(NOT fan fiction!) Kurt Cobain and Tally Fisk

Chapter Seven

"As much as I hate this term, you've just friendzoned yourself."

John is sitting at my kitchen counter, eyeing the selection of salad ingredients he has found in my family's refrigerator.

I'm eating large quantities of toast for lunch.

"Okay but listen. What would have happened if I'd said no?"

John shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe she wouldn't have been able to sneak off to Kyle's."

The possibility that I could have prevented Tally Fisk from gallivanting around with Kyle Davis gives me pause.

"She would have found a way," I decide.

John is holding a bottle of olive oil up to the light as though it may be contaminated.

"She would have!" I insist.

"Not through my yard. I'm a goody-two-shoes. I'm not gonna help people break the rules."

John called me earlier to tell me that Tally had asked for my number.

"I'm sorry I didn't give it to her," he'd said. "But I couldn't aid and abet her sneaking off with that jock punk."

I told him that she'd showed up at my window. He said he was coming over.

"I just think," he says, arranging some vegetables atop his artful plate of spinach, "she's going to think she can just use you all the time now. You've put yourself at her beck and call, just like she expects people to do."

"You don't like her, do you?"

"Tally doesn't give people a choice to like or not like her. She just puts you in her life and decides what your role is."

I don't say it, but that doesn't sound altogether negative to me. What must it be like to have that confidence? The exact opposite of me, that's what. I wonder at the fact that someone can just declare their presence, make themselves seen, and just fit. Fit in any puzzle.

"Well, I did tell her she owed me," I say.

"Lame."

"We'll see."

"If you don't, somehow, make her pay up, I'm disowning you."

I let out a humorless, ha!

"No one would notice if you disowned me."

"I would. I'd say, 'Man, it was nice to hang with Spence but, alas, I have disowned him, and those days are gone.'"

John eats his salad and I put my fifth and sixth slices of bread in the toaster. He tells me I'll regret my carb consumption someday.

Then we watch TV for a few hours.

It's so nice to have someone to be bored with.

Maybe this summer won't drag on like the summers before. Maybe I really will be someone this summer, even if I go back to being nobody when school starts again.

John leaves around five. He says he doesn't want to be here when Tally comes back through or he'll give her a piece of his mind.

I think he really wants to give her a piece of his mind but can't. Because she's Tally Fisk.

Turns out, it doesn't matter. My parents get home a little before six, we have dinner, I tell them what John and I watched on TV, the hours tick by, I play guitar on the back patio until dark, and Tally never shows up.

At eleven-thirty, as I lie on my bed and look out my window into the darkness, a surge of boldness takes over. The fire is back in my veins.

I'm mad.

I yank on a pair of jeans and, without even bothering to find a shirt, I slip out the front door. I have no need to sneak anywhere. My parents would never suspect it.

Barefoot and bare chested, I take a brisk pace to the house that I now know is just like mine.

I go to the window that would be mine and, without even the briefest hesitation, I rap on it.

Then I do it again.

It doesn't take long for the window to raise. Apparently, Tally's had people knock on her window before. She wasn't afraid I was a murderer or a ghost.

"Spence?"

"Yeah. Spence."

"What are you doing here?"

"How was I supposed to know you weren't dead?" I hiss.

"Dead?"

"You never came back through."

"What?" she rubs her face. There's a small lamp on in her room and I can see her dimly.

"I have been stuck at home the entire day, covering for you, and you never came back."

"Kyle dropped me off down the street. I told my parents I came from John's house."

"You could have let me know."

"Wow. No offense, but I don't have to let you know anything."

"You do if I'm stuck at home covering for you. Not only did I have to stay in my house all day so your parents didn't see me leave without you, you could have been dead somewhere and no one would know it."

"Fine. I'm a horrible person. You can go home now."

A sudden breeze gives me a chill and I feel goosebumps rise on my bare skin. At first, I think Kurt's shown up, but then I realize what it is.

I just stormed across the street and confronted Tally Fisk.

Like I have any right to do anything of the sort.

It's a miracle she can even see me and I'm yelling at her. Well, whispering sternly.

I sigh.

"Listen. If you want me to ever cover for you again, you're going to have to just let me know what's up. Let me know your status. Okay?"

"Fine," she says.

"See ya."

I turn away but she says, "Spence. Wait!"

I take the two steps back to her window.

"It's really sweet that you were worried about me."

I shrug, shoving my hands deep in my pockets. "I don't know if it was worry exactly. I'll see you around."

This time I do manage to walk away.

"Nice. I wouldn't have let her know I was worried either."

I refuse to look up. "Go away, you old ghost."

Was I worried? Or was I just inconvenienced and annoyed about it?

It did cross my mind that she might have been in an accident. It crossed my mind a few times.

But mostly I just figured she was still out with Kyle until I realized that, if she was grounded, it was way too late for her to still be claiming to be at my house.

I wasn't worried. Really.