Author's Note: This story is the sequel to "The Conformity Conspiracy." That fic was written before "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers" so I went with the fandom names for the characters. Because those characters with those names are so cemented in my head I'm going to stick with them for this fic. So Michael=Ethan, Pete=Dylan, and Ferkle=Georgie.


"I turned my back and felt the vacuum of my leaving."
-Landscape with Black Coats in Snow, Richard Siken


Three years later.

x.

The edge of Mike's iPhone poked me in the shoulder for the fifth time and I could make out his whiny voice through my headphones. I closed my eyes tighter and tried to return to the dream where I was in the auditorium of my high school, it was rehearsals for the talent show and I'd forgotten my amp. But Ethan said he'd found it in the pockets of his coat. I didn't believe him and but when I reached my hand inside, the pockets were endlessly deep. I was sure that we could both fit inside and stay there forever.

It wasn't until Mike tugged my earbud out that I opened an eye and was brought back to reality. "We're not possibly there yet," I mumbled before he could say whatever he had intended to. From the lack of kinks in my neck and shoulders, I hadn't been asleep long.

"We're not in LA." Mike looked nervously over his shoulder at the flight attendant. He opened his mouth to continue then closed it again before swiping a piece of hair behind his ear.

I turned towards the window. Over the runway fat snowflakes whizzed past. I stretched my shoulders, "I didn't know we had an adjoining flight," I stood to grab my carry-on from the overhead. It was hard to keep straight whether the days meant we were touching down somewhere or taking off. I was just glad I wasn't the one with the microphone on stage that had to remember the name of the city they were in. "Come on," I yawned, "let's see if Harbucks has inseminated this airport too."

I wrinkled my nose at the businessmen in tailored suits who were already barking orders into their phones as they shoved their way out of first class. "Fucking pricks," I mumbled as Mike trailed behind. No matter how much luxury I was suddenly endowed with, I'd never lost my contempt for people with money.

I'd been glad when Mike told me before we'd boarded that other members of the band had caught another flight. After the lackluster performances of Bloodrayne and Vladimir the record label had assigned us a seasoned bassist and drummer. They were just studio musicians who looked good in skinny jeans and eyeliner. This punched a hole through whatever semblance they'd had of being a "real" band. Mike hadn't exactly been thrilled about having to tell his friends that they were essentially fired. But it didn't make any difference to me. It's not like I'd ever really known the Vamp kids. Anyway, now we had actual musicians playing with us - making me work harder to match their level of skill. Mike had insisted he liked them both but I could see through his pained smiles when they pointed out he was flat. Anyway, it didn't matter either way; it was just business in a world I'd been more than accepted into. No one had been rushing to replace me. Just the opposite. The label bombarded me with "gifts" of free guitars, brand new amps, and a budget deep enough to afford a loft apartment in Brooklyn and anything I wanted to fill it up with. Although I still hadn't come to terms with the band name, "1,000 Years of Solitude." It was some trend in the industry of making respected works of literature into commercial emo band names that looked cool screen-printed across t-shirts. I guess Mike's pretty boy looks didn't hurt sales either.

"Denver?" I said flatly as I frowned at the familiar murals on the walls. The last time I'd seen any inch of the state had been three years ago when I'd flipped it off from 40,000 feet above the ground. "So we have an adjoining flight?"

"No," Mike said simply, walking towards the Harbucks like this ambiguity was a casual thing that I needed to stop questioning.

"Mike, don't choose this moment to practice some ill-timed stoicism." I was too used to tuning out his need to talk my ear off on the tour bus. Anything from the distinctions in green tea blends to how "enthusiastic" the last audience had been were up for debate. Admittedly though, I'd seen less of Mike lately, finding him in his bunk on the tour bus with a drawing pad propped up on his knees and earbuds tightly in place.

"Look, can I just get a cup of tea?" He said without looking at me. He was staring at the menu above the cashier as if he didn't always order the same thing.

I waited for some further explanation but he was busy ordering a drink from the barista. "If we're not here for an adjoining flight, I'm going to get a ticket home," I said as we stood by the coffee bar for his drink. I waited for a reaction from him but he was either calling my bluff or genuinely indifferent. I couldn't decide which was more obnoxious.

