Chapter Text
Ashlyn wakes up to the sound of clinking metal.
For a second her half-asleep brain thinks of phantoms—claws on sheet metal, something scraping across a bus step—before the smell of syrup and something burning hits her, and the sound resolves into something much more mundane:
Spoons. On her dad’s old ceramic bowls:
And Aiden’s voice.
“--I’m just saying, if we call it The Phantoms, that’s, like, the coolest name ever. It’s thematic, it’s edgy, it’s–”
“You’re thematic and edgy,” Tyler murmurs from somewhere on the floor.
Ashlyn lifts a single eye open.
Her living room looks like a bomb went off, blankets everywhere, all bunched into weird nests; a turned-over, half-empty popcorn bowl; two controllers dangling off the coffee table by their cords; someone’s sock on top of the TV. Logan is curled in an armchair like a cat, hoodie casting a shadow over his face, glasses crooked.
Ben is on the couch, legs draped off the edge because he’s approximately sixteen feet tall. Taylor is wrapped burrito-style in a soft blanket covered in cartoon foxes, scrolling her phone with one hand, cradling a cup of coffee with the other.
And Aiden is at the kitchen table, shifting in his seat like a hyperactive goblin, slamming two spoons against an upside-down cereal bowl like it had offended him.
He grins when he sees her looking.
“Oh! Ashlyn! You’re alive. Sick. Okay, picture this: the lights are off, the crowd’s cheering, and I’m back here just–” he gives the bowl a dramatic drum fill that rattles her already-sensitive ears. “--boom-ba-BA-BOOM, and then you walk out.”
Ashlyn groans and buries her face into the couch cushion. The sound feels like it’s trying to break down the walls of her skull.
“Too loud,” she mumbles.
“Too morning,” Logan adds meekly, rubbing his eyes.
“It’s literally ten,” Taylor says, glancing at her phone. Her voice is rough with sleep in a way that Ashlyn’s brain unhelpfully labels as nice. “Tyler would have already had half the house cleaned by now.”
“Yeah well we spent half the night playing Mario Kart,” Tyler says, hauling himself upright and squinting at the windows as if they insulted his mother. “I think we’re allowed to be tired.”
“Technically we didn’t just play Mario Kart…” Logan mumbles. “We also played Mario Party…”
“Taylor, back me up!” Aiden says, ignoring all of that. “The Phantoms is a good band name, right?”
Taylor blinks, momentarily stunned. “Band?”
Ashlyn’s other eye pops open.
Here we go.
Aiden’s eyes light up like Christmas trees. “Okay, so.” He clacks the spoons against each other for emphasis. “New agenda item for the group: we should start a band.”
There is a full three seconds of absolute, glorious silence.
Somewhere in the kitchen, Ashlyn’s dad coughs. A cabinet closes. The smell of pancakes seems to get stronger.
Then Tyler says flatly, “No.”
Aiden beams harder, as if that was encouragement. “Hear me out.”
“No,” Tyler repeats.
“Hear. Me. Out.”
Tyler tosses a throw pillow at him. It bounces off Aiden’s chest and lands on the floor. Aiden doesn’t even flinch.
Ashlyn pushes herself upright, hair draping over her eyes, favorite blanket sliding off her shoulders. “Why… a band?” she asks carefully. The words feel unsteady in her mouth, like they always do when she’s just waking up.
Because of course it’s Aiden, and of course this has to happen before she’s had her coffee.
Aiden spins one of the spoons between his fingers like a drumstick, nearly drops it, barely catches it, and pretends that was purposeful.
“Because,” he says, pacing into the living room like he’s giving a speech, “we’re already spending every night together in the phantom realm—”
A loud groan resonates throughout the living room.
“--so we might as well have something normal to do during the day,” Aiden finishes, gesturing wildly. “Something fun. Something that we want to do not out of necessity.”
“Homework exists,” Logan says.
“Baseball exists,” Tyler adds coldly.
“Robotics club exists,” Taylor says, almost apologetically.
“Yeah, yeah, sports and school,” Aiden says, dismissing them all with a flick of his wrist. “But we’re already a group, right? We already do the whole spooky phantom realm thing together; imagine if we did something that wasn’t… you know.” He flails his arms vaguely. “All that.”
Ashlyn chews on that.
He has a point. Not that she would ever say that out loud, in fear of fueling him.
