieve that.

"Bottled frappuccino coffee drink," I said pleasantly as I approached a refrigerator by the main counter. I opened the glass door and reached in, grabbing a bottle of Vanilla, but as I closed it I saw two shelves down, caramel. I grabbed a bottle of that between my fingers by the cap, and took both of them. With a grin, I took them over to the counter to pay for them. "For smooth rejuvenation! Sounds dirty."

The guy behind the counter eyed me strangely, but I just smiled at him as he rung me up. I gave him a ten and looked around as he dished out my change, and when he handed it over I took my drinks and dropped myself down on a comfy chair at a small table by the window. I crossed my legs and reached into my bag to bring out a book to read while I waited for Billy to come back.

Billy Jennings was the best guy I'd ever known. He was beautiful and talented and so nice, and he was also the most hilarious person I had the pleasure of constantly being around. He was so witty and ridiculous, and I loved him for it. That means a lot when it comes from a girl who has a boyfriend, or at least a semi-boyfriend. Whatever that means.

I pulled out my portable and played a CD to accompany me as I read, and after opening my book I opened the caramel bottle. I listened to Green Day as I sipped on the cold drink, looking forward to the night I had ahead of me, which would begin once Billy showed up. Once he did, we were supposed to walk down the street to one of Philly's most popular venues to meet up with our friend Janie and my semi-boyfriend Leon and see our favorite band Dashboard Confessional. The 'our' being Billy, Janie and I. Leon didn't listen to Dashboard, but he was always up for a good show. I had to do a lot of begging to get him to come to this with us, because he and Billy never really got along.

Glancing out the window, I had my eyes peeled for Billy. I was so anxious for him to get there, that I couldn't concentrate on my book. It was Bridget Jones's Diary by Helen Fielding, and I'd read it twice now so I guessed that was partly why I couldn't keep my eyes on the pages. I was reaching out to pick up my bottled beverage when everything went black as someone's large hands covered my eyes from behind. I almost knocked the damned bottle over.

"Hello, Sweetums," a deeply disguised voice greeted me. I smiled to myself. I knew who it was. "You're looking a bit lonely. How about you and I go get a hotel room down the road?"

"Okay!" I chirped with a grin. The hands left my eyes and the face of a boy more familiar to me than any other person in the world stepped over and slid into the rusty chair across from me. The short stubbles on his unshaven jaw looked obviously messy but not as messy as the stringy brown hair that fell over his big blue eyes as he pursed his lips in a wide smirk that was playfully perturbed.

"That wasn't very good-like," Billy said in his normal warm and friendly voice.

I giggled, "'Cause I knew who you were."

"Damn," he said with an overly dramatic sigh of disappointment.

"Well it was obvious," I said in a tone that said 'duh.' It was a tone I used often, especially with him.

"How? How was it obvious?" He continued this attack playfully, and then paused. "Wait… yeah. Tell me. How?" As I was about to answer, he broke out into song: "Tell me why? Ain't nothing but heeaaartache…"

"I was expecting you. Freak."

"Oh… all right." Billy shrugged and ran a hand through his soft brown hair, pushing his long bangs out of his face. He flashed a toothy smile at me and I laughed silently, admiring the size of his mouth. His grin was always so big; it seemed to take up his whole face. Like it was two feet wide.

Billy looked around at the table and gasped when he noticed the vanilla frap. He reached for it and grabbed it before I could move it and said, "For me?! You shouldn't have."

"I didn't," I said, but he opened it and started drinking it anyway. I rolled my eyes and just smiled as some of it dripped on his Futurama t-shirt.

"I like your shirt."

Billy just grinned at me then he suddenly announced a new thought. "I need a new character name," he said. "By the way, Happy Thursday."

He was one of the very few guys I knew that didn't want to be the next Chris Carraba or Jim Adkins. Nope. He just wanted to write. Be it a song with one of the few local bands we were both friends with, or a screenplay or even a novel. He just wrote all the time, and I was damn proud of the things he'd already accomplished so far. Like awards and things, stuff at school that made him pretty popular there.

