Zigzag sat in the fancy living room of Bam's home, his bright green eyes just staring out into space. It had been three days since the incident at the club. Three solid days since he had stopped talking to Mikey. Both had gone out of their way so neither saw each other. Zigzag hated this, he always had. Just not talking to her while she was near was so . . . unbearable.
"Still moping around?"
Zigzag snapped out of his daze and cast a glance over his shoulder. Standing behind the couch he sat on was the only guy in Bam's crew he had really become close friends with: Ryan Dunn. The gruff man walked around and took a seat next to him. Zigzag bumped fists with him and then lay back on the couch. "Yeah, I guess I still am," he admitted.
Dunn had figured out, like almost everyone living in the house, that Mikey and Zigzag had somehow managed to ruffle each other's feathers up and were not speaking. "Well I think you should apologize to her," Dunn told him.
Zigzag looked over at him and sighed. "I know but then why should I when she was the one who said 'Shut up'?" he said the part angrily.
Dunn shrugged. He knew about the little love triangle both his friends, Bam and Zigzag, had found themselves in, but he wasn't about to interfere for neither of them. So he kept silent and joined the tall blond in staring into space.
Minutes later, they both heard snickering coming from behind and both turned around in their seats. Coming down the stairs with wide grins across their faces were not surprisingly Bam, DiCo, and Raab. Zigzag saw in Bam's hands Mikey's acoustic guitar. "What are you doing with that?" he asked him.
Bam looked up and grinned, the other two were beside themselves with the next prank in mind. "Don't worry a thing dude," he told him. Seeing the doubt in Zigzag's eyes, he held up the guitar so it caught the light from the window better.
Zigzag saw it then. Though it had the same body and color black like Mikey's guitar, the fret board was made of different wood. "So that isn't-?"
Bam nodded and handed the guitar over to DiCo. "Don't break it yet okay?" he told him. The shorter Brandon nodded. Bam looked over at Raab. "Go keep a look out for her," he ordered.
Raab saluted him and ran to the front door.
Zigzag and Dunn exchanged skeptical glances. "What are you guys doing?" Zigzag asked.
Bam shook his head, the smile never leaving his face. "You'll find out in time," he said. Checking his watch, Bam noticed that it was near three-thirty. He gave DiCo a nudge with his elbow. "C'mon, April and Mikey should be on their way from that pottery class April took them to," he said. Nodding over to the two in the living room, they sauntered off towards the Pirate Bar with the guitar.
Zigzag settled back into his seat and looked at Dunn. "Is it me, or there will be something bad that'll come out of this?" he asked him.
"It's a little of both I think," Dunn replied.
Mikey and April parked at the front of Castle Bam and got out of the car. "That was actually fun April," Mikey told her as she slammed the door shut.
April smiled and replied, "See I told you. If only I had daughters, but then I love my sons, even if they get out of had a lot."
"Well, even if Bam gets out of hand a lot," Mikey amended. They laughed and walked inside the house through the front door.
In the bushes beside their car, Raab stood up and turned around. He ran towards the backyard as he laughed evilly.
Mikey left April and walked up the stairs to her room. She opened the door and walked over to her bed. Bending down, she pulled up the sheets and stuck her hand in between the gap. Expecting to feel cold smooth wood, Mikey was both surprised and a bit scared when she only felt air. Mikey's eyes widened and she got on all fours and stuck her head under the bed. "Where is it?!" she panicked. In her rush to retrieve her head from under the musty bottom, Mikey accidentally bumped her head hard on the metal part that kept the bed up. "Owww," Mikey groaned as she pulled her head out and pressed a hand to the small bump that was forming. "Son of a bitch!" Mikey got to her feet and walked quickly out of her room. She went to the room across and rudely pushed the door open. Her eyes widened as she saw Zigzag with his back towards her, shirtless.
Zigzag turned around and saw Mikey at the doorway, staring at him, or more like his exposed upper body. He blushed at about the same time she did and reached back for the shirt he had discarded. "What's-?" He stopped himself in time, remembering that they weren't on speaking terms. Pulling the shirt over himself, he looked away from her. "What are you doing here? Ricky's with Michael, Ozz, and Rake in the skate park if you're looking for him," he said gruffly.
Mikey felt hurt for a moment at his words but shook them off as the case of her missing guitar returned to her mind. "Do you know where my guitar is?" she asked him.
Zigzag heard the desperation and panic in her voice and couldn't help but look back at her. "Where was the last time you saw it?" he asked. Somehow, I think Bam and the other two have something to do with this, he thought. "Look, I'll help you find it okay?" he told her. Zigzag felt his heart flutter seeing a smile cross her face. "Really Zig?" she asked him. He nodded and started forward.
