Chapter 3: The Rooftop Decision

October 2000, Costa Mesa – Skatepark

Autumn didn’t mean much to us. The air might get a bit cooler at night, but during the day the park was still that same dusty, sun-baked world we’d been skating all summer. We knew every crack in the concrete by heart; I could’ve drawn the halfpipe’s curve blindfolded. Somehow the whole place felt like an extension of ourselves—sometimes I thought we couldn’t even exist without it.

That day we rolled in with the same energy as always. We laughed. We skated. We fell. We laughed some more.

“Fuck’s sake, Cayde, are you doing that on purpose?” Nova yelled as he attempted another massive arc jump for the third time—and crashed prone like a sack of potatoes.

Cayde lay on his back laughing, his board sliding away on its own down the ramp.

“It’s art, man,” he panted. “You just wouldn’t understand.”

Roxy swooped past him in a perfect arc, then cut back around.

“If that’s art, you’re a tragedy.”

I was sitting on the coping, tapping my shoe sole against the concrete in time. I watched them try, fail, try again—already so used to this routine that it felt as natural as breathing. Afternoon sessions, skatepark nights, then some random food or beer behind a gas station. We never planned it, but a schedule just formed itself: when to write, when to play, when to simply exist together.

We were a terrible band. And none of us would trade this for anything.

“Hey, Vex, you coming or just philosophizing up there?” Cayde called as he hauled himself up.

“In a minute,” I said, but I lingered for a moment longer.

The sun dipped below the park’s edge. The twilight light settled on the concrete coping, on the scuffed grip tape of the boards, on Roxy’s hair and Nova’s freckled shoulder. It was like somebody was spotlighting us for real.

Then I stood, dropped my board into the halfpipe, and rolled after them. Because whatever had happened to us these past months, one thing was certain: we were moving together now, like a weirdly tuned song that was slowly coming together.

It was almost dark when, exhausted, we collapsed on the rim of the halfpipe. At this hour the park turned into something both familiar and strange; by day it was full of shouts, collisions, rolling wheels—in the dusk only the distant city rumble crept in, as if someone had draped the whole town under a heavy blanket. The worn streetlamps cast patchy light on the concrete and our elongated shadows stretched along the pipe’s curve.

Nova lay back, arms under her head, rocking her board against her shoe sole.

“That was fucking awesome,” she said after a moment. “I mean… it sucked, but in a good way.”

Cayde laughed and rolled a beer can toward her.

“That could be our band motto.”

Roxy smiled and drew her board into her lap.

“The Dainka Effect. Loudly we suffer.”

“More like ‘loud and dangerous,’” I said. “That looks better on a T-shirt.”

We laughed, not too loudly—just enough that it sounded lazy and tired, like laughter that can’t quite find the strength to roar. It felt good to sit there; the concrete was still warm against our backs, and the tension in our bodies was finally starting to unwind.

From across the park, by the benches, other faces were shouting. We didn’t pay attention until we heard the word “roof.” Two guys rolled by us, yelling over one another:

“Hey, it’s on the parking garage roof, out by the old industrial lot. Totally illegal—they’re bringing big speakers. Kicks off around ten.”

Their voices faded into the dark, but the word stuck between us. Nova raised an eyebrow and looked at me.

“You hear that?” she asked, that mischievous light already flickering in her eyes. “Illegal party above the city.”

Cayde was already pushing off on his board.

“Well, if they’re sending a personal invite, it’d be rude not to show up.”

Nova propped on an elbow and met my gaze. That half-smile she gets when she’s already decided on something. Instantly our wheels squeaked as we shifted toward the ramp.

“This is gonna rock,” Roxy said.

“Yeah,” I answered.

“Let’s go,” Nova added.

Cayde grinned.

“Obviously we’re going.”

We stood up, taking our time, but I could feel the night settling in our bones. Not because of the party, but because we moved toward whatever new noise was calling us.