And once I bugged him to enter a poetry contest. I was most proud of that because he won the grand prize of two thousand dollars. He also spoiled me with half of that because we both knew that if it weren't for me and my incessant pushing on the subject it wouldn't have happened.

"A guy?" I asked.

He nodded.

"I'm going say Gavin or Aidan every time." Someday I was going to have twin boys and they would be called Gavin and Aidan. And then they'd have a little sister named Gemma. I had it all planned out.

He rolled his eyes at me. "I'll use… Jacob? That's German, isn't it? Oh well."

"No! Ashley!"

He stared at me. "Ashley? What the fuck? I said it's a guy."

I grinned. "Ashley is a boy's name too."

"Well… whatever boy has the name Ashley… he has my sorrow. So, moving along..."

"Like the guy Ashley from O-town," I said with a dreamy sigh, twirling a lock of my dark brown hair around my index finger. "He's, like, so hot."

Billy gave me a horrified look and I burst out laughing.

"Okay… Rae…"

"Okay, I'm done scaring you."

"This is your lesson for today… When there is a guy…"

"Don't worry, I know," I said, laughing still. "I'm done."

Billy continued, "And he's in a group called… 'O-town,'" he made a disgusted face. "And his name is Ashley… he is not worth it." And he flashed a charming smile.

"But he's really hot," I mimicked his smile perfectly.

"I need to listen to my own advice," he mumbled, and then snickered. "Woo, I crack me up."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Hey, don't look at me funny, Mrs. I-Think-This-Ashley-guy-Is-Hot."

"He is!"

"Whatever."

I stuck my tongue out at him.

"I still can't believe that… Ashley. Geez. That kid must've had a tough life…"

"But he's really hot. Like ooh I want him," I giggled. I loved to scare him by making him think I was crossing over to the conformity of most MTV viewers. Though I actually did think this Ashley guy was kind of hot. But I never said that.

"Well… that's just wrong."

"Hmm… I never get like this about hot guys."

"His name is Ashley!"

"But he's hot so the name doesn't matter!"

Billy glared. "Thanks."

"What?" I asked blinking a few times. "Thanks what?"

"You said you don't get like that with hot guys. And I said thanks… and don't… say anything to diss me. I'll smack you."

I just laughed and said, "Ooh, I'm scared."

"Don't make me get the mini-skirt," he taunted, grinning. This was an inside joke. He'd always comment to me about how hot girls look in mini-skirts when he'd see any of them wearing one. This I'd roll my eyes at. I hadn't worn a skirt since fourth grade. So now one of his goals in life is to get me in a mini-skirt someday. He laughed. "Criminal punishment. The miniskirt. Right up there with house arrest…"

"Then I'll bring the make-up," I shot back at him, making a face. That one comes from a deal I made with him, which was maybe someday if I wear a mini-skirt for him, we'd go out and party together but only if I could give him a very visible makeover. Which would most likely be tons of fun since I barely knew how to put make-up on myself, let alone someone else, a guy even.

"I'd enjoy that."

I laughed. "Right. If your name was Ashley…"

"Exactly. But it isn't. Because I'm actually cool."

"But Ashley is hot."

"And what am I?"

"A yam."

Billy stared at me for a moment then burst out into a fit of man-giggles. I tried to resist the pull to join him. When he calmed down a bit, he said, "Well. I guess I know who to go to for appreciation…"

"You know you love me."

"Heh…" he smirked. "C'mon, let's go waste some time in Tower Records."

Janie Garner completed our small, tight-knit circle. She was like the ketchup to my fries, though a bit more ditzy than that. She wasn't a complete ditz, but she could be a little hazy sometimes. She was a happy girl, somewhat perky and optimistic. Janie was really good at keeping her focus off the bad in her life, and I envied her for that ability because she was really good at it - there was a lot of bad. But it could have been worse. She had a relationship with her mother that lived through notes and goodnight kisses, and she flew to Florida during the Holidays to escape her and her ever-changing boyfriends, and to also see her father. She didn't have any siblings.

