_______M i c h e a l Grey A n d e r s o n_____

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Micheal sat in his room and slowly plucked the strings on his acoustic guitar. Silently singing a song that had been stuck in head for days he constantly glanced at his cell phone. Realizing the time he stood up and looked around for his book bag. Noticing it next to his drawer across the room he came across a picture of his mother and father on his 7th birthday. He was dressed up as a cowboy for his costume party. Picking it up he scanned over the picture and a grin appeared across his face. He took himself out of his flooding memories and put the picture down. He grabbed his messenger bag and his guitar bag and made his way outside of his apartment.

Knocking on his friend's door he started to call out his name. "Hey! Will! Open up buddy." Running his fingers through his hair and shaking them out, he turned away from the door and saw a girl he had known for his whole life. Up until sophomore year of high school and he hadn't talked to her since. The bigger problem was that he was awful at remembering names so when he couldn't even call out her name. Slapping himself on the forehead he turned back towards the door and rang the doorbell.


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Will heard the knocking and jerked awake. He was laid in his recliner sofa. When he jerked, soda cans crashed to the floor, the aluminum of their making, clanking against one another. He shook his head a bit and tried to collect himself.

"Alright, what is it? Can't you see I was trying to lay back and get a wink or two?" he said as he stood up and shook himself off. He glanced around a bit. That musta been one helluva party. Drinks all over the place and pizza boxes everywhere. Well, whether he was a punk rocker or not, it didn't mean that anyone can just assume he drinks underage. You can be rocked and clean, nothing wrong with that at all.

He fought his way passed the scower of trash all over the place, making his way to the door. He stopped and stretched. Popping the joints back into place was a good way to loosen yourself up. He unhooked the lock to the door and opened it. "Ey, what's the big idea man? I'm a bit under my rocker from the night before and you can't let a guy live a little in his dreams. Am I not allowed to peek around a pretty girls, huh?"

Grey shifted the fraying strap of her bag self-consciously as she made her way down the hall of old appartment building, towards the stairs. She was supposed to be looking at appartments on the other side of town with one of the most prestigious realtors in the city. Instead, she had accidently made the appointment for an hour before school ended and stood the guy up. She couldn't muster up the courage to tell her father that she had screwed up the scheduling. So she had grabbed the classifieds from that morning's paper and gone out looking herself. It had seemed the perfect solution at the time, but now she was feeling a bit overwhelmed and would probably be late to band practice...

Sighing, Grey reached into her bag to make a mark by the ad in the paper, when a loud bang issued from up ahead. She looked up and noticed a thin boy with medium-length brown hair pounding on a door and yelling for someone named Will.

She knew him immediately, of course. Mike. He and Will, Evan, and Aiden had been her best friends back in middle and elementary school along with her girlfriends now. It was hard to catch any of the guys around nowadays... ever since sophmore year, they just hadn't been as close. Still, Grey smiled and made an awkward little wave, pausing in the hallway. "Mike, I feel like it's been forever," she said. She peered into the door that cracked open and was sure she recognized another face. "Hi, Will!" She suddenly felt a bit shy, remembering that she had hardly spoken to her friends in two years... still, they had been in the sandbox together. There was no need to be nervous around them... right?

Evan gave a sigh as he brushed the curtain of black curls that rained down in front of his face away. He was lying on his bed, a book laid down next to him. Another day with nothing to do... He thought to himself dolefully. The same problem: nothing to do. The book he had tried to amuse himself by reading he had already read a good dozen or so times; it just wasn't interesting anymore. Practicing his guitar no longer yielded the results it used to--he wasn't getting any better, and it wasn't any fun practicing on his own.

Pushing himself up off the bed and standing up, Evan decided to do something he rarely, if ever, did; he swept his cellphone out of his pocket, and dialled Michael Anderson's phone number into it. Maybe they could hang out or something--not like Evan had anything else to do. Rather than hearing Michael's voice, however, all he got was the beep that informed him that Michael was talking to someone on the phone. Giving another forlorn sigh, with some annoyance in it as well, he tossed aside his phone; it landed on the bed, and Evan stared at it as if doing so would make someone aware of his existence, and call him.

Kinsley Jennette Eliwood

This morning Kinsley had awoken from her parents screaming and nearly throwing punches at each other, as always she quickly did her make-up and grabbed her bag from next to her desk. While running out of the house she silently said her goodbyes to her parents and ran until she found this old apartment to calm down at.
As always she lit a cigarette and laid her back against the cool wall in the back of the building, rethinking everything that has been going on. Not long after she had inserted her earphones into her ears, there was banging and yelling coming from somewhere.

