Before The Ravens Sing (✔️, EDITING)

Chapter 3: The Seat In the Back

After finally grabbing a boxed sandwich and some chips from the dining hall, I decided to head back to my room and forgo the whole wall to wall students at long tables fiasco that would be dinnertime. I didn't really know anyone yet and the thought of having to make small talk with people I may never see again, sent shivers down my spine. 

I had always been a creative introvert, stuck in an extrovert world. I had no problem being outgoing or faking a smile, but I preferred to do my stuff alone. More than anything, the thought of leaving Minnesota behind, along with my band and the few friends that I did enjoy being around, made this new found situation unbearable.

Once back in my empty room, I pulled my cracked phone out of my pocket, cringing at the fact that the last thing my mom gave me was now pretty much toast. How would I afford a new phone? I wasn't going to ask my new family, that was for sure. It would be a cold day in hell before I asked them for anything. 

Maybe if I found some really cool background photo that looked like it was cracking my screen, I could stomach it until graduation... Ugh.

I carefully swiped up on the damaged screen and tapped Seth's picture on my contacts. Seth Carter was my best friend and the bass player for the band I left behind. The phone rang about three times before I heard his deep and sarcastic voice on the other end.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't Talia Grey, the best dammed guitar player to hit the punk circuit. Please tell me you burnt that school down and are coming back home to me?" he joked, as he laughed that deep laugh that instantly made any day better. I could envision him at that moment, clutching his chest as he said the words "to me," kneeling like a prince swooning over a princess stuck in a tower. Dramatic.

"Nah, no felonies remember. Man, I hate this place."

"What's going on Picks, you sound down?" Picks was Seth's nickname for me. I used to tell him that it was stupid and most guys gave nicknames like Baby and Sugar, but Seth wasn't your average guy by any account. 

He told me once that he named me Picks, because I could stand anywhere on stage and fling my guitar pick and land it right into anyone's mouth. It was my signature move at the end of each of our shows and because of that, Seth kept me stocked in guitar picks.  As he put it, he didn't want to "let our fans down" and it was his version of the whole buying a girl flowers.

I met Seth three years ago, at the age of fourteen, when I auditioned for his band, Extinct Dinosaurs With Tiny Hands. I had fallen in love with their music when they played Max's Pizza, especially when they played their hit song, Rawr In Dinosaur Means I Eat You. 

Seth was the picture of punk perfection. He was six feet, one inches tall, with raven black hair that was close clipped on all sides, leaving just enough in the middle to have a wavy mohawk. But, it was those eyes that sealed the deal. They were so green that you felt as if you were trapped in a remarkable garden, with massive trees closing in on you from all angles. He was nineteen when I met him and already had full sleeves of tattoos all the way down to his hands and knuckles.

At first I will admit, I desperately wanted to date Seth, what girl didn't? He wasn't totally ripped like some guys, but he had a perfectly chiseled body and girls went wild when he played on stage shirtless. What he might have lacked in the handsome department, which wasn't much, was made up for when he set foot on that stage. When he held that bass guitar in his strong hands, he was like a god. 

Seth was everything a girl could ask for in a best friend. He was the first guy to get me drunk and the first to sneak me into an 18+ music venue. He taught me how to drive and helped me build my first car, which I ended up having to sell to fund the funeral.