The ramp up to the garage roof felt longer than it was. The dull hum of wheels echoed off the concrete walls like we were rolling up inside a giant empty drum. The air grew warmer, thicker; approaching the exit the sounds swelled: first a broken bass thump, then shouting, then a warped track that sounded like someone was trying to keep an old tape deck alive by sheer will.

“This already feels sketchy,” Cayde muttered.

—

Nova laughed.

“That’s why it’ll be epic.”

When we reached the top, the city unfurled in every direction. Lights everywhere. Headlights left trailing lines on the roads, distant windows glowing like yellow specks. For a moment we just stood as if someone had raised an enormous backdrop around us.

Chaos reigned on the roof. A guy was jumping on a car hood. Two others were pushing a shopping cart around, laughing. The tape deck was wired to a massive amp that crackled and popped then sprang back to life. The music wasn’t good—but it was loud, and that seemed to be enough.

“Okay… I fucking love this,” Roxy said, already heading in.

We followed. Not because we cared about the crowd, but because nights like this carry their own raw energy—the kind that makes you feel both anonymous and at home at once.

Someone handed us a beer without asking. We didn’t ask questions either. Nova lifted her can toward me.

“To the future?”

“To survival,” I said.

Cayde clinked his can with ours.

“Same thing.”

We drifted with the others for a while, talking to faces whose names we’d forget mid-sentence, laughing at some ridiculous inside joke. Someone tried to convince us to start another band and Roxy nearly fell over laughing on the railing. Then, as always, we found our way back to each other.

We ended up on the roof’s edge, sitting half in a circle, instinctively leaving space as if expecting someone new to join. And sometimes they did, for a single sentence, a laugh, a sip. Then they drifted on.

There was nothing deliberate about it—we weren’t excluding anyone. We simply had our own rhythm that not everybody could catch. Those who did breathed with us for a moment, then vanished into the noise.

We stayed.

Under the city lights, behind the too-loud music, in the wind that swept the roof as if to remind us this was only one night. But for us it was more.

Around midnight a loudly drunk guy suddenly appeared in front of us. He didn’t sit—just stood above us, as if weighing whether to speak. He watched our conversation, our laughter, our movements, then turned to Roxy.

At first he teased her—cheap, half-slurred lines we’d heard too many times to take seriously. Roxy answered calmly a couple of times, then just looked past him at the city lights, signaling this round wasn’t hers.

We were used to it. Guys always noticed Roxy. But this one crossed a line. His voice grew harsher, his words cruder—an unpredictable kind of drunk that isn’t funny anymore. I never understood what these people hope for—praise for rudeness? Respect for outright creepiness?

Then he squatted and grabbed Roxy’s thigh. It all happened so fast we couldn’t react.

Cayde and I shot up at the same time. No signal, no plan—just instinct. We each hooked an arm under the guy’s armpits and lifted him away from Roxy in one firm motion. Not a yank, not a shove—just enough to make him release and step back.

I felt his weight, the wobble of his tipsy body—and the cold calm settling over me. My other hand slid to my board, gripping the truck as if it were an extension of my arm. I saw Cayde do the same on the other side—mirror moves like we’d practiced forever.

Nova was already behind us, board in hand, eyes steady though her fingers trembled.

On the roof everything froze. The music kept playing, the lights kept pulsing, but people all around turned to watch us. An invisible circle formed. Two of the drunk guy’s friends stepped forward—not to attack, but with that tense posture of someone trying to save their buddy from himself.

Cayde spoke first, low and calm. Too low, almost—until we recognized the weight in his voice, how his accent grew sharper under stress. That’s what made it serious.

“Hey man… it’d be best if you just left. Before you say or do something that really ruins the night.”

The guy blinked as if seeing for the first time. Growling, he pried his arms free and took a step back. His friends grabbed his shoulders.

“Don’t be a dick, man,” one of them muttered.

As they hauled him away, one glanced back.

“Sorry… he’s hammered. We’ll get him home.”

We didn’t answer. We didn’t need to.

