(6) Flap Your Wings

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"Rhythm?"

"Yeah, art has rhythm too

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"Yeah, art has rhythm too."





     SOMEHOW, the boys convinced Jess to come with them back to Julie's garage. They had questions, and she supposes they thought she had answers. They figured out pretty quickly that Jess was just as clueless as them.

     They asked pretty basic questions at first, but then it devolved into more personal questions that she did not want to answer. Like how she got into drawing and how she and Justin met.

     Or her official least favorite question: "How did we not know you in high school?"

     She looks between the three boys and sighs. "I don't know," she mutters, sinking further into the seat and letting her eyes dart across the room. "Not many people knew me. If you haven't noticed, I'm not a big people person. I like my art and very few other things."

     She knows Alex catches her glance towards Reggie.

     "Look, you guys are literal rock stars," she says as she looks down at her hands. "It doesn't matter that you didn't know a girl who rarely left the art studio."

     "But you went to the talent show," Luke says with a frown. "How did that performance make you like us?"

     She pales. "You were good, I guess."

     "Good? We messed up, like, seventeen different times," Reggie scoffs. "Man, that performance was terrible."

     "You guys were amazing, are you kidding?" Jess exclaims before shrinking back in on herself. "Look, I don't know, ok? I just know that every time I saw you guys perform, it was always so much better than before."

     "I can't believe that we didn't know you," Alex says as he begins to pace the length of the room. "Besides, you are so familiar. We knew everybody."

     "Well, not me," Jess mutters, memories of the boys flying through her mind as she opens her notebook and begins to doodle. She keeps it close to her chest to avoid anyone looking over her shoulder, even though all three boys try (and fail) to see her drawing.

     Alex continues to pace while Jess doodles. Reggie and Luke just sort of watch their bandmate. "I think he's practicing his model strut," Reggie comments.

     "He's so nervous, he's almost making me nervous," Luke replies.

     "Ok, look, you guys know I don't handle change well," Alex says, suddenly pausing in his pacing. Jess glances up and places her pencil in her hair. "All right, death? That was a change, ok? Then we became ghosts. All right? Another change. A-and now we can be seen whenever we play with Julie. Big freaking change!"

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