I know Jenna invited me to sit with her and her friends but I would feel intruding if I just waltzed over to their little group without being asked. I sit in the same seat I did yesterday off to the side of the room. This class is one of my more dysfunctional ones with an absence in the curriculum as well as order. It's very free for all, kids wandering around, leaving to go to the bathroom just by exiting the room, everyone in the back is doing their own thing with their instruments and the few kids by the window are on their phone trying to get reception. I actually know how to play guitar, I just don't know how to read music, which is what I was hoping to learn while taking this class.

"Frank..Frank! FRANK!" I turn around and see Jenna waving me over. I grab my guitar and sling my bag over my shoulder before I walk over to them. Jenna slides down in her seat and extends her foot out, wrapping her ankle around the leg of a vacant chair and dragging it over to them. "You want to sit with us?" she offers.

"Yeah, thanks," I say awkwardly sitting down and dropping my bag to the floor.

"Hey, so your name's Frank?" The neon-haired girl says. Hayley, I think her name is.

"Uh, yeah. Frank Iero. We have study hall together?"

"Yep, with Brendon," she nods.

One of the guys in our proximity snaps his head into the conversation. "Wait, what?" he says.

"We have study hall with Frank," Hayley says.

Brendon looks over at me and gives a wave. "Oh, hi, Frank," he says.

Jenna introduces me to the others. I've met Hayley Williams and Brendon Urie. Lynn from my English class is in here too. Today she's wearing black combat boots with black skinny jeans. She has a copper tank top on with a grey cargo jacket on. Her hair is tied back in a bun with a few strands tucked behind her ears. Then there's Brendon's best friend Patrick Stump, who's actually around my height. He's really nice.

The lot of them are a really nice bunch. I don't know them and when they start talking about their past experiences, I'm a little out of place but all the while, not really. Lynn tells me how she and Jenna met. They were at the same Blink 182 concert in the mosh pit and they recognized each other from school. The next day, they started talking and have been good friends since. Patrick has had a class with Brendon since 4th grade and they know each other really well. Hayley has known Brendon basically her whole life being neighbors and such.

Jenna explains to me how they all became one giant group of friends. She and Amelia started talking to Lynn after the concert but Jenna's dad remarried a woman who had a son her age. Her step brother is Cody and he was new to her school and he only knew Jenna and one of his family friends. Cody's friend introduced him to Brendon and the others. Then Jenna's dad had a Fourth of July party during the summer after junior high and they both invited their friends where they just merged into one large friend group.

"Is the girl Amelia, does she kind of look like you?" I ask.

"Eh, not really," Jenna says.

"Liar," Hayley interjects. "You two look identical yet you're not at all related."

"So, is Amelia the girl I saw you walking out of school with yesterday?" I ask.

"Mmm, probably. She has almost white hair?" I nod. "Yeah, that's Amelia McGuiness, she's my best friend in the whole world." I smile sweetly at Jenna. "Yeah, so there was this one time, Amelia and I over winter break went skiing and I'm not really good but her parents taught her when she was like 7 so she's some winter sports champion. Well, I completely fell down the incline and she just went around me in this circle."

"You seem to go places a lot," I comment.

"Yeah, my dad is a computer engineer so we can afford to go places and have parties throughout the year."

"DON'T WANNA BE AN AMERICAN IDIOT!" Brendon starts singing really loudly and Patrick starts playing the chords on his guitar with Hayley. "DON'T WANT A NATION UNDER THE NEW MEDIA!" he continues. The three of them play Green Day purposely loud. Half the class turns around looking at us, some of them start singing along with Brendon. A smile grows on my face knowing these people like bands and know how to play their music. My "friends" in NJ thought it was an odd obsession of mine here, they have the same interests as me.

The teacher looks up at us but doesn't say anything until they finished the song. I expected her to scold them for not playing the material she gave them to learn or practice chords or plain and simply being very loud, however, she says quite the contrary. "That's really good, if you guys have an electric, you can bring it in and connect them to our amps."

