Rose's Journal

Chapter 8: The Autopsy

It was the next day, and the boys were heading over to go see Flynn. They planned on heading over together, so they were waiting for Willie at the studio.

"Hey guys, sorry, Willie should be here by now," Alex said, looking at the clock.

"Willie's coming over?" Julie walked into the studio without a warning. The boys jumped.

"Uhhh yeah we're just... going to do some... ghost stuff," Reggie stuttered out unconvincingly. Alex hit him on the shoulder.

"Ghost stuff? C'mon guys we aren't supposed to lie to each other," Julie looked visibly annoyed.

"We're going to a ghost café. It's kinda like the ghost club, but ghosts go and play music. It's actually really cool, but you wouldn't enjoy it much because.. well.. you wouldn't be able to see all of the acts," Luke came up with on the spot. He hated lying to Julie, but this was for her, so it felt worth it.

"Oh, so it's a double date?" Julie joked.

Luke laughed, "No." Reggie mustered up a fake, uproarious laugh, trying to cover up his internal panic at the comment.

"You can't hang out with me, Flynn's busy, what the hell am I going to do today?" Julie plopped on the couch.

"You could go see Dirty Candi. I saw a flyer at your school that they were performing in that little club off Sunset later," Alex suggested, attempting to gain some information of his own.

"Me? Go out of my way to see Carrie perform? Definitely not," Julie rolled her eyes at the thought of it.

"Why not? I mean she went to see us perform at the Orpheum, and even clapped. You should return the favor," Reggie pried, expecting Alex to hit him to get him to shut up, as he always does. However, this time, Alex was happy with Reggie's foot-in-mouth comment. He wanted to know.

"Well, I didn't break it off over text then start dating someone else that she used to like the very next day," Julie began to look visibly upset. "But it was a while ago, so I should just get over it, and it was only for a few months, so I really shouldn't get too mad."

Alex was surprised. Julie and Carrie? He knew Julie was bi. But she dated Carrie? It just seemed like they wouldn't be a good fit. So that's why Flynn said she couldn't date Carrie Alex thought to himself. Reggie came to hide behind Alex, worried that Julie may be upset with him. They knew not to mess with Julie when she got upset.

"Anyways, if I have nothing better to do, I should probably go do homework," Julie said as she got up from the couch, "I'll see you guys later. Have fun at the café," Julie's mood suddenly turning from irritated to happy. Julie left them.

"Ghost café? Where'd you come up with an idea like that?" Alex asked, both annoyed and intrigued.

"Well, I think that would be pretty cool for us to do after our band gets big, and we're done touring , and we need something to do whilst retired," Luke said with a big smile. "I don't know it sounds like fun."

Reggie smiled. He's such a dork Reggie thought to himself. Just the cutest, most lovable idiot. Reggie shook off that thought, realizing he probably looked like a lovesick puppy just then.

"Hey guys, I'm here," Willie said as he skated through the open doors. He stopped and picked up his skateboard. Alex circled around to stand next to him, but Willie moved sideways. Alex stood there, confused, "Are we ready to head over to Flynn's?" Willie asked the band.

"Yeah, we've been ready for a while now, where have you been? Flynn's gonna freak!" Luke said. He was developing a healthy fear of Flynn.

"Sorry, I just lost track of time. I was... busy." Willie avoided eye contact with all of the boys, including Alex. Alex wanted to ask why but feared the potential answer.

"Well, let's get moving!" Reggie proposed, trying to break the awkward tension in the room. They poofed to Flynn's house.

Flynn sat in the living room of her house. She looked up at the clock. The boys were 15 minutes late. This is what I get for depending on boys. I should have known, she thought to herself as she sat staring at her school project. Flynn was supposed to try to write lyrics for the song she and Carrie were working on, but she couldn't think of what to write. Neither her brain nor her heart was in it. So, she just sat there waiting for the boys to arrive. Suddenly, the four whiteboards appeared.

"Sorry we're late," all of them said, with a variety of facial expressions drawn on them.

"16 minutes? You guys can basically teleport, and you were 16 minutes late?" Flynn yelled. The healthy fear was fully formed now.

"Sorry it's my fault, Flynn. They waited for me, and I was running behind," Willie's whiteboard said.

"I guess that's okay," Flynn changing her tune to a more neutral one, but still slightly annoyed. She just didn't want to make things worse for Alex, seeing that they were even further apart than yesterday. "Well, now that you have all graced me with your presence, let's start searching, shall we?" Flynn smirked. The situation may be dire and a little dark, but she loved a good mystery story, and she was living one out right now.

Flynn headed over to her laptop and went into the LA General Hospital website. "It would be LA General, right?" Flynn asked.

"Well, I might've been a little too busy dying to remember, but I think so," Reggie said with a bad drawing of a laughing emoji next to it.

"Wow Julie really needs to fill you guys in on what's in and what's cringey," Flynn laughed. "Anyways, autopsy reports are public record, so we should be able to find yours."

Flynn searched Alex's name first. No results came up on the autopsy page.

"What does that mean?" said Luke to the boys.

"It means my parents didn't care enough to make sure how I died was, well, how I died." Willie broke his avoidance to hug Alex. It made Willie feel more guilty, but he knew it would make Alex feel better. Alex put his head on Willie's shoulder and was able to muster up a smile: he really needed that hug. Flynn smiled seeing Willie go back over to Alex.

Next, Flynn searched Luke's name. "One result!" Flynn said happily. Flynn opened the hyperlink to see that the report still needed to be uploaded to the online database. "Well, that's homophobic," Flynn said under her breath as she saw the link open to nothing. "Okay, third time's a charm I guess," Flynn said searching Reggie's name online.

A result popped up again. This time when she opened it, it was a different message: Information redacted by the family.

"That's odd," Flynn thought aloud, "Why would they privatize information if it there wasn't anything suspicious going on?"

"What are you trying to say, Flynn?" Luke's board said.

"I'm saying that I think we have our next lead. We're going to have to get our hands on both of the autopsy reports. We'll have to get Luke's from the hospital and find Reggie's parents to get his," Flynn said with a sense of confidence and urgency.

Reggie felt sick.