No Strings Attached

Chapter 7: The Present

"I said NO, Richie!" Becca was storming off through the garden down the side of the house with her brother short on her heels. Luckily they were now out of ear and view shot of the band room.

"Becks, come on! At least explain to me why?" Ricky caught up to her and grapped her shoulder to stop her and spin her around to face him.

"Just no, okay? No no no!" Becca spun around to face her brother. She was flushed and sweaty, strands of dirty blonde hair sticking to her face and neck. She shoved her hands into her ripped jeans' pockets and tried to avoid eye contact with him.

Richie sighed in frustration and set his hands on his hips, staring hard at his little sister. "She's by far the best we've seen. Look at how well that jam session just went and we hadn't even practised with her beforehand. How can you just say no?"

"Do you even know who that is Richie?" Becca ground the question through her teeth. "That's Freen."

Richie searched his brain for a second to place the name and the face, then he vaguely remembered. "Oh, your best friend from school? Wow, she's grown up, hasn't she?" He smiled slightly, taken with Freen's beauty just like everyone else. "So what's the problem? You two used to be inseparable."

"Yeah, used to. Until fucking Scott McAllister came around. It broke our friendship, irreparably." Becca sighed and kicked the dirt with the tip of her shoe as she looked downn

"Jesus Beck, this was at school. You've been out of school for how many years now?" He flung his hand in the direction of the garage where they couldn't observe Heng already trying his luck with Freen.

"Yeah and we haven't been friends since halfway through sophomore year because of that douche." Becky spat into the dust just to show her disdain.

"Why? Because of some boy? Oh Becca grow up and grow some balls. She's staying." Richie made the final decision and started walking back to the garage, leaving Becca behind to sulk alone. Eventually, after gathering herself and hearing the guys and Freen jamming with their instruments, she slowly walked up to the garage and joined the practice.

"Okay, let's get Freen used to our style of play. We can do some covers." Becca spoke more to Richie and Heng than she did to Freen, whom she barely glanced at. "Okay, 'All my life', Foo Fighters. Let's go. Freen started the song, leading Becca into her vocals, and later they reached a crescendo of all the instruments meshing together for the energetic chorus. Both Heng and Freen gave backup vocals to build up a stronger background sound for Becca to blast her unique vocal skills. It sounded good. No, it sounded magnificent. Even better than when Seng was their guitarist and even Becca couldn't deny that.

Once they were done with their set of several covers and were pumped full of adrenaline and endorphins, they started packing their instruments away and went to chill on the seats and couch strewn around the room while Heng passed each person a beer for a job well done. "To Freen! Thank god we found you!" He toasted and Richie raised his bottle with the two of them. It was only Becca that didn't lift her bottle and went straight to sipping from it, doing her best to avoid looking at Freen.

Becca downed her bottle halfway in a couple of sips and then announced she had to go to the bathroom and exited. Inside she leaned against the shut door and sighed deeply, then went to the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. She looked a mess. Sweaty and grimy and red in the face. Her hair was all over and needed to be tamed. She considered taking a relaxing shower, but before she could, there was a knock on the door. Figuring it was Richie, she ripped the door open with a loud "What?!"

On the other side stood a wide-eyed Freen, her hand still lifted to where she was knocking. "I...uhh...I'm sorry. I was looking for the bathroom." Becca scowled and pushed past her, "Well you've found it."She growled and walked off, leaving Freen to stare back at her sadly.

Freen knew why Becca didn't want anything to do with her. She had neglected her friendship with Becca when Scott came onto the scene, though she never meant for their friendship to break completely. She still wanted to integrate Becca into her new circle, but Becca had no interest. She had always been a loner and preferred one or two close friends rather than a bigger group of jocks and popular kids. Becca had always been too much of an oddball for that.

But Freen wasn't that person anymore. In fact she broke up with Scott right after prom as he tried to get her to sleep with him when she wasn't ready. The idiot even got them a hotel room, full of expectations, and Freen assured him that she wasn't that kind of girl. After school she went to go study music and her schedule left very little time for freedom. She had not had another relationship again and focused on her studies and getting into the orchestra of her dreams. Becca had been the best friend she had ever had and she was desperate to make amends, though she realised that was not going to be an easy task from her reaction today.

The next day didn't go much better as Becca continued to freeze Freen out during practice, even though their jam session went as well as it could go. Their rendition of Nirvana's 'Smells like teen spirit" almost sounded better than the original and Becca really got the opportunity to show the range and strength of her voice, while the others showed their mastery over their instruments. After another two covers that got them loose and in the mood to perform, it was time to get started on a new original song.

"Okay, we have an informal Bandslam this coming weekend at The State and we have to showcase one cover and one original. The cover should be easy and we can choose one later, but first... Becks?" Richie stood around with his beer, then pointed the bottle at Becca. "What have you got for us...?"

Becca was mostly in charge of writing the new songs as she was the most poetical, had to sing them, and knew how they should sound from the get go. "Yeah I'm busy with something. What I want from you guys is a slow, but full harmonic metal sound. I want you to think about 'Nothing else matters' by Matallica." She gave each member a sheet of music with words on it and gave them a moment to fine tune their instruments and get a feel for the sound they had to produce.

Becca started singing and let the others follow with their instruments as the song progressed.

The memory of you
Still burns inside
My head, My heart,
Yet we're so far apart.
So far from friends
So far from the start.

And though the end
Has come and gone
It feels like nothing
Has been said or done
To bring me closer
To tying loose ends
And to cutting these strings
Of confusing things
Called emotions.

Nostalgia,
In everything I do
And everything you don't say.
Ever the same
Things do stay.

And though the end
Has come and gone
It feels like nothing
Has been said or done
To bring me closer
To tying loose ends
And to cutting these strings
Of confusing things
Called emotions.

And when I sleep
And when I dream
What we say
And what we mean
Converge and play
In perfect harmony
Reminiscent of a song
With a tragic melody...

And though the end
Has come and gone
It feels like nothing
Has been said or done
To bring me closer
To tying loose ends
And to cutting these strings
Of confusing things
Called emotions.

Of 'what-ifs'...
Oh what...
Does it matter now...?

What the rest didn't know was that Becca had a very specific muse when she wrote this song the previous night, working on it till the early hours of the morning. The song was aimed at Freen, and as they played a progressed through the song, Freen's heart was thrumming hard against her ribs and the hollow feeling in her stomach kept increasing. She was by far not stupid or clueless, and the song cut like a knife.

They played it a few times through to get a good feel for it before taking a rest, sitting around as usual with a beer or two. Freen had to excuse herself as emotions started overwhelming her, moving off to the side of the garden to go rest on the swing hanging from a tall, thick tree branch. Becca didn't bother following her. She wanted her to feel the words deep in her soul. She wanted Freen to hurt. She wanted Freen to hurt the way she had been hurt...