Trashed and Scattered

Brian hopped into the driver’s side of his truck after making sure I was buckled in and immediately reached for my hand. Fresh air was nice, especially when I was still pretty messed up from the Vicodin, and the shock of waking up on the hard floor. “Well, now Matt won’t feel as bad about being sick, if he’s even still alive.” Brian scoffed. “Won’t know ‘til we get there, anyways.”
Traffic was busy today, for a Tuesday. It was between the morning work rush and lunch. Brian didn’t drive fast like he normally did; we cruised along, admiring the cityscape en route to Matt’s suburban home in the greater part of Los Angeles. We stopped for coffee at one of Brian’s favourite cafes and picked up some breakfast foods for the gang, if anyone was still there. I waited in the car while he ran in quickly, trying to avoid as many fans as he could in the process. He came out and smiled at me, holding up a big goodie bag full of donuts and sandwiches. “What’d you get for me?” I tauntingly asked.
“Who said there was anything for you?” he quirkily responded, giggling. I grimaced and pinched his muscly arm. Exclaiming pain, he laughed and handed me the bag. Aromas of the donuts filled the truck and I could barely wait to eat before we reached Matt’s, but the drive wasn’t much longer. When we finally pulled into his drive, approaching his house with care so as not to arise suspicion from his Rottweiler named Bishop. His bark was wickeder than his bite, just like Matt.
Zack and Johnny met us at the kitchen table with coffees, laughing as Brian brought along his goodies and shared them out. The boys were ravenously hungry; nothing changed over the couple years I’d known them. They informed us that Matt was still kind of dehydrated and had been sleeping for a while. “Should probably go check on him when I’m done breakfast,” Zack suggested. “Don’t pity the poor fuck at all. Hey, how’ve you been doing, Melissa? Jimmy said you took quite the smack the other night. You guys aren’t having too rough of sex, are you?”
Brian backhanded his head as his face became contorted with embarrassment. “Fucker. Did he also tell you they were gonna cuff me cuz they thought I did it?”
“Yeah, man. And he also said that you went off the fucking deep end, man. Oh, everyone in the hospital ward, watch out for Big Bad Brian.” Johnny sniggered and sipped his coffee, cringing when it burnt the tip of his tongue. Needless to say, I giggled. “Well, how are you feeling, darling?”
I shrugged, regretting it instantly. Pain shot across my rib cage. It was alarming, really, to think that even through all the agony I’d been in the past few days, I’d forgotten about the pain I could cause to myself even with the simplest gestures and actions. “Oh, I’ve had many a better day. Nothing was broken, so I got lucky.”
Zack shook his head. “The only girl I’ll ever meet to add insult to injury by bashing her body across the bathtub. Now, how does that even happen?”
“Honestly, I have no idea.” We all collectively burst out laughing. Well, I sort of snickered, trying not to hurt myself again. Brian had gotten up to use Matt’s bathroom and came out a few moments later, his face contorted in an entirely disgusted expression. “What’s up, babe? You get it too?”
“Fuck, no. He’s got some cleaning to do in there. Zack, let’s go check on him. Might have puked in his sleep.” Zack followed Brian into Matt’s room while Johnny cackled in his seat, flicking through his phone. I finished my sandwich and began eating my donut, taking small, cautious bites. Johnny watched me intently, occasionally glancing at the bandage that was clearly visible through my shirt. I cocked an eyebrow and disregarded his concern.
In the room I heard Matt groaning on his bed and hoped that in turn I wouldn’t hear his retching, as it would trigger my own. “Jesus, he doesn’t sound too good in there.”
“Been breaking hell for hours. This is the longest he’s slept in two days. What the hell was in that food?”
“Evidently some really bad chicken. If Brian got sick, oh boy that would have been just awful. Why didn’t he go to the doctor if he’s dehydrated?”
“Dunno. Tough guy shit, probably. We warned him against the worst. I had food poisoning once, nasty business. If it gets worse we made him promise that he’d go to the hospital.”
I nodded. “Probably the best idea. I should go see how he’s doing too. Oh, there’s another donut in the bag. Was going to save it for Matt but I’d say he’s nowhere near capable of holding down food right now. I saw you eyeing mine, so you might as well take it.”
“Aw, thanks.” He didn’t hesitate to snatch the treat and shove nearly half of it into his mouth.
Shaking my head, I left my chair and accompanied my fiancé and Zack in Matt’s room, where he lay in the fetal position, sweat rolling down his forehead and cheeks in heavy droplets. He was very, very pained, very pale, and smelled like he’d probably soiled himself within the last three hours. It was just fucking rank. “Jesus, is he gonna be okay?” I whispered to Brian, clutching his hand. I stood behind him so my bandage wouldn’t be in plain sight. I was embarrassed enough that I was the one who poisoned him and I didn’t need Matt to see my physical distress.
