"Miss Jones is coming again on Saturday morning," Keely told Haley as they settled in the red luxurious couches that graced the coffee shop room inside of their school. "I mean, I was amazing as usual," she let go of her traditional humbleness for the replacement of humour. "But, I guess, Joseph might have been a bit of help," Keely grinned.
"Well, that's great," Haley muttered suddenly tapping her foot inconsistently.
For some reason, the tapping annoyed Keely beyond belief. Maybe it was because Haley couldn't hold a tune in her foot.
But it was most probably because Keely hadn't slept in a real bed the night before. After Joe walked home - having stayed for dinner at her house instead of the tuna casserole waiting for him at home - she had grabbed her guitar.
Only wanting to find somewhere quiet, she meandered all the way to the back of her property's fifty acres. She wandered until she found the hay waggon. Keely liked playing there almost as much as she adored playing on the deck, but there was nothing significant about the old wooden waggon sitting on the edge of the forest line. No memories to keep her company or haunt her, depending on Keely's mood.
Though that might be the reason she liked it.
When she sat on the deck, Keely would play other artists' songs, like her mother had. But when she was out back, she mostly wrote her own songs. With no sound besides the hoot of an owl or the spine quivering lonely sound of the coyote.
Keely had woken up, her arm stretched over the guitar, and the rest of her body wrapped around the curves of the old acoustic fender guitar while the sun rose.
"Could you stop that?!" Keely burst out suddenly.
Startled, Haley stopped immediately. Her expression changing from shock into wariness.
It was then Keely realized what was making her best friend so on edge, and felt abruptly terrible. But she didn't apologize to Haley, first of all, Keely found that - on occasion - apologizing made the problem worse, and secondly, that she really thought Hales should be over it by now, or at least close to there.
Even when it had started, Keely had been against the entire concept.
Joe and Haley started - break to puke silently in your mouth - dating.
And - as Keely had predicted voicelessly - it had only ended in tears. And instead of being the three musketeers, they now only talked through Keely. Which was really becoming a pain.
Because they were undisputed Keely's favourite people in the entire universe. And they had always been there, and been there together.
"What are you doing on Saturday night?" Haley asked out of the blue.
"Can't do Saturday," Keely informed her, in an almost computer voice. She was going through her personal planner, which was in her head. She had spent her last Saturday night with Haley, so this Saturday, she was hanging with Joe. And Keely told Haley that much, and then winced the moment the words were out of her mouth.
"Oh, okay... I've got to go," with just those six words of warning, Haley grabbed her bag and rushed out of the room.
"Hales!" Keely called, following her at a much slower pace. She just couldn't understand why Haley reacted that way to Joe's name. They had only dated for a few months, and they weren't even in love.
If her two best friends had been in love, Keely would know it.
Careful to watch where her own feet were going, Keely made her way through the crammed doorway with her head down.
Letting out a squeak of surprise, and one she would obviously regret later, Keely tripped over someone's stray foot.
But a hand grabbing her elbow, and steadying her saved Keely from the very un-Disney like ending. An ending where she would have been covered in coffee from head to toe.
"Thanks," Keely smiled, her eyes travelling slowly to her rescuer.
"We need to talk," Tony announced as Keely's warm smile froze onto her face.
"No," she was firm now, and not hysterical. "I was serious Tony," she pushed on his chest lightly. "You may not believe that, but I smiled for the first time in a long time yesterday, and I'm not going to give that up for anything in this world. I don't want to be with you," she finished steadily.
"I really do love you," he whispered before turning on his heel and walking away.
Thankfully her locker was close by, and Keely hit her head against the blue steel, dropping her books.
"I'll help you with that."
"Thanks," Keely was relieved. In front of her was Sadie, she had been Tony's best friend since they had been born, it was a bond like the one between Keely and Joe. And she was probably the only other person that could see who Tony could be.
Passing Keely her books with a sad little smile, Sadie said, "He really does care about you. I know it's hard to see some times, but he can be a really good guy."
