The music from the club is loud and muffled at the same time. It's like swimming underwater and it does that thing when the bathroom door opens where it goes sharp and clear for a second, like catching a radio station above static, driving over state lines, and it’s shocking.

Frank has been in the bathroom a little too long, but his whole life is like a radio station that just came clear, all the static shockingly gone, and, bad similes aside, he’s a little bit fucked by this, so everyone else can wait. Mostly he’s pretty sure it’s just people who have to puke anyway, and they can puke on themselves like everyone else (Gee) does.

He was minding his own fucking business, man. This kind of blindsiding isn’t fair to a guy, not at all. He’s used to it with Jamia. Like, one day? He looked up, and there was this goddess, and he has tried so hard since then to never let her out of his sight. Sometimes he worries that if he doesn’t see her for too long, she’ll disappear back into the static and he’ll never see her again. It’s way too hard to find a girlfriend who’s into hardcore who also loves pop music, someone who takes him seriously enough but not too seriously. He’s seen her throw punches at guys twice her size, and assert against all odds the feminism in a Hillary Duff movie, and she likes him. Sometimes the most shocking thing at all, and it’s not any kind of self-deprecation on Frank’s part either that causes him to be surprised.

No, Frank is a cool guy, kind of, and he kind of knows it. Like, he’s a dude, in a band, with some cool tattoos, and that’s pretty awesome, and even though they aren’t, like, the most popular band in New Jersey (they won’t ever be, because the Boss will always be the Boss of New Jersey, or Frank will beat someone up. Or possibly just whine), Frank’s got groupies. Groupies of whom he has never taken advantage, because he has Jamia. And Jamia thinks he’s great, so what does he need some groupie’s ass for, who only wants him because he’s Frank! From My Chem! Oooooh!

Yeah, whatever. Jamia thinks it’s funny when he farts, and reads comic books, and will hold Gee’s hair when he’s puking the most calmly of any of them, and she totally believes that one day they’re gonna start a record label.

And right now she is standing at the merch table with the only other person in the world Frank can say those things about, their heads together, their voices loud, their giggles louder, and—

When Frank yelled, “Hey!” they both looked up at him, grinned, and then looked back at each other and started giggling again. And the static? The static just fucking cleared, and now Frank’s got Gee in his head right next to Jamia. What the fuck is he supposed to do with that?