The Games We Play
He was infuriated, how could they take away half of his set for the Halloween Bash? That's it, they were done for. Ray Beech would see to it that Lemonade Mouth never play at that bash. He was willing to try anything. One lunch time he was headed up to the new weight room, when he passed her. Mohini Banjaree was buying tickets for the bash. A smirk played on his face: She knew she did not have to actually pay since she was playing? Well, if she did not, he was not about to start telling her.
Instead he put his action into plan. Getting rid of one of the band would surely ruin the rest of the band. One down, everyone down. He laughed, stupid band of friends. At least it was not like that at Mudslide Crush. If one person fell flat on their face, the band still went on.
Eyeing the bulk in the back pocket of her bag, Ray went into action picking his turbo blast from the machine, he walked over to her, "Hey, Mo!"
"What's up with you?" Her eyebrows creased with confusion.
"Nothing." Now or never, "Hey, have you seen the new weight room?"
"What?"
"Okay, you have got to check it out. It's really great." He knew he needed to work fast, especially since Scott was up their with Jules, and he knew Mo would be the one to run away. "So, uh, how's that whole band thing working out for you?" One hand behind her, he slipped into the pocket on the bag and snatched her cell phone, sliding it casually into his jeans pocket.
"Yeah, it's great. Um, Ray, what are you, seriously, I don't have time for your games."
"Hey, Mo, you know Jules right? Hey! Mo!" Ray was right, she ran, and kept on running. Scott tried to go after her, but Ray stopped him too.
"Hey, let her go." And then he turned to look down the stairs, "Hey! Good luck tonight!" - If you even get to play.
Walking away, he saved himself the lecture from Scott, about why exactly he had brought Mo up there when he knew he was with Jules, and sat outside the school. Scrolling through her phone. Normally, he was not the kind of guy who would go through someone else's text messages, but he had already stolen her phone (or as he liked to call it 'borrowed') so one look would not hurt.
It was not even worth the look. All he found were a ton of texts to Scott - all of which the aforementioned had not replied too, and a few times and places for band practices. God, her life was boring. Time to spice it up a bit.
He scrolled through her contact lists, carefully taking down a few numbers, for future reference. He took each of Lemonade Mouth's numbers, and then the ever important number of her father, or as he was registered in her phone 'BaBa'. He was glad he'd stuck around her long enough to hear her refer to her dad as that, otherwise right now he would be really confused.
All of the numbers saved in his mobile, he walked over to lost property and handed in Mo's phone.
Mo's eyes were puffy and red, obviously she had been crying. Not that anyone knew. The band was in the basement practicing for the Halloween Bash later that night, Mo had not shown up.
"I am sure she's just running late. Maybe she needed to speak to one of her teachers." It was no secret that Mo was doing many AP classes on top of her usual ones. "She'll be here." So everyone began to tune their instruments to the notes Wen was playing out for them on the keyboard.
Ten minutes passed, and she still had not shown up, so Olivia began to go through the song with everyone, telling them the minor adjustments she had made to it due to their last band rehearsal. Then they began to play, both of their songs lacked the bass, and all around they knew they needed Mo.
Speak of the devil.
Twenty minutes she had sat in the toilets, crying, although she barely knew why. Was it for the fact of actually being cheated on by Scott? Or just because he had not had the decency to tell her? Maybe it was the fact that she was lying to her father about where she was going and who she was with for that jerk. Either way, she was still sobbing twenty minutes later, until she remembered that she had band practice.
Mo had not jumped up from where she was sitting so fast in her life. Splashing a bit of water over her face, she dried it and ran down to the basement, opening the door quickly and running in.
"Sorry I'm late, guys, I got a bit caught up." She placed her bag on a desk and raced over to her base.
They were not stupid, you could hear the shaking in her voice, she was obviously crying, or had just been.
Stella was the first to step forward, placing her hand on Mo's busying hand to stop her actions, she asked, "Mo, what's wrong."
Looking up, Mo found the concerned faces of all of her best friends looking at her red puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks, her eyes welled up again. She did all she could do without opening her mouth and pouring out her innermost thoughts; she shook her head.
