Harley

She's tougher than I gave her credit for.

My dad was cruel too, but at least my mom wanted to stay around for me. She had loved him, once. They were happy, he hadn't yet turned to drugs and alcohol, and my brother and I weren't around yet. 

Autumn had only Emery. But even I know that wasn't enough for her.

"Are we ready?" Jayden asks Jim Bean, Louie, and me. We're seated around a wet campfire at Louie's cabin in the woods, waiting for Faye and Autumn to arrive. 

"Is she even good? As good as Adrian was?" Jim Bean asks, obviously skeptical. He rubs the end of his blonde mustache, thinking. "Harley, I swear, if she's just another wannabe....."

"Look, I don't like it either. But, she's rumored to be the best in town, so I asked her. She's the only one willing to do it," I shoot back.

"So she's the new Adrian." Louie chimes in.

"No! Nobody could ever replace him. Guys, just give Autumn a chance. You know I would never try to replace Adrian. He's only been gone for six months."

Louie sighs, resting his elbows on the holey knees of his jeans. "Again, can she play? Forgive me if I'm a little skeptical, Harley, but you didn't exactly tell us that you were going to do this." 

"Guys-"

"Can I play?" Autumn walks up to us, Faye not far behind her. "That depends. What instrument are you talking about?"

"Drums." Jim peeps up, "Can you play the drums?" 

"I can play fifteen songs perfectly. Whatever other song you want me to play, I'll learn it while you stroke your mustache. Does that sound about right?" Jim stops rubbing the end of his mustache, eyes wide. 

Autumn sits down next to him. "Let's get started, shall we?" she smiles, slapping her knees, and I hold back a laugh. "Where is this gig?" she asks us.

"A strip club in New Orleans," I say. She blanches, and I laugh. 

"He's messing with you," Louie says. I see him check his breath and smooth his thick brown hair down, "It's at a bar a few miles from here." Sliding over to sit next to her, he sticks his hand out for her to shake, "Louie."

Autumn smiles, taking his hand. "Autumn. It's a pleasure."

"You two are cute together," I chime in, teasing them, but more her. She turns red and moves away from Louie, frowning.

"I hate you." She hits my leg, and I smirk again, looking right into her eyes. Autumn's green eyes suddenly turn shy, and neither of us look away. 

I think we're having a moment.

"Okay, lovebirds," Jim Bean stands up, "The sun is setting and we should start."

"What song?" Autumn springs up, a full inch shorter than Jim Bean.

"I was thinking Give Me Novacaine to start. Or maybe a Nirvana song..." Autumn moves to walk over to Jim Bean, and they begin to head up the rocky path towards the cabin.

"Nirvana is too overused... Is there another band you could do?" Autumn replies. The setting sun makes her hair shine, and I watch her for a minute, transfixed.

Jayden nudges me, "You better hurry," He whispers, looking like he's about to laugh, "Jim Bean is about to steal your girl." I roll my eyes at him and stand, walking up behind them, Louie and Jayden following behind me.

The setting sun falls beneath the lake, dying it red, as red as Autumn's hair. When I get to the run-down door, I look back once, picturing the scene.

There's something beautiful in color. Something beautiful that my gray soul can't see anymore.

"Oh my god, that was probably the best we've ever played." Jim Bean puts his guitar down, tying his long, stringy hair back into a man-bun. The rest of us are slick with sweat and exhausted, but we all smile, putting down our instruments. The sun has gone well below the trees, and it makes the dark, dilapidated interior of Jim Bean's cabin seem almost darker. Jayden flicks off one of the dim lamps near the stage and walks toward me.

"She's good. Like really good." He whispers in my ear, pointing towards Autumn. She was.

She was on fire, pounding the drums like they were a part of her. While the rest of us are panting and sweaty, Autumn barely broke a sweat. She's tucking her hair behind her ears now, spinning around a bit on the stool in front of the old drums set that Jim Bean bought for Adrian to practice on.

Adrian. I wonder if he would've liked Autumn. She's better than him yes, but Adrian was never really the jealous type. I can picture him now: Glasses slipping down his nose, short blonde hair gleaming in the sun, ocean blue eyes the same shade as a body of water. He was a funny kid, a bit of a punk, and smarter than anybody in the band, except for maybe Jayden. I remember that he told me he wanted to go to college one day, maybe be somebody.

Thanks to me, he's six feet in the ground, cold and dead.

"What time is the show Sunday?" I blink Adrian's blue eyes out of my mind. Autumn stands at my shoulder, green eyes concerned.

"Oh um... it's at six forty-five. Soundcheck is at six." I wave goodbye to Autumn as she thanks me and walks out of the room. Jayden slides over to my side, knowing that something is wrong.

"Do you want to crash at my place tonight?" He whispers. Everybody is gone at this point, and Jim Bean went upstairs to crack open a beer. 

"Why?"