Taylor’s watching Aiden more thoughtfully now, steam from her mug curling in her face. “What kind of band are we talking about?” she asks. “Like… a pop band? Screamo band? Jazz band?”
“Oh god, anything but jazz,” Tyler murmurs.
Aiden’s eyes go distant, dreamy. “Rock band,” he says. “Like—loud, live guitars in your mom’s-basement energy. The kind that plays in crappy venues and bars with sticky floors, and everyone loves them anyway.”
“That sounds… like a lot of work,” Logan says, pushing his glasses up.
Aiden jabs a spoon in Logan’s direction. “That’s the spirit, Logan!”
“That’s literally the opposite of–”
“Also,” Aiden steamrolls on, “we already have half the setup.”
He starts pointing.
“I’ve got my kit,” he says. “She’s the best—little paint chippy, lotta personality.”
Ashlyn’s seen the pictures many times before on his phone—tom shells with layers of paint bleeding through, doodles in permanent marker, glitter stuck in odd spots—but the cymbals polished, heads changed right before they break. It’s clear he loves it, no matter how messy his love is.
“Taylor’s got that bass from her dad,” he continues, voice softening a tad on the word dad, but he continues. “Halfwit’s got the beat-up electric. Ash has her guitar. We’re pretty much obligated.”
Ashlyn’s fingers flex in her blanket at the idea of her guitar. It’s probably still leaning against her wall in the corner of her room upstairs where she left it, strap hooked around the body, a worn pick wedged between the worn strings. It’s not fancy, and it’s a few years old, but the fretboard almost feels like home.
She hates that he’s right about that.
“And what,” Tyler says slowly, “makes you think any of us would want to do this with you?”
Aiden grins. “Because you like attention, you’re dark and brooding, and you have anger issues.” He points the spoon at him like a baton. “Lead guitar. It fits.”
Tyler opens his mouth to protest, then pauses, almost like he can’t admit how on-the-nose that is.
“And Taylor’s obviously bass,” Aiden says, pointing the improvised baton at her. “You already play. You’re, like, halfway to being the cool one onstage.”
Taylor raises her eyebrows over the rim of her mug. “Halfway?”
“I need to leave room for character development, duh,” he says.
She smiles. It’s small and crooked and somehow makes the entire room feel warmer. Ashlyn’s stomach does something weird and fluttery, and she immediately looks away, pretending she’s deeply interested in the TV remote.
“And Ashlyn,” Aiden says, turning to her like this is the most simple decision in the world, “is rhythm guitar and vocals.”
Every atom in Ashlyn’s body seizes up.
“What?” It comes out higher than she would prefer.
“You’ve got the voice,” Aiden says. “And you already play. You’re, like, secretly cool.”
Ashlyn’s face goes red-hot. “I’m… not–”
Taylor tilts her head, watching Ashlyn over the mug. “You do sing,” she says softly. “I’ve heard you. In the studio after ballet? When you thought we all left?”
Ashlyn wants to sink into the couch, to have it swallow her whole.
“You heard that?” she squeaks.
“Hard not to,” Taylor says, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “You were good.”
She knows she can sing. Years of having music-related hobbies would make it hard for her to not be able to sing. She would match pitch with the piano, she would make her voice do what her instructor wanted. And then, in her own little room, or after class, she would morph that training into something different—something soft, a humming that would turn into songs she wouldn’t dare show anyone.
Nobody was supposed to know that part.
Logan clears his throat. “Rhythm guitar and vocals makes sense,” he says, a tad too practical, almost as if he’s trying to smooth over the moment.
Ben raises a hand from the couch to get the group’s attention, then grabs his phone. His thumbs flutter over his screen for a moment before a flat, monotone robotic voice comes through the text-to-speech app:
“Only if I get to be in charge of the lights.”
Aiden gasps. “Yes. Stage manager slash light master. Done.”
Ben gives a small, satisfied nod.
“Soundboard,” Logan says softly, thinking out loud. “I could… handle that. Mix the levels. Record stuff, maybe. I, um, could get some equipment from the club.”
Aiden points both spoons at him now. “Boom. We even have our techs. Look at us, we’re a fully fledged band.”
“You’re steamrolling,” Tyler says. “This is the definition of steamrolling.”
From the kitchen, Ashlyn’s dad calls, “If you kids are starting a band in my home, I get veto power over the name!”
Ashlyn’s soul leaves her body.
“WE ARE NOT STARTING A BAND,” she calls back automatically.
