Chapter 4

Fast forward five years.

“Hey guys, I heard you had to go to the principal this morning. What did she want now?” he asked while rummaging in his bag for his sketchpad. Jackson looked at the sketchpad and saw a half finished drawing of a fallen angel living amongst the school kids. It was sketched with pencil only, and some color, but the detail in it was amazing.

“She was going on about our school stuff, and how I should really change if I want to get into college.”

“Maybe you should tell the principal that you applied to the NYCOPA, man. She might just get off your case then,” Rob suggested. 

Jackson seemed very annoyed at this answer. “Dude, if I tell the principal, my mom will know within five minutes. I don’t want her to know yet. I still don’t know what I’m going to tell her. She wants me to go to Georgetown, because she thinks that’s the best for me.”

“Georgetown! What the hell, man?” Zach and Rob both exclaimed in unison.”

“But she’s probably already heard that’s out of the question.”

The math teacher had gotten his beamer to work and some formulas were projected on the big white wall. Jackson put his headphones on, threw his hood up and grabbed his sketchpad. He was working on some artwork for a demo he hoped to release one day. Drawing went easiest when listening to Paramore’s Summer Tic EP, even though that was more poppy than what he usually listened to. Jackson’s favorite song was Emergency. Maybe it was the little hints of screamo, maybe it was the lyrics, and maybe it was Hayley’s soothing voice. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

Zach was trying to pay attention, but quickly lost interest. He started staring out the window that overlooked the sports field. The football team was practicing outside, they had a big game coming up in the weekend. Zach never cared for sports much, and cared even less after his little lacrosse incident. Meanwhile, Robert was in a world of his own.

He had his headphones on his head, his music paper on the table and a pencil in his hand. From the looks of it, he was writing a new piano piece. Jackson envied Robert, he was so talented. Jackson looked at Robert’s writing hand, which seemed to glide over the paper while he was composing the new piece. Rob didn’t seem to notice that Jackson was staring at him, and his left hand was tapping on the desk as if it was a piano, while his right hand was drawing full notes, half notes and breaks. Rob’s surroundings became his inspiration, every once in a while he would look around, take in what he saw and go back to his music. Jackson tried to avoid himself becoming too fixated on Rob and his work and turned back to his own sketch.

There they were, the three of them sitting in the last row of the classroom. Two were working on new music, while the third one had fallen asleep.

Math was a double hour, sometimes running into a triple one, so there was a short break in between the two hours. Most of the students would storm out of the auditorium before the word ‘break’ could be uttered by the teacher, and ran to the vending machines for that much needed sugar. Jackson grabbed a can of Red Bull and drank half of it, giving the rest to Rob. Zach woke up from the commotion, looking around sleepy-eyed.

“What is it, is class over?”

“Nah man, its only break. One more hour of this till lunch.” Lunch meant that the three of them could go down to the local music store, and look through the big vinyl and cd-collection that the store carried. Most of the music they listened to was given to them by the owner. It was in this way that Jackson discovered bands such as Pantera and Metallica. Zach introduced him to Refused and Bad Religion, while Rob had always listened to more piano-oriented music, such as Secondhand Serenade and Lifehouse. Both Rob and Jackson started listening to Linkin Park in the first year of high school, and it was this band that became the soundtrack to their high school life. Rob was the only one in the group that listened to Paramore a lot, Zach and Jackson did so as well, but only listened to it once in a while preferring their other music. Jackson did like some of the acoustic versions of the songs, along with the ones that were heavier such as Emergency and My Heart, and he had learned to play along to them.

“What you doing after school, Rob?” Jackson asked him.

Rob looked up, still the same long hair as on the day they first met. “I don’t know, Mom wanted me to be home on time, there was something she wanted to talk to me about. Guess I better do as she says.”

“Too bad man, was hoping we could get together to work on some new stuff. Zach, you want to go ride after school?”

“Sure, let’s go try that new bowl in the skate park.” Zach seemed excited about riding with his friend.

Something wasn’t right with Rob. Jackson noticed that he wasn’t looking like he always did. A bit paler, more scared. Jackson decided not to ask about it. Rob would tell Jackson if anything was the matter, he was sure of it.

Break ended, and there was a shuffle of tables and chairs. All the kids sat back down, and the teacher started explaining Pythogoras to them. Jackson, Zach and Rob couldn’t care less, and went back to their own stuff. Zach had started scribbling a drum-track on the inside of his notebook cover, Rob went back to his piano track, although he had seemed to lose a bit of his focus. Jackson went back to the lyrics he had started writing in English class. “Music soothes the savage beast,” the words of Dexter Holland stuck in his head.

“Yeah, I really hope that’s true. I hope that Rob’s ok.” Jackson’s thoughts were rampaging in his head.

Math went on, and ended an hour later. The three got their bags, and dumped the books they had in their locker. It was time to go to Old School Vinyl, their favorite hangout. Zach and Jackson left their bikes at school, because Rob always legged it. The three of them left the school grounds that were already packed with the usual crowd. Old School Vinyl was a 5 minute walk away, and they talked about the Billy Talent concert that was coming up. Zach and Jackson were psyched about it, but Rob wasn’t sure whether he was going yet.

“My mom and dad really don’t want me to go to those kinds of shows,” said Rob, meanwhile looking out over the park they passed.

Jackson looked at his best friend, and couldn’t help but worry. There was something going on, something was wrong with Rob.