Ghosted (completed)

A Little Less I'm Going To Kill You and A Little more Searching

Deciding it'd be in my best interest not to leave the house dressed nice, I threw on a red beanie, a Styx t-shirt, and a pair of leggings and waited until I heard my father's light snoring when I pressed my ear against the door. Not chancing the door shutting waking him up, I opened my bedroom window and climbed out. It would have been perfect, a graceful slip out and running to meet Axel in his very loud car at the end of the street. Except, it was everything but. Because my shoe caught the branch of the bush under my window sill, I fell out and slammed my head hard against the grass. Waiting a few seconds to ensure that my dad hadn't heard the commotion or yelp of pain, I started across my neighbors yard and on to the sidewalk. It wasn't until I spotted the Jaguar that I felt the stinging pain in my ankle.

I waited until I'd gotten into the car to pull my pant leg up and groaned when I saw blood pooling in my sock. "Great."

"What happened?"

"I fell out my window." I held a finger up as soon as a smile started to inch across his face. "Don't even."

He leaned over me, uncomfortably close, and opened the glove compartment. I tried to move so he wasn't so close, but the spicy scent of whatever cologne he was wearing was actually unconsciously leaning me forward so their was no space between us. He eventually pulled back, looking about as uncomfortable as I felt, and handed over a bandaid.

"Huh, you keep bandaids in your car." I said more to myself then him as I put it on. "That's kind of cute."

"Cute and me don't belong in the same sentence." he responded with a genuine look of disgust. I pulled my seat belt on and checked over my shoulder in hopes Oliver would be in back, even if it were only to laugh at my epic fail outside my bedroom. But it was empty, with the exception of Axel's jacket.

"Nice shirt." Axel broke the awkward silence a few minutes into the drive.

I hugged my arms around myself protectively. "Is that some kind of jab at my music taste?"

"No, I mean, I like Styx. I'm into a lot of Classic Rock and Metal. Weird meeting a girl who is too."

"My dad always said that there's no better connection to be formed than one that's formed through a shared appreciation in the same music and bands." I smiled fondly at the memory. "He and my mother met at a Aerosmith concert a couple years before they had me."

A hint of a smile touched at his lips at that. "Smart man."

"Can I ask you something? You're not allowed to make fun of me, though." I said in a quick breath.

Axel's eyebrows rose, but he didn't say anything until I turned to look out the dewy window and into the dark night. "Sure, but I'm not making any promises about the whole teasing thing."

"Do you think I'm weird?"

The question had definitely caught him off guard, but he recollect himself within a few minutes and scratched at the back of his neck with his free hand. "Yes. No. I mean, yeah, I think it's really weird you're talking to my dead brother, if you really are."

"But like, if you didn't know about that, would you still think I'm weird?"

"No." he said without thinking much about it. "Why do you care?"

I trained my eyes on the road ahead. "I got ghosted at Homecoming."

He snickered. "Ghosted. And you can see my dead brother."