Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

Valerie Thomas

  Auburn: Outcasts and Underdogs

  Copyright ©Valerie Thomas 2015

  All rights reserved.

  This a work of fiction.

  All characters, events, and places in this publication are fictional and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  To the heroes and villains in my life. Whether you inspired Ashley or Jessica, Joey or Will. Whether you helped me realize how hard things could get, or how beautiful life can be... Thank you. I can honestly say that this book would not have been possible without your help.

  Acknowledgements

  I would like to say a big thank you to my mom, who has read all of my manuscripts, even back when they were terrible (and who has listened to me ramble on about my stories for more hours than I care to admit).

  Chapter 1

  We were the lost. We were the broken. We were the freaks, the losers and loners hiding in the corners of the world.

  And then we weren’t. Every morning I had to pick up the jigsaw puzzle of my life and rebuild it into something vaguely resembling a person. A hazy shadow of the happiness I was faking.

  And then I didn’t. I didn’t become whole. No, there was no glue that could bind me back together. No remedy to fix any of us. We weren’t lost anymore, but we remembered losing our way. We weren’t freaks, but we remembered living on the fringe. We weren’t losers or loners, but we still remembered hiding from the world.

  We were Auburn. I was Auburn. And this is my story.

  -Ashley Nimzovitch, lead singer of the punk rock band Auburn

  ***

  I was stuck in Charlie’s well-lit bathroom, inspecting my own face in the mirror. He’d asked me over to try out for a band he was forming with another boy our age, an outcast like us. Or so he’d said. It had only taken me one look at Joey to decide that he wasn’t really an outcast. My first instinct had been to run. I’d rushed out an excuse about fixing my makeup and fled to the bathroom.

  The room itself was painted a beige white, stippled and textured in sweeping arcs. In front of me, below the mirror, was a white granite counter with a matching sink. A bright fluorescent light illuminated my face in the mirror: the terribly square jaw, crooked nose, hopeless eyes. Perhaps I was only imagining that my eyes looked hopeless, since no one else ever seemed to notice. In my more delusional moments I allowed myself to believe that their clear blue color would have been attractive on a slightly more refined face. In fact, taken individually, I liked to think that my features were the same I saw on television. Beautiful, curly auburn hair, a dimpled chin…

  “You can do this,” I whispered to myself. “Worst case, they don’t like you and they won’t let you be in their band. Then you can go home and it’ll all be over.” My voice felt weak, but that actually helped me make the decision to leave the bathroom. Paradoxically, the knowledge that I was going to fail anyway allowed me to pull the cold metal door handle, walk through the long hallway lined with pictures of a young Charlie, and step back into the garage.

  The concrete had loads of oil spills on it, like someone had spent hours working on their car inside but never bothered to clean up after themselves. Blue walls surrounded me on every side except ahead, where the gray metal of the garage door blocked off the rest of the world.

  In the middle of the floor, Charlie and Joey were sitting on wooden stools, tuning their guitars. Charlie looked up at me and smiled. He had the look of a much younger boy, with cheeks still heavy with fat, shining green eyes, and a small, rounded nose. I’d heard a few of the other freshmen at our school make fun of him for the fact that he hadn’t hit puberty, but I didn’t mind. I liked being friends with him; he was nice.

  Joey was a stark contrast. He had a bit of a shadow growing on his lower jaw, and his heavy brow made him look almost like an adult. “Go ahead,” he said, nodding toward a spot in front of them. “We’re ready when you are.” He gave me a slightly lopsided smile that reminded me of the kind of boys I was always too afraid to talk to.

  You know you’re gonna fail, I reminded myself. I dropped down the pair of steps to the floor of the garage, grimacing as nerves tightened their grip on my throat. I could hear the muffled scrape of each step of my black-and-purple converse shoes as I walked on the concrete; my eyes felt glued to the plain black fabric of my own shirt.