“Yes we are,” Aiden stage-whispers, eyes glimmering. “We have my garage. And a dream.”
Tyler rubs his face with both hands. “Can we at the very least get food before continuing this?”
“Pancakes first, band second,” Taylor says. “That’s pretty much common sense.”
Ashlyn’s dad insists on making an astounding amount of pancakes “to feed the gaggle of teenagers living in my living room, apparently,” and they all cram around the table—chairs, stools, and an upside-down plastic bin that Logan sits on like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do.
The conversation drifts from homework to a teacher they hate, to the latest show Taylor’s obsessed with. Ashlyn listens for the most part, nodding every once in a while.
Every so often, Taylor’s knee bumps hers under the table. It could be an accident. The little jolt Ashlyn feels each time certainly isn’t.
For a short while, nobody mentions the band.
It’s almost normal. Just… breakfast.
“You’re doing the thing,” Taylor murmurs beside her eventually.
Ashlyn startles. “What thing?”
“Staring into the void.” Taylor taps the air in front of Ashlyn’s face. Her fingers are ink-smudged from doodling earlier. “You okay?”
“Just… thinking,” Ashlyn says, which isn’t technically a lie.
Taylor studies her for a brief moment, leaning closer, voice dropping. “I meant what I said,” she says. “About your singing. You don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. But… I think you’d be amazing.”
The word you feels like someone plucking a string in Ashlyn’s chest.
She focuses very intensely on cutting her pancake.
Across the table, Aiden suddenly slaps his hand down. “Official motion,” he announces. “We hold a vote.”
Tyler groans. “Oh my god.”
“Motion: this group forms a band, hereby and henceforth known as–” he takes a deep, dramatic breath, “The Phantoms.”
“No veto from the owner of the house!” Ashlyn’s dad calls, not turning around from the stove.
Ashlyn dies inside again.
Aiden sweeps his eyes across the table. “All in favor, say ‘aye.’”
Ben taps his phone again. The voice app says:
“Aye. I want lights.”
Aiden clutches his chest theatrically. “My cousin supports me. This is beautiful.”
He looks at Tyler.
Tyler pokes at the last bit of pancake on his plate as if it had offended him. His jaw flexes once, twice, then–
“This is stupid,” he says.
Ashlyn can already hear the “no” in her head.
“We have school,” Tyler carries on. “We’ve got practice. We’re already dealing with the phantom realm. We don’t have time to be pretend rockstars on top of that.”
“That’s fair,” Logan says meekly.
Aiden slumps in his chair just enough for it to be theatrical. “Wow. Harsh.”
“But,” Tyler adds, glaring at Aiden as if he is the problem and not the entire concept, “if you’re gonna do it anyway, someone has to make sure you don’t screw it up.”
Taylor’s eyes light up. “Is that a yes!?”
“It’s a very reluctant, very conditional yes,” Tyler says. “I also reserve the right to quit when this crashes and burns.”
“Reluctant, very conditional yes noted,” Aiden says.
He turns to Ashlyn.
Her fork feels heavy in her hand.
They all look at her in unison now. Even Ben, who usually hangs back, is watching with that steady observant gaze. Logan’s fingers tap a nervous, uneven pattern on his glass. Taylor’s shoulder is pressed against Ashlyn’s, warm and solid, yet soft enough to be comforting.
Ashlyn can say no. She knows that. They won’t hate her. Aiden will whine, but he’ll live.
The idea of taking all of that out into the open truthfully terrifies her.
But the idea of never trying at all does too, in a different way.
“...aye,” she hears herself say.
The word hangs there, soft and stunned.
Then Aiden explodes. “YES!” He slams the spoon against the cereal bowl in a triumphant bang. Ashlyn winces at the noise but can’t help the small, ridiculous smile that sneaks onto her face. “Democracy wins! The band is REAL. This is the best day of my life. Ben, remember this. Put it on a plaque.”
Taylor cheers, Logan smiles—small and real. Tyler puts his head down on the table as if praying for strength.
Ashlyn’s heart is beating too fast. She’s already mentally drafting escape routes, excuses, and ways to back out later.
But underneath all that, something glows.
The day drifts on in a blur of normal—video games, someone’s half-finished homework, Taylor and Tyler arguing over which playlist gets control of the living room speaker.
Aiden spends a minimum of twenty minutes showing everyone pictures of his drum kit on his phone. Ashlyn has to have him turn the volume down when he plays little video clips; the sudden crashes and bangs make her flinch.