"I wish I had an electric-wait, LYNN! You have one, right?"

Lynn glances at Brendon. "But that's my baby, no one but me and Jenna are allowed to play it."

"Well, then you should bring it in and let Jenna play Green Day, she knows Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

Lynn stares at him awkwardly. "I'm not bringing my electric to school."

"Damn, son," he laughs.

"Well, you guys can probably come over to my house after school though and we can play."

"Wait, for real?" he asks.

"Meh, probably. You guys want to?"

"Sure, who you want over?" Jenna asks.

"Uh," Lynn leans back thinking. "Well, you guys are all invited. I think just everyone in the group. Hey, Frank, you want to join us?"

Heat suddenly rises to my face. "I-uh, yeah, sure. I don't know where you live though."

"Wait, you said you saw Amelia and I walking out of school together?" Jenna asks.

"Um, yeah. I have an early release and I think you do too?"

"Yep, do you want to meet up and come over to my place then we can walk to Lynn's together when she gets out of class?"

"Okay, that might work."

"Super!"

"So," Lynn crosses her leg and leans back in her chair, "who's all coming over?"

"I'm going to have to take a rain check on tonight," Patrick says.

"Dido," Hayley adds in.

"Alright, so Brendon, Jenna, and Frank, you guys can come?"

"Yeah," Jenna replies. "Do you want me to ask the others?" Lynn nods along. "Hey, we can bring out instruments over too."

"Okay, well, ask Cody and Gerard if they can come."

"I'm sure Cody will, Gerard...that's, well, you know how it is with him."

"Yeah," she says. Lynn looks at me and notices my confusion. "Oh, Cody and Gerard are best friends, they're really close and Gee, he's kind of...how do I put it?"

"Let's just say," Jenna offers, "we don't know what's going on with him."

"Alright, does he like work and stuff?" I ask, trying to understand a bit better.

Jenna bites her lip and ponders over an answer. "No, um, it's complicated with him. He-" There's a bit of awkward silence but it's cut short when the bell rings.

"Okay, well I'll see you guys later," Lynn says. Brendon and Patrick walk out together and the girls head the opposite way. I'm heading to history so I head toward the staircase.

The day goes by adequately. History, our teacher tells us in the upcoming months there will be a series of papers and a project we will need to complete. The papers we will right individually but we must get with one partner to complete the project. "You guys are picking your partners so if you end up choosing someone who doesn't do their share of the work, I'm not held liable. Although you will also get partner evaluations so if they do slack off, it will affect their grade, not yours but that does not change the grading process on the quality of the work. Also note, there is an even amount of you in this class so there will be no groups of three and no one flying solo."

That's a nice panic attack waiting to happen. I'm going to have to befriend someone in this class who is willing to work with me. I don't see any familiar faces while scanning the room. Maybe I could pull the 'hey, I'm a left over so you have no choice but to work with me' that way the burden of being my partner is the last resort and not something I place upon one of my peers. It's going to be awkward but not nearly as awkward as going up to someone, asking to be their partner and them going well, it's rude to say no so fine. Whatever, the papers will come before the project and we get those next month. I have time to charm one of my peers in thinking working with me won't be the end of the world.

During the passing period, I sent my mom a text saying I was invited over to one of my classmate's house to work on our guitar homework. I mean, it's not homework but we established this happening in guitar class so it's fine. She tells me to have fun and that it's cool. Even if she didn't give me permission, I would have gone anyway and she wouldn't have realized I bet. The thing with my parents is now that I've grown up, they kind of forgot about me. My dad is always busy with work but that's nothing new. My mom tries to be present in my life but with the wars he fights with my father, she doesn't have the energy to talk to me.

It's not that I don't dislike my dad but I feel he causes more problems than my mom. My mom is there for me more than my dad and it's usually him who initiated the arguments but they're both at fault because my mother now likes to purposely antagonize him if she has the chance too.

