Chapter 2 - Parallel Purposes

Isaac was at his locker, surrounded by three girls—no, harpies.

Alexis put on the breaks and came to an abrupt stop. Isaac had been her best friend since grade school, ever since he'd stopped her in the hallway and bent down to tie her shoe for her. It might have been chivalry, but it might have just been that Isaac was a goober, but either way, he never changed, and that was a good thing. Well, he hadn't changed until now. Alexis wasn't sure when it happened, but at some point she'd noticed something besides how kind and popular he was, something that fifteen year old Alexis could appreciate, but which ten year old Alexis couldn't. Frustratingly, a lot of other fifteen year olds had gotten the same idea, and now she was competing with a whole school of rabid boyfriend thieves. Not boyfriend, boy friend; she didn't care about that stuff, and neither did he. Not with her, anyway. Why would he? What did she have to offer? Not like those harlots surrounding him, flirting with him, bending forward in just the right way because they were early bloomers. Tacky, is what it was. They should all be knocked into a pit.

Being thusly engaged in fantasies of multiple justified homicide, Alexis didn't notice that he'd broken from the group of girls and approached.

"Are you mad about something?" he asked. "Your expression looks, um, murderous. Is that a word?"

Shaking her head to scatter the daydreams, Alexis held out the flier. "Look!" she said. "This is a physical representation of my destiny."

With his always curious green eyes and mess of dirty-blond hair, Isaac leaned forward to study the flier. "Yes, I see how it could represent the empty void that will be your future."

Confused at first, Alexis muttered in annoyance as she turned the paper around so he could see the front of it.

"This seems like just the thing for you, since you're into metal and all." His eyes lit up and she knew he was genuinely happy for her.

"Yep, and you know how I've been feeling lately."

"I told you there's no reason for that. You think anyone else in this school is a rock star or a published author?"

"Janie is."

"No, she's not."

"She publishes for the school paper."

"And how cool do you think she is?"

"Not especially," Alexis admitted. "But Matt actually does drawing commissions on that, that game. That dumb open-world building game." She was not especially interested in video games.

"Matt C.? I didn't think he had an artistic bone in his body. Wow."

"No, no, I'm talking about Matt B."

"Oh," Isaac said, looking deflated. "I'm not sure I know him."

"Well, the point is that he's making actual money on his work by selling to people online."

"Is he really good?"

"Uh, he's O.K., I guess. From what I've seen. I mean, I wouldn't pay him. Anyway, the point is that I need to do something if I ever want to be more than I am." To you, she added in her mind.

"You're enough," Isaac mumbled.

Alexis started. "What?"

"Don't you play tennis already?" he sidestepped her question.

That's not what she thought she heard him say, but she didn't call him out, mostly because she was already thinking up her next excuse for why she wanted to become a drummer instead of any of the things that were way more reasonable to try. "Yeah, but that's not the same. I'm not even that good. I'm never gonna make varsity."

"You haven't even tried to make varsity," Isaac reasoned.

Alexis wished he'd stop undermining her bullheadedness with his reason and logic. "Why try when you know you're gonna fail?"

"That's a terrible attitude. Have you even played the drums before?"

The words flitted across the distance between them and slapped her soundly in the face. Her cheeks flushed. "Well, I—Isaac! You didn't have to ask that and try and embarrass me!"

"I'm just curious!" he explained while also trying to back away from her slap assault. Luckily, most of the blows landed on his shoulder. "You're getting the flier all wrinkly, ya know!"

"It's just a dumb piece of paper!"