Maybe I should just really do it and go home. It was strange to think of my apartment in New York as "home"—I was barely ever there. When I was there I had to eat out because it didn't make sense to buy groceries. My apartment overlooked a Chinese restaurant that I walked to almost every night alone. The waitresses knew my order and would seat me in the back corner by the window where I could watch people walking past. Mostly though, I was on the road, at music festivals, or being shuttled to studios to meet producers to work on our next album. Once our third single played during an episode of some shit reality show on MTV our popularity had taken off. The label had been quick to organize a tour, and I'd barely touched the ground since. I got the feeling that they wanted to milk us for everything we are worth before the hype died down. The result was more money in my checking account than I'd ever be able to spend and complete exhaustion.

As I glanced at the signs for baggage claim my neck felt hot with a feeling that had gotten too familiar in the passing years. I turned around and saw two teenage girls with their phones aimed at the back of Mike's head. Until that moment I hadn't really considered the fact that we'd have fans in Colorado. I basically viewed it as a black hole on a map of the United States. As annoyed as I was by Mike's standoffish behavior, I didn't want to wait for our next flight amid a huddle of fourteen-year-olds with braces and Misfits shirts they'd blindly plucked from the racks of Hot Topic.

"Come on," I mumbled as I pulled on the edge of Mike's jacket as the barista handed him his tea. I tried to brainstorm some place that'd offer more privacy than the food-court type area they currently occupied. Typically we had a least one bodyguard with us on our tours. But no one was expecting us here, or at least I didn't think so.

"What's going on?" I whispered harshly. "Tell me."

Mike sighed and shrugged away from me, walking over towards an observation window before sitting on one of the empty rows of seats in front of it.

He took a sip of his tea and cringed when it burnt his tongue. "Mr. Tweak is going to lose his coffee shop," he said.

"So what?"

Mike continued like I hadn't said anything. "He wrote me a letter a month ago just thanking for me making it popular enough through our YouTube videos that fans from all over Colorado have visited. That's helped pay the bills the last couple months. But I thought we could do better than that, we could play a benefit show and get sustained interest in the cafe-you know? I figured the two of us could do an acoustic set." He took another sip of tea, his eyes trained on a plane taking off on the runway in the distance. "I owe it to him for letting me play there when I was just a nobody teenager, you know? Without him, we wouldn't be where we are today. Anyway, he's been selling tickets for the past month. I thought if I gave you too much time to think about it that you'd just back out."

He was right about that much. Part of me was somewhat impressed he'd been so under-handed - even if it was in the name of charity. "You know how I feel about going to South Park," I said slowly. I already felt like a dick just wanting to say no.

"But it's not like you have to go home or anything, you can get a hotel room and catch a flight out in a day or so."

"Mike, it's like five fucking days before Christmas, how am I going to book a flight out of here?"

He sighed and leaned back, his long green hair slipping over his face moodily. "Will it really kill you to do this?"

I was taken aback. He was never this serious. His typical light-hearted sarcasm was replaced with a flat depressed tone as he watched another plane slowly backing into position on the runway outside. For the first time since I'd known him, his black wardrobe seemed to fit his demeanor.

"Okay fine," I said, just wanting him to stop looking so dead. "When is it?"

"Tomorrow." He turned his head away from the flash of someone's camera and ran a hand over his face.

"Come on then, let's get our bags and get to a hotel."

xx.

I'd been glad when Mr. Tweak had finally stopped thanking us for doing this. I glanced over the set-list that Mike had put together—thankful that it was just the hits.

"Thanks for doing this," Mike said coolly, stirring the honey in his tea. "And you don't have to keep that constant look of dread on your face. It won't even be South Park people here. Just our fans, you know, probably from all over the state."

He was worried that I was thinking about my old friends showing up. But I wasn't. None of them would answer my phone calls, much less pay money for a ticket to see me. After I'd left South Park, Ethan and I would call one another from time to time. It was mostly awkward small talk. But eventually the calls dwindled until we'd stopped speaking altogether. There just wasn't anything to say. Or there was too much to say, I still wasn't sure. The last that I'd heard from any of them had been a drunken phone call from Henrietta where she'd informed me that I was a "poser" who was a "puppet in the "the corporate machine." I'd been left with the impression that I was nothing more than an object of ridicule for the three of them. It's not as though I wasn't aware that I was part of some manufactured pop-emo band. But so what? I wrote good music and it paid all my bills and then some, and-most importantly—it got me out of South Park. And if they couldn't handle that, well fuck them. It's not like I hadn't tried to bring them to the top with me.

I sipped my coffee and waved to a fan who covered her mouth and muffled a scream. There'd been a line of girls stretching around the block since we'd arrived. Mike agreed to sit down with a reporter from the local newspaper and was currently professing the value of supporting local businesses. We didn't have much set-up since it was an acoustic show, and I rearranged the stool I was given to play on. I was strangely nervous for the doors to open; even though we'd sold out packed arenas, it was different today because it was South Park. I tried not to think of all the familiar buildings looming around me ghosts not needing my acknowledgment. Still standing with the same expressions in their windows. The diner, the high school, Henrietta's house. My own house.