We met her in November the year before, right after she got home from visiting her Dad for Thanksgiving. Her parents had just divorced that summer and her mother moved them from Jacksonville to Philadelphia to be closer to relatives. They moved into the apartment across the street from Billy's, and we all met when she came outside to experience her first snowfall. She was very strange as we watched her from Billy's stoop. There was five inches of snow on the ground and she came out in a t-shirt, jeans, and flip-flops. Her blonde hair was up, highlighted and her skin lightly bronzed from the recent taste of the Florida sunlight, and she looked like a child in a candy store.

She came outside and slipped a flip-flop off, then stuck her foot in the snow. Then she shrieked and ran back inside her house, only to emerge a few minutes later decked out in a big jacket and high boots. She rolled around in the snow for a while and Billy and I watched her, giggling for a while, before we decided to come over and join her. Billy was shy which was weird, because he was never shy around girls. I dragged him over and introduced us to her, and then the three of us proceeded to build a snowman.

Our friendship with her was even more unlikely than my friendship with Billy, because as he and I were labeled 'skater-punks' at school, she was more of the popular type. The most well-known names around school wanted to talk to her and ask her questions about Florida and how the weather affected her hair and where she bought her clothes. She answered all of their questions, but in the end turned to us. Janie couldn't skate for the life of her even though we tried to teach her, and she adored Justin Timberlake even as she eagerly learned the words to Green Day's album 'Nimrod.' But there was something in her eyes that made me love her.

Our lovely night together on South Street began as Billy and I walked closely together, arms linked and hips nearly touching. He was looking around, probably for Janie, and he didn't see the guy coming his way on a skateboard, so I had to quickly pull him out of the way, passing closely by the window of the shoe store that was right next to the venue. Billy was so startled by this he stepped on my feet.

"Ow!" I cried, and then stomped on his.

"Owww!" he wailed. He let go of me, hopping on one foot. "Damn, I'm sorry!"

"Pay attention, you dolt."

"You're so abusive!"

"Yeah, yeah. You see Janie anywhere?"

"I think you broke my toe."

"Maybe she's waiting in line for us."

"I have now lost feeling in my foot."

"Come on, let's go." I reached out to take his arm, but he pulled it away, shrieking.

"Nuh-uh, I don't think so. You're going to throw me out on the street so I get hit by a car."

"Ooh, thanks for the tip, I'll remember that in the future." I grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him past some people as I scanned the crowd for a familiar face. Billy struggled the whole way, trying to catch up with my as I refused to let go of his shirt. I was fighting a huge grin the whole time. I loved kicking his ass all the time.

Janie was near the front of the line, standing alone as she stared down at her ticket envelope. As we approached her from the side she looked up and smiled brightly.

"Hey, what took you guys so long?" she asked right away.

"Billy took too long in Atomic City," I replied, glaring at him. He liked comic books. It was a thing.

He glared back at me. "Rae broke my toe."

"I'm sure she didn't," Janie said, taking him seriously. "If she did, you wouldn't be able to walk on your foot. Trust me, it happened to my cousin."

"He's exaggerating," I said, shoving Billy. "He stepped on my feet so I stepped on his, and he's been whining about it like the big baby he is."

"The doors are opening soon," he said, ignoring me as he looked ahead of us. "Where's your stupid boyfriend?"

"Shut up, he's not stupid," I replied, lifting my foot to hold it behind my back. A way to stretch my legs when I couldn't move around much. "He'll be here soon."

"And he's not your boyfriend," Janie said, shy about it. "I mean, last I checked, you said he wasn't?"

I didn't answer her right away, and soon they were both looking at me expectantly. Nervous under the pressure, I dropped my foot and slowly dug my hands into my pockets as I shrugged my shoulders. I didn't know what to say.

Leon Anderson was the guy I'd been seeing for about two months now. We met two weeks before that at a party, and there were major sparks between us from the first minute we met up. He gave me those romantic butterflies you get in your stomach for the first time and he was so cute… all I really wanted to do was kiss him. I found out we both went to the same school, so we started hanging out a lot, despite Billy's distrust of him. He didn't like Leon from the beginning, and I went with his 'be careful' warnings for two weeks before I decided that Billy was just being protective of me. It was really sweet.