They all knew it was not 'nothing' that got Mohini Banjaree upset, so they asked her again, and again, until she snapped.
"Mo, you've obviously been crying, why?" Charlie now asked, walking over from where he stood next to his drums. His hand found her back and rubbed gently as another tear slipped from her eye and down her cheek.
"I said leave it!" Her teeth gritted, a glare fixed on Charlie. Swiftly, she wiped the tear from her cheek, swearing to herself not to let anymore fall out of her eyes. The only thing to stop that, she knew, was to think of something other than Scott Pickett. So she played, and played and played.
Repeating her part to Determinate flawlessly, before playing Here We Come, and then back to Determinate again. Worry only grew in all of her band mates, but they soon were playing the song along with her, knowing how much a song made them feel better when they were upset.
Mo did not think she could stop feeling so heartbroken, surprisingly getting herself lost in her music had actually helped, and, just for a moment, she felt so much better.
He meticulously scrolled through his photo's on his cell phone. Choosing the perfect one before pressing send, and then sending a text over: Little Mohini's been playing with the boys, boys that have gotten her in detention for skipping class.
On top of the first picture, he sent an image of Mo talking to Charlie, and one where he had cut a band photo down so it was just Mo and Wen. Hopefully that would get her in enough trouble to make him stop her playing the bash.
She had been the first to leave band practice, and had been avoiding everyone for the remainder of the day, doing anything to save the questions. She had tried to busy herself with her mobile at one point when she was in a hallway, but realised that it was missing. Her first thought was to check all of her steps, but it was no where to be found. Maybe her emotions got the better of her, because by the time she had realised she had been looking for quite a while, she had already missed half of her AP class. Now she decided to check the lost property. Relief spreading all over her face when she noticed that it had been handed in. Her brow wrinkled when she noticed that her father's contact information was open… Maybe they had knocked it when putting it in lost property.
She told herself that must be the reason, and set about getting to her next class before she was late for that one too.
Finally, the bell rang and she was free to go. The clasp of freedom from this hell hole only to be blocked by the one group of people she did not want to see.
Being the first to race up to her, Charlie gave her a sympathetic look, "Mo, how're you doing?"
Once again, her emotions got the better of her, "I said I was fine!" She stormed out of the doors, walking her quickest home.
Of course, everyone followed her, everyone but Charlie, who had been drawn into another conversation. One he was not part of:
"How could you even bring her up there, full well knowing I was with Jules?" Scott Pickett yelled at Ray.
He only offered a shrug, "I tried to stop her, but that only made her more suspicious." Ray informed him, completely lying. "It really wasn't my fault she caught you with her. Maybe if you call and apologised." He reasoned.
Scott gave him a glare, "Apologise? To Mo? After she caught me cheating on her? With Jules? Are you stupid or something? She's never going to forgive me!"
It took all of his restraint not to go up to both Scott and Ray and punch them both. Not that he had much restraint, he just knew that both of them would probably pummel him in two seconds flat. Was Mo worth that? Definitely. But the band did not even know the reason for Mo being upset.
Right now, that was more important. He would have to wait to hit them tomorrow. Or tonight at the bash at least… If they even made it to the bash. Mo was pretty beaten up.
Swiftly he picked his backpack off of the floor and began a light running to catch up with his friends, texting Stella on the way: She caught Scott cheating on her with Jules this afternoon.
There was a quick reply back: I think that's the least of our problems. Mo's dad has just attacked Wen. We have no idea why.
Definitely not good, Charlie picked up his pace and found the band on Mo's street corner a couple of minutes later, "What? He attacked you? Why? When? What happened exactly?"
So they began to fill Charlie in on the quickest ten minutes of his life.
Flashback
"Mo! Wait up, we only want to talk to you. Please!" Olivia pleaded, nearly tripping over her feet because they were moving so fast.
Mo's speed did not decrease, if anything, that spurred her to go a little faster. They all knew Mo was one to run away from her feelings, but this was taking everything a little too literally, and a little too quickly and soon, they had arrived at Mo's garden gate.
