𝑾𝑨𝑳𝑲𝑰𝑵𝑮 𝑻𝑹𝑨𝑮𝑬𝑫𝒀━━𝒆𝒅𝒅𝒊𝒆 𝒎.

𝒗. 𝒈𝒊𝒓𝒍𝒔 𝒅𝒐𝒏'𝒕 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒚 𝒈𝒖𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒓

( walking tragedy ! )
chapter five, girls don't play guitar
━━━━

━━ara stepped over familiar sticks and piles of leaves as she made her way back to the school, wishing her feet would've been cooperating a bit more. when she had first started walking away from the other high schoolers, she thought eddie had lied to her. you know, because getting lost in the woods as the sun is setting isn't scary or terrifying at all. turns out trusting him wasn't a mistake━━eddie told her the right way to go, which was very unexpected of him to be completely honest. but then again, it was also unexpected for her to trust him.

she scraped her shoe on the side of a rock, cringing when she noticed a fresh black smear on the side. her mother would not like that. she could already imagine what she would say: "arabella renee! how could you be so careless? do you have any idea how much those cost? i thought you knew better."

her mother's face flashed through her head and she punched a tree trunk, as if it were her. at least she wouldn't have to see her until later that evening.

so of course she didn't start walking home, she never did until it was completely necessary. as far as her parents knew, she was at nancy wheeler's house studying. and she hadn't talked to nancy since the seventh grade.

she made her way out of the woods (finally), and after crossing the field, made her way around the back of the building. she remembered the only set of doors that remained unlocked after school━━as she and her cheer team had used them to get to the bathrooms after practices for all sorts of devious reasons.

ara slowly pressed her shoulder to the side of the glass and pushed it open, praying that it wouldn't make a sound. the cold left her body as the heat from the inside of the building hit her face, and she could once again smell the familiar scent of cleaning supplies. seems like the janitor had started work early.

━━━━

"i thought girls didn't play guitar?" a group of boys walked through the heavy metal doors, carrying all sorts of boards and game pieces.

"you wanna say that again, asshat?" ara walked up to the edge of the stage, staring the boy down. her band had planned a practice at the school that night, due to the fact that the hideout had been closed for some unknown reason. ara had been in charge of securing a location for them to play, and it had taken her all day to find a suitable area.

"what are you even doing here?"

"i could ask you the same thing." eddie and ara stared each other down until jasper fake coughed, ruining the uncomfortable silence for the rest of them.

"so what's going on?" he put his microphone back onto the stand and hopped off the stage, walking up to eddie's group. char followed him not too long after, and sparky stood up from behind his drum set, not caring to put down his drumsticks. he glanced at ara as he passed her with a confused look and twirled the drumsticks in the air. but ara didn't move, holding her ground on the stage.

"we have business to attend to. right here right now." eddie stepped in front of jasper, blocking the way to his friends.

"actually, 10 minutes ago." the boy next to him in the red plaid jacket pointed to the clock on the far right of the wall.

"so you're meaning to tell me that we both have certain things to do all in the same place at the same time." jas crossed his arms, obviously annoyed with them.

"how convenient!" charlotte rolled her eyes and looked up at ara. the rest of her band did the same, waiting for her input on the situation.

she shook her head, "we're not leaving."