But it was annoying sometimes. Billy made little remarks like casually calling Leon stupid, or he'd be sarcastically happy when I'd announce he was joining up with us. Leon never really made an attempt to be friends with Billy because he knew it wouldn't do any good, but he was never mean to him. He was always nice to me and proved to be a good friend to me, so I didn't understand why Billy had this continuous dislike for him.

As for Leon and I… just the thought of him made me smile. I had no real title for what he was in my life and I wasn't in love with him, but we shared a closeness that involved kisses and the holding of hands in public and his fingers in my hair when we were alone. When he smiled at me I felt lighter, and he made me forget about a lot of bad things when he was around me. We were taking things slowly because he didn't want to rush into something that he might not be ready for. I didn't question it much, because I felt the same way. I'd never been in a real relationship before.

Semi-relationship. Leon and I had a semi-relationship. He was so frustrating sometimes. He was one of those few people that wouldn't give up on me. Billy always waited for me to open up to him, because he thought it was best to wait until I was ready to talk about things. But I didn't know how to tell him that I needed to be pushed into talking about things that bother me. I didn't know why. I guess it was because it made me feel like I meant that much to people.

Leon knew exactly what buttons to push and when to push them. It was hard. I hated talking about my problems because one complaint made me feel like I was selfish. I felt like I was supposed to be everyone's confessional, everyone's advisor; the one you could confide in. I sometimes felt like I had no one to confide in, but then I'd hate myself for thinking that because I've had Billy there through everything for years.

But Leon frustrated me because he told me he was confused a lot, he didn't know what he wanted. He didn't know if he wanted to be with me or not. When we met, he had just gotten out of a very shitty relationship. So he wanted to be alone for a while to get over it. But then after telling me those things he'd say things like 'I want you' and 'I think I'm falling in love with you' and 'you're so good to me' and basically 'where have you been all my life.' He told me he wanted me to be happy, he said he wanted to make me happy. And I wanted to be with him. I wanted him to make me happy. But we couldn't get that close yet, because he was confused. He wasn't the only one…

Generally I was okay with the situation but there were other times when I didn't really know how to feel about it. Most of the time I was okay with waiting, but sometimes I wanted more. It was kind of frustrating and I wished I could go to Billy about it because he always helped me sort out my feelings, but I knew that his reply would be to just ditch Leon and I didn't want to hear that. I loved Billy, but I didn't feel like I was supposed to agree with everything he said about things like these. It was his opinion, and he just had to deal with the fact that it wasn't one we shared.

But I always had Janie to go to, which was great. Since I grew up around boys, it was really refreshing to become friends with her. I hadn't realized until I met her, how badly I wanted someone I could just sit around with and talk about hair and make-up and boys with. It sounds so trivial but it's so satisfying for a girl. I used to think that doing it was stupid, but when I actually did have a girly conversation with her, it was really relieving. I had someone I could relate to on a level that I didn't know I wanted.

Janie didn't know Leon very well either, but she was supportive. She was nice to him and talked to him, though she was also skeptical but that was simply because she didn't know him. When she'd tell me that, it made me sit and think about how well I knew him. I knew that he liked Dashboard Confessional among a few others I liked and I knew that his favorite band was Radiohead. He liked to play football but he wasn't confident enough to try out for the team at school. He lived with both his parents and he had a little sister who was ten years old and a ballerina. He loved the beach.

Whenever I'd try to think further, I drew a blank. I felt stupid for it but I always reminded myself that I may not know a lot about him, but that doesn't mean I don't know him.

Right?

I looked at Billy, and I could tell by the sarcastic look in his eyes he was about to say something else relating to how he didn't like Leon. "Shut up," I said before he could. As he rolled his eyes, Janie suggested calling Leon to find out where he was.

Holding my messenger bag close to my side, I flipped the button-covered flap over and dug around for my cell phone. As I reached it, the alarm I'd set for the show went off. It began to ring, playing Sugar Ray's 'Answer The Phone,' the new one I'd bought a week ago. I quickly grabbed it and when I pulled it out the melody got louder and a group of boys in Abercrombie and Fitch outfits started singing the song behind us. I ignored them and turned it off so I could dial Leon's number.