They both checked all of the rooms on the second floor and didn't find it. Walking downstairs, they checked the living room and then walked down to the Pirate Bar. Even in there, neither found any evidence that Mikey's prized possession had been there.
April stood in the kitchen fixing up a little dinner for her, Phil, and Mikey's band since her son and his friends rarely ate a proper dinner.
"Hey April, do you by any chance happen to know where Mikey's guitar is?" Zigzag asked her.
She shook her head. "Sorry but I don't," she told them.
Zigzag nodded and thanked her.
"I'll check outside," Mikey said, praying it was just lying out on a deck chair. She pulled aside the glass door and stepped outside into the dying afternoon sun. Her eyes wandered around the pool area and saw Bam skating in the empty pool bowl. Raab and Dunn were looking down at him on the sides. Mikey walked over to them. "You guys, I'm missing my guitar. Do you know where it is?" Mikey fought to keep her temper as the two ignored her and continued watching Bam. "Bam!" Mikey shouted to him.
Bam executed a 50-50 grind halfway around the pool bowl and then skated to the top before jumping off his board and landing beside a pissed off looking Mikey. He smiled down at her, not heeding the dark glint in her chocolate brown eyes. "What's this I hear about you missing your guitar?" he asked.
Mikey sighed heavily as she blinked back unwelcome tears that were starting to form behind her eyelids. "I can't find it anywhere," she told him. "Have you seen it?"
Bam looked over her shoulder and gave Raab a warning look seeing that he was about to burst out laughing. He looked back and Mikey and put his hands on her shoulders. "Look, I bet Michael or even Ozz just borrowed it," he reassured her.
Raab tried hard to keep from laughing as he said loudly, "Or maybe DiCo has it!"
Right on cue, Brandon DiCamillo leaped out from the nearby bushes, scaring the shit out of both Mikey and Dunn. Mikey's eyes widened seeing her guitar in his hands. She pushed away from Bam and walked over to DiCo. "Give me back my guitar!" she demanded in a warning voice.
DiCo laughed and began strumming the stings of the guitar, giving off a horrible, out of control guitar sound as he ran out of her reach. "Ha ha ha! My precious!" he said.
Mikey gritted her teeth and chased after him around the pool. Bam, Dunn, and Raab were laughing their asses off as the two repeatedly ran around them in circles. Mikey looked just about ready to murder him. Bam noticed his skateboard next to his feet. As DiCo ran over to them for about the tenth time, with Mikey hot on his heels, Bam kicked the skateboard fight in his friend's path. DiCo, not expecting this or to be part of the plan, tripped and fell hard to the stone ground.
Mikey froze in her tracks and she watched with horror written all over her face as her guitar, her brother's guitar, sailed in the air then fell off the side of the pool edge and then proceeded its journey to the deep end part of the pool. All of them heard the crash and breaking of the guitar as it hit the bottom.
"OMG!!! DICOOO!!! What have you done?!?!?!" Mikey screamed out. She ran over to the edge of the pool and looked down. Her heart felt like it had been crushed as her eyes observed the damage. The neck of the guitar had been snapped in half when it had hit the side of the pool. It was barely hanging on because of the strings. Pieces, both major and small, lay a mess all around the main part of the instrument. Mikey's hands curled into tight fists, the nails digging so hard into her skin that she wouldn't be surprised that is broke it and bled. Mikey's chest heaved up and down rapidly as she breathed hard, trying to vainly regain some form of calm. But that was once again all in vain as she slowly turned around and faced DiCo. The laughter he had on his face was immediately killed once he saw the murder in her eyes. He glanced over at Bam in uncertainty, fear rising inside him as Mikey slowly started after him. Then in a split second, she was in his face and so literally was her fist.
Bam, Raab, and Dunn watched in horror as their friend landed hard on his back, blood pouring from his nose. They stood there as Mikey leaped onto him, grabbing his collar and started pounding on him in fury.
Zigzag once again thanked April for her help and stepped outside into the backyard. He looked around and what he saw in front of him shocked him beyond all that he had ever seen. Mikey was beating the shit out of DiCo. Bam, Dunn, and Raab stood there and just watched the two in fear. "Mikey! What are you doing?!" Zigzag shouted as he ran over to her. This got the other three reacting and Bam and Dunn also helped pull her off of poor bloody and unconscious DiCo. Zigzag held Mikey tightly by the upper arms as she kicked and screamed, trying to still get to the man. "Mikey! What's the matter with you?!" he yelled. Zigzag spun Mikey around to face him and he reared back his hand and slapped her, not hard, across the face.
Immediately she stopped and came back to her senses. Mikey blinked slowly, still consumed with the fire of revenge. Zigzag sighed in relief and asked her again, "What happened?" Instead of the answer to his question, Mikey's eyes filled up with tears and she covered her mouth with bloody hands. She sobbed something but Zigzag didn't hear her. "What?" he asked, taking her hands away from her mouth.