"Harley, any person with eyes could see that looking at Autumn in Adrian's spot dredged up some memories. His death wasn't your fault," Jayden says, putting a hand on my shoulder, "You've been thinking about him a lot lately. I can tell."

"He was so young," I whisper, "He had so many dreams and I took them all away from him." Jayden leads me out to his jeep, and I pause, starting to move back over to my motorcycle, parked at the edge of the gravel path leading to the lake. 

"Nope. You're coming back to my place." Jayden and his brother Ephraim live in a small apartment on the very edge of Eastport, the town next to Gullwitch Cove. Eastport is a small, more suburban city than our tiny rural town, and Jayden and his brother definitely got the better end of the deal. Their apartment isn't much, but it's a lot cleaner and in better shape than mine.

"I'm fine, Jayden." I pull against his arm, but he still continues to drag me toward his Jeep. 

"Jim Bean will drop your motorcycle off tomorrow if he's not too drunk. Come on, Harley, you need this." Jayden opens the door, and I hop in, knowing there's no use fighting with him. He gets in next to me and hands me a bottle of water from the cupholder next to his radio. Jayden's jeep is exactly like him: clean and tidy. Everything has a place, from his fifteen packs of gum to his air freshener, tied to his dashboard. 

"What time is it?" My eyes are heavy as Jayden revs up his car. I haven't slept well in so long. Ever since the same day Adrian died, I've been plagued with nightmares. I'm dying in all of them, and his blue eyes are the last thing I see as I wake up. 

People say death is a good thing. That when people die, they're in a better place. Death is cruel, and there's no way around it. I remember Adrian's face more than anything. Seconds before he died, he was singing along to Aerosmith in the most off-key voice I've ever heard. He was so happy, so excited to be heading back home to start his junior year. 

Two minutes later, he was dead.

It's funny how that works. Death. There's nothing in the Great Beyond, some people say. Death is just one cold, dark place where you get to spend the rest of eternity. One minute, you're alive, and the next minute... you're not. Adrian didn't deserve to go to a place like that.

It should've been me. I don't have much left to live for anyway.

"It's almost midnight. We're a few minutes away from my house." Jayden whispers. We reach the Welcome to Eastport sign. The lights are still on in the Main Street buildings. Eastport is a cute town in the middle of Louisiana. The Main Street is cozy, like something you'd find in a picture book. The apartments are elegant, in a rainbow of picturesque whites, blues, and yellows. The houses are the picture of a cliche family home- white picket fences, green shutters, and flowers in little flower boxes under the window. 

We pull up in front of Jayden's small, two-story, buttercream-yellow apartment. "Don't worry," Jayden says, stopping the car and walking towards his door, "Ephraim isn't home today." He unlocks the door with a metal key, and I walk in, wanting to fall right on the couch.

"I forgot how nice your place was." I mumble, sitting down on the fluffy beanbag chair right in front of his flat-screen TV. Jayden moves to his kitchen, grabbing two bowls from a cupboard and a container of cookies and cream ice cream from the freezer. 

"Ephraim and I get by. It's easy since I don't have to go to college." He says, putting the ice cream back and grabbing some spoons. Jayden decided to stay near his ailing parents and took classes from a prestigious medical school online. His brother is a firefighter, gone a lot of the time. Ephraim is also a ladies' man, having at least one woman in his bed every time I would come home with Jayden. She'd be a coworker, a bartender, a friend of a friend, but she'd still be very much another conquest. Just another name on the list.

That doesn't happen much anymore. According to Jayden, Ephraim has been busy with more and more calls, and it ironically gives him less of a chance to go fishing for the ladies.

"How are your online classes?" Jayden walks over and hands me a bowl. I shove a scoop of it in my mouth, sighing. God, I've missed this. Just casually hanging out with my best friend, no dead bandmates, and broken lives between us.

"Harley, you're deflecting," he says, sitting next to me on the couch. 

"I'm not."

"You are. This is about you, not me," Jayden turns on the TV, lowering the volume, "I know you still blame yourself for Adrian. Harley, it wasn't your fault. What happened would've happened even if you weren't the one driving the car. The roads were wet and-"

"Can we not talk about this?" I snap. Jayden sighs, not offended at all, and raises the volume. I don't deserve him. I'm a massive jerk to him half of the time, and he's still here at my side, feeding me ice cream like I'm not someone who is in my own head half the time. 

"So, Autumn, huh?" Jayden says, breaking the silence between us. 

"What?" 

"Harley, you like her. Anyone with eyes can see that," he laughs nervously as I glare at him, "She's pretty cool, though."

"I do not like Autumn," I snort, "She's annoying and a bit of a control freak."

"You like her." Jayden laughs, and I give up fighting with him. I do like her a little bit. But I'd never admit it, especially not to Jayden, the one who's seeing her best friend. Faye's well known for being a gossip.

We sit in silence after that, all arguments forgotten, the TV blaring in front of us.

I can't even remember what my nightmares were about.