“How many layers of paint does that thing have?” Tyler asks, squinting at the all-too-bright screen.
“It’s called personality,” Aiden says. “She’s been through many eras.”
“You drew a smiley face on the floor tom…” Taylor points out.
“Yeah, because I love her.”
Ashlyn’s eyes linger for a second on the photo—chipped blue over red over something else, swirls of marker, and then the careful way the hardware is tightened. It’s… very Aiden.
By late afternoon, everyone drifts home in twos and ones. Promises to text later. Jokes about how much longer they can deal with Aiden’s incessant rambling.
Ashlyn stands in the doorway and waves them out.
Tyler and Taylor side by side, matching backpacks. Taylor glances back once to give Ashlyn a little two-finger wave that makes warmth creep up her neck. Ben and Logan walk together, Logan chattering while Ben signs short responses, his phone tucked into his hoodie pocket for when they need it.
Aiden is the last to go, hovering on the porch like he has ten more things to say and is trying to decide which one gets to escape first.
“So,” he says at last, rocking back on his heels, “Saturday. My place. First practice.”
“Saturday,” Ashlyn repeats. Her brain immediately converts that into a countdown. Six days. Six nights in the graveyard between now and then.
“I’ll text the details,” he says, twiddling his thumbs in his hoodie pocket.
He points finger guns at her. “You’re not gonna chicken out on me, right?”
There it is.
She looks at him—the constant motion, nervous energy wrapped in jokes, the way he’d rather fill the air with nonsense than let it get too quiet. The fact that underneath all of that, he pays attention.
“No,” she says. It feels huge. “I… I won’t.”
He grins so wide it looks like his face might split. “Knew you were cool,” he says, then jogs down the walkway, trips over the last step, catches himself, and turns the stumble into a theatrical bow.
She closes the door and leans her forehead against it.
“Band, huh?” her dad says from the hallway, carrying a laundry basket. “Do I need to start budgeting in earplugs for me and your mom?”
“It’s at Aiden’s,” Ashlyn says quickly.
“Ah.” He nods. “Then may the neighbors have mercy.”
She huffs out a frail-sounding laugh.
He pauses, studying her. “You okay, trooper?” he asks, softer. “You looked… happy earlier. And also, like you might bolt.”
“That’s just… my default setting,” she says dryly.
He raises an eyebrow.
She sighs. “It’s big,” she admits. “Saying yes. It feels big.”
“Most of the good things in my life started with something that scared me,” he says. “Joining the army, asking your mom out, moving here.”
He pauses a moment, searching for the right words.
“All I’m saying is,” he continues, “you’re allowed to try it and hate it. You’re also allowed to try it and like it. And you can change your mind. Okay?”
She nods. Her throat feels a little tight.
He gives her a small, careful smile and squeezes her shoulder on the way past. “Wake me if you need anything,” he says.
Night always feels too close.
Even when she tries her hardest not to look at the clock, Ashlyn’s body knows. Her brain hums, restless, counting down. She sits on her bed with her
back against the wall, knees drawn tight, phone in her hands.
The group chat is already buzzing.
Taylor: everyone up?
Logan: yep!
Aiden: you know it!!!!
Tyler: why are you so hyper.
Ben: Im awake
Ashlyn: I’m here.
Ashlyn smiles a little at the phone’s overly bright screen. Despite needing to go through hell every night, she had these idiots to make it better.
She hesitates for a second, then types:
Ashlyn: The band thing.
Ashlyn: I meant it.
The typing indicator pops up almost instantly.
Aiden: :D
Aiden: :DDDDD
Aiden: im NEVER shutting up abt saturday now!!!
Tyler: not much of a change
Aiden: INCORRECT I PAUSE TO BREATHE!!
Logan: I’m honestly a little excited..
Taylor: Same!
Ben: 👍
Tyler: your all insane
Ashlyn’s mouth twitches.
She tucks her phone into her pocket, flips off the bedroom light, and lies back, staring at the ceiling.
It’s the last thing she sees before the world shifts.
The lurch in her stomach, like missing a step on the stairs. The way sound drops out for a second, then comes back wrong. Colors smear and then snap back into new shapes.
When her vision clears, she’s standing on cracked asphalt under a sky that’s always a deep, wrong twilight that never changes. The hulking silhouettes of school buses circle the lot, their windows dark.
The graveyard.
Their graveyard.
