The Middle

*Zacky’s P.O.V*

New York. New York. New York.

The name of the city wouldn’t stop echoing in my mind. It seemed almost unbelievable that we travelled this far. I tried to remember how did we got here but I had literally no clue – same thing happened with Brian. No matter how hard we tried, we still didn’t get the right answer. I guess it was the alcohol in our systems that made us forget about everything that happened last night. This is the only thing that we could blame on. Plus, I woke up with this pounding headache. Fucking hangover.

But I couldn’t rewind the time. We were already here and I couldn’t change this fact. Though, I would try to enjoy my time here. I am 100% sure it wouldn’t be disappointing. Because, its New York baby - the city that never sleeps! Not to forget that I’m here with my best friends that would make it even more fun. We had been through a crazy night and now its time to go back to the reality. But speaking of my best friends, I spot one of them missing. Jimmy. Where is that guy??

I gulped. Please don’t tell me that he left behind in Cali. The fun wouldn’t be the same without him. We were like a package, we cannot be separated. And before I could ask Brian about Jimmy’s absent, my ringing phone stopped me. I took a look at the caller ID and it showed the man’s name.

“Hell-“

“ZACHARY JAMES BAKER! PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHERE AM I AND WHY DO I HAVE A RANDOM CHICK ON MY BED. I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND DUDE” he yelled at me through the phone. I even had to put it a couple of inches away from my ears because of his loud voice, which apparently came from the room next door. At least something made me relieve – he was with us and not in California.

“We’re in New Yo-”

“You’ve gotta be kidding me” he cut me again. Well, I am not surprised. He never lets us finish our words anyway.

“I am dead serious, man. And before you ask me with another questions, I couldn’t remember anything so I don’t know what, why, how, who”

I heard him groaned then asked the girl about the hotel name before asking her to leave. He sounded a little bit frustrated when he heard the place. “What’s wrong, dude?” I asked him, slightly hoping he wouldn’t explode at my stupid question.

“Man, this hotel is bloody expensive and I think I lost my wallet” he said softly. “how do we suppose to pay the rent?? With leaves???” I facepalmed. He was right. I checked every pockets on my jeans, trying to find my wallet but it was nowhere to be found. Crap, I lost it too.

“Could you come to our room? Its next to yours”

There wasn’t even 5 seconds and we heard a banging sound on our door already. We had a small discusion about it and thank the Lord, Brian had his wallet with him, full with his credit cards. We went to the ground floor to finish our payment problem then left.

The city was beautiful, that’s for sure. Tall buildings everywhere and the people dressed soo nicely. That made us glance at each other’s appearance. We looked like beer smelling vagabonds with smoke as an additional scent. Though, we didn’t give a damn about it and bursted out into laughter instead.

We took a stroll down the pavement. It is hard when you have no destination. Especially when you were in a big city, it made you look like you’re lost. We walk and walk until we felt tired then decided to took a taxi to Times Square. It was day and as usual, there were a sea of people.

"What to do now?" Brian asked.

I shrugged. “Photo booth?” I said as I spot a booth truck around the corner.

He chuckled at my response. “That’s so random, Zack. But alright let’s go”
Jimmy suddenly had this crazy idea popped in his mind as we entered the booth. He wanted us to do a naked photo shoot. We couldn’t help but laugh at the idea and agreed to him. We knew he would push us to do this even though we disagree at him. He likes to demand and everybody knows that.

After 15 minutes, which we took almost a dozen of strips, people started getting mad at us. Some said us to hurry up, some other questioned what are we doing that we took so long. Finally we decided to print it out. But unfortunately, as the photos were printed, the booth froze. We panicked and hurried to get out of it after we had the result.

The next person that went in was a man and we could hear him saying ‘what the hell..’ from the outside. We laughed out loud then escaped from the place before the man yelled at us the fix it.

Later, we found a place to rest our feet after the running scene. Sweats dripping from our foreheads as we tried to catch our breaths. Damn I haven’t exercised for months and that was literally took a lot of energy. But I ignored the exhausted feeling. This was still the beginning of the adventure and the fun hasn’t began, yet. I knew there would be lots of crazy stuffs coming in the future when I had these guys with me.

It is funny how a couple of weeks ago, me and Brian were struggling with some problems and now, we had moved on from it. He also seemed to forget about all the dramas already and today was all about fun. It is fast, but I didn’t mind the fact. The faster the better.

Last thing, this is life. Problems are everywhere and you couldn’t run away from it. You just had to be the man and face it. As a best friend of him, I would be there whenever he needs me or not. Through the bad and the good times. I know he would do the same for me because that’s what best friends do. It might be hurt for us when we look at the past, or we’re afraid to look ahead. But I can look beside me and he will be there then at that time, I realised that this is what a true friendship looked like.

Notes