What Happened to Jay Banning

1

"Look at them. Cheering on those stupid jocks like they actually care."

Kat rolled her eyes. "So, why did you want to come here?"

Aaron fixed his carefully gelled hair until his bangs were swept to the side, just so. "I didn't want to come here. We don't have anything better to do. What---are you too good for us now?"

Kat shifted nervously. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, lay off her, Aaron," Em said, slinging an arm around her friend's shoulders. Kat shot her a grateful look.

"He's talking about me, isn't he?"

Kat shrugged but said nothing.

"You've been spending a lot of your time with me, and now your friends are jealous."

"Did you hear? Windup is having a concert in Hattfield. Tickets are sixty if you get them now." A gust of putrid smoke assaulted Kat's nose. Em had blown it nearly directly at her. Kat wrinkled her nose at the smell.

"See, you don't even like smoking. I don't get why you do it."

"I've been wanting to see them live. We should go," Kat put in.

"Yeah, but Hattfield is, like, seven fucking hours away."

Kat replied without skipping a beat. "There's five of us. We can each drive an hour and a bit and it'll work."

"What about the other two hours?"

"We can split it," Em said evenly. "What's that, half an hour each person?"

"Yeah, Kat, how much is that?"

She only had to think a moment. 24 minutes. But Kat kept this to herself.

"The drive is going to be longer than the actual concert."

"We'll do some sightseeing, alright?"

"I've never been to Hatfield. I hear they have nice lakes."

"Like we're going to Hatfield to see lakes," Kat shot back without thinking.

"Lakes? Do they have lakes there?" Em asked, frowning.

Shit. Kat gave a weak smile. "Yeah, don't you know about their lakes?"

"Okay, I'm sold," Rory said, grinning. As he smiled, his lip piercing caught a bright glimmer from the sun. "Let's go to see some fucking lakes."

"You gotta be careful. People will think you're crazy." Jay asked, arms crossed. His face was lit up by a stupid grin.

"I'm going to the bathroom," Kat said, standing up and dusting off the dirt from her jeans. As soon as she was out of earshot of her friends, she palmed her phone and held it to her ear. It had taken her a couple days to think of the method. "You know, you're much more obnoxious in person."

"I've been told," Jay Banning replied, his fists stuffed into the pocket of his light wash jeans. "Not much really recently. No idea why." His voice dripped with sarcasm. He grinned at her sideways.

For someone who had been so vibrant alive, he didn't seem too torn up about being dead.

Jay was wearing a faded navy blue crewneck with an alpaca knit into it. He was wearing thick-soled boots and rimless glasses. It was what he had been wearing when he had died. Or so she assumed.

Kat stuffed her hands into her pockets to stop herself from touching the fluffy alpaca. She pulled at the fraying ends of her band tee. She had ripped it herself, to look edgy. If she wore anything with animals, her friends would make fun of her. She'd be a laughingstock—tumblr-wannabe-goth-punk, or some other amalgam of trends.