"Mo, please, we need to know what's going on! We have the bash tonight, we need to know if you're okay to play!" At Stella's mention of the bash, Olivia turned slightly white.
Mo turned to her with furious eyes, "So that's all you care about, your precious band. And here's me thinking you guys were actually my friends. We'll sorry to break it to you, you have no bass player for the band. I'm not doing it!"
"You really think we would run half a mile after someone, just to see if they were still playing in the band? No! We're worried about you, Mo. Please, just talk to us, we care." Olivia now told her, with a soft sigh.
She looked apologetic, gulped and looked to her house before closing the gate and beginning to walk away from it, about to start talking before they heard the shouts of a man, in a foreign language they all assumed was Indian. Turning, they all saw him pointing an angry finger at Wen, Mo pushed him away before he got too close.
"Baba." She gave him a stern look.
One which he returned, pointing in the direction of her house and pulling her towards it. More angry words shouted at her in Indian. Going along with him, Mo shot Wen an apologetic look before entering the house, followed by the glare her father gave Wen also.
They stood around stunned for a few moments, "What the hell just happened?" Stella finally asked.
Wen only offered a shrug in response.
"You must have done something." Now imputed Olivia.
His hands both raised in mock surrender, "Seriously, I have no clue why he just did that."
End Of Flashback
"So he just started shouting at you? Are you sure you didn't do something to wind him up?" Charlie now asked.
Shaking his head, Wen replied, "No, not a single thing, I swear."
"Well this just gets better and better. Is she even going to be playing the bash with us tonight?" Running a hand through his hair, Charlie released a exhausted sigh.
Stella looked to the floor, "Well she's in big trouble with her dad as far as I can tell, so I doubt he will even let her out of the house, and even if he does, Scott is probably the last person she wants to run into."
"Scott? What's he done?" Olivia asked, looking just as confused as Wen did.
Charlie looked at Stella and scratched the base of his neck with a simple shrug of his shoulders, "We may as well tell them. It's not like Mo's going to."
"Mo caught Scott cheating on her." Explained Stella.
Wen's hand crushed into a fist, "I knew there was a reason why I hated that slimy little worm."
"Sure, it had nothing to do with the fact he's a Jock, he picks on you for your hair all the time, and he is now in the rival band." Olivia rolled her eyes.
"So what do we do?" Wen asked, changing the subject.
Charlie looked to Mo's house, then to his feet, and back to his friends faces, "The only thing we can do: practice the songs for the bash with someone else playing bass…"
"Well that isn't ending well." Olivia looked pale again at the mere thought of the embarrassment of messing up not only her words, but a guitar part as well.
The sky slowly turned a dreary autumn grey before the clouds finally opened, rain lightly sprinkling down over the block.
"We'll text her. See if she is okay later. Ask for some insight as to what the hell Wen has done, and hopefully she can play the bash, but we need to be prepared if she can't." He tucked his slowly dampening fringe behind his ear. "And we really have to get out of this rain.
The band - minus one, headed down the street in the direction of Charlie's house. Praying to any God that was listening that Mo would be able to play the bash tonight.
"I have worked so hard in this country, setting a nice life for us, giving you a nice home and a good education, and this is how you repay me?" Turning his phone around furiously, he showed her an image of her and Scott kissing.
Stunned, Mo's mouth opened and closed like a fish, no words coming out.
"And not only do you mess around with one boy, I go and get pictures of two others!" He now showed her the images of her and Wen and her and Charlie. "As if that isn't bad enough, I find that you skipped class with a boy, and got detention from it. My daughter does not get detention!"
"Baba, I swear I am not dating Wen or Charlie, or Scott." She added, remembering her earlier discovery.
He glared at her, "Mohini, you have already lied to me so many times I can no longer believe a single word you say to me, go to your room, you're grounded." Furiously, he pointed to the staircase.
"But, Baba, it's the Bash tonight, I need to go, Lemonade Mouth is playing."