I felt a wave of anxiety pass over me and tried to focus on fans spinning on the high ceiling of the cafe, the weight of my guitar on my knee, the taste of coffee in my mouth. But once we started playing, I felt at ease playing the songs I'd played hundreds of times before. Even if the song lyrics didn't mean anything to me, the music I wrote still conveyed how I felt. The somber chords of my guitar vibrated through my chest as Mike pressed his lips towards the microphone.

After the concert Mike had insisted on staying around and signing autographs for all the local fans. How he always managed to look so excited and cheerful in his pictures with them was beyond my comprehension. I slipped away to the back alley for a cigarette not anticipating the advanced stalking skills of a bunch of 9th graders. A group of ten of them surrounded me, calling my name like they knew me, telling me how cute I was, and how much they loved me. In the early days stuff like that had made me feel pretty good about myself; to hear anyone compliment me like that—to want take pictures of me. Growing up, my mom hadn't bothered taking my picture—and any evidence of my childhood lived in the family albums at the Biggle's house. But now there was just an emptiness to it.

After several, surely unflattering shots of me glowering with my head pressed against grinning girls, I managed to dislodge myself. The cafe was still packed to the gills with people - I guess Mike's plan had worked. Mr. Tweak was blasting our singles on repeat, and I was sure Mike was in there somewhere glad to "give back" or whatever. Typically at shows, my strategy was to drink just enough soften reality but not enough to forget what my fingers were supposed to be doing. It was a balance I'd found the first couple months of touring. After the show I'd duck out into the bus before Mike was even done professing his thanks to the audience in the microphone. It's not that I was ungrateful; I was just indifferent.

Even as I edged down the sidewalk away from the girls, they were looking like they might follow. I didn't exactly know how to explain that just because Mike was charismatic and charming and always knew what to say to everyone didn't mean I was. Just the opposite. I stared down at my boots leaving shallow imprints in the slush on the side-streets that I hadn't walked down in years but had never forgotten the names to. I pulled the hood of my jacket over my hair. It was streaked with cherry red and too distinctive, freshly dyed by some woman in Park Slope and fell artfully over his eyes at an angle I'd achieved fine on my own with a pair of kitchen scissors when I was ten. My trendy jacket wasn't a match for the Colorado winter and I briefly marveled at the fact that I used to go to school in nothing more than a button down shirt on days that were far colder. But it wasn't like I'd been expecting to be here—a fact that washed over me like a cold sweat. This coat would have been perfect in LA.

I tried not to think it was strange when I found myself at the edge of Benny's parking lot. I wished there were cabs or subways or anonymity that the big cities I was used to. But there was only bright white air, a sparsely filled parking lot, and me. I sat on the curb, considering walking back and demanding a ride back to the hotel from Mike. But he'd been so mopey for days now - and if helping out Mr. Tweak could change that, then I could let him alone for awhile. Those kids had to have bedtimes. And he would want to leave eventually.

As I opened the front door of the diner I half-anticipated that my friends would be sitting inside at their usual table, unchanged. But the only thing unchanged was the diner itself: ceiling fans were spinning over stained tables; half full salt shakers were stuck in rings of coffee. I took a seat on the opposite side of the restaurant and faced away from the door, feeling safety in the move. I hunkered down behind the menu, considering the thought of actually ordering food. Who knew if my friends were still in South Park anyway? It's weird to think of them as my friends - but I didn't know how else to think of them.

"That's probably the first time I've ever seen you flip through a menu here," Georgie said, leaning against the edge of the booth. He closed the notepad he'd been holding and slipped it back into his apron. He flopped down onto the cushion next to me and reached an arm over my shoulder to pull me into a sort of side-hug. "I thought I might see you—but I wasn't sure—with everything going on at Mr. Tweaks…" He pulled back and smiled broadly at me. "God you look so cool-like you could be on the cover of AP Magazine-well I guess you have been!"

He must have shot up two or three inches since I'd seen him last, and had to be taller me now. He was still thin and boyish looking, with bright blue eyes and too many piercing in his face.

"So you work here?" I asked, because he was rambling and the obvious stupid questions were the only ones working the way to the surface of my thoughts. I'd honestly talked myself out of expecting to see any of them. It was like watching a horror movie and then constantly having to remind yourself in the hours afterwards that nothing was hiding in your bedroom closet. Only here the threat was real.

