Let's Sneak Out to Hear Thrashing Metals!

Chapter 1

            The car blasts with Halena. Unusual. Usually my friends and I would be listening to Ariana Grande, or, if Kiane were lucky enough to get control of the aux, a song from an anime. But this wasn't like any other night. Because we were headed to a Thrashing Metals concert.

"This music's kinda...chaotic," Kiane says with a small laugh.

"I mean, is it any less chaotic than the pinball song from last week?" I ask.

Last week Kiane had sent me a song, sung by a bouncy, bubbly blonde anime character. I said she sounded as if she were trying to escape a pinball machine, with the beat coming at my brain from all directions like an inverted whack-a-mole.

"True," he says.

"So Y/N, you're sure the Prudential Center has an outside area where people just hang out in?" My best friend Ariana asks. She's driving the car right now.

"Positive," I say. "Rodrick said he and his friends were going to hang out there cause they couldn't afford real tickets."

"And does he know if it has an outside area?" It's understandable that she's skeptical. From what I saw on the trip, he has a tendency to go all in without really thinking things through sometimes. But lucky for us, I am a planner.

"Girl, don't worry." I reassure her. "I looked it up on GoogleMaps yesterday. Zoomed in and everything. And apparently hanging out in the parking lot is...normal."

I was surprised when Rodrick said that's what he was going to do. I mean, the acoustics outside the stadium cannot be that, good right? But he said it was all about soaking up the vibes. Just knowing that they're breathing the same air Thrashing Metals are, and being surrounded by other fans. "It's almost the same thing," he assured me. "Or the closest we can get, anyway."

That's some sound logic right there. And even if it's not, I don't care, cause he's so hot!!! I really was not expecting to meet him on what I thought was going to be a shitty trip. And believe me, I had every reason to believe it was going to be shitty.

For one thing, I was stuck with the American restaurant, even though it was my last choice, and the French restaurant was my first choice. So basically, I'd be going all the way to the Culinary Institute- a place designed to make my palate more cultured- for burgers and fries. And on the bus ride there, I was stuck next to this popular girl, Hannah, who pretended I was invisible the whole time we were sitting together, that is when she wasn't giving my Slipknot t-shirt shady looks.

I wasn't initially planning to wear the Slipknot shirt, but when my mom made me wear this frilly pink monstrosity that would've made me look like Hannah's adorable little sister, I was like, fuck it. I'm going full-on emo queen. I switched it out for the most badass shirt I picked up on sale from Forever 21 and loaded on the black lipstick in the school bathroom as soon as I arrived.

And because I have the worst luck in the universe, Hannah and her shithead popular friends were in my tour group, so I couldn't get a moment's peace. Until that moment when we were watching the chefs in the kitchen through a giant glass window. A blue flannel-clad arm brushed against mine, and I looked up, curious. Apparently there was another school touring the institute that day, too, and this guy's group just arrived at this portion.

We made eye contact, and he had the dreamiest eyes I've ever seen, rimmed with thin black eyeliner. "Is this place overhyped to you too, or am I the only one?"

"Way overhyped." I said. "The way my teacher talked about it, I assumed we'd be given personal lessons from Ratatouille or something."

"Right?" He said. "Now a talking rat, that would have been worth the hype."

I laugh out loud. "Yeah, for sure. I'm Y/N, by the way. I go to Dell River."

"Well, it's nice to meet you, Y/N. I'm Rodrick Heffley, and I'm actually not that far from you. I'm from Northern Highlands- don't know if you've heard of it."

"Oh yeah- yeah. I've heard of it." My mom cleans the house of a family that lives there- it's slightly richer than my upper-middle class town. If my town has limited diversity, Northern Highlands has even less. I'm not going to assume he's rich just because he lives there. I shouldn't, right? I mean, most people in my town have way more than me. Just because I live here doesn't mean I live like they do.

An Indian guy with both sides of his heads shaved, and the top layer of hair dyed red and pulled into a ponytail, nudges him and whispers, "Dude, tell her about our band."

Rodrick blushes. "Thanks, Gunner. Didn't know you were listening."

"Hey, no problem, man," Gunner says.

"And for our next portion of the tour..." Our tour guide says. My heart sinks. I don't want to leave. Things just got interesting. I just met this really cool guy, who was about to tell me about his band. I dig around my leather crossbody bag for my phone, hoping to at least exchange social medias with Rodrick before getting dragged off to another part of the institute with Claire and her cronies.

"Hey, what restaurant did you get for lunch?" Rodrick asks.

"American," I say. Is there a chance that that's what he got too?

"Me too!" He says.

"But we can't sit next to each other. We have to sit with our groups. Our teachers are gonna be there- they'll see us if we don't." That idea died as quickly as it was born.

A knowing smile blooms across his face. "But what if we're not in the room?"

"What? How would that even-" I stop as he whispers the plan in my ear. Okay. That might actually work. This guy's smarter than he lets on. So he's the full package- hot, funny, and smart.

"I'll do it," I say.

"See you soon," he replies.