Ashlyn shoves her hands into the pockets of her hoodie and breathes in the familiar metallic-tasting air. It smells like engine oil, distant rain, and something she stopped trying to name, all mixed with the sickening twinge of blood.
Shapes flicker into being around her one by one as the others arrive. Taylor first, then Tyler, then Aiden in the middle of saying something.
“--and then the second song kicks in with this huge–oh hey,” he says, looking around. “Roll call. Ash?”
“Here,” she says.
“Ben?” Aiden turns.
Ben is already there, leaning against a bus, hood up, hands in his pockets. He lifts one hand in a lazy wave.
“Ty and Tay?”
“Here, unfortunately,” Tyler grumbles.
“Present,” Taylor echoes, bumping her shoulder into his.
“Logan?”
Logan appears last, blinking behind his glasses. “Here,” he says, sounding like he just woke up from a nap instead of whatever this could be considered.
Off beyond the walls, phantoms loiter in the shadows. Tall, wrong-angled silhouettes, eyes a faint constant glow. When they first started coming here, those eyes made Ashlyn’s skin crawl.
Now they’re just… background. Atmosphere, if you will.
The lot is a personal bubble of stillness. The phantoms stand at the boundary like security guards, never crossing the line made by the spotlights.
The graveyard has become the world’s weirdest afterschool hangout.
Because of course it had.
“Alright,” Aiden says, clapping his hands once. The sound ricochets off the metal around them. “Welcome to the inaugural nightly meeting of the future greatest band in the multiverse.”
“Do we have to talk about this here?” Tyler asks, scrubbing a hand down his face, already feeling a headache forming. “Can’t we just… sit on the bus roofs and pretend we’re somewhere else?”
“We do that every night,” Aiden says. “Now we’re doing that but with planning.”
He hops up onto a bumper, pulls himself onto the top of a bus, and stands there, arms spread. He’s done that jump so many times it looks almost effortless.
“They can probably hear you,” Logan says, glancing toward the gate.
“So what,” Aiden says. “Maybe they’ll be into post-hardcore. Okay, positions.” He points dramatically down at them. “Officially, I’m drums. Ty is lead guitar—because of his tragic backstory and unresolved rage–”
“Don’t talk about my—” Tyler starts, then snaps his mouth shut, a familiar scowl adorning his face.
“Taylor’s on bass and backing vocals,” Aiden continues, already moving. “She’s the secretly competent one.”
Taylor gives him a mock salute, heels clicking together. “I’ll allow that description.”
Ashlyn’s eyes linger on her a beat too long—on the easy way Taylor balances on the curb, on the soft line of her jaw in the weird night light—
“Ash is rhythm guitar and main vocals,” Aiden says. “Logan’s sound and recording—”
Logan blinks. “W-Wait, I—”
“And Ben’s lights and stage wizard,” Aiden finishes.
Ben pulls his phone out, types something quickly, and hits play. The app’s voice chirps:
“I accept the position of light wizard.”
Aiden bows toward him. “We are honored, oh luminous one.”
Ashlyn leans against a bus, metal cool through her hoodie. The whole conversation is bizarre, and yet… it fits here, in this place that stopped making sense a long time ago.
“You know this is a terrible idea, right?” Tyler says, looking up at Aiden. “We’re already stuck doing… this”—he gestures at the buses, the fence, the pacing phantoms—“every night. Now we’re signing up for more chaos.”
“We’re stuck here anyway,” Taylor says. “We might as well have something fun to argue about.”
“Yeah,” Aiden says, pointing at her. “Listen to our bassist. She’s smart.”
Taylor flashes a grin, and for a second Ashlyn forgets they’re in the phantom realm at all.
“It is kind of… nice?” Logan says slowly. “To think about something that isn’t school or this place. Having a thing to do together that we chose.”
“Exactly!” Aiden drops into a sitting position on the roof, legs dangling over the side. “Logan gets it. Gold star to him!”
“We’re not doing gold stars,” Tyler says.
“It honestly freaks me out less talking about band stuff than, like, thinking about them,” Taylor says, nodding toward the shadows. “So I’m all for distracting ourselves.”
“Band practice as group therapy,” Aiden says. “Love that for us.”
He turns his attention back to Ashlyn. “We should decide what we’re doing first. Covers? Originals? What do we think?”
Ashlyn’s stomach flips at the word originals. The songs on folded-up notebook paper in her desk drawer flash through her mind; she shoves the thought away before it shows up on her face.