By the end of my day, I head downstairs to the parking lot and wander around trying to look like I have a life as well as stay out of everyone's way. I was invited with Jenna so if I see them, it's completely acceptable for me to run up to them. I pace back to the school looking straight ahead and avoid eye contact with everyone. I don't know what I'm doing but as long as I look like I do, it'll be okay.

Someone taps my shoulder and I spin around, seeing Jenna smile brightly at me with her bag slung over her shoulders. "Hey, you still coming with us?" she asks cheerily.

"If I'm still invited," I respond with.

"Of course, you are," she says. "Come on, I'll introduce you to my step-brother and Gerard Way." Jenna grabs my wrist and hauls me with her at a quick pace over towards a small group of teens leaning between two cars in the middle of the parking lot. One of them is a pick up truck with a large bed, the other an SUV. "Hey, guys. This is my friend Frank I was telling you about."

I put on an awkward smile and give a friendly wave as the four of them direct their attention to me. "Hey, Frank," Jenna's look-alike says. She has a Paradise Fears T-shirt on with a black hoodie tied around her waist. "I'm Amelia."

"Hi, oh, I like your shirt by the way," I add. She glances down at the graphics and looks back up, snapping her fingers at me with a happy smile.

"You're from New Jersey?" the athlete guy asks, Cody, Jenna's step-brother.

"Um, yeah. My parents got jobs out here and we moved over the summer," I say.

"Oh, that's awesome you guys have the coolest accents," he says sincerely. "Almost like Gee." The dark-haired guy nudges his shoulder and shakes his head jokingly.

"Oh, okay?" I say, unsure of how of what he means.

"Yeah, Gerard's from New Jersey," Cody says excitedly.

"Ah, shut up, man," Gerard mutters. "I came here when I was 4, not much of an accent."

"Still more than any of us," Patrick says. He glances down at his watch. "Well, hate to leave so shortly but I need to get to work eventually."

"Alright, nice seeing you, man," Gerard says patting his back as Patrick walks past and hops into the truck.

"We should head out too," Cody says. "Gee, Melia, you going to Lynn's?"

"Yeah," they both reply in unison.

"Awesome, do you want to hang out with us for an hour or would you want to be dropped off at your place and we'll meet you guys later?" Cody takes out his car keys from his pocket and clicks the doors unlocked.

"We can hang out," Amelia answers for the two of them.

"Cool cool," he says. Cody goes around and hops in the driver seat and the girls get in the back with me, Jenna sitting int he middle. The five of us head over to Jenna and Cody's house and they live relatively near the school so the drive isn't long at all.

We pull into their driveway and I'm already astounded by the size of their house. It's massive, got to have at least three floors with a very elegant front, brick steps, five car garage, cement driveway, glass house lights, hardwood trimmings around the windows. This is a gorgeous house and I'm not even out of the car yet. I started understanding how serious Jenna was about the success of her father's job. No wonder they can always travel and have parties, if they have a house like this.

We get out of the car and I walk with them up to the front doors. Amelia jumps on Jenna's back and Jenna carries her all the way inside. The inside is very lavish, hard redwood floors, dual staircases on either side of the house, a crystal chandelier, french doors to the other rooms, and extremely tasteful furniture. I'm blown away by how I'm in such a mansion. "Alright," Jenna grunts as Amelia hops off her back. "Frank, you want a tour?"

"Totally," I say. Jenna takes me through her kitchen, which looks like it is the set of a cooking show and her fridge is large enough to fit all of us in. There's a movie room, sitting room, dining hall. On the second floor, there's everyone's bedroom and all the guest rooms. Cody and Jenna have two rooms, one for sleeping and personalizing, the other for their hobbies. Cody stores his sports gear and trophies in his spare. He plays hockey in some privet organization and at school, he's in cross country, wrestling, and soccer. He also has gaming consoles and a small couch set facing a plasma screen. Jenna uses her spare room for her music and art. She has a black piano, a couple of amps in the back with numerous cases of instruments, which she tells me is her acoustic guitar, oboe, electric bass, and her favorite is her electric violin. It's 5 stringed, so it can be played as a viola or violin, and it has LED lights built inside. Different colors light up depending on the pitch. The other half of her room has an easel, numerous sketchbooks and a variety of mediums she knows how to use. There's also a computer with a printer, scanner, and tablet for digitally saving her artworks as well as printing any of her computerized works.