"He massacred my guitar!!!" she yelled, her voice full of hate and pain.
Zigzag's eyes widened and he turned to the three guys holding their unconscious friend in between them. "You what!?" he demanded.
Bam let Dunn and Raab take care of DiCo and turned his full attention on the two. "It was all a joke!" he said. Raab and Dunn carried DiCo into the house.
"How is breaking her guitar beyond repair a god fucking joke?!?!" Zigzag yelled angrily.
Mikey pulled away from Zigzag and turned to Bam. "That wasn't just an ordinary guitar Bam," Mikey coldly spat. "That was my brother's guitar."
Bam shook his head. "You can always ask him for another one," he told her.
Mikey also shook her head, but this was done in anger. Tears poured down her face as she said, "I can never ask him for another one. Tobias is dead. That was his first ever guitar, and the last thing that he left for me that I cherish."
That struck Bam hard in the gut. At that split minute, he had forgotten about the joke and had thought he had actually done a crime. But then a small smile touched his features. "You don't have to worry about that," he told her. Bam walked over to the other row of bushes next to the ones DiCo had popped out from and carefully pulled out . . . Mikey's guitar?
"What the fuck?" Zigzag muttered. But then his green eyes widened as he remembered a fleeting memory of an hour or so ago when Bam had showed him that guitar that nearly looked like this one. He turned to Mikey. "Where is the guitar now?" he asked her.
Mikey stared with wide eyes and open mouth at the guitar Bam held in his hands. She was so transfixed that she wasn't even aware that she had pointed towards the direction of the empty pool.
Zigzag walked over to the side and looked down. There at the very bottom was the wreckage. He squinted his eyes to help his vision better and looked for the neck of the guitar. It was split in two but he could see it. This guitar, the one at the bottom, was the imposter that Bam had showed him. Zigzag sighed in relief and ran back to Mikey. "Mikey, that guitar in Bam's hands-"
"Is mine," she finished for him, her voice just barely above a whisper. The two guys looked at her in confusion of her behavior. She acted like she had seen a ghost. Mikey walked up to Bam and held out her hands, her eyes still on the guitar, taking in every detail. Bam handed it to her and she took it from him, handling it with utter delicacy. Then what happened next, neither of the two guys could have predicted. Mikey held the guitar by the neck with her right and then suddenly reared her hand back and slapped Bam hard across the face, leaving a stinging red hand print. "You are a true jackass Bam!" Mikey screamed at him as he recoiled, clutching the side of his face where she had hit him. "I hate you so much!" Mikey spun around and ran as fast as she could considering that she was carrying a guitar inside the house.
Zigzag looked from the slammed glass door towards Bam, who looked in pain. He stuck his hands in his pocket, knowing there was nothing left to say or tell him, and walked over to where Ozz, Michael, Ricky, and Rake were.
Mikey stayed locked in her room for the next six hours or so, not speaking to anyone. If any of them tried to attempt to get her to talk, they were met with a stubborn and mad silence.
Michael, Ricky, and Ozz had been told by Zigzag what had happened and shared a "few words" with Bam. Like he was miserable as it is. Bam didn't think she would have reacted like that. DiCo was okay but he had a fractured nose. Actually, he didn't even know that that guitar had been from Mikey's brother; a dead one in fact. Bam wished he could take it all back. Take back the pain and anger that Mikey must be feeling towards him right now.
The girl of almost everyone's concern sat on her bed, the black canopy curtains shut around her, leaving her in near complete darkness had it not been for the lamp shining beside her bed on a bedside table. In Mikey's lap was her guitar, Tobias' guitar. She ran her fingers over it almost lovingly. Turning it slightly so the front of the body tilted down, she traced the carved letters on the back of the peg head. T-O-B-I-A-S. Mikey bit her bottom lip to keep herself from shedding a tear, something she had been prone to be doing since she had ran inside the house, up the two stairs, and then to shut herself in her bedroom. Mikey readjusted the guitar and took the pick that had been put in between the stings. Mikey could just faintly hear a familiar voice singing softly to her and started strumming the familiar chords of the song as she sang along with the voice.
"I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again I would understand
I would understand
The angry boy a bit too insane
Icing over a secret pain
You know you don't belong
You're the first to fight
You're way too loud
You're the flash of light on a burial shroud
I know something's wrong
Well everyone I know has got a reason
To say put the past away
I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again I would understand
I would understand . . ."
Mikey sang the rest of the old song, copying it word for word that she had learned and listened to as Tobias had sung it to her. A few times her throat became choked with the tears she cried but Mikey kept on.
