𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗰𝗲 (𝙵𝚞𝚛𝚛𝚢 𝙱𝚡𝙱)

Track 06 | 𝗪𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗚𝗼𝗼𝗱𝗯𝘆𝗲

⏭

"Mom, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you," I signed to Hayley on the front steps of my porch. Once I had gotten home, I found her standing on the sidewalk in the moonlight, her head turning each and every way, in search of my presence.

She was now standing in the front doorway of our house with her arms cross and bags under her eyes. She looked at me with both disappointment and fear. I hated to be under my mother's gaze like that. I knew that she could never be mad at me, but sometimes I just wish she would. Lash out or punish me. Her being worried and anxious over me makes me feel ten times worse.

"Just get inside." She shook her head and looked at the floor.

"Mom, I'm sorry, really," I attempted to tell her, shoving my hands into her field of vision, only for her to look away. "Aren't you proud of me? I played my first real show!"

She kept trying to cut herself off from me, but I could tell it was hard for her. She loved me and Rosie so much. She loved Dad so much. What happened tore her apart from the inside out. She's never been the same since, but we've tried our best to help her.

"I did what Dad wanted me to. He wanted me to play."

Once she had interpreted those words through my hand gestures, she looked up at me with eyes full of emotion.

"Dad wanted this for me."

"I know Dad wanted this for you." She pushed my hands away and directed my attention to her own paws. "But I want you to be safe. You have to tell me where you are at all times, okay?"

"Okay."

"Get inside."

"You're not grounding me?"

"You know I could never do that. But that doesn't mean you can take advantage of me."

"And you know I could never do that either."

"Get inside and go to sleep. You have work tomorrow."

I sighed and headed inside as my mom cleared the way. Once I was past the doorway, my mom smacked her lips and gave me a light smack on the back of my head as she closed the front door behind us.

⏭

The weekend is usually the forty-eight-hour period of freedom and relaxation for any average, everyday teenager... unless you're an 18-year-old high school senior and you have to prepare for the real world by finding a job and making money.

I've always wanted to work at a movie theater. So did Edie. I think that's the main reason we got so well acquainted with one another: our love for the cinemas. Well, that and the band, I suppose.

The two of us were standing behind the counter of the snacks and refreshments booth of the local cinema. It was a tiny, shabby, old-fashioned movie theater that existed in the middle of our town, near the mall, the club, and the laser tag arena. The tight, compact main lobby was empty and quiet, leaving only the ambient sound of the radio, playing over the areal speakers. Eden had put on an Alternative music station, connecting from her phone with Bluetooth, and now the song, 'Welcome and Goodbye' by Dream, Ivory had begun to play, filling the vast space.

Eden and I had been working all day. We occasionally rotate jobs from manning the ticket booth to cleaning up people's messes on the floor, but today we were on food duty. It consisted of loading metal tins with golden buttered popcorn kernels and listening to them explode like fireworks as they poured into the container below. We then shoveled the heaps of popcorn and dumped them into a paper bucket, handing the portions to the craving customers. I always liked this job more than the others, it was fun to dish out an array of snacks, candy, sodas, appetizers, and more to our fellow moviegoers. The only worrying thing about it was that we almost had no customers to serve all day. The films being played had little to no audiences.