A Gift or A Curse

“Guys, I want to show you something.”

Everybody turned to Arin, who was sitting alone in the corner of the backstage area for the past 20 minutes. They didn’t realize that Zacky and Blake had missing.

“What is it kid?” Brian asked and smacked him on the shoulder.

Arin put his iPod on the speaker booth and played a track. All of them listen to the sound of his full of mistakes drumming track from God Hates Us.

“You were quite good earlier with this song, not making anymore mistakes-”

“Matt, just listen.”

They listened hard and gathered closely to the speaker.

“……too fast…….crash….”

All of them gasped in shock. Brian cursed under his breath and Matthew just jaw dropped speechless.

“It’s Jimmy?? He’s back?!”

“He was, for a short moment. He came to me at the studio. And I accidentally recorded his voice.”

“Oh my fucking God, I can’t believe I can still listen to his voice even after – Blake, she needs to listen to this. She needs to be sure that Jimmy wasn’t completely gone. Where the fuck is she anyway?!”

*******************************************************************************************************

Blake laughed to herself watching Zacky smashed the stuffed monkey desperately. She was holding a half finished cotton candy and they were in a funfair full of games and rides and bright lights. She wondered why Zacky brought her here, but nevertheless, she had fun tonight.

“On your left! There, Zacky, there!”

Zacky smashed the monkey’s head hard and it dropped into the hole indicating that he missed the shot.

“This son of a bitch. Come on!!” he smashed harder, making Blake can’t control her laughter and when the game finally ended, he only won a keychain with a heart mark engraved on it.

“Well, better than nothing.” Zacky gave the keychain to Blake and she took it hesitantly.

“For me?”

“Well, yeah. What else am I going to do with that?”

“Thanks, Zacky.” Blake smiled and gave him a peck on his cheek. Zacky felt his face grew a little higher temperature than usual. They walked side by side towards many booths of games but didn’t stop to play. Zacky was holding his heartbeat, trying not to be so fucking obvious about his feeling. He just came out of a relationship and having a strange feeling towards a stranger was really making him felt suffocated.

“Zacky, let’s try that!” suddenly Blake linked her arm with him, making him startled and forced to look at her direction. It was a gypsy caravan with an obvious supernatural vibe coming from it. He immediately knew what Blake wanted to try.

Without further a due, she dragged him along into the caravan and sheered away the dark purple curtain to find a woman was sitting in the middle, reading a magazine.

“Hello,” Blake greeted politely.

The woman jerked around, quickly putting her magazine aside. Zacky rolled his eyes. He knew instantly that this woman was a fraud.

“Blake, I don’t feel good about this.” He whispered to her ears.

“Oh just one try, will you?”

He had no choice but to sit next to her.

“Welcome to my humble abode.” The woman started in a sing-sung voice. She pulled away a thin fabric from in front of her to reveal a lame and cliché crystal ball.

“She looks like an asshole.” Zacky whispered again. Blake put her finger on her lips, telling him to be quiet.

“50 dollar for a reading.” The woman sang again. Blake reached for her almost empty wallet but Zacky held her palm, pulling out his own instead. He slammed a note of 50 on the table and the woman smiled.

“What can I do for you?” she sang.

“I want to look for a friend, he’s been missing for three days already. His name is Jimmy.”
The gypsy woman glared at Blake before making a gesture towards her crystal ball.

“I see.” She let out a fake chant and swirled her palm across the ball and Zacky rolled his eyes for the fiftieth times. The ball let out a glowing light and Blake was amazed by it.

“Jimmy…Jimmy…tell me where are you…” she called in singing.

Blake waited patiently and Zacky couldn’t believe that she actually bought this shit.

“He’s not far, just look for him. At his house.”

Blake frowned. Jimmy was back at his own house?

“Are you sure he’s at his own house?”

“Yess..”

“Oh, thank you!”

She looked at Zacky who seemed bored, and quickly pulled his hand to drag him out of the caravan.

“Come on Zacky! He’s back at Huntington! Let’s go back!”

“You’re seriously believed that? She’s bluffing, Blake. 50 dollars for a fake reading? That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”



The gypsy woman heard what Zacky said from inside her caravan and smiled. She was a fake, but the crystal ball was not. She stole it from a real fortune teller not long ago but she didn’t know how to use it properly.

“Why didn’t she just report to the police for a missing person? Idiot.” She mumbled to herself while taking out the 50 dollars that Zacky gave earlier.

“It’s because I’m already dead, bitch.”

The 50 dollar in her hand flew away – or being grabbed by invisible force and she froze right there, seeing nothing but the flying dollar note.

