Chapter Text
It was simple for you to just go to school every day, keep your head down, and ignore everyone else. Note-taking came easy to you, and paying attention came easier. Paying attention in Literature, however, was compromised by a giant mane of turquoise curls. You sighed out a breath through your nose, glaring at the leather-clad back of the person who had taken the seat in front of you in the middle of lecture.
The teacher finished his train of thought, then stopped to look at the guy in front of you, “Leigh, you’ve been absent for four classes straight, and now you’ve arrived twenty minutes late.”
The guy shrugged, “So what?”
“See me after class,” the teacher responded, clearly not wanting to get into the argument now. But ‘Leigh’ seemed invested in wasting everyone’s time and arguing with Mr. Jefferson.
“I’d rather not,” he said.
Mr. Jefferson pinched the bridge of his nose, “You’re already breaking plenty of rules with the cigarettes, piercings, clothes, and tattoos. Don’t make this harder for yourself.”
He shrugged, and you could feel his smirk even though you couldn’t see his face, “Well....” The way his voice trailed with a lilt on the end told you that whatever he was about to say was going to cause some sort of riot within the classroom. “I don’t give a shit.”
Several students gasped, and the girl next to you looked down at the cross around her neck, holding it between two fingers. The teacher’s eyes narrowed, “Go to the office.”
“Bite me.”
“Now.”
“Fuck off.” More collective gasps.
“Mr. Avidan, report to the office or I will call the principal to get you myself.”
He leaned back, stretching his arms up, out, and then behind his head, fingers splayed out within the turquoise locks. His body language screamed the challenge he’d said before. The chair he was sitting in leaned back on two legs, and that was when Mr. Jefferson snapped.
With a stomp, Jefferson went to the phone on the wall, tapping in three numbers and letting it ring. After the assumed pick-up, he spoke, “Miss Rosenblum? Leigh Avidan is causing a disturbance in class....Yes, that would be good...thank you. I appreciate it.” He turned to Leigh now, “Mrs. Thornton is coming.” Another pause. “Now class, back to Jack Kerouac.”
You couldn’t help but be intrigued by Leigh. After all, people like him never happened at Bridgewater. It was shocking enough for someone who wasn’t religious to go to Bridgewater, let alone someone who had bright blue hair, piercings, tattoos, and didn’t abide by the uniform. You looked around at all the perfectly ironed button downs and blouses, the pleated skirts and khakis, and then at him. Him in his leather jacket and dark washed jeans, worn combat boots and a so-faded-you-couldn’t-read shirt. He was out of place, and that intrigued you.
It intrigued you for all the wrong reasons.
~*~
At lunch, you saw him sitting with his group of other kids who didn’t abide by Bridgewater’s rules. There were three you didn’t recognize, but two you did other than Leigh. One was a female, with dark as pitch hair, save for one streak of blonde right down the side. She had an eyebrow piercing and eyeliner that could’ve killed someone. It was evident she was practiced in that art, lips dark burgundy and eyes a beautiful green. The other was another male, shorter than Leigh, with brown hair and the same blonde streak in it. He had a single lip ring to the right side of his face, and currently was scratching his stubble and listening to the female speak, his brown eyes focused on her.
And then there was Leigh. Back to you, watching the other two. His turquoise mane partially obstructed the other male’s face, but you leaned to get a better angle, eating your sandwich in peace. Then, after deciding you had stared at him longer than was probably socially acceptable, you went back to staring at your sandwich and eating it slowly. You crumpled the bag the sandwich was in among your other trash, and you had started to stand when a figure stood in front of you.
A voice, unfamiliar to you, with a simple greeting, “Hey.”
You spoke to the trash in your hands rather than the person in front of you as you said, “Hello.”
“What are you doing after school?” the voice asked.
“Nothing, just studying,” you said to the wrapper for a granola bar.
“Meet me by the bleachers after school, out by the lacrosse fields.” Before you could protest, the person had walked away. You could’ve sworn you saw Leigh sitting down as you looked up to catch whoever had been talking to you, but then you decided it was just your imagination.
Part of you knew you shouldn’t go to the bleachers. After all, rape culture was still a thing, and there were a few incidents at your school like that anyways. Especially because the person you thought had been asking you to meet him there was Leigh.
But the other part of you wanted to go there. Just because it was Leigh and you felt like you could trust him. It was wrong to feel that way, you knew that. Leigh was trouble with a capital T, and you knew that. And yet, you still couldn’t stop yourself from texting your mother under the lunch table, telling her you’d be late coming home and that you’d get a ride from a friend. She asked where you were going.
You lied to her.
~*~
Classes went by, and the intrigue pooling in your stomach only increased as you wondered who it was, why they asked you. The final bell rang and you listened to the announcements, marking down that there was a club meeting tomorrow during homeroom. Then, after hurrying to your locker and getting your books, you locked the lock and went out to the fields. It was about ten minutes before you made it to the bleachers, getting distracted by friends and the general distance of walking that it took.