"And I, I want you to know
Everyone's got to face down the demons
Maybe today
You could put the past away
I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
You could cut ties with all the lies that you've been living in
And if you do not want to see me again I would understand
I would understand . . .
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Can you put the past away?
I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
I would understand
I wish you would step back from that ledge my friend
And I would understand
I would understand . . ."
Mikey put the pick back in its place and set her guitar down in front of her. She covered her face with her hands and sobbed into them, her shoulders shaking from the intensity.
Knock! Knock!
Mikey pressed her hands onto her mouth to stifle her cries and she breathed deeply through her nose, trying to regain composure. Swallowing hard, she took her hands away and yelled towards the door, "Get the fuck away! I want to be fucking left alone fucktards!" Mikey was met by complete silence and would have assumed that the person had left if not for the next knock on her door. Mikey punched her bed, feeling it shake and climbed off of it. Her converse shoes tapped made no noise on the carpet as she walked towards the door. Wiping her eyes clear of tears, she yanked the door open. She glared at the man daring to stand in front of her after what he had done. "Didn't I tell you to get away?" she told him coldly.
Bam stood his ground, though it was hard because images of what she had done to DiCo ran through his mind. "I need to talk to you," he told her, hoping that she wouldn't slam the door in his face. Not that I deserve her talking to me right now, he thought dryly. But I have to at least try.
Mikey shook her head, a frown upon her features. "I don't think I ever want to talk to you Brandon Margera," she told him in a less cold tone.
Though he was slightly miffed at being referred by his real name, he took the fact that she hadn't shouted and/or punched him yet as a good sign. He gave her his best puppy dog eyes which people claimed could move mountains and pleaded to her to give him a chance. Mikey looked away from him but only to be gently forced by her chin to look back up into his eyes. "Please?" Bam asked.
Mikey couldn't refuse. Damn him, she cursed as she moved out of the way to let him in. Bam smiled and gladly accepted her invitation. Mikey closed the door behind him and walked over to her bed. Sitting down, she turned her whole body towards him. "What do you want to tell me?" she asked a bit distantly.
Bam sighed and took a seat next to her. He paid no mind at her now stiffened body and said, "I wanted to tell you that I was sorry," he said.
Mikey's eyes widened. She didn't think that Bam could ever say sorry.
He had read along the lines and replied almost sarcastically, "Yeah yeah, it's a miracle."
Mikey turned to face him, moving back slightly so they had more space in between them. "But saying sorry to me doesn't help the fact that you had deliberately made me panic over nothing them cry," she told him. Mikey hated to admit that he had made her cry but it did have to be said. "You had no idea how, when that fake guitar smashed into pieces that my heart was also smashing into pieces!"
Bam looked down at his hands. He felt so guilty now. He never intended this to happen. "Mikey, he began slowly, "I never wanted you to feel like this. I hate it when you are sad or crying or anything other than happy." Bam looked up at her, into her chocolate brown eyes. "And I hate it when you are mad at me and that I had caused you to be mad at me." Bam ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed heavily. "All I really want to say is that, Mikey, you mean everything to me. I've had these strong feelings for you ever since," at this he let out a small chuckle, "you crashed into DiCo at Skatetopia."
Mikey looked at him in confusion. "But what does this have to do with you faking that you broke my guitar?" she asked.
Bam shook his head and took her hands in his.
Mikey could feel her tiny nerves jumping about as he held onto her tightly. Goosebumps and quivers arose as he fixed upon her his storm blue eyes. "Bam-?"
He cut her off by pressing his lips on hers. Mikey slipped her hands out of his and wrapped them around his neck. He in turn held the back of her neck with one hand and the other the small of her back. Bam slowly licked the bottom of her lip, asking for permission and Mikey accepted. She felt his hot tongue slip in and roam around, memorizing every crevice of her mouth. Mikey's tongue met his and she moaned as his rubbed the velvet of her tongue. They fell back onto the bed and Bam reached over and closed the canopy. Mikey saw stars exploding behind her eyelids. She had never been as complete, or close to it, as she had been with Zigzag. Mikey pulled away her head from Bam, both breathing deeply.
Bam propped himself up so that he was above her and gave Mikey a sweet kiss on the lips. "Mikey, I've always wanted to ask you this: Would you be my girlfriend?"
She closed her eyes for a moment before coming to a decision. Opening them up, she whispered, "Yeah, I will be your girlfriend Bam Margera. You brought light and relief back into me when I was filled with darkness and pain. I think you are my little mischievous angel."
Bam smiled down at her before lying down right next to her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and brought her closer to his body, breathing in the shampoo scent of her silky hair. Mikey closed her eyes once more and laid her head on his chest. Slowly, they fell asleep in each other's arms.