Probably not the right thing to say at a time like this, but in for a penny in for a pound. If anything, that only added fuel to her father's fire, "No! You are not playing and that is the end of it. You're not going to be in the band anymore! All you will do is go to school, do your extra classes, work at the clinic and the store and come home. No boys, no rock bands."
"Who do you think you are to decide what I do with my life?" She exclaimed, finally letting all that pent up anger out. Her father's face went redder, "I am a teenager, and I want to be like a normal teenager, not whatever stupid idea you have for me!"
"You will act the way I want you to act and you will do what I tell you!" He shouted back, only ten times louder and a lot more confident than her screams.
"I know you have this weird idea in you head of the 'Perfect Indian Daughter', but guess what, Dad? We live in America, if you wanted that daughter, you should have raised me there!" And with those final words she stormed off.
"Get to your room!" He father furiously shouted in response.
Mo pondered for the moment while she was walking to the stairs, Walk up the stairs, and all the arguing you've just done will have been for nothing, walk out that door and you take a stand. Be whoever you want to be. No more strings attached. No more 'Perfect Indian Daughter'. I can just be Mo.
Her mind was made up and her hand landed on the door handle. Before her father could shout after her, Mo was gone, out that door and running up the street. No destination in sight. The only place to run to in her mind was freedom.
The rain had became heavier and was now lashing against the window with ferociousness. The sky had turned grey and dull, but it was still remotely light outside. It had felt to the band like they had been playing endlessly (and terribly) for a century. Nothing was working out for them. It seemed no matter how hard anyone tried, they were still missing something from Mo's bass. First Olivia had tried it, then Stella, hell, even Wen had a small go at it. No one could play it like Mo did.
Frustrated, all of them had slumped where they were. Wen sitting on the floor by his keyboard, leaning against the wall. Stella sat on one of the chairs, accompanied by Olivia on the other one. Charlie had thrown his drumsticks to the floor and laid his head against one of his drums.
The phone rang throughout Charlie Delgado's house, and he left his band to answer it. Racing from behind his drums to do so.
"Charlie?" It was Mo's mother. For a moment he forgot she was even there, while he tried to remember how she had gotten his number. It was obvious, Mo had called his house phone last night. Clearly her mother had called through all of the recent outgoing and incoming calls. "Charlie?" She asked once again.
"Hey Mrs. Banjaree. Yeah, it's Charlie." He finally told her. "Is there something wrong?"
"No!" She exclaimed, a little too quickly, and then thought better of it, "Actually, Monu seems to have ran off somewhere, and she won't answer our calls, do you have any idea where she has gone?"
Mo had ran off somewhere? Charlie had a thought of where she might have gone, but he knew it was better to find her himself, after all, then he could convince her to play the bash since she was already out, and her father would not burst in screaming and shouting, "No, Mrs. Banjaree. I don't know where she is, but if I hear from her I will call you guys."
She seemed satisfied with that answer, "Alright, Charlie, thanks, make sure you do call me if you hear from her." And then the line went dead.
The first thing he did was grab his jacket from his room, after all, it was raining pretty heavily. He made sure he was zipped up and was tightly warm before leaving the house, beginning the run to where he believed she would be.
A thought struck him as he passed Mo's street corner and he remembered the events from earlier: Shouldn't he have told every one else?
The rain made it a hell of a lot harder to text and his hands were so cold he was sure they had frozen stiff, but he managed a simple: Mo ran away, park by her's. Gone to get her
And then he sent it to Stella as she was the easiest being the last person he had texted recently other than the million messages to Mo.
He could see one part of the large park by the time he got a reply back: We're coming down soon x
Opening the gates, he began to search through the park, which was not exactly easy considering the size of it. He passed the large duck lake, but there was no sign of Mo, no sign of her at the kid's park or the tennis and basketball courts. Searching felt like forever until he came to the small 'Faerie Glenn' as it was called. Carefully as the stones shone from the rain water on them, he stepped down the stairs into the area. Finally, he could see her.