I only noticed Roxy crying when Nova slid an arm around her. Quiet tears, more like a frightened trembling than real sobs. Cayde was still staring after the guy.

“Fuck…” he muttered.

—

I just stood there, heart pounding in my ears. Then we hugged Roxy—no words, no questions, just being there. Slowly I felt her shoulders relax, her breathing find its normal rhythm. For minutes we sat at the edge, legs dangling into the dark, listening to the party in the distance. My hand still trembled from the adrenaline; the metal of the truck pressed cold into my palm. Roxy rested her head on Nova’s shoulder, drawing calm. I looked out over the city and rage welled up in me—angry that even this rooftop, our one place of freedom, hadn’t been safe from the filth. Nova inhaled the cooling night air, her eyes hard as glass in the streetlamp glow.

Her voice came out barely above a whisper, like she was talking to herself.

“I’m done living like this.” She kept her eyes fixed on the city sprawl below, searching the grid of lights as if somewhere in that pattern was the key to everything.

“I won’t be trapped anymore.”

“I don’t want to live the same day over and over: go to the same place, do the same things, see the same faces…while lying to myself that it’s okay. I don’t want to end up in a suit. I don’t want a life that isn’t mine.”

“I want to make music. With you.”

That “with you” sounded heavier than any other words that night.

Cayde chuckled softly—self-deprecating, tired.

“I’ve got one year. That’s all my folks gave me. If we haven’t accomplished something by then, I’m off to college. Or back in a cage.” He shook his head. “And I’m pretty sure they gave me this year just so Dad could say, ‘See? I told you it’d never work.’”

The party behind us slowly revved back up. Someone loaded a new tape into the deck, the music swelled, laughter rose again. We drifted toward lighter topics, instinctively trying to push away all the weight we’d just voiced.

Still, I saw something ignite in Nova’s eyes—that focused spark she always gets when she’s done feeling and starts planning, mapping possibilities, making decisions. In her mind there aren’t thoughts, just routes and steps.

We laughed with each other a bit longer about something trivial—our third topic already, beers passed around—when she looked at me. Not suddenly, just her usual steady gaze that can’t be ignored. Her steel-gray eyes met mine and in that moment I knew: whatever she said next, it was decided. And I knew my answer would be yes.

“Let’s rent a place,” she said. “Some rundown shit—something cheap.”

The instant she spoke, I felt a weight lift in my gut. This was what I’d been waiting on for weeks, staring at my bedroom walls: a space where we wouldn’t have to turn down the amp, where we didn’t have to explain why we showed up at dawn, where The Dainka Effect wasn’t just a name on a poster but our real life. I’d wanted to say it a thousand times, but it hadn’t felt possible—until now, with Nova right in front of me, offering the freedom I feared but craved more than anything.

No thought needed.

“Okay.”

Almost in unison:

“Okay,” Cayde said.

Roxy laughed, nodding.

“Okay.”

We all knew their parents, their safe routines, the familiar boundaries they’d never cross—yet they embraced this idea with the same excitement as us.

Because this wasn’t just about an apartment.

It was about a place that was ours.

A decision that wasn’t just a dream.

It was starting to become real.

Four of us on the roof’s edge, shoulder to shoulder, holding on to each other as if the city lights were the only thing keeping us together. Below us Costa Mesa’s night pulsed dully in the distance, but up here everything felt denser, more real. We didn’t need many words. The choice had been made, quietly, unspoken, irreversible.

We knew it wouldn’t be easy. There’d be days of doubt, rehearsals falling apart, gigs that never happened, nights when exhaustion outmatched our dreams. We knew how much work, time, energy it would take—minute by minute, day by day, week by week.

But right then none of it scared us.

We just stood there, holding each other, looking at the city as if seeing it for the first time. I glanced at them: Roxy’s shoulder caught the scattered light, Nova’s gaze fixed on the horizon, Cayde wearing that half-smile of his.

And then a single thought crossed my mind—quiet and simple, not dramatic.

All night. All in.