(NOT fan fiction!) Kurt Cobain and Tally Fisk

Chapter Thirty

He strolls across the street toward me as I sit on the porch, drowning and reveling in the summer heat.

Summer is almost gone. I don't even complain about the heat anymore. As uncomfortable as it is, I don't want it to be gone. I want this summer to be infinite.

The summer I became detectable to others.

The summer I was seen.

The summer Tally Fisk talked to me.

The summer I finally had to decide, or make a step toward deciding, what kind of a person I want to be.

Yesterday afternoon I took part of that step. I spent most of the day in Jasper's oppressively hot garage with him and a drummer named Cage (I don't know if that's his real name) while my aunt brought us snacks every half hour. I don't know if it went well but what I do know is we have a gig, a real gig, in a few weeks at an 18-and-over club in a bigger town an hour away. Thanks to Cage's connections.

I know that I'm excited about it.

I wondered if I could get Tally to come see my band. My band. The band where I play rhythm guitar and sing back-up vocals. The as-of-yet unnamed band.

As I was thinking of that, late last night, Kurt showed up and I whispered his ear off, too excited to not talk to him, praying my parents wouldn't hear me.

He didn't say much. Just smoked and spun in my desk chair. But I was glad he was there. It occurred to me as I was finally dozing off that I could have texted any of my friends.

I think I forget they're real sometimes. I think they're ghosts, like Kurt, and that they might evaporate any second and I'll have no way to summon them back.

Now I'm watching Kyle saunter toward me away from where his truck is parked in Tally's empty driveway.

Another person in my life. He was my friend before but he's not my friend now. Not yet. He is, however, in my life as of last night.

With hands in the pockets of his khaki shorts, he stands before me and shrugs.

"Mind if I sit?"

I scoot over on the step and toss my notebook aside. I haven't thought of anything to write in it anyway.

"Be my guest."

In silence we watch the wavy heat rise from the street and insects buzzing around. If I didn't live at the end of a cul-de-sac and people could drive by, we'd probably be odd to look at. Kyle, with his tight-fitting red shirt, khaki shorts and leather sandals, and me, with my holey jeans, black T-shirt, black bracelets around my wrists and shaggy hair that definitely looks grunge compared to Kyle's trendy haircut.

"Last night was," he laughs, "something I'm not likely to forget."

Yes, we initiated Kyle last night. I haven't talked to Tally or Mavis so I have no idea what changed her mind, but Tally was gung-ho and even produced sterile lancets for the "blood ritual."

That's right. She made all of us offer up blood sacrifices once again. John said the lancets were cheating and the possibility of deadly disease should be part of the initiation. Plus, we were already breaking tradition, he said, by not using "Spence's contaminated pocket-knife that he probably decapitates snakes with or something."

I think Tally was erring on the side of caution. She didn't want to freak out Kyle too badly.

"How's your finger?" Kyle asks. "I tried to play my brother's guitar today and it was a little tender."

"That's why you stab yourself in the right hand," I say. "Rookie mistake."

"I don't play enough for that to have occurred to me," he says, leaning back on the next step up. "I just know a few songs my brother taught me. Thought I'd brush up. Impress Tally next time she comes over."