Dead!

Chapter 20

Chapter 20

Maya and Grandma led me to my room, or what would be my room once it was decorated. "We'll have to repaint it and add some furniture, but otherwise, it's not too shabby," Grandma observed.

"How long will it take to get that done?" I asked.

"If we start tomorrow, then maybe a week or two," Grandma said. "Until then, you can sleep in Maya's room."

"Ew," I said. "No. That's not happening. Can I sleep on the couch?"

"If you'd like," Grandma said.

"Great," I said. "I'm doing that until my room is finished."

"Can I leave?" Maya asked. "I need to finish up the latest chapter of Forbidden Love. Frank turns into a vampire in this chapter!"

"Who's Frank again?" I asked.

Maya facepalmed. "Frank Iero. In real life, he's the rhythm guitarist of My Chemical Romance and Gerard Way's boyfriend..."

"Are they really dating in real life?" I asked.

"Of course they are!" Maya exclaimed. "They're just being overly secretive about it. In my fanfic, Frank is an abused, depressed young man who accidentally spills his coffee on Gerard Way and then becomes his boyfriend."

"Why are you so obsessed with all of these emo bands?" I asked. "I swear that you care more about bands than anything else."

"So?" Maya said. "Emo is amazing."

"And isn't shipping them a little weird?" I said.

"No!" Maya shouted. "It's perfectly normal. Besides, Frerard is real. They're just in denial."

"Girls, can you stop arguing?" Grandma said. "Let's just get along."

"Mrs. Livingston, do you ship Frerard?" Maya asked.

"What's this Farerd?" Grandma asked.

"Frerard," Maya corrected her. "For the love of the Holy Emo Trinity, is everyone in your family this ignorant, Ivy?" She turned to Grandma and said, "Frerard is the ship name for Frank Iero and Gerard Way. It's my OTP."

Grandma just shook her head and walked away while mumbling something about how "youth culture these days is just so confusing." I turned to Maya and said, "So what have you been up to since you got into Heaven?"

"Not much," Maya said. "I've just been relaxing, listening to music, and occasionally hanging out with Jack, Henri, and Raj. I wasn't friends with Raj before this happened, but he's actually really cool. He likes Twenty One Pilots too!"

"Oh yeah, Twenty One Pilots is cool," I said. "Stressed Out is a good song."

"You only like Stressed Out?!" Maya exclaimed. "YOU FAKE FAN! Do you even know what Regional At Best is?!?"

"No," I said. "What's that?"

Maya rolled her eyes. "It's the album that they released right before Vessel. It's pretty much impossible to get legally. How dare you call yourself a Twenty One Pilots fan if you don't know that?"

"I didn't call myself a Twenty One Pilots fan," I said. "I just said that I liked Stressed Out."

"GO LISTEN TO THEIR OTHER STUFF!" Maya screamed. "Stressed Out is so overrated. Try The Judge or Forest or Addict With A Pen or...something. Just anything that's not Stressed Out!"

"Can you please stop criticizing my music taste?" I asked.

"Only if you stop having such stupid taste in music," Maya said.

"My music taste is fine!" I exclaimed. "You're the one with bad taste! You only listen to obnoxious loud music with overly angsty lyrics by tattooed abominations from ten years ago!"

"And I'm proud of that!" Maya shouted. "You just don't understand what it's like to listen to real music that can connect with your emotions."

"Yes I do!" I said. "Stop trying to change my music taste, Maya."

"There are plenty of things that I'd like to change about you," Maya said. "Like maybe you could try being nice to people for once!"

"The Celestial Bureaucracy put me in Heaven," I said. "There's nothing that you can do about that now."

"Sure there is," Maya said. "I heard about some guy who was sent to Heaven during the Civil War, and then they found out that he owned slaves in life. They ended up taking him out of Heaven and putting him in Hell."

"Well, this isn't the Civil War and I don't own slaves," I pointed out. "I won't get reassigned."

"Maybe they weren't paying attention to how annoying you were in life," Maya said. "Actually, you're still kind of irritating now."

Maybe Maya had a point. I was a lot more agreeable around adults. I just found it easier to interact with them. "I might be better if you would shut up sometimes," I said.

"Leave me alone!" Maya shouted. She ran into her room, which I imagined was painted black and covered in posters of various emo bands, and slammed the door. I shrugged and went downstairs. Maybe I shouldn't have harassed Maya so much, but she was annoying. Why did she have to live with Grandma, of all people? Couldn't she have gone to live with someone else, or at least live at Hot Topic or something? She'd probably enjoy that more anyways.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I took it out and saw that I had gotten a message in the Angel Wings Messenger. I clicked on the app and read the message.

strange_quark: Hey Ivy. This is Jack. I know that we were talking about going to a bookstore back in the waiting room. If you're still willing to do that, there's a bookstore on the other side of town. We can go tomorrow if you'd like. Let me know!

P.S. Did you know that Isaac Asimov is the only author to have published a book in nine out of the ten Dewey library categories?

I rolled my eyes. Jack and Chloe were the only two people I knew that bothered to write in grammatically correct paragraphs while texting. Getting out of the house did sound like a nice idea though, even if going to a bookstore wasn't the ideal place to go. Besides, I desperately needed friends in Heaven, so I wrote a reply to Jack.

MochaKitty5: Sure why not? See u 2morrow!

As I flopped down onto the couch, I actually started to look forward to the next day. After all, anything would be better than being stuck with Maya.