She looked like a drowned rat, hair curly, clinging to her face, clothes stuck to her body, her arms wrapped tight around her to give her the slightest hint of warmth. From the slight tremble in her slowly turning blue bottom lip, he knew she was freezing. Yet her cheeks were flushed red, around her eyes puffed red as well, and her eyes mimicked the other two. Obviously she was crying.
Her phone lay in the mud next to her, lighting up to tell her that her father was calling her once again. It was on silent. Mo did not even spare it a glance before ignoring it, she just did the latter. Staring at her reflexion in the small river at her feet.
Charlie carefully walked over to her, loud enough not to startle her when he sat down, but not too loud as to disturb her peace. She acknowledged his presence as he sat next to her only by glancing at his reflection in the water.
"I can understand why you came here. It is beautiful. Even in the rain." He looked back to the stone steps that, when wet, had a sort of glittery glow. The slow waterfall at the end of the river seemed to be hidden in the heavy rain, but it still looked beautiful, even the thought of it being there.
They sat for another moment, just watching the ripples of the water run through their reflections. He slowly noticed the tears still falling down her face, and wondered what could make her so sad? Was this all because of that jerk, Scott? His heart began screaming, I would never treat her like that. She is far too good for Scott, he doesn't deserve to have her. It should be me! I will treat her like a princess! He longed to open his mouth, and say the same to her, but, before he even had a chance to tell himself that it was stupid to even imagine himself with someone as beautiful as Mo, she spoke. He was the one startled.
"Scott cheated on me." It wasn't like he did not already know, but he played along for the sake of getting her to open up more.
"Yeah? I'm sorry, Mo."
Shaking her head, a few more tears fell onto her lap, "Don't be, he was with Jules, in the new weight room. Ray took me up there, I think he knew." She took a deep breath.
Charlie did not know what to say, after all, what do you say to something like that? So he felt ever more grateful when she spoke again, "I think he took my phone." She admitted to him. Charlie's eyes fell onto the still silently ringing phone, this time it was Stella calling apparently. "And took my dad's number. He sent him pictures of me and you, and me and when and then one of me kissing Scott. He told him I got detention for skipping class with Scott."
"Who did?" Charlie now found something to say.
"Ray. He was the only person I know with the brain to do anything so cruel." Mo began to sob again. Charlie ran his fingers softly up and down her back.
"I take it that's why your dad went after Wen?" She silently nodded, "What happened when you went in the house?" Did he really want to know? Some part of him was answering no, but telling someone what happened was normally the way they fix these things on TV Shows. Maybe it would work now.
"He told me I was only to go to school, the clinic and the store. No more bands and no more boys. I shouted back, telling him that if he wanted a 'Perfect Indian Daughter' he should have raised me in Indian, and then I left. I just ran until I found myself here." She explained. "I guess my mother and father will be rushing in here any minute?"
He shook his head, fingers still lightly splayed on her back, "No, I didn't tell your mother, she thinks I don't know where you are."
"But you knew where I was. How did you? I didn't even know where I was going."
A small smile grew on his face, when, for the first time Mo turned and actually looked at the real him, yep, she was still as beautiful as ever, "You told me once. This was the place you used to love coming to when you were a child. It always felt magical. Like it could solve anything. This was your safe place."
"And you remembered that?" Mo now asked.
"I remember everything about you Mo." His tender hand tucked a piece of wet hair behind her ear, "Everything."
"Like?" Mo questioned him, an eyebrow raised, glad for the welcome distraction to her thoughts.
"Well…" He looked down at her arm, "I know that that is from when you were four and you fell off of your bike going down a hill and cut it on a broken bottle at the bottom." Looking around a little more, he came up with another one, "I know you are scared of clowns." His hand began to fiddle with the bottom of his jacket, "Your dad made you plan your future at the age of eleven. He has made you reach that achievement since that very day."
Mo's eyes fell to the floor with more tears, she took a deep breath, "I'm failing two of my AP classes." She confessed to him, "I think everything's getting on top of me. The band, all my classes, doing so many hours at the clinic. It's getting to be too much."
"Does your dad know?" She shook her head, "You need to tell him. Everything will be okay, Mo, I promise."