Jimmy appeared back in the caravan, somehow felt like something pulling him down from somewhere he couldn’t even remember. He teleported out of the caravan with 50 dollar in his hand and appeared back beside Blake and Zacky who stood not far from him – intertwined in a kiss.


Blake was stunned under Zacky’s touch, his lips softly touching hers with both of his hand on her arms pulling her body closer. He parted away when she didn’t kiss him back.

“Blake, I know I just came out of a relationship but I like you. A lot. I see Jimmy when I’m with you. It’s enough that I lost him, I can’t lose my second Jimmy ever again.”

She blinked at him. Her mind sprawled in confusion, her heartbeat pounded like a thunder.

“Say something, Blake.”

Blake looked up to his green eyes. She didn’t think that something like this would happen, not to her at least. Her heart was one for Jimmy but she knew that she couldn’t be with him. But Zacky was too new. Too new to be considered as something she would fell for.

“I’m – I’m -”

Zacky waited patiently for her answer. He wanted to kiss her again so badly but he held back the urge.

“You, what?”

Blake finally came to her senses and pushed his hands away from her shoulders gently.

“I’m sorry, Zacky. But I love Jimmy. I could never fall for anyone besides him. I’m sorry.” She turned around and ran away, leaving Zacky behind and not noticing Jimmy was there watching the whole scene with his mind blank. He just messed up Johnny’s relationship and now he had become the barrier between Zacky and Blake? He didn’t know what to do, but he approached Zacky slowly when the fifty dollars went through his palm and landed on Zacky’s shoes.

Zacky looked down to his feet. His fifty dollars was back, but what he didn’t know - so was his missing friend.

*******************************************************************************************************

They went out of the venue together with Metallica, without Blake and Zacky who had been M.I.A the whole evening after their show. Right when they stepped out, a mob of fans and paparazzi swarmed all over them, asking for photo ops and autographs and they just had to deal with it.

“Hey M. Shadows! I heard Jimmy came back! Is that true?”

Matthew cringed at the sound of that particular question shot by a paparazzi behind him. He turned his head around.

“What did you say?”

“It’s all over the internet dude, saying that Jimmy came back from the dead. And you guys believe in that. Is that true?”

Matthew felt hot all of a sudden. His rage built from within. Who dared to leak this news over the internet? Nevertheless, he let out a chuckle, making sure that it was all a joke to him.

“I don’t know where the hell did you hear that but it’s not true. Not fucking true dude. I would rather believe that he’s resting peacefully in heaven than he came back to haunt all of us. Go and get a life, to whoever that spread this fucking news.”

He sounded angry at the last part and couldn’t control himself from wiggling away through the crowd and back to the bus.


As the bus slowly crept through the road back to their hotel, Matthew paced back and forth in front of all the other members except for Zacky and Blake. Even Lacey was there, resting her back against Johnny’s chest.

“I can think of only one person who could possibly do this.”

They all looked up to him in curiosity. He shot a glare at Arin.

“Arin, be honest with me. Did you guys have a fight that made her do something like this?”

Arin’s round eyes were widened. “Woah, where did that come from?”

“Ann is the only person who would do this kind of shit. She hates us.”

Arin couldn’t counter that. He admitted that his ex-girlfriend didn’t really like his choice of crowd to mingle with.

“We – broke up.”

“What??”

All of them yelled in chorus, making him winced and leaned back to the couch.

“Yeah, she told me not to hang with you guys so I ended it with her.”

“Shit, Arin. Why the fuck in the middle of Jimmy’s missing?”

“I can’t help it. How did you know it was her anyway?”

“My fucking instinct. Call her up, just to be sure.”

Arin reached for his phone in the bunk. He didn’t need to call her because there were 38 missed calls and a text message from her waiting to be read.

You made your choice. Serves you right for ditching me. – Ann

Arin closed his eyes and felt reluctant enough to admit that all of those rumors started from his ex-girlfriend raging out on him.

“Bad decision man.” Johnny shook his head, breaking the silence apart.

“I didn’t know she would flip out like this, Matt. I’m sorry.”

“Never mind. We’ll just deny it. We’ll fucking deny it, understand?”

Arin rubbed his face and let out a deep sigh.

“But people will see her as a crazy woman though. It’s…too painful to watch.”

“Hey, she’s a bitch anyway. She’s been controlling you forever dude. And she isn’t even our manager! Good decision on breaking up with her.” Johnny leaned forward, giving Arin somekind of reassurance.

“You just said that I made a bad decision.”

“Bad for us. But good for you.”

Notes