I waited a while for him to answer, which was unusual because he was usually very fast about it. One, two, three rings… then four… five--

"Hello," he answered finally, his voice squeaking. He was out of breath and panting, and I figured he was probably scrambling to look for it. Maybe he lost it before.

"Hey, you," I replied, covering my other ear with my hand when Billy mocked my enthusiasm. Janie elbowed him in the ribs for me and he leaned over in pain. He was such a wimp. "It's Regan. What took you so long?"

"H-hey, I was in the other… room."

"You're still at home?" I frowned, looking at my watch. As I did this, through the phone I heard a kind of rattling sound in the background, but it was hard to make out. "You're going to be late for the show. The doors open soon."

"Yeah," he gasped suddenly. "I can't make it! S-something's come up."

He sounded so weird and rushed. It was so suspicious. I felt like there was something I didn't know. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," he said, dragging his word on for a while, like he was distracted. I bit my lip. Suddenly, there was a loud thud and I think I heard him squeal before he cried, "Ahh!"

"What was that?"

"Nothing! I… stubbed my toe! Ow."

I wasn't convinced. I could tell there was something he wasn't telling me, and it was pissing me off. I sighed. "Whatever Leon, are you going to be here or not?"

"Not. Sorry."

"Alright, your loss. I'll call you when I get home later?"

"No! I mean… I might not be home. Family stuff planned. You know."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine."

"I'll see you at school tomorrow. Bye," he said quickly, and then hung up.

I blinked in shock a few times, and then said good-bye to the dial tone so my friends wouldn't think there was hang-up that had just happened. I put my phone away and sighed again. "He can't make it."

"Did he say why?" Billy asked. He didn't look surprised.

I shrugged, shaking my head. "Not really."

"I'm sure he'll have a good explanation when you talk to him again," Janie said, looking optimistic.

"Oh, yeah," Billy said, looking and sounding the same as Janie. For a second, I though he would say something sincere, but then he snapped, "He's got a full twelve hours before he sees you again to come up with one, so it'll probably be fabulous."

Absolutely nothing could get me down when I got home. Not even my mother, who is usually the cause of a sudden down spiral because of the treatment I get from her. Be it bad treatment of just a complete lack thereof with her completely ignoring me all the time. That day was a good day and I certainly wasn't about to let her ruin it with any attempt she might make to try and get me to feel like shit.

I stared after Billy's bus, waving slightly with a little smile as he drove away after dropping me off outside the large house I lived in with my mother. It had been just her and me for about three years, since my brother went away to college. I never met my father, but I was told that he also lived there before he left us. My mother and I aren't very close at all. Sometimes I think she sees me as a mistake.

Sometimes when she's angry with me she blames me as the reason why my father left us with only a thick wad of money and a note that said 'I'm sorry' before I was old enough to remember him at all. It hurt a lot in the beginning because it was always me she said that to, never anyone else. But I grew used to it and after a while it didn't really bother me. Sometimes I believed it, and sometimes I believed that he left because of how heartless she could be so often. I would have left, too.

She was sitting on the living room couch when I walked in. I had expected her to be upstairs, asleep in bed already but she was sitting there, curled up under an orange light with a thick Stephen King book in her hands. She was such a complete bookworm. You could give her a book that was maybe three inches and she'd be finished with it in less than two weeks. She glanced up at me for a moment when I walked through the foyer after locking the door.

"Hey, Regan. Did Billy head home already? I was hoping to say hello," she greeted.

"Yeah, he was tired." Actually, he was still as hyped as I was about meeting Chris. He just didn't feel like seeing my Mom. None of my friends really like her that much.

"Oh well. You guys had fun, I'm sure."

"The show was amazing," I gushed, forgetting for a second who I was talking to. She never really cared. She acted like she did sometimes, but the act never lasted very long. I pulled my foot up behind me again to stretch for a second. "I met Chris Carrabba again, and I finally met Jolie from Rocking Horse Winner. She's amazing."