Kinsley's curiosity got the better of her when she squished her cigarette under the heel of her foot and followed the strange sounds. Right when she rounded a corner she saw the familiar brown, curly hair and smiled happily to herself, "Hey, Grey! What are you doing here?" As Kinsley walked closer she saw a male figure next to Grey and saw a familiar face in the open door, it was Mike and Will. She slightly grew tense and stood next to Grey, "Hey Mike, Will! It's been so long!" An uncomfortable smile slowly creeped on her face as she looked at everyone's faces, thinking deeply. What was Grey doing with these guys? I didn't know she still talked to them...

_______M i c h e a l Grey A n d e r s o n_____

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Micheal got a little restless until Will finally opened his door. "Hey! Sorry for waking you up, I just wanted to see if you wanted to hang today, I have nothing to do and about the girls--," He was cut off by someone calling his name. Turning he was shocked to see the girl he found so familiar across the street.

"Grey?" Her name instantly coming back to memory. "Yeah...ages..," He gave Will a confused looked and reached into his back pocket for his vibrating cell phone. Pressing the send button he answered the phone to Aiden. "Hey! Buddy, um yeah... I'm at Will's house.. and ran into Grey..--," Getting distracted from someone calling Grey he looked and to his surprise, Kinsley appeared in from of him next to Grey. "Kinsley...hey." Going back to his cell phone he included. "And Kinsley..." He patted the back of his head as he spoke to him on the phone and hoped he would want to come over. As the conversation proceeded without a self-invitation to Will's place, Micheal did the honors. "Hey, dude, come on over to Will's we can figure out what to do then."

This sudden meeting with two of the girl's he hadn't talked to in years made him nervous. He wasn't sure if they would be upset for not calling or something. Friends splitting up that's one thing, but childhood friends splitting up is a different story. It was a bit of his fault that the group split up. Sophomore year was when his parents died so during that time he was completely anti-social. Yes he got a week out of school to recover but he wouldn't recover from an incident like that so quickly. It was like a great game of Jenga that was ruined when the block wiggled its way from the tower. When he looked back on those days he started to feel a bit guilty.

He then remembered the beep he got during his chat with Aiden that notified him he had a another call waiting. Looking at his phone he noticed it was James and called him back. "Hey James, What up? You called?"


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Grey imediately felt better when she saw Kinsley round the corner. "Hey," she responded with a sheepish grin. "I, uh, kind of screwed up that meeting my dad wanted me to have with the realtor so..." she waved the folded up section of the newspaper with a shrug. Kinsley was the only person she knew who really knew about her relationship with her father. The rest of her friends knew that they didn't exactly have a typical father-daughter bond, but Kinsley had seen her dad's drunken screaming in person on more than one occaision. "Ane while I was out, I bumped into these guys," she finished.

She turned back to Mike and Will. "So... how have things been? It's been about two years, hasn't it?"

Kinsley Jennette Eliwood

Kinsley looked at Grey with a sympathetic face and shrugged, "Well hey, there's always different places right?" She knew that Grey's dad would be pissed when he found out that Grey had botched up the meeting and she felt really protective but she held back since she was not alone. Especially since it was the guys who they haven't seen or talked to in 2 years, that can really be a great show to start talking about the way that thing of a father treated Grey. Thinking about such absurd things made her laugh silently to herself, scenarios that will never happen always give her a slight happier mood.

A comforting smile lit up her pale face with a slight nudge to Grey as she turned back to Will and Mike. "Er, yeah. It's been a really long time since we have talked... What have you guys been up to you?" Her bold voice spoke out as she slightly smiled while playing with her black hair awkwardly. In all honesty, seeing these guys were making her pissed off and nervous, the feeling she absolutely can't stand! Not to mention that she couldn't stand little meetings like this with people she hasn't talked to in forever, she just wanted to make up an excuse and run away as fast as she could. That thought seemed really good until she was reminded of Grey and knew that this must have been awkward for her too... Right?

Will stood there in the midst of all the commotion. He shrugged when Mike gave him a confused look. He only turned to Grey and Kinsley, giving a nod and wave wave, still being half asleep. He wasn't hardly there at all, so he couldn't do much to respond.

As he stood there, he almost fell against the doorway that he leaned against. Trying to regain consciouness was the first step. He took a deep breath and released a long yawn. He was basically just crashed on the inside, yet, one thing caught his attention that he woke up immediately to.

"We're all going to hang where?!" Will shrieked as he heard what Mike was saying. "Who's idea is that? It's a bloody stupid one if you ask me!" He grabbed his forehead in annoyance and squeezed it a little. "I haven't enough got the place pick up after that party I had last night. It's completely trashed! Nobody would want to hang out in there, nobody!"

((lol, I accidentally used my character's last name in my post...@_@))

Evan had just been about to shake his head with a sigh and go back to his book when the phone suddenly vibrated. Without missing a beat, as if he had expected the phone call at that very moment, Evan strode back over, swept the phone up, and quickly checked the caller ID--Michael. He flicked the phone open and brought it to his ear. "Oh. Hey," Evan's voice sounded bored and dull, as it sometimes tended to be. "Yeah, I did. Just wanted to know if you want to hang out or something. I'm bored to hell." Evan thought he could hear other voices on Michael's end...familiar voices, ones that he hadn't heard in a long time, but for now, he said nothing of them.