Brian shushed me and bent down beside his friend, wiping his forehead with the damp cloth on the night stand. “Man, you gotta see a doctor.”
“Fuck…the doctors.” He whispered. I could barely hear him as his voice had disappeared from all the strain on his chest and throat while he puked. “I’m fine.” None of us were convinced, but trying to pull his ass out of the bed was absolutely futile. Brian and Zack were big, but I doubt they’d be able to handle a man that was at least triple my size. He coughed and sputtered all over Brian, who seemed mostly undisturbed about it. I was surprised, but then again he was also taking care of me for the past two days. My mind wandered for a minute back to my possible pregnancy and how good of a father he would truly be.
Shaking his head, Brian climbed up to his feet again and patted Matt on his massive shoulder. He later remarked about Matt’s skin being cold and clammy. “Listen, you should go to a doctor. You could drink gallons and gallons of Gatorade and you wouldn’t get rid of the bacteria that’s making you sick. Melissa’s just fine now, look.”
Matt eyed me, running his gaze across my body, just barely noticing the bulge of bandage around my side. “Bet she feels awesome.”
I held Brian back from making a harsh comment. “They’re all right, Matt. You look like fucking shit.”
He groaned and dug his face down into his pillow. The stench only worsened, and I was starting to become queasier and queasier the longer we were there. “If you don’t start getting better by tonight, we’re taking you to the hospital in chains.” Brian promised, and we could hear the snarl in his voice. It was a caring snarl, but it added an appropriate amount of emphasis. Matt waved him off and held the back of his head with his hands, his fingers interlocked. Slightly annoyed, Brian left Matt’s room and grabbed a smoke from his pack in his pocket. He didn’t give Matt the courtesy of lighting it outside. I joined Brian with the Johnny and Zack, becoming just as annoyed as Brian was. I sat down at the bar and poured some water into a small glass. Pretty soon we had to leave this house, and Brian knew it.
It was merely ten in the morning but Johnny was pouring a glass of Jack for himself and Zack. They both seemed ready to leave Matt in his filth and hope for the best. “Well, at least we had a good day at the studio yesterday. Did Brian show you any new content?” Zack asked me. I shook my head and slowly sipped my water. Brian puffed on his cigarette, lost in his thoughts.
“Nah. I’m sure it sounds great, though.” He could tell I was distant from the topic of their music. Truth was, I was really intimidated by their concept. A few of their songs struck panic into me, and I didn’t want to concern them with the reasons behind my panic. Brian knowing was far enough. Honestly, it was just the idea that their imaginations manifested such deep, dark shit. I couldn’t help but wonder what their inspiration was. “You guys don’t usually disappoint the fans.”
“Ehh, that’s debatable. If Matt can’t get out of bed and back in the studio, a lot of people are going to be disappointed. There’s some stuff on there I think you’d actually enjoy listening to, Liss.” Johnny remained expressionless, but we all knew he was trying to contain his overtiredness. I could easily sympathize.
When Brian finished his cigarette he prodded my arm and asked if I wanted to return home. I didn’t hesitate to hop off the bar stool and grab my things. We left the other food with Zack in case he or Johnny was hungry. “See you guys later,” I called just as I closed the door behind me. Just as we pulled out, I grabbed Brian’s hand, noticing his knuckles were white. “Something wrong, hon?” I asked softly, careful not to set him off.
“Stubborn fucking asshole is gonna kill himself, I swear to god.” Brian spat. I jumped at his tone. He squeezed my hand and I could feel the truck accelerating under us. If he did that again he was going to get us killed. “Should have been me that got sick. Least we’d both be out of the hospital and on our feet by now.”
“Brian, I’m sorry that it happened. Should have paid more attention to that chicken.”
“Babe, it’s not your fault. Stop it. Getting sick could have happened to anyone. Let’s just go home and lay back down on the couch together. We can spend all day watching movies if you like.”
I nodded and played with his fingers a little bit, relaxing when I felt the vehicle slightly decelerate. He put another stick between his lips. He was restless because we hadn’t had sex in a while. I was starting to feel the effects too. I missed his touch, his skin against mine, his breath on my neck. His solid embrace. I broke out of my trance and giggled a little bit when I heard the first few riffs of one of their older songs come on the radio. He eased up a little and slowly increased the volume. “Bat Country.” I sighed. “The song that literally made me question your sanity.”
“What, because I wrote it?”
“A little bit, yeah.” I chuckled. “Brian, I don’t ever want to diss your music. I love your passion for the guitar, playing songs, expressing what you want to the world. You have an incredible talent. Fame pays the bills. I never once said anything bad about any of your songs, other than the fact that I was a little bit shocked when A Little Piece of Heaven was created. Matt wrote that. He was inspired by our little extra-curricular romance. And then all the killing, the violence…it made me wonder.”