“Covers,” she says quickly. “We should… start with covers. Seems simpler.”
Aiden presses a hand to his heart. “She’s already thinking like our group leader…” he says. “I’m so proud.”
Tyler squints at her. “No originals until we know what we’re doing,” he says. “Last thing I need is Aiden writing some stupid concept album.”
“I would never,” Aiden says, then adds, “I would write an extremely tasteful EP about buses and our mysterious night lives.”
“No,” all five of them say in unison.
Ben snorts silently, shoulders shaking slightly. He types something out and holds his phone up so they can see the screen.
“I can flash the lights really dramatic when someone messes up.”
“Do it when Aiden messes up,” Tyler says.
“You wound me,” Aiden says, flopping back dramatically on the hood of the bus.
Taylor hops up onto the bumper beside Ashlyn, their shoulders almost touching. From here, Ashlyn can see a faintly chipped polish on Taylor’s nails. It’s a stupid detail to focus on, but her brain latches onto it anyway.
“If you ever hate this,” Taylor says quietly, voice for Ashlyn’s ears only, “you can tell us. This doesn’t have to be forever.”
Ashlyn glances at her. Taylor’s looking straight ahead at the buses, not pushing, not prying. Just… there.
“I know,” Ashlyn says. And she does, on some level. These people somehow made her weird bus-related nightmares every night bearable. They’re not going to shove her onto a stage and abandon her.
Still, the idea of standing in front with a guitar strapped on and a mic in her face makes her pulse race.
“I’m still terrified,” she admits.
Taylor’s mouth curves. “Cool,” she says. “Me too.”
The rest of the night goes by the way most of them do now—slow and strange and almost ordinary in its own wrong way.
They climb bus roofs and sit with their feet dangling over the sides, talk about school and which teachers are secretly robots. Aiden insists Coach is definitely at least 30% cyborg. Logan argues about the science of that. Tyler pretends he’s too cool to laugh.
They wander the lot, checking the same corners out of habit more than fear. The phantoms keep their distance, flickering along the wall like static. Nobody screams. Nobody runs. The graveyard is just… their weird hangout spot.
“And here we see the humble beginnings of The Phantoms,” Aiden narrates at one point, balancing on a seat inside one of the buses and using a broken broom handle as a fake mic stand. “Little do they know, their future is filled with sold-out shows, stadium tours, and deeply questionable merchandise.”
“You’re going to fall,” Tyler says.
Aiden immediately slips on a loose backpack strap, pinwheels, and barely catches himself on the pole. He turns the near fall into a dramatic spin and bow.
“Thank you, thank you, we’ll be here every night,” he says.
“We don’t really have a choice,” Logan mutters, but he’s smiling.
Later, Logan and Ben end up sitting on the hood of one of the buses, glowing phones between them. Logan speaks quietly while Ben signs; every now and then, Ben taps something into his phone and plays the text-to-speech back—snatches of commentary about color temperatures and dimmers and “We should get a fog machine.”
Ashlyn walks a slow loop with them, listening.
“You really wanna run sound?” she asks Logan.
He nods, cheeks a little pink. “I like… control,” he admits. “Not in a weird way. Just… there are sliders and knobs and inputs, and when you change something, it actually responds. It makes sense.” He shrugs. “And if I’m back there, you don’t have to worry about… someone you don’t know messing with your guys’ instruments.”
Ashlyn hadn’t thought that far ahead, but the idea of some stranger at a board poking at her sound makes her chest tighten. Knowing it would be Logan instead… calms her nerves.
“Thanks,” she says. “That… makes me feel better.”
Ben signs something quick and sharp, hands animated. Logan huffs a laugh.
“He says,” Logan translates, “‘and I will blind anyone who boos.’”
Ben grins when she looks at him, the expression small but bright.
“Intense,” Ashlyn says.
Ben’s shoulders shake again in silent laughter.
Across the lot, Tyler’s pacing along the fence line, kicking pebbles. Aiden trails after him, talking with his hands as much as his mouth. Ashlyn catches bits and pieces—“your dad’s guitar,” “you’re already good, dude,” “you don’t have to pretend you don’t want this”—before they drift out of earshot.
She doesn’t pry. But she notices the way Tyler’s fingers keep flexing, like they’re already itching to wrap around strings that aren’t there yet.
When they finally shift back, it’s almost anticlimactic.
One moment she’s under the dark, blood-red sky; the next she’s staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on her bedroom ceiling. Her phone buzzes on the nightstand.