_______M i c h e a l Grey A n d e r s o n_____

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Micheal took his ear off of the phone for a moment to hear what Will was yelling about. "Party? Well... how bad can it be?" He looked over Will's shoulder and bit his lip. "Wow...I probably don't want to know how it got this bad." After saying this he pushed some hair out of his eye and thought for a second. "I'll help you clean and we can think about something out while we do..," He turned back towards the girls and smiled. Overhearing what they were talking about Mike reached forward and grabbed the paper out of Grey's hand. "Apartments? My building has tons of apartments that are open. The rent isn't so bad either." He took a pen out of his bag and wrote down the number for the office. "If you're interested call and ask for Dan and tell him your a friend of mine. He can get you a good deal. Besides he owes me and the guys. We saved his daughter's birthday party. The other local band that were supposed to play bailed at the last minute so he asked if we had time to play a couple of songs."

Remembering the phone he got back on it and replied, "Yeah..I was thinking we should hang. Uh hey, I'll get the guys together and we can meet at my house, that sound good?" He took his ear off of the phone again. "Hey, Aiden can meet us here and we can head back to my house okay?" He reassured Will.


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"Right, I'm on my way. Later," Evan ended the conversation quickly, waited for Michael's sendoff, and then hung up the phone--he was never one for long conversations on the phone, or long conversations anywhere, for that matter. Evan glanced into his closet, and grabbed a black button down coat, buttoning it over his dark blue shirt. Beneath it, black jeans, and black shoes. "Dammit, people are going to think I'm some kind of goth or something..." Evan muttered bitterly to himself before quickly locking the door as he left his apartment, made his way down the stairs, and over to his car.

Fifteen minutes or so later, Evan parked the car outside the apartment complex that Michael lived in, and stepped out of the car, striding over to the entrance to the complex. As soon as he had walked into the area, he was greeted with an interesting sight: Michael and Will were there, and then two girls that Evan hadn't seen in ages. Ariana and Kinsley--all four of them apparently in a rather awkward state, suggesting that this was a chance meeting. Evan put his hands in the pockets of his coat and walked over to them. "Been a while," he said with a nod towards the two girls.

Kinsley Jennette Eliwood

Kinsley turned her head to see Evan and tried to keep a happy smile, no matter how uncomfortable she felt. "Hey Evan! Well look, isn't this just a party!" Right when she said that she saw the timid Jessika come over and stand close to Grey, "Jessika, Jess! Oh hello deary!" She sang as she hugged Jess from behind in a reassuring hug, trying to make her feel more comfortable then everyone felt.
No matter how much she would like to deny it, Kinsley realized how everyone was really awkward and uncomfortable. So she decided to let go of Jess and look up at the sky, thinking of ways to make this madness stop in her head. The feelings of being nervous and pissed never sat well in her chest and it irritated her to the bottom of her heart just to be standing here. There was nothing right now that could possibly break the awkwardness then just leaving so she turned to Evan hopefully, "Well how've you been? It's been... Ages..." The bold voice had turned into small squeaks as she remembered losing touch with everyone and how much everything has changed.

Grey almost laughed when Jessika rounded the corner as well and immediately felt the air of awkwardness around them all. The feeling was quickly starting to irritate her, especially now that the initial shock had worn off. She remembered these faces from middle, elementary, even preschool in some cases. She used to be able to tell these people anything, boys and girls. Could two years really erase an entire lifetime?

Not if she could help it.

"Jess, you aren't interrupting anything," she said, linking her arm through her friend's. "I just bumped into the Mike, and then Will, and then Evan showed up and Aiden called. Then Kinsley wandered over and now you." She giggled a bit. "This is fate plain and simple. And it's bad luck to ignore fate." She shoved a wayward curl out of her eyes and then eyed her watch. "How's this? My dad won't be home until late tonight. We still have a pretty great rec room... we could hang out there if you guys want." It was a risky thing, to invite friends over without asking her dad first, but honestly, she was dreading fielding his questions about the appartment tour. Everyone would be gone way before he got home if everything went correctly. And suddenly the idea of permanently losing her friends was a lot scarier than pissing off her dad... well, maybe not a lot scarier, but she knew where her priorites were.

"It'll be fun," she said earnestly. "Just like old times. We'll call Alex and make a party out of it." She paused, fiddling with the ends of her hair and abruptly decided to just put it all out there. "I've really missed you guys," she blurted, and then blushed.

Will released a small sigh and smacked Mike on the back. He lowered his head a bit and turned back towards the inside. "I say we're all already here, let's pick the rubbish off the floor and start the party all over again. No use in having to leave somewhere else."