"That's great, honey. You should get to bed soon. It's almost midnight and tomorrow's the last day of school."

"I know. Goodnight, Ma."

She waved her hand a bit then turned back to her book. I rolled my eyes and ran up the stairs, taking two at a time. I hurried down the hall and burst into my room first, only to trip over my school bag and land flat on my face.

Happened all the time. The habit made me very resilient, therefore I quickly recovered and rolled over to untie my shoes before I stood.

Kicking my shoes off my feet, I picked up a dirty shirt and a pair of jeans and tossed them into the hamper by the door on my way to my dresser, where I picked out a t-shirt and a pair of boxers that had blue polka dots all over them. Then I went out into the hall and walked down into the bathroom. When I came out twenty minutes later, I was wearing the pajamas I had picked out, and drying my soaking, shoulder-length hair with a pink towel.

I went back into my room, dropped the towel on the floor and fell down on top of my huge bed in the corner, under the window. I lay there for a few minutes, staring up though the blinds at the moon that was shining brightly. My body felt so tired. We were walking around a lot around there, meeting new people and even dancing a bit to the music, and singing at the top of our lungs when Dashboard Confessional played. I absolutely died when he smiled at me during the performance of 'Living In Your Letters', my favorite of all his songs. I felt giddy just remembering the whole thing, and I knew I wasn't about to fall asleep.

Janie didn't know all of the songs, but Billy and I sang along with every word, throwing our hands in the air at the right moment, swaying to the mood with our arms around each other, heightening our voices to the loudest we could go, just like everyone else in the theater. At events like that, nobody is a stranger. Everyone comes together and discovers some things in common: emotion, especially the ones that draw us to the music. All we needed to do was stand together and sing, and that's what happened. That's why I always feel at home when I'm at a concert. They remind me that there are people out there who are just like me.

Dashboard Confessional played my favorite songs. Screaming Infidelities, The Best Deceptions, The Good Fight. And of course, Living in Your Letters. I wanted the whole thing to last forever, to hear more songs that I could sing with, to never have to go home. But when he played his trademark finale, Hands Down, I knew that my fate was home-bound. But I made the best of what I had left with Billy and Janie. He had one arm around each of us and we were sandwiched together in the front of a comfortable crowd. I had my arm around him too, while I threw the other hand in the air to accompany my voice.

"Hands down, this is the best day I can ever remember..."

Sitting on my bed, I had my guitar in my lap now, and I was strumming the familiar chords along with the song as it played in my head. My voice was too drained to continue singing, and plus I was fumbling over the strings in the dark, so I leaned far over the bed to grab the cordless phone on my nightstand. Though all of this was done without light, I was able to dial the number I was aiming for with my eyes closed. It was a number I sometimes knew better than my own. I held the phone between my head and my shoulder so I could lightly strum my guitar as it rang, and I waited patiently for him to pick up...

"Hallooooo?" Billy soon answered, sounding like he had something in his mouth. He probably did; he was always hungry.

"Yo, it's me." I said quickly, clearing my throat.

"Yo," he replied. But it sounded like a 'mo.'

I grinned. "Yo baby."

"Yo… baby."

"Yo baby, yo baby."

"Groove, baby, groove."

"Nanu, nanuuuu…"

He giggled. "Hey dude, what's up?"

"Can't sleep."

"I just dropped you off like not even a half hour ago. I didn't expect you to fall asleep that fast."

"Blah. You know me too well."

Billy chewed loudly. It sounded sloppy. "I can never know you too well."

I smiled at nothing, switching to play a different Dashboard song. "I know."

"When I'm an old gray, I'm going to throw a huge party…" he always had these random thoughts he'd always share all the time. Most people thought he was weird because they were extremely random, but they always made me smile. "You're going to be invited. Then we can get it on when we're eighty."

"Um. Ew."

"…Ew… I'm a visual thinker too…"

"Yeah that's not a nice thought right now," I laughed, putting my guitar down on my bed.

"How about… when you turn eighteen. A party for when you move out. Just you, me, and that mini-skirt."

I just sat there giggling.

"And maybe my goldfish. I want fish."

