The GEEKs

12. skeletons, stolen hats, and cowboy boots

"I used to be a competitive tree climber." Krist announces with unnecessary pride that I've only ever seen possessed by musicians. "But I quit that for the band, you know. Love Buzz is coming out in like two weeks, I need to be focused. Plus my fiancé thought it was too risky."

Where is Shelli, anyway? Not that I have anything against Krist, but he's pretty drunk right now, which is kind of funny but mostly mildly annoying. Although that's probably because I'm not drunk yet, and I really want and need to be. It's been a while and I am so ready.

"Hey, Eva! You look great!" A lanky black haired girl with her bangs covering half her face elbows her way towards me.

"You too, Aimee!" I mirror her grin eyeing her zombie clown attire.

"Oh, hey Krist." She finally notices the bassist.

"What? I don't get a 'you look great'?!"

"You always look great, I can't be bothered to say it every single time." Aimee smiles at him coyly, eliciting a chuckle from me. She has such a way of flirting with the whole world; no wonder she ended up with the most attractive member of Soundgarden.

"What is this, Tall People Anonymous?" Kat materialises next to me and glances at the three of us.

"Don't be jealous." I take a drink from her hand hoping she'll let me have it and she doesn't seem to protest when I take a sip.

"Shortie." Krist adds.

"I'm not short, I'm normal."

A loud, bark-like laugh echoes through the air and we all turn our heads to the direction from which it came to see Chris and Matt standing around a few feet away from us. I guess this explains Aimee's presence. And the laugh, I'm assuming, came from Chris, because he's giving Kat this weird look of mock sympathy and she's flipping him off with a grin before walking away somewhere. Thank you, lord, she didn't take her drink back either!

"She seems real offended by tall people, huh?" Aimee wiggles her eyebrows and does a silly little dance that suits her clown side very well.

"And why does she have to make us feel like we're the freaks?" Krist wipes an invisible tear off his cheek.

"I know, right? She's gaslighting us big time and I have to live with her."

"Gaslighting?.."

"Hey, Jeff!" Krist's voice thunders before I can give Aimee an explanation of what I meant, and for like three seconds I cling to the hope that the Jeff he just spotted is some other guy named Jeff, someone who's not an annoying jerk that I work with.

"Hey guys, how's it going?"

"So anyway," I turn back to Aimee as she says hi to none other than Jeff Ament too. "Gaslighting..."

"Hi, Eva." Jeff repeats a greeting, stressing my name, just to get on my nerves.

"Hi, Jeff. Anyway, it's um... It's a form of emotional abuse when someone tries to twist and turn the facts until you're not even sure if something's real or if something actually happened, or if you're just making shit up."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Jeff refuses to butt out of the conversation.

"She's talking about gaslighting." Krist answers while I can see Aimee inhaling with a thoughtful look on her face as she formulates a question in hear head.

"Oh, so it's like when you get upset about something totally reasonable and guys react to it as though you're making it up or being too sensitive?"