He stepped inside passed his floormat with it's collection of shoes. Sneakers, running shoes, and combat boots, all for different purposes. "I live out 'ere on my own, so there's not a problem if we're got a few girls steppin' around the place. I'll just stop off to grab some drinks, order out something to eat, and crank up the ol' rock n' roll. Now that's about right isn't it?" he asked as he turned back to Mike a smirked a little.

"Hmm?" Evan turned at Kinsley's sudden words to him. "Er...good, I suppose...you?" He scratched the back of his head. If Kinsley was looking to break the awkward silence she had chosen the wrong person for it. Trying to make a good conversation with Evan was likely to leave an even more awkward silence than before. Thankfully, at that moment, everyone started talking again, and Evan was spared from the moment of awkwardness--those seemed to follow him around everywhere, just waiting for the time to pounce.

"Eh, I don't really care where," Evan muttered with a shrug, leaning against the wall.

Alex walked out of her apartment. She had moved out of her parents place a long time ago. "I wonder where everyone is today?" That's when her cellphone gave a small beep. "A text from Ariana?" She said and read what it said. "A party...at some apartment with some friends from highschool." She said to herself and then texted Ariana back.

She then caught a bus and was at where the text told her to meet her. She walked into the building and found everyone together. "Great nice to see all of you." Alex said a bit lifeless. "Can I please ask why we needed to have a party all of a sudden?"

_______M i c h e a l Grey A n d e r s o n_____

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Having the air knocked out of him from Will slapping him on the back. He coughed and smiled, "That sounds like a fantastic idea..," He adjusted the guitar back onto his back and stepped into Will's home. He looked around and sighed, "When I looked over your shoulder it didn't look as bad... but now that I have a clear view...," He shivered. Micheal was very big on cleanliness. O.C.D. if you want to get formal.

He took off his guitar bag and messenger bag and sat them near the door. He rolled up his sleeves and clapped his hands together. "All right...I need a garbage bag, a big one, and a broom." He pushed his hair back and groaned, "Will... you should pay me to clean your house." He wagged his finger at Will as if he was scolding him. "Who was at this party anyway?" He paused and waved at Alex who had walked through the door.


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Grey stepped delicately into the room, picking her way around the glass bottles, aluminium cans, and other assorted garbage strewn across the floor. "Well," she said over her shoulder to Alex, "When fate tells you to party..." She shrugged and tossed her bag onto the couch, going to join Mike as she cleaned. She didn't have much of a problem with mess, but she was extremely used to cleaning up after others. It was second nature. She quickly located a box of garbage bags on tope of the refrigerator, handing one to Mike and taking the other herself. She flitted quickly around the appartment, dumping half-filled cans and old paper plates into the bag. The space looked immensely better after only a few minutes and she tied her garbage bag and deposited it by the door. She sat back down on the couch next to her bag, folding her legs beneath her. She was determined to have her friends back, especially now that they were all together. But the awkwardness that had filled the hallway seemed to have followed them into the appartment like an univited guest.

She frowned and then forced a smile. "So, Mike, you mentioned a band. I had heard rumors, but... we have one too. A band, I mean."

_______M i c h e a l Grey A n d e r s o n_____

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Taking the garbage bag from Grey he nodded in sign of a thank you and went to work. He and Grey were like vacuum cleaners quickly picking up all trash in sight. He picked up the glass bottles and gently placed them in the bag one by one to make sure none of them broke. Picking up aluminum cans off of the counters and putting dishes in the sink he spotted the broom on the side of the fridge. Grabbing it he started to sweep around the area maneuvering around his friend's feet. Creating a big pile, he grabbed a dust pan and with two good sweeps he have in the dust pan an then the garbage. He tied the bag and placed it next to Grey's and then put the broom and dust pan back where it belonged and walked over to the couch and sat in the seat diagonal from where she sat.

"Really?" He scratched his cheek and nodded unconsciously. "That's cool..are uh...all of you in the band?"


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Kinsley Jennette Eliwood

"That's good to hear... I've been fine, usually." Kinsley slighty smiled as she turned to watch as Michael and Grey cleaned up, amazed by how fast they were going. When they had finished, she skipped inside of the apartment to see it looked a lot better. They should open up their own business together, the cleaning business! As she sat town to listen to the small talk she heard a knock on the door, she stood up and strode to the door to open it.

As she opened it, there stood Aiden and she grinned at him, "Hey! Come in," Kinsley swung the door open further for him to come in as she raised her arm next to her side while leaning against the wall, waiting for him to pass. Her eyes wondered to everyone else that was there, the air was thick with awkward and uncomfortable feelings. With hope in mind, she decided that she was going to try and get things not to be so tense and weird with them. This was going to be a very tiring day for her...