The New American Dream

Part Five: The End Of All Things | Chapter Forty-Four

"Here it is! Here it is!" I said excitedly, opening the e-mail from Julius' uncle Dennis who had helped us record and produce our song before we had left for Amsterdam.

We were sitting in Jace' and Cassie's basement like always, even though we didn't have a band practice planned for that day. But we all wanted to listen to the song together.

My laptop was connected to their speakers in their basement and I opened the file he had sent me, pressing play with shaking fingers. I leaned back into Dan who put his arms around me, a position we had come to love. With a grave silence in the room, except for the music, we listened to the song intently.

Tears stung in my eyes by the time it had finished. On one hand because the song was still very emotional and sad, on the other hand because it was an emotional moment for me. This was my song, I had written it and now it was an actual recorded song that we could put out into the world. The idea seemed too unreal.

We had been looking into how to get music up on Spotify and that was currently in the works, for now we would just upload it to YouTube. Spotify could wait a little longer, there were other things on our minds at the moment. For one, prom was coming up and then we would have to focus on finding an apartment and moving out for college. Scary things were about to happen so we focused on one thing at a time.

Prom was up first. We had actually been asked to perform a few songs. Not because Mr Davidson liked us so much—I was sure he hated us actually—but because of popular demand. He had caved in when more than half of senior year had requested it.

The main thing was to come up with a setlist that most people would be satisfied with, but the thing we shouldn't forget was that prom was also for us. It was our senior prom, the only important thing left of high school and I didn't want it to be ruined. Dan had asked me to go with him, which seemed logical and I had obviously agreed. Now I only had to find a dress and that wasn't that easy, considering my taste in fashion.

_____

After our little band meeting in the basement, Dan had agreed to go dress shopping with me. He already had his suit, he'd only need a tie to match my dress. We went to five different stores before I found one that I liked.

"You look like a Victorian era vampire," Dan told me with a laugh.

"Perfect," I said brightly and spun around in front of the mirror once more, to let the fabric spread out around me.

Dan was sitting on a bench nearby, he turned out to be a patient shopping companion. He had given his honest opinion on any dress I had tried on and that had been quite a few. Truthfully he had been happy with many of the dresses I had tried on, it had always been me that wasn't satisfied. But I had found one and that he liked it made it even better.

The dress was entirely black, what a surprise. It stopped shortly above my knees and the sleeves looked like bat wings entirely made out of lace. The back was longer than the front and the top layer was made out of lace as well. The top was corset-like, with strings you had to tie in the back, and also covered in lace.

"I think my coffin necklace would look bomb with it," I threw in.

"Which coffin necklace?" Dan teased.

I stuck my tongue out at him. "All of them."

I also found myself some killer heels and a black clutch with lace around it. I'd have to wear the shoes for a while before I could properly walk in them, it would probably take a few days.

_____

"Do you think they will heal until prom?" I asked.

I was lying on Dan's bed, my skin still stinging from where my new piercings were located.

Dan was sitting on the other side of the room, casually strumming a guitar. "Depends," he said thoughtfully. "Do you usually have problems with piercings healing?"

"Not really, no."

"Then I don't think it will be a problem. Mine healed super fast."

Now that my birthday had passed and I was finally eighteen I had decided to get dermal anchors after all. I only got them on one side though and I chose gemstones and not metal balls. Tough of course you could change them out.

Dan had gone to the piercing studio with me. Even though my pain tolerance for these things wasn't that low, I had still been nervous about going there. After all I was anxious around people, especially ones that shoved metal under my skin. After it was over Dan had bought me ice cream and now we were here.

It was a Friday afternoon and I was sleeping over at his house. Normally we would play at Albright's on Fridays but he was closed until further notice because of water damage.

His mom had been fine with me sleeping over, this time without an extra mattress, and my mother had vowed to not restrict me too much anymore. As long as we were careful she was alright with that. That was, by the way, her way of telling me to use a condom should I plan on sleeping with Dan. I had only told her that Dan's mom and sister were in the house and felt like she got the implication.

Not that I hadn't thought about it before. I wanted it, undoubtedly. But we had only been dating for about three weeks and at that point it seemed a bit rushed. And on the other hand I wasn't sure how ready I was. Yes, I wanted to have sex with him but it also filled me with nervousness. I was still a virgin and I didn't know about him. We'd definitely have to talk about it first.

"Come over?" I asked with a smile and turned onto my side, the bandage covering the piercings left a weird feeling on my chest.

Dan put the guitar down and walked over, lying down next to me. Gladly I snuggled up to him, burying my face at his chest and he put is arm around me, holding me tight.

"Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it," he told me, I heard the rumbling of his voice in his chest.

"On New Years Eve, when we were sitting on the mattress and just before your mom walked in... would you have kissed me? I've been thinking about that nonstop since."

Dan laughed, that I felt in his chest as well. "You're observant, I see. Yes, I was about to ask you if it was alright to kiss you," he admitted.

"Knew it. We straight up wasted five months."

"Ah, don't say that. We had more time to be sure about us, don't call it wasting."

I was quiet for a while and felt my eyelids get heavy. "I'm tired."

"Then sleep. I'll protect you from bad dreams."

"I'm taking your word for that."