Nevermind [90s fic]

Chapter 12: Sinking Boats

[Rapunzel by Drapht plays on Vinyl]

"This isn't Punk."

"I know."

"I thought we were going to listen to Punk Rock? You know, since you had a point to prove as to why most of it doesn't suck..."

"Stop moving. This is the last time I tell you, Cabello."

"Sorry. Why aren't we listening to Punk?"

"Because I'm switching it up. I do listen to different types of music, y'know, and they're all good. What's the matter, you don't dig it?"

"Oh I love it! It's so cool, I could play it over and over. I was just—"

"Oye—"

"Sorry! I have a hard time staying still for long, I'm so sorry. But yeah, I'm just surprised. I was thinking maybe you've given up on your mission to sway me."

Lauren stepped away from her canvas with her tongue poking out her lips, her eyes darting between her graphite drawing of Karla and the girl herself posing and holding up two of Lauren's most prized Punk/Grunge records. She hummed and squinted, the corners of her lips raising in a faux smile. "I don't know. I don't think I'm satisfied with it."

"Oh no, not this again. This is your third and final draft, you're not scrapping another drawing and I'm not standing around as unmoving as a tree for a minute longer," Karla carefully dropped the records and skipped across the creaky floorboards to join Lauren seven feet away, at the center of the barn.

"I kinda don't wanna show you though. It sucks. And I don't want you to look at yourself and think it sucks, too. It'd be disrespectful to you," Lauren shied away, hugging the canvas to her chest.

"Show me or else I'm changing my mind and I'm not giving you my last fruit roll up like I promised. I won't judge it if it's bad."

"No."

"Are you serious?"

"Let's just forget it. Your drawing of me is so much better, maybe it's best you look in the mirror and draw yourself."

"No, we both agreed to draw each other and stick to whatever we come up with. It's not supposed to look perfect or spot on, it's supposed to look exactly like what you see me as. I'll take any other version of myself, especially if you're the one who came up with it, thank you very much. Now give it," Karla held out her palm and smacked the tips of her fingers against it. She convinced Lauren when she bowed her head and raised her eyebrows as a warning.

"Fine. Take the stupid drawing, do whatever you want with it," Lauren grumbled and got away from her like she had just set off a three second bomb. She threw herself onto the blanket Karla set up and dug into the brown bag of whatever snacks was left, discarding the many wrappers of eaten cosmic brownies, butter crunch cookies and sour patch kids.

Karla's smile grew impossibly large, shrinking her eyes as she admired the drawing of herself that happened to be entirely different from what she expected. Instead of copying and pasting what Lauren saw in the barn, she had a cartoon version of Karla standing triumphant over a tall hill of music records, holding the albums 'Smash' by The Offspring and "Nevermind" by Nirvana, a halo overhead, and her face complete with a sultry stare rather than the real life cheesy smile she wore.

"What's the meaning of this? Why this?"

Lauren shrugged, her back turned to Karla. "Whatever meaning you wanna attach to it. Explanation kills the art."

"In this case, an explanation is the point of the whole thing."

"I stand by what I said. It's pretty lame though, right?"