The first thing you saw was a mass of blue hair, and your heart lept in your chest.
A turn, and you saw his face for the first time. Brown eyes, stubble trailing his cheeks and chin, pretty pink lips, and a silvery septum piercing glittering in his nose. You noted the undercut in his hair, roots growing in a dark brown where the blue dye had been missed.
He smiled, all teeth, and your heart lept twice, “Didn’t think you’d come, baby girl.”
You found yourself with an air of confidence, “Why not?”
A smirk came onto his lips as his smile fell, “I didn’t think I was your kind of crowd, is all. I mean, what’s a girl like you,” he gestured to your pretty pink blouse and navy skirt, “hanging out with the punk kids for?” He gestured to his friends, the same ones you saw earlier.
You shrugged. “Maybe you guys could be my kind of crowd.”
“Oh really?” Leigh asked, eyebrow quirked.
The boy with the blonde streak laughed a little, “When’s the last time you’ve smoked?”
The word didn’t want to leave you and you thought about lying, too late, as you said, “Never.”
“Pffft. Not our kind of girl, Danny,” the female said.
Danny?
Leigh shrugged, “She could be. We’ve just gotta teach her what it’s like to be in our crowd, maybe. Give her a chance.”
You walked a little closer, and Leigh put a hand on your shoulder, “We’ll pull the punk out of you, yet, baby girl. Believe me.”
“What’s the first step?” you asked, surprising yourself even as you said it. This was wrong, wrong, wrong. Your parents would disown you for doing this.
But it was Leigh.
“First step, I want you to go home and look up a piercing you wanna get. Suzy,” he gestured to the female, “can help you with it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” you said. Why were you agreeing? Why why why? If you came home with a facial piercing, your parents would make you remove it so quickly. You decided to just ‘forget’ to, and take more time getting to know them before you did anything drastic.
Suzy spoke up now, “Hey, Arin and I wanted to get going so we could catch a movie before our show tonight.”
“Alright. I’ll see you guys later then.” Suzy and the guy with the blonde streak--Arin--walked away with waves. The other three left naturally, and then it was just you and Leigh.
You and Leigh.
He had asked you to sit down with him, and you were a respectful distance away from him on the ratty old couch they’d dragged under the bleachers. He held a cigarette loosely in his fingers, not lit, and twirled it nimbly.
“Why do you have a cigarette if you aren’t going to smoke it?”
“Because cigarettes look cool, but they aren’t cool for your voice. Suzy and Arin can smoke all they want, but I can’t. I’m the singer.”
“Is your entire punk thing just to look cool?” You had no idea where the boldness came from.
“That’s a story for another time, (y/n).”
You huffed.
“What, do you want to smoke it? Make it feel less miserable about not being smoked?” He twisted to pull a lighter from his jacket, flicked it, and lit the cigarette. Immediately the smell of it filled your nose, and you batted away the smoke.
“No, thank you.”
“Alright, alright.” He stubbed it out on the side of his boot, where you noticed several other similar marks. Leigh shoved the cigarette back in the box, and leaned back to stretch. “So, do you want to come to our show tonight?”
“What’s your band called?”
“Dudes and Dolls.”
“Sounds original. I’ll see what I can do. Where is it?”
“Riot Cafe. Y’know, off Orchard?”
“Oh, I know where that is. Time?”
“Ten tonight.”
“I’ll try to make it.”
Leigh smiled and then there was a drag of silence. Cicadas hummed in the summer air and birds pecked at the asphalt. Without warning, he shoved his phone at you. You took it, looking at a new contact screen. You warily typed in your contact information and his brown eyes twinkled. Then you handed it back, but he handed it to you again a few minutes later, this time with iTunes open.
There was the artist name on the top: Dudes and Dolls. Then their discography. What It Feels Like. Secondhand High. Backstreet Dreams. Echolocation. What If? Entrepreneurship.
You were interested. “What’s your favorite song?”
“Probably either Secondhand High or Echolocation.”
You clicked on the play button by Echolocation, and out blasted some very clearly punk music. You found yourself enjoying it more than the typical bubblegum pop.
Then Leigh started singing.
How can I let this go?
Calling out to you isn’t enough.
I should’ve, I should’ve known.
And reaching for you,
is like reaching for smoke.
I can’t find you
in the darkness of the night.
Echolocation
couldn’t lead me to you
now.
Chills ran down your spine, and you looked at him, his eyes closed and hair falling against his cheeks.
His voice startled you from the music, “I remember recording that day. Arin, Suze, and I hadn’t really decided entirely how we wanted it to sound, so I kinda made it up.” You waited for him to continue as he ran a hand through his curls. “Y’know that sort of drag on ‘echolocation’?” You nodded. “Ad-libbed.”
You found yourself filled with admiration for Leigh now. It was clear he was talented at what he did. You knew you were going to convince your parents to take you to the show, you had to hear him live, had to hear his voice again.
And you stood and said, “I should get going, but you’ll see me at the show tonight, Leigh.”
“Can’t wait, baby girl.”