Tattoos and Soul Mates

Words Fall Silent, and Silence Screams Loud

Bell rang loudly, snapping Ashley from his daze. He blushed and handed my notebook back to me, having it folded open to the page I used to talk to him. What class do you have next? I scribbled down as we walked, almost walking into Ashley. "Uh...Music, with Mr. Merrick. You?" Same. His smile grew from miniscule to taking up most of his face.

"Here, I'll show you to his room. Is that your timetable?" I nodded. "Can I see it?" I nodded, once again, letting him grab the wrinkled paper from me. "Awesome! We have all the same classes!" He grew quiet as someone sneered at him.

The kid was in our homeroom, and I think his name was Craig Owens. I got an overwhelming desire to punch him in the face. I started to walk over to him, but Ashley caught my arm, and stopped me. "If you mess with Craig, you'll have the whole school on your bad side." I don't care. I hate people like that.

He smirked. "Mr. Merrick's room is right here." I followed him into the auditorium and through a set of double doors off in the dimly lit corner. The small, dark hallway led into a large, open space lit by several flickering fluorescent lights. Instruments, ranging from strings to winds to brass to percussion to everything in between, lined the walls and the uppermost level of the room. The floor was set like a curved set of bleachers, with little step-ups. Kids were mulling about, and there was a muscular, young looking man standing at the composer's podium at the front of the room. Ashley dragged me over to him, spouting words at the teacher.

"Mr. Merrick! This is Andy, our new student, and he just started today. I don't know what instrument he plays, but I don't think he sings." Ashley blurted, talking a million miles a minute. Mr. Merrick chuckled, flicking his tawny hair from his face. "Well Andy, I'm Mr. Merrick, but you can call me Zack. So, what instrument do you play?" He asked, an eyebrow raised.

I scribbled down in the notebook, I play guitar and a little bass. I like to sing, but that's not an option right now. He read it and nodded. "What, have you lost your voice?" Once again, I don't think he was being rude, just curious. No, I'm mute. Sorry. He smiled.

"There's no reason to apologize. Here, Ash plays bass, and you can play guitar with him on his project. All you have to do is compose a 2 to 3 minute piece to play for the class at the end of the semester." I grinned and nodded. "C'mon, I'll get you the good guitar." Zack said, walking over to the guitars hanging on the wall. He grabbed a red and blue electric guitar from the top of the rack, handing it to me before getting down a solid black bass for Ashley. We spent the rest of the class working on it, and finished most of the writing in the time.

Bell rang, so we packed up the instruments and left the room. "We have lunch next. Caffetaria's over here." Ashley said, grabbing me by the wrist and dragging me through the sea of students flooding out of classrooms. "Yo, Mute!" I rolled my eyes and flicked my middle finger up at CC, who had ran up in front of Ash and me. We ran through the line and sat down at one of the tables shoved away in the corner. Ashley yelped, dropping his tray onto the table with a clatter.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Jake asked, concerned. He and Jinxx had joined us in the line, and the three of them were sitting across from Ash and me. "I-I don't know! M-my wrist is killing me!" He was close to tears. He turned over his arm, and burning into the caramel skin, was Andy in the same text as his name was on mine. Jinxx grabbed my wrist.

"3, 2, 1, flip!" Jake said, pushing Ash's wrist next to mine as Jinxx turned mine over. Our names were the only blemeshes marring our skin. I parted my lips and spoke.

"...I've been looking for you."