Rising Shards

As Oka and I did our best to not get immediately handsy with each other, both of us very much enjoying how the other looked in a prom dress, we tried to focus on finding Lillia, Kalei, Marmalade, and whoever else from our friend group that wanted to join us. Lillia was apparently arriving by train, taking the route to the big city and back. Having a big entrance didn’t seem like her thing, so I figured she had another reason for doing so.

We didn’t see Kalei and Marmalade around, so we went to the train station on campus. It was more than a bit silly to get rides to the parking lot right by the new dome built for the dance just to walk across campus away from it, but we were both in such an electric mood that it didn’t register to us.

In the parking lot by the train station, a beat up van had pulled up, with a few familiar faces by it, and a couple I didn’t know.

”Remind me why we’re parked here?” Anastasia said.

”The lot by the dome is full,” Nikki said. ”It’s all good, though, they have all the speakers and junk set up, we just gotta carry the instruments.”

”Remind me why we didn’t just drop them off back there?” Ana asked.

”Part of the fun of rock is stuff like this, Ana, come on,” Nikki said.

Oka gently grabbed my arm. Maybe it would’ve been best to ignore my wayward sister who hated me while she was trying to figure out band issues, said issues probably stemming from being in a band with her ex-girlfriend. But I felt a weird sense that I shouldn’t ignore her.

”You sure?” Oka asked, realizing I was gonna at least say hi by my body language.

”Maybe I want to tease her a little,” I said. ”If she starts shouting, you can pull me away.”

”Or I’ll make sure she doesn’t shout at you,” Oka suggested, somewhat ominously, but in a way that made me feel protected. Like she was my protective knight, and having my knight by my side made it a bit easier to approach Anastasia. She had a metal band shirt on, along with black jeans with tears in them, lots of wristbands, and a choker. I knew she was into rock but I’d never really seen her in clothes like that. As Nikki crawled into the back of the van, I waved to Ana.

”Hey Ana, you’re looking...’rocking,’ I’d say,” I said, purposefully sounding way dorkier than usual to amuse myself. ”Get it? Like, rocking as in good and also like a rock star?”

Ana turned up slowly, like I’d just plucked all the strings out of her bass and replaced them with cheese.

”Who...gave you permission to speak to me?” Ana said.

”I did,” I said.

”And if you have a problem with that, you can deal with me,” Oka said, cheerfully but a hint of venom in her tone.

Ana took a deep breath, glancing as Nikki returned with a box of wires and other junk. My sister got a cart out from the van, a flatbed thing that looked like its wheels struggled to turn. Setting stuff down seemed to...I don’t wanna say make her more relaxed, because she was clearly still displeased by my presence. But she hadn’t started shouting yet.

”Hey, this’ll be the first time I’ve been to one of your concerts.” I said. I was genuinely interested in seeing her play. Sometimes Stella’s live performances had been plays I didn’t care at all about, but even then it was nice seeing her do what she loved. So I figured even if I didn’t like Anastasia’s music, it’d still be nice to see that Faleur sister creative passion. Well, she wasn’t really a Faleur, her last name was Kathron, but she was my sister, so.

”Or maybe it won’t, you can just skip my concert and never hear me or see me play,” Anastasia said. ”Just stay outside until we’re done.”

”Aw, come on, we gotta have everyone we can get cheering for us,” Nikki said. She looked at Ana and back to me. ”Ah, no way, wait, wait, wait.”

”What?” Anastasia said.

”Is this Zeta your sister?” Nikki asked.

Anastasia’s brow furrowed more than I thought was possible. ”I...what do you...?”

”When you were talking about the sister you had trouble with, I didn’t know you meant this Zeta, oh my god,” Nikki said.

”Wh-what...?” Anastasia said.

Oka and I were stunned silent. Then Nikki snorted and patted Ana’s shoulder.

”Dude, I’m kidding, come on,” Nikki said. ”You think I’m that stupid?”

”I...no...I just...” Ana said.

”C’mon, let’s get the stuff over,” Nikki said. She kept laughing as they packed up.

I watched as Ana went along with this, with some of the other band members coming by and Nikki telling them her ”joke.” Anastasia forced a laugh, not really tolerating or acknowleding my presence. I tried to put my finger on what was strange about this, and it didn’t hit me until they were out of sight, Ana pushing the rickety cart towards the dome.

Even if the joke Nikki made was literally about me and my sister trying to hate on me, I suddenly felt very sorry for Anastasia. There was something really desperate about her need to connect with Nikki, something that clearly wasn’t happening now and maybe never had previously. It didn’t seem like she got along all that well with her bandmates either.

Even if Nikki was technically on my side here, the way the two talked had me thinking Anastasia was better off without her, and that Kalei had dodged a bullet if that was the kind of romantic partner Nikki would be.

”Well, she didn’t yell at least,” I said. ”That was kind of sad, though, wasn’t it?”

”It was,” Oka said. ”But with the way she’s treated you, I’m having a hard time finding any sympathy.”

It clearly took a lot for Oka to not go off on Ana there, so we paced around the station a bit to blow off steam. It didn’t ruin the energy of the day, though, I wasn’t sure anything could.