"Yep," Georgie said and having been reminded of the fact, glanced over his shoulder at the rest of the booths. But there was only a middle-aged woman bent over a huge textbook, oblivious of the world around her. "I'm trying to put some money aside for next year."

"Next year?"

"College," Georgie said slowly, "I'm graduating high school in June."

"That's right." I tried to make it sound like I'd remembered, like I thought of Georgie from time to time. And the truth was that I did…but not this Georgie, not taller-than-me Georgie with a job and a savings account.

"It's not so much for me," he continued, tapping his fingers on the edge of the booth, "I'm just going to Denver Community and my parents are paying the tuition. It's Ike. He has a full ride to Princeton. I need a plane ticket fund. You know?" He shook his head and stood up. "Hold on, you want coffee, I'll be right back."

I blinked and watched him disappear into the back. Was it possible that a freshman relationship lasted three homecoming dances in my absence? It did more than put my disastrous attempt at a relationship with Ethan to shame.

"Here you go," he set the mug in front of me. "So," he continued, leaning against the booth across from me. "How long are you in town for?"

"I don't know." I ducked my head down, letting my bangs fall across my face. "Until I can get a flight out. This wasn't exactly something I planned."

He stared at me thoughtfully for a moment. "It's so weird to see you and Mike on TV. The video for your new song…what was it called…?"

"13 Illusions."

"Yeah that one."

"Yeah," I said, sipping his coffee.

He was quiet for a minute.

"Are you going to…see anyone else?"

I wanted to point out that I hadn't exactly stopped by expecting to see him.

"I don't think I'd have time for that."

"Right," Georgie said standing up straighter now as if he was seeing me clearly. "Did…you want to order anything? Sorry I guess I should have asked."

"No, I'm good." I said, feeling the three years of distance between us all at once.

He looked over at the door thoughtfully for a minute. "My shift is almost over, don't worry about the coffee, it's on me." I opened my mouth to protest but he cut me off. "Just do me a favor and stay here for another couple minutes. Ethan is picking me up and I really think you should say hi."

Instinctively I turned my head towards the door and then looked out the window at the parking lot. He was staring at me with a torn frown and I had to remind myself that he was not the child of my divorce. I wished the pit of my stomach wasn't immediately sour and sick from the twos sips of coffee I'd managed since I'd been here. I wanted to tell him that if I was returning the favor of paying for my coffee by staying here to talk to Ethan - that I'd rather pay for his plane tickets to New Jersey for the next four years.

"Oh, I don't think that Ethan—"

"Yes he would." Georgie untied his apron and threw it behind the counter. "Don't look so panicked. It's just Ethan"

I watched in slow motion as a beat-up Jetta pulled into the parking lot. I started scooting out of the booth and walking backwards towards the back of the diner. I felt like every cliché stumble and fall that horror movie heroines made when the killer appeared were suddenly all based on fact. And the thought occurred to me that I couldn't stop comparing all of this to a slasher flick. Maybe that was something I should talk to someone about. A therapist. Maybe immediately. I should go back to the hotel and call a hotline. Georgie followed me, threw an arm over my shoulders, and walked me—somewhat forcibly towards the entrance.

"Georgie, really, this is a bad idea. Please, you just go outside and meet him."

"No, he'll come in," he said calmly, a stark opposite of my frantic whispers. "For Dev's lunch."

I thought about making a run for the kitchen. Surely there was door that led to the back of the diner. I'd seen the cooks outside, sitting on milk crates smoking while hunched over their cellphones. I'd already ducked out the back of one business today, what was another?

But his fingers clawed into my shoulder as if reading my mind. "Don't be a dick Dylan, we've all missed you."

I unconsciously leaned closer to him as the door swung open. Ethan wasn't looking at us. He was trying to get the one-year old in his arms to let go of a handful of his curls. "Can you grab her?" He said to Georgie while he gently tugged at the chubby fist. The little girl looked half-asleep as she rested her head against Ethan's black coat.

Georgie didn't move, maybe out of fear that I would, and when he got no response Ethan glanced up.

His eyebrows disappeared under his bangs. The little girl shifted in his arms.

"Oh," Ethan said, "hey."

"Hey."

"Yeah, Dylan is in town!" Georgie said too enthusiastically to make up for the fact that all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

"I see that," Ethan said, the corners of his lips pointed down

"Anyway he said he could come to my birthday party tomorrow night," Georgie pulled me closer, as if we'd just been reminiscing, as if everything was fine and always had been.