"Thanks. You always know what to say." Mo said, biting her lower lip. "What else do you remember about me?"
Charlie thought for a moment, before speaking, "You come to school in clothes your father would approve of, and get changed just so you fit in. Your favourite drink before you had Mel's was Grape Soda. On days where you've stayed up too late doing your school work, you wear your hair pinned back and when you've wake up on time or early, you wear it out."
"You really notice all of that?" A stunned tone filled her voice.
"I told you, Mo, I notice everything."
Slowly she leaned forward, and so did he, locking each others lips in a kiss.
When they pulled apart, Charlie questioned if he was just a rebound from Scott, but she seemed to gaze at him with those puppy dog eyes and fell in love with her all over again. Getting lost in them. That was until she shivered.
He took off his jacket, not like it would do her any good, it was near enough soaking though, but not as much as she was, so he put it around her, wrapping her in a warm hug, "Don't want you getting hypothermia on me. Come on, let's get you home."
She looked scared, "What?" Frantically she shook her head.
"My home. We have practice for the bash."
"I'm grounded." She informed him.
Charlie nonchalantly shrugged, "You're already out. Don't worry about it."
"I don't want to see Scott." Mo finally admitted, Charlie gave her a sympathetic look.
"Hiding away from him is only going to make him the winner, getting on that stage and playing tonight, showing him what he is missing is what's going to make you better than him." Softly, his hand wiped the tears off of her cheeks, and pulled her face towards his own.
Then they kissed another time, this time longer, passionately, that was until a group of people walked over to them, one wolf whistling.
"Wen!" Olivia scolded him, elbowing him in the ribs.
Stella had a small smirk on her face, holding an umbrella over herself, "So, I guess you two are… whatever this is, now?"
He looked to Mo, who was still slightly stunned but gave a small shrug and a nod, "Yeah, I guess we are." A small shiver escaped her lips.
"Let's get you out of the rain." He told her, picking up her phone and pocketing it before helping her to stand.
"Wen, I'm sorry about my dad. Ray seems to think it's funny sending him photos and claiming I'm messing around with you." She explained, her eyes falling to the floor.
He lightly nudged her arm, "It's fine. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time someone's dad went crazy at me over 'dating' their daughter." Her eyebrows raised, head cocked to the side, "Okay, so it was, but it was sure amusing."
They walked in silence out of the park and in an opposite direction towards Stella's home first, after deciding that Mo was going to need a dry change of clothes. Charlie glanced at Mo's phone after pulling it from his pocket. Her mother was calling her again. A part of him knew how worried Mrs. Banjaree was, and felt guilty. Maybe Mo should phone and say she was okay?
"Mo." He spoke, she turned to look at him, "I think you need to answer, just tell your mom you're fine, she's only going to worry, and she sounded really upset when she called mine." Charlie held the phone out to her, slowly she took it.
Stopping in the middle of the road, Stella held the umbrella over Mo's head, no one wanting her to get anymore wetter than she was. She now had Wen's dryer jacket around herself, but was shivering considerably still.
"Hello?" The panicked voice came out of her mother. It broke Mo's heart to know she had been crying.
"Hi, Mom. I'm just calling to say I'm fine. I swear, I am." She bit her lower lip with worry.
"Where are you? I'm coming to get you!"
"No, Mom. I need to be out of there, I'll be home tonight though, I promise."
"Where are you staying?" The loud cursing of her father could be heard in the background.
"I'm at a friends. Don't worry about me. I'll see you tonight. Tell Baba I'm sorry." Tears in her eyes, she hung up the phone.
Charlie took it from her and put it back in his pocket, enveloping her in his arms and holding her close, "Sshh, see, it's fine." He whispered into her hairline, rubbing her back softly as she sobbed again.
"Thank you." Mo finally said, looking him dead in the eyes.
"Don't tha-" She cut his words off, locking lips with him once again.
This time the rest of the band carried on walking, not wanting to break the pair apart, leaving the gate and door to Stella's home open for when they were to madly dash in from the rain.