Numerous other guest rooms are on the second floor. The third has open spaces, different offices, and where they keep their storage. There's one room on the fourth floor that's technically considered an attic but it's used as a little hang out. There's a balcony connected, which Cody and Jenna secretly assembled together a rope ladder to the balcony so if they ever want to sneak out, they can. I couldn't imagine living here, it's so nice and incredible a girl like her goes to the same high school I do. But I'm glad she does otherwise I would probably be alone, considering she's the one who befriended me.

We all head down to the second floor and sit on the floor in one of the hallways, waiting for the hour to pass by. "I'm tired," Amelia says, leaning her head on Jenna's shoulder.

Jenna glances down at Amelia and blows her hair in her face. "You going to sleep?"

"Nah," she mutters. "I'll just..."

"You'll what?" she asks.

"Huh, I don't know," Amelia says.

Cody lies back on the floor. "Are we doing anything at Lynn's or just hanging out?"

"I talked to her in the hall, we said we were going to bring our instruments but I don't think we will?" Jenna says uneven. Her phone buzzes and she takes it out. "Speak of the devil," she says with a half smile. I lean against the wall and stretch my legs out. "Huh, Brendon's not gong anymore," she says.

"Wait, why not?" Cody asks, sitting up. "Wasn't he the one who brought up the idea in the first place? Technically."

"Yeah, but Lynn said she just talked to him and he's not going so I don't know."

Gerard sighs next to me and runs his fingers through his hair. I glance at him and he shakes his head subtly, almost in a disappointed manner. "Were you counting him on going?" I ask, not really sure for what purpose.

"No, it's just-" Gerard stops and purses his lips together, "he's...what's the word I'm looking for? A slave?"

"Gee, knock it off," Amelia says looking at him concerned. "If Brendon were here, he wouldn't want you saying that so don't say that just because he's not here. "

"Well, he would be here if it wasn't for her," he replies back. "He's my friend, she has no right to do this to him."

"Guys, please stop," Jenna interjects, keeping her eyes on the ground.

Gerard leans back against the wall. "I'm sorry, Jenna." She waves him off and he sighs. "No, don't do that to me," he says.

"I don't want to talk about it," she quickly replies. "Anyways, Lynn's home now so let's just go." We get up, Amelia, Gerard, and I grabbing out backpacks and head downstairs then to her front door.

"Hey, Jen-Jen? You think it's cool if I stay the night?" Amelia asks.

"Uh, is that even a question? You want to?" Jenna replies.

"Totally." The two of them start heading upstairs to drop off Amelia's backpack in Jenna's room. "We'll be right down," she calls.

Gerard sits down on the wooden bench and grabs his combat boots, unlacing them. "I'm going to start the car, " Cody says, walking out.

Gerard and I are the only ones here and it's quiet. I don't know him that well so this is a little weird. I mean, he's from New Jersey so we have that in common and it's safe to guess he likes art. I always see him carrying his sketchbook, as it's right now lying next to him on the bench.

"I can scoot over," he says. "You don't need to sit on the ground to put on your shoes."

"Oh, no. It's fine," I say, slipping on my converse. "So, can I ask what's going on with Brendon?"

Gerard drops his left foot to the ground and ponders for a minute before lifting up his other one and putting on his shoes. "It's his girlfriend," he replies. "He's been dating this girl named Audrey for almost a year now. At first I thought she was great and all but in the last few months, I've noticed she's not allowing him to hang out with us anymore. I only thought it was when the other girls were there because she's some jealousy nut. Well, even when it's just Cody, Patrick, and I, he'll say he can go and then she won't let him when she finds out."

"That's...bad, why does she do that? She not like you?"