Through the haze in my head I tried to remember about agreeing to anything at all. When had Georgie grown up and become manipulative? It was unfair that by denying that I had agreed to any such thing would make me seem like a liar.

Ethan ran his eyes over me, making the me feel ridiculous for walking around in $300 jeans and custom-ordered Doc Martins.

"Cool," he said. It felt like a sarcastic appraisal of my entire existence.

"Let me write down the address for you," Georgie said, finally letting go of me. But now I wished he'd come back. The side of me that Georgie had been pressed against now felt vulnerable and cold.

"So," I had to choke the words out, "you have a daughter?"

Ethan walked towards the highchairs stacked next to the register and drug one over to a table. "Not exactly." After he'd positioned the little girl into the highchair she turned around to look at me with wide brown eyes. "Don't you recognize that demanding stare? She's Henrietta's." He paused for a moment that stretched on forever, "and Damiens'."

"Oh," I said. I tried not to be too visibly hurt by the fact that Henrietta had gotten pregnant and had a baby without telling me. Of course, he wasn't looking at me anyway. It was nice to know that some things never change. "So I don't have to come to whatever party Georgie is talking about. I know this is weird. I didn't want to…I just wanted a cup of coffee."

He looked up at me. "I don't doubt that."

I wanted to scream at him that he was the one who told me to go. That he was the one who had broken up with me. The one who hadn't been there. Hadn't cared enough. Hadn't loved enough. But all the energy behind it died in a small sigh. "Okay," I said, "fuck this."

"Here's the address," Georgie reappeared and slipped a torn off sheet of paper into my hand. "Tomorrow at 7. I'm turning 18. So you better be there." He pulled me in for a tight hug. "I missed you dude." I thought of all the hugs I'd already given girls shorter than me today. I wasn't used to my face being buried in someone's shoulder. It just wasn't the right shoulder.

"Yeah, see you then I guess," I said, my eyes falling from Georgie's grin to Ethan's stare to the baby's fat cheeks. When I stepped outside I couldn't have been more grateful for a frozen gust of December that blew the air of the diner off of me.

I could feel them watching me from the windows inside, talking about me, analyzing how I'd just acted. It was hard to walk in a straight line with the knowledge. When I was finally was far enough away to turn a corner I felt a curtain fall across my back. Somewhere ahead was Mike. I'd demand that he drive me back to the hotel and throw money behind any flight that could get me out of this time zone.

When I made it back to Mr. Tweak's the doors were locked and I waited for one of the baristas to let me in. Mr. Tweak and Mike were sitting on the stools by the counter having a discussion that I was sure I didn't want to be a part of.

"Hey," I said, waiting for Mike to look up. "Can you give me a ride back to the hotel?"

"Yeah, are you okay?" He asked as he grabbed his coat.

"Fine," I said through gritted teeth.

After standing around another fifteen minutes to be thanked by Mr. Tweak we were off, sparing a wave to some die-hard fans who would probably catch pneumonia from sitting on the frozen cement so long.

"So it happened," I said while they were stopped at a red light, "I ran into my old friends."

"Well that's good." Mike said either because he was only half-listening or was as naïve as I had always assumed.

"No it's wasn't, it was horrible and awkward."

"Well now that part is over, you can get to the good part where you talk about what you've been up to."

"I don't think that's the way things work in real life."

"Why can't they," Mike said before shooting me a knowing look. "Because you won't let them."

We were silent for awhile on the highway and I considered pulling out a cigarette just to piss him off.

"Georgie invited me to his birthday party."

"You should go. Because that's the stuff we have to do to stay alive in this world. You know?"

I couldn't stand another minute of his sanctimonious bullshit. "What's going on with you?"

There was silence for a few minutes as we sat in traffic. I watched his fingers tap soundlessly against the steering wheel.

"It's been good to see my parents," he said softly. "But you know that saying-'you can never go home again'-well it's really true."

He parked outside the entrance of the hotel. I got out of the car, lit a cigarette, and stared at the splitting ends of his hair. "That's good. Because some of us don't want to." I half-regretted sounding so cold. But it wasn't like Mike hadn't seen the bruises.

"Not everyone hates their family Dylan," he said before looking down at his hands. "Sorry, I don't mean to sound like..."

"It's fine." It was something that I tried not to think of, so I really just wanted him to shut up.

"I can pick you up tomorrow for the party," Mike said, "if you want."

"Fine," I said, mostly because I just wanted him to leave.

When he did, I crushed my cigarette in the street where the tires of his car had been. The hotel stood behind me and I turned to walked towards it wondering how I'd ever fall asleep tonight.