It's the end of the day and I'm walking out the front doors when a hand grabs my wrist.

"Hey! Don't touch me you—" I say but stop my sentence midway when I turn around and see Jay standing there, my wrist in his hand. "Sorry, I didn't know it was you," I say, almost—but not entirely—embarrassed that I was going to swear at him, "but seriously, don't grab me like that or else I am going to kick your ass all the way to New York."

He holds up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Alright, alright," he says, "don't go all karate kid on me, okay?" He says smiling his perfect smile.

I don't return it.

"I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my house to pick out a band name with us. You said you would earlier!" He exclaims. I did say I would, but I have crap-ton of homework. But I can always do it there, I think to myself.

"Alright fine," I say, out of pure defeat, "I'll come."

He smiles and pulls my wrist, leading me to his car.

"Wait!" I scream.

"What's wrong?" he asks, frowning at me.

"I can't just leave my car here!" I say pointing to my yellow bug. I love that car too much—it used to be my moms—that leaving it is impossible for me. Jay looks at my pleading face, then at my car, and sighs.

"Alright," he says, "you can take your car, but follow me. I'll text you the address just in case though." He takes out his phone and asks, "what's your number?"

I give him my number, and then I hear a ding come from my phone. A text from an unknown number—Jay's number—shows up on my phone screen with an address underneath it—Jay's address.