*
"You know you never did get paid for those two lessons," Joe pointed out pulling up in front of Keely's house on Saturday night.
"You just want my money so you can eat even more popcorn," she laughed.
Rolling his eyes, Joe rubbed his stomach contently. "Well, somebody had to eat all of that popcorn."
Not bothering to listen to Joe's answer, Keely was squinting out of the window. "Dad's still not home," she sighed.
"It's hard for him to be around here," Joe returned. "He lives here everyday but he doesn't want to be haunted by her ghost by being in this house everyday."
"Her ghost is friendly," Keely murmured.
"So go play a song for the friendly ghost," Joe suggested pulling lightly on her nose.
"Before I go," Keely was looking at her long artistic fingers on the door handle, not wanting to look at him as she asked the question. "I just need to know why you and Hales broke up. Because she ran out on me when I just mentioned your name today, and I just need to know what to say."
"I'll tell you when you move out," said Joe jokingly, but Keely could sense the tenseness in his shoulders.
Confused, she said her farewell, and made her way towards the house.
There had never been one secret between Joe and Keely besides her music, and he had always known about it, and somehow Keely had always known as well. It was making her rather uneasy that he was keeping something from her.
But she still took his advice.
Keely found the place where her mother's ghost was the strongest, and started strumming her guitar on the back porch.
Instead of the blissfulness she had felt the other day when she had finally broke off everything with Tony, Keely now felt weighed down with all the shadows around her now.
Sadie's words about how Tony really did care about her were stuck in Keely's mind. Brooke's ghost seemed more melancholy then normal, the stars in the sky were dimmed as the windows Keely's house. Haley's tear stained face flashed through her mind, and then shocked look from the day before. Joe's vagueness as he kept something from her.
With that in mind, Keely started singing Florence + The Machine's Ghosts as she strummed along..
I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me
I'm not calling you a thief, just don't steal from me
I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop haunting me
And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you kill me
There's a ghost in my lungs and it sighs in my sleep
Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
Then it walks, then it walks with my legs
To fall, to fall, to fall at your feet
There but for the grace of God go I
And when you kiss me, I am happy enough to die
I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me
And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you
I'm not calling you a thief, just don't
And I love you so much, I'm gonna let you
I'm not calling you a ghost, just stop
There's a ghost in my mouth and it talks in my sleep
Wraps itself around my tongue as it softly speaks
Then it walks. then it walks, then it walks with my legs
To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall
To fall, to fall
To fall, to fall, to fall, to fall,
to fall, to fall, at your feet
There but for the grace of God go I
And when you kiss me, I am happy enough
She was barely even bothering with the sound of her voice, Keely barely even noticed if she was singing the right notes. For that song she just wanted to play, and just sing.
It wasn't about sounding good, getting applause or playing well. She just wanted to play music.
Musing silently to herself, Keely twirled her guitar pick between her middle and index finger thoughtfully. Maybe that was what she really wanted.
If Keely was honest with herself, she would admit that all she ever wanted was music, or at least something to do with it. She was just too much of a coward to admit it to anyone. But now that she was feeling more alone than Keely had ever felt in her life, it just seemed like a good time to come to terms with not only just herself, but with her dreams as well.
And in her darkest dreams, Keely would see herself standing in the middle of a dark stage. The crowd quiet, and the only sounds in the place were Keely's guitar and voice.
But not that sound.
Squealing, Keely fell off her perch on the porch.
- More music, ah, I've been really into alternative music lately, and I think that song fit perfectly to the moment :) I had it as another song before, but then I decided I really don't like that song anymore.
Anyways, vote/comment because it'll make me smile :)
I might upload Gimmie Shelter today to all who read it, and Here's To The Night I'm working on, but that story takes all my attention, so it might be a lot longer for the next chapter. By the way, I think both those books are much better than this one, so you should go check them out!
Advice... don't hold a cup of juice and jump into a chair, because it'll just spill on your comfy sweatpants -__- and people will just laugh at you...