I gave my wall a weird look, only because he wasn't there. "For… what?"

"Many people don't get attached to their fish. I do. I just want to hug them. They look so cuddly!"

"I hate fish."

He whimpered.

"Aww, I sorry."

"You don't like my fish?"

I grinned as I got up off my bed. "Well--"

"No pun intended. Don't say anything. Duuuuuuude."

Giggling at him, I tossed my pick down on the nightstand next to my bed and left my room, walking down the hall to descend the stairs. I heard the ruffling of a bag and then a crunching sound and knew for sure that Billy was munching on potato chips. It made my stomach rumble.

"Yo," he said, mouth full again. "I have to go. That rhymed."

"You should write a song about it," I whispered sarcastically as I went into the kitchen. Before walking in I leaned back to peer into the living room, where my Mom was still reading.

"Hey, did I tell Tony's got a name for his band?"

"Dunno," I said with a shrug, opening the fridge. I sat on the cold floor in front of it and went through a box of chocolates as after getting a can of soda out of the bottom drawer.

"Regan," Mom called, and I winced. Busted. "You're not getting anything that's going to keep you up all night are you? It's already going on one and you have to be up at six."

"No," I called over my shoulder, hoping she wasn't getting up. "I'm just getting a drink before I go to bed. My throat is all dry from the singing."

"I want you in bed when you're done, so get off the phone with Billy soon."

"How'd you know I was on the phone," I hissed quietly, so she couldn't hear me.

"I'm your mother, I know everything," she said, and I bit my lips. She didn't say anything else.

"Haha, you got busted," Billy laughed at me.

"Yeah, yeah," I mumbled, holding the phone between my head and my shoulder again. I leaned over my can of soda and used both hands to quietly open it between my legs. If my Mom heard one little fizzing sound from it, I knew I'd be in big trouble. I slowly drank from it after I opened it, as I grabbed a random chocolate out of the box in the fridge. "So what's Tony's band's name?"

"Toasty Millhouse Nixon."

"Um. No comment." I bit a big chunk out of my candy, and then gagged and spit it out into my hand when I discovered there was peanuts in it. "Ew. Nuts."

"Oh shoot. That reminds me, I was supposed to call Tony. And some other friend. And Janie. Gah, I'm such a loser."

I got up to throw the icky chocolate away. "I know."

"I'm the loser? You're the one choking on peanuts over there."

"I'm just agreeing with you, you're the one who called yourself a loser in the first place. And plus, I hate nuts," I said as I crouched down to get another chocolate out that I actually liked. As I did this, my bare foot knocked over the can of soda and it spilled all over the place.

"You sound like a lesbian."

"SHIT!" I cried, falling back on my free hand. Phone still in my other hand, I scrambled to get up and get some paper towels to clean it up, but as I went back to the mess Mom walked into the kitchen. I looked up at her like a deer caught in headlights as she looked around the kitchen, at the mess on the floor and the open box of chocolates in the fridge, before she glared at me.

"Okay, I'm going to go eat something," Billy said, oblivious.

"Regan," Mom sighed, shaking her head. "Go to bed. Now."

I jumped to my feet and ran out of the kitchen, taking two steps at a time again as I went upstairs. "I just got totally busted. I spilled my soda and my Mom caught me stealing chocolates."

"Ooh, chocolates. I'm going to go see if we have some of those."

Sighing at him, I went into my room and put my guitar on its stand before falling down on my unmade bed. "Dude, it's past midnight."

"I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry."

"I know, but my stomach is eating itself. It's growling and making mean noises."

"Then go eat, you freak."

He whimpered again. "I ain't no freak. You… freak." He paused. "Oh, that was a brilliant comeback. WHO DA MAN?!"

"Riiiiiiight."

"Aiight. I'm off ta puff. Peace out."

Smiling, I pulled my blanket over me and straightened my pillow behind my head. "See ya… uhh, homie. I guess."

"You got that ghetto stuff down. Practicing?"

I laughed. "Oh shut up."

"Heh… only kidding. Okay, see you at school tomorrow Sweetums."

"Okay. Later dude."

"Goodnight."

I slept well that night.