"I got it," I tell him.

~~~~~

We drive for about 30 mins before we arrive at Jay's house. His house is located in a suburban area, and at first glance seems smaller than the other houses around it, but warm and welcoming. I can see small buds of flowers starting to bloom in the late warm March weather as I drive and park I front of the house. Jay parks his car in the driveway.

"Your mom like's flowers?" I ask as we walk up to the house. I swear I could hear some music being played in the garage.

"Yeah, she does. She loves to garden and grow things," he says fondly. I smile a small smile; he must really love his mother. He see's my small smile and smiles back.

"What about your mother? Did she like to garden a lot?" he asks.

"Um...she did a long time ago, but not anymore," I say, trying to be vague while still answering his question.

"Why doesn't she garden anymore?" he asks, trying to look me in the eye

"Let it go, okay?" I snap at him, "It's none of your business anyway what my mom liked to do. Let's just pick a band name, okay?" I avoid his gaze and stare straight at the garage door. He doesn't reply back.

Jay opens the garage door, and there are already three other guys sitting there. One of them is holding an bass guitar, another sitting at an electric piano and the last guy a pair of drum sticks. I look around and see a lot of band posters and music equipment.

"Hey guys, this is Ray, she goes to the same school as us," says Jay, introducing me, "and Ray this is Daniel," he says pointing to the guys holding the bass guitar, "he plays bass. This is Matt, he's our pianist," he sys pointing to the guy sitting at the piano, "and this is Trevor, he plays the drums," he says pointing to the last guy holding the drum sticks.

"Hey," Matt says to me with a smile. I nod back politely.
"So Jay what's Ray doing here? I thought we were coming up with band names?" He asks.

"Well Ray said that she could help us figure out a name, since we've been thinking of band names for the past month with no luck," Jay says.

"Great, about time we ask for some help," says Trevor, "only God knows how much we need it."

"I'm going to go ask my mom for snacks, you guys do what you need to do," says Jay, leaving the garage and stepping into the house.

I see a chair in the corner of the room and grab it. The boys sit on the couch in the garage while I sit in front of them.

"So you go to the same school as us?" asks Matt, "How come we've never seen you around?"

"I don't have any real friends so I'm usually alone somewhere, reading a book. But I met Jay in Math class today and offered to come help you guys." I say casually.

"Why'd you offer?" he asks

"He mentioned the band to me and told me you guys didn't have a name yet, so I offered to help. Plus, I thought it would be interesting," I say

"Cool," he says.

Suddenly I see a white BMW pull up into the driveway. The engine of the car stops and I see a blonde girl exit the car. Her blonde hair was cascading over her shoulders onto a plaid shirt. She's wearing ripped jeans an a pair of ankle-high high-heeled boots. I look at her face, and she is really pretty—like beauty pageant pretty. She walks into the garage and smiles.

"Hi guys," she says to the boys

"Hi," says Matt, suddenly ignoring me and looking at her.

"Hey Jenn," replies Daniel, "Jay invited you too?"

"Yeah he texted me earlier and asked if I could come by," Jenn replies.

Why'd Jay invite her? Who was she? was all I could think. I'm curious as to who this Jenn is. A little voice in the back of my mind whispered to me, but I ignored it. She was pretty so maybe Jay likes her? Maybe she's just a friend. But what did I care right? She looks over at me  and smiles.

"Hi, the names Jenn," she says still smiling at me.

"Rayna," I reply giving her a small nod, "but call me Ray."

"Hi Ray," she says grabbing another chair and sitting beside me. "So what brings you to Jay's?" she asks.

"I offered to help Jay and his band think of a band name," I say, grabbing a notebook and pencil out of the bag. "What about you?" I ask.

"Oh I always come to watch his band practice," she says smiling her pageant winning smile, "I love music so much and when I told Jay that one day, he asked if I would like to come watch his band practice. Of course, I said yes."

I felt this shivering sensation run throughout my body, and I frown. What is going on with me? Am I sick or something? I thought. I have never acted this way before. I was always so calm and collected and never let my feelings or emotions get the best of me. But when I see this girl all I want to do is throw her out of this garage. It wasn't because she was pretty; I was used to being an less than average girl a long time ago. There was something else that annoyed me about her, but I couldn't quite put my finger to it.

"Do you need a sweater?" asks a voice coming from the door to the house. It was Jay. I looked up and saw him holding a tray of snacks.

He sets down the tray of chips and salsa—which happen to be my favourite snack—on the small coffee table in front of us.

"No thank you," I say, trying to gain my composure and keep my emotions out of my voice.

"What's wrong?" Jay asks, looking at me with his concerned brown eyes. I guess some of the emotion did slip into my voice.

"Nothing," I say, "but let's start working on this band name of yours."

He gives me a weird look, and says "Okay."

He sits down with the guys and waves at Jenn.

"When did you get here?" he asks her

"I got here about 5 mins before you came with the snacks," she says to him in a chirpy voice. Ugh, I thought.

"Alright," I say, ready to get this show on the road, "so what are you guys thinking for a name?"

"We were thinking that we wanted something short, but not too short. We want something catchy and modern and cool sounding," says Daniel.

"We also want something different, something unique and against all that mainstream music. We're a band that has it's own style and doesn't like to follow the latest trends in music. We like to go our own way and write music that truly represents us," says Jay.

"Okay, okay, that sounds like a start," I say.

I look at what I have written down. From what Jay said, I gathered they were a rather rebellious band. So I wrote down the word Rebel.  But what else? Rebel seemed too plain, too shirt for the type of band name they wanted. It also wasn't that unique; you practically see the word rebel everyday. You see it in movies, in books, in songs. They wanted something unique, and just the word Rebel wasn't unique.

"Okay, so here's what I got," I say reading my notes aloud, "You guys said that you were different from the mainstream music and that you don't like to follow the latest trends. So the first thing that came to my mind was the word Rebel."

"That's a good start," says Jenn, "from what I have seen, this band is quite rebellious."

"It seems short," says Trevor, "but what can we do to make it longer?"

"I'm not sure, I was hoping you guys could try and figure something out," I say, "I thought that maybe the word Rebel might turn on a light bulb in one of those heads."

Matt, Trevor, Daniel, and Jay all started to think. So did Jenn and I. I tried thinking of things that would sound cool with the word Rebel. Smart Rebel? Rebel Warriors? Rebel what? I don't know what the name of their band could be. Thinking made me a bit thirsty so I grabbed my water bottle and drank. I was in the middle of taking a sip when Jay shouted out loud.

"I GOT IT!" He exclaimed, "TRUE REBELS."

I thought about it, and it made sense to me. They loved writing music that spoke the truth, so why not True Rebels?

"That sounds great!" I say

"True Rebels," Jenn says smiling at Jay, and Jay was smiling back at her. I shiver again. Maybe I am cold?

"I love it!"  shouts Daniel, "it's not too short and not too long, and it sounds like a legit band name!"

"You're a genius!" Jay says and runs up to hug me. I am so startled when he wraps his arms around me I go stiff. This is awkward. I am so taken aback by what just happened that I don't know what to do—plus my arms were strapped to my sides by his strong hug, so it's not like I could do anything.

"Um...You can let go now," I say trying to get out of his grip. He immediately lets go of me and I fall back into my chair, breathing heavily.

"Dude," said Trevor, "what the fuck was that?"

"I just got excited," says Jay, looking at me shyly, trying to hide his blush.

"You are a genius though," says Jenn smiling at me.

I give her a small smile back.

I grab my phone and check the time. Yikes, it was already 6:30. Hopefully, I can get home before 7pm, eat a quick dinner, and still be able to finish my homework before 9pm— which is when I usually read for an hour or watch some TV. I start putting my notebook away and packing up my backpack.

"I have to go, it's getting late and I still have to do some homework for school tomorrow," I say, "I'll see you guys tomorrow?"

"Yeah definitely," says Matt

"Come find us tomorrow at lunch. Hopefully Jay won't skip out on us next time," says Daniel, glaring accusingly at Jay.

"Hey, I told you that I needed some quiet time today," says Jay defensively.

I start to walk away when I feel a gentle grip on my arm.

"I'll walk you to your car," says Jay.

"Thanks," I say, looking up at him. He was eight inches taller than me, almost a whole foot, and I had to tilt my head a lot to be able to look him in the eyes.

When we got to my car, I turned around and looked at him. He was staring at me—looking straight into my eyes. I look at his, which I realized were flecked with gold. Beautiful, I thought. I immediately pull my eyes away from his, looking at my feet. I shouldn't be thinking these things, I scold myself.

"Well, I'll see you tomorrow," I say, opening my car door and shoving my backpack onto the passenger seat,

"Wait, Ray—" he says but his voice get's cut off when I shut the door of my bug.

I start the engine and wave goodbye to Jay through the window. He waves back, smiling a sad smile at me, and I drive away.