  “Um, hi guys. I’m Ashley, but—yeah, you know that. Okay, I’ll just get to the song.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to look up at the two boys—Joey in his dragon-print shirt, Charlie in a tight-fitting gray tee. One more breath, and I launched into a song I’d written myself. “Beating hearts and dead lies, we’re all zombies in disguise. Pasting smiles over pain inside. Twisted lies that we can’t hide. Our own lives cannot be denied. Will you—um, will you…” I met Charlie’s eyes. “Sorry, it’s hard to keep track of where I am without any music in the background.”

  “Oh, that’s fine.” Charlie flashed a quick smile. “It’s not a ton to go on, but we’ll make our decision and contact you soon.” He glanced over at Joey, who was busy playing around with chords on his guitar.

  Seeming to notice the awkward silence, Joey pulled his hands from the strings and looked up at me. “Yeah, sure, we’ll let you know. You were pretty bad, but I guess you were better than the only other person we got to try out.”

  “Wow, thanks,” I muttered, my hands clenching into fists. He was such an asshole. I wanted to tell him all about the years I’d spent in choir, demand that he sing if he was so much better than me. I settled for an angry glare.

  Joey laughed. “I was just kidding!” His throaty chuckle was the only sound in the garage.

  Charlie cocked his head, mouthing the words ‘I’m sorry.’ He turned to Joey. “That wasn’t funny.”

  “No it wasn’t,” I whispered, more to myself than either of them.

  “Sure it was.” Joey finally stopped laughing. His eyes wrinkled with confusion as he noticed the expression on both of our faces. “I was just kidding, and it’s funny because she thought she was bad and…” He shrugged. “You’re not really that bad. See? Funny.”

  Despite his insistence, I had a hard time seeing any humor in the situation. “Now I know why you’re an outcast,” I said, trying to think of the most hurtful thing I could. “You’re such a jerk!” I shot Joey one more glare before turning on my heel and stomping out of the garage.

  I heard the clatter of a stool behind me, but didn’t bother to turn around. I’d nearly closed the distance to the door that would lead me out of Charlie’s house when a soft touch on my shoulder made me stop.

  “He is a jerk,” Charlie whispered. “He’s a jerk, and he’s an outcast. Just like us.” He moved to face me, pulling on the cord of his guitar when it stopped him. “Ashley, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have the luxury of choosing our friends. You heard Joey say we only had one other person try out to be the singer, and they were nowhere near as good as you. And to be honest, Joey’s the only bass guitarist I know who wouldn’t laugh at the idea of being in a band with me.”

  There was a pause as his eyes fell to the floor. “Remember how I told you how much I wanted to be in a band? I want to get it started before we’re too far into our freshman year. Music is the only thing that makes me feel normal, and I know you feel the same way. August is already gone, and September’s going fast. We’ve waited long enough, but if you can deal with Joey being a jerk then maybe we can start playing some music together. What do you t
hink?”

  “I don’t know, Charlie.” His we’re all outcasts argument made me feel terrible about myself. I didn’t like to think of myself as an outcast. I was a rebel, and society didn’t reject me; I rejected it. “Music is kind of the only thing that makes me feel normal,” I admitted. “But I think we can find someone better than that. Someone nicer.”

  He took a step back and leaned against the blue wall of his garage. “Like who? Let’s be honest Ashley, there aren’t many kids who want to play bass guitar in a no-name band with people like us. Please, just sing one song with Joey and me. I know that once you do you’ll realize how good we can sound together.” He dipped his head and gave me a slight pout, using his puppy dog eyes to their full advantage.

  I folded my arms, trying to decide whether Charlie’s attempts at persuasion were enough for me to get over my immediate dislike of Joey. Part of me wanted to hold out, keep saying no just so he would keep begging me. It felt good to be wanted, even for—as Charlie called it—a ‘no-name band.’ “Okay. One song, and then we’ll see. What song did you wanna play?”

  A grin spread across Charlie’s face. “How about Feel Sorry for Me?” He knew that was my weakness. When we’d first met a year before—in eighth grade Shop class, where I’d failed to make a decent wood cutting board—I’d told him about how much I loved it.

  “I guess I could give it a try.” I let my arms drop, fighting a small grin of my own.