She fumbles it open.
Aiden: kk, BAND UPDATES
Aiden: saturday 2pm at my garage
Aiden: bring your instruments
Taylor: should i bring snacks or do you already have some?
Aiden: i have drumsticks!!!
Taylor: im going to block you.
Logan: Do we need to bring anything to set up?
Aiden: bring your amps and cables!!!
Aiden: DONT FORGET.
Ben: i can bring extension cords.
Tyler: thats how we all die, tripping on extension cords, thanks aiden.
Ashlyn snorts quietly.
Her fingers hover, then start typing.
Ashlyn: We should start with a few easy covers.
Ashlyn: Just to see how we play together.
Aiden responds instantly.
Aiden: SHE’S THINKING ABOUT ARRANGEMENTS!!! 😭
Aiden: IM SO HAPPY!!!
Taylor: send song ideas tomorrow?
Logan: please nothing with like 16 time signature changes.
Tyler: why do i feel personally attacked
A new message pops up.
Aiden: ash
She hesitates.
Aiden: ur gonna be great
Her chest squeezes.
Ashlyn: you’re very annoying.
Aiden: and yet
Aiden: u still said yes :]
She lets the phone fall back onto her pillow and stares at her ceiling.
Her mind keeps jumping ahead, whether she wants it to or not.
Aiden’s garage, crammed with old boxes pushed to the walls. The scuffed concrete. A drum kit with chipped paint. Taylor’s bass strapped over her shoulder. Tyler plugging his dad’s old guitar into an amp, fingers testing out familiar riffs. Cables looping everywhere like vines. Logan hunched over a laptop and a mess of wires. Ben hovering by a lamp in the corner, ready to hit the switch dramatically.
And her, somewhere in the middle, guitar strap pulling at her shoulder, mic in her face.
It still scares her.
It still scares her. And she hates that it also—God—excites her. She’s not thinking about that.
Another notification pops up.
Tyler: dont let aiden steamroll you btw
Tyler: if you hate anything make sure to tell us
She stares at that for a second.
Ashlyn: Are you actually being nice to me, or did your phone get possessed?
Tyler: shut up carrot top
Tyler: i just dont want to spend my saturday on The Aiden show ft the rest of us
Ashlyn: Noted.
Tyler: good
Tyler: this is still a bad idea btw
There it is.
Ashlyn: Yeah.
Ashlyn: But maybe a good bad idea?
There’s a longer pause before he replies.
Tyler: dont make me agree with you
She smiles, small and private.
The clock on her nightstand says 12:16 AM. Her body is buzzing with the leftover weirdness of the shift.
Underneath it all, that stubborn line of excitement stays.
She tucks her phone under her pillow, closes her eyes, and finally, slowly, lets sleep drag her down.
Right before she slips under, she thinks she can hear it again—imagined, remembered, or both—Aiden’s spoons on the cereal bowl, clacking out some messy rhythm.
Keeping time for a song that doesn’t exist yet.
Across town, Tyler lies on his back in his own bed, scowling at the cracks in his ceiling like they personally offended him.
His guitar case leans in the corner, the old sticker his dad slapped on it years ago half peeled off. Tyler’s eyes keep drifting to it and away again, like they’re magnetized.
His phone buzzes once more.
Aiden: TY!!!
Aiden: YOUR GONNA BE GREAT!!!
Tyler snorts.
Tyler: go to sleep psycho
Tyler: and stop hyping it up
Tyler: its just practice
He hesitates, then adds:
Tyler: dont tell anyone i said this
Tyler: if you did id deny it anyway
Tyler: but dont screw this up w ash
Tyler: she really cares
Aiden’s reply is slower this time.
Aiden: yeah dude
Aiden: i know
Tyler tosses the phone onto his nightstand and drags an arm over his face.
“This is a terrible idea,” he tells the empty room
.
He can still feel the calluses on his fingers itching for strings. He can still see Ashlyn’s face when she said “aye,” that mix of fear and something else. He can still hear Taylor’s laugh in the graveyard.
He’s not going to admit it out loud, but part of him wants Saturday to get here faster.
He rolls onto his side, facing the guitar case.
“Just practice,” he mutters again.
He doesn’t fully believe himself.
But as sleep finally starts to pull him under, he finds himself counting down—not just to the next night in the graveyard, but to a garage full of noise and friends and maybe, for once, a choice that belongs completely to them.