My Guarded Heart

Chapter 2: True Rebels

It's the end of the day and I'm walking out the front doors when a hand grabs my wrist.

"Hey! Don't touch me you—" I say but stop my sentence midway when I turn around and see Jay standing there, my wrist in his hand. "Sorry, I didn't know it was you," I say, almost—but not entirely—embarrassed that I was going to swear at him, "but seriously, don't grab me like that or else I am going to kick your ass all the way to New York."

He holds up his hands in a surrendering gesture. "Alright, alright," he says, "don't go all karate kid on me, okay?" He says smiling his perfect smile.

I don't return it.

"I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my house to pick out a band name with us. You said you would earlier!" He exclaims. I did say I would, but I have crap-ton of homework. But I can always do it there, I think to myself.

"Alright fine," I say, out of pure defeat, "I'll come."

He smiles and pulls my wrist, leading me to his car.

"Wait!" I scream.

"What's wrong?" he asks, frowning at me.

"I can't just leave my car here!" I say pointing to my yellow bug. I love that car too much—it used to be my moms—that leaving it is impossible for me. Jay looks at my pleading face, then at my car, and sighs.

"Alright," he says, "you can take your car, but follow me. I'll text you the address just in case though." He takes out his phone and asks, "what's your number?"

I give him my number, and then I hear a ding come from my phone. A text from an unknown number—Jay's number—shows up on my phone screen with an address underneath it—Jay's address.

"I got it," I tell him.

~~~~~

We drive for about 30 mins before we arrive at Jay's house. His house is located in a suburban area, and at first glance seems smaller than the other houses around it, but warm and welcoming. I can see small buds of flowers starting to bloom in the late warm March weather as I drive and park I front of the house. Jay parks his car in the driveway.

"Your mom like's flowers?" I ask as we walk up to the house. I swear I could hear some music being played in the garage.

"Yeah, she does. She loves to garden and grow things," he says fondly. I smile a small smile; he must really love his mother. He see's my small smile and smiles back.

"What about your mother? Did she like to garden a lot?" he asks.

"Um...she did a long time ago, but not anymore," I say, trying to be vague while still answering his question.

"Why doesn't she garden anymore?" he asks, trying to look me in the eye

"Let it go, okay?" I snap at him, "It's none of your business anyway what my mom liked to do. Let's just pick a band name, okay?" I avoid his gaze and stare straight at the garage door. He doesn't reply back.

Jay opens the garage door, and there are already three other guys sitting there. One of them is holding an bass guitar, another sitting at an electric piano and the last guy a pair of drum sticks. I look around and see a lot of band posters and music equipment.

"Hey guys, this is Ray, she goes to the same school as us," says Jay, introducing me, "and Ray this is Daniel," he says pointing to the guys holding the bass guitar, "he plays bass. This is Matt, he's our pianist," he sys pointing to the guy sitting at the piano, "and this is Trevor, he plays the drums," he says pointing to the last guy holding the drum sticks.