Brian cocked an eyebrow and shook his head. “You play way too much into it. It’s just a song. The fans get off on it. We do it for them. We collect pensions. It’s easy money. Maybe not so easy now that I’ve got something of a family in the making, but yeah. When we were young and crazy it was all about the parties, the wildness. I have you as my anchor and since then we’ve changed the way we do music. That song is a freak in its nature. Kind of like Jimmy.” He stifled a laugh. I tried to but failed, and for once disregarded the burning in my ribs.
“Alright, well I’m saying no more about it. It makes you happy and I like seeing you happy.”
“No, no. You make me happy. The music is there because it’s what I do. Just as writing is what you do.” He then glanced at me with his ridiculous puppy eyes. “And when Matt gets better, if he gets better, we can all go for celebratory drinks after production is wrapped.” I watched him swallow hard. “Then we’ll have to discuss tours.”
I didn’t want to fight with him about the tours, but it sank like a stone in my stomach to think about him leaving me again. The next tour would be the longest one he’d gone on in years. If I actually was pregnant, there was no way I could go about carrying a child, giving birth, and raising it while he was away. “I hate that part.” I pulled my hand away from his and placed both in my lap.
“I know you do. What’s wrong, Liss?”
I didn’t want to get into it, not right now. “Nothing.” I sighed.
“Don’t play that right now. Please, talk to me about it.”
“You don’t get how it kills me when you leave for those tours. How much I worry about you being gone, and me being left here. It’s not fair.”
He sighed just as we came up to a red light, the first we had all morning. “Honey, I hate leaving you. It’s the worst fucking feeling in the world. And if there was an easy way to take you, to keep you entertained while we were in shows…trust me, I’d do anything for you to come along. But it would drive you batshit hearing the same songs over and over. Being stuck with five sweaty guys in a crampy bus. Trust me, there’s pros and cons about everything.”
“You’re not getting sick of it yet, are you?”
“Not yet, no. I hit the stage and get an ego boost. Fans chanting your name, your lyrics. It’s the most incredible experience. I just wish that I could be here with you and there all at the same time. Have the best of both worlds. I won’t be at this forever either. Come five or ten years, it’ll be goddamn time to settle down, take a break.”
I liked how he was thinking about all this. Yet I didn’t want to be the bearer of bad news where his plan of starting a family five years from now would be four years sooner than anticipated. “I guess we’ll just have to play it all by ear for a while.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sticking around for a while yet.” He grabbed my hand again and squeezed it reassuringly, speeding off just as the light turned green.

~
I missed my period by about three weeks, and knew that it was time to face the facts and take the test that would confirm my suspicions and allow me to plan my near future. Brian noticed that I was sick often, yet it didn’t cross his mind at all. His mind was too busy being torn apart by his new album production, meaning his endless hours at the studio or jamming in our basement with Zack or singing with Matt. He was never actually around when I got my sick spells, which benefitted us both because he didn’t know, and I didn’t need him to worry about anything else. Matt and I got over our illnesses and I finally got the best of my injury only a week or two ago. Our sex and intimacy resumed at full course.
I spent most of my time in fear of telling Brian, and experiencing his reaction when he knew he was leaving for tour before the baby would be born. And yet, thinking about his tour devastated me like nothing else. I hated being stuck here waiting by the phone for his drunken late-night call. I hated knowing that the neighbourhood knew I was left alone, in a huge house without five muscly guys to have my back. Every time I brought it up, Brian got snappy. Like me and my early pregnancy hormones, he was starting to snap at everything.
There were very few times we could focus on us. At night when he was far too tired for sex after twelve-hour days in the studio I would take forever to fall asleep. Too afraid of missing the moment where he would finally roll over and plant his massive hand on my breast, or graze it against my palm. Weekends were about the only time he and I saw each other. The only time I never saw any of his friends. Don’t get me wrong; I loved them all as much as Brian did. We needed a long-deserved break away from everything, like a hiatus. I hoped that maybe Brian could talk to his producers and manager and after we got married and had the baby we could go on a honeymoon. Restore some of the romance that seemed so alien nowadays.
I felt so alone, isolated with a peanut-sized human growing inside me. I had no one to talk to, but the other estranged wives of the bandmates. Gena and Zack already had twins. I could approach her but I was afraid that she’d tell her husband, who in turn would tell my fiancé. I couldn’t let Zack be the one to tell his best friend that he was going to father a child. The thoughts made me sick. It was mostly the over-thinking, the hours of driving myself crazy while Brian was busy doing his band shit. I could barely take it anymore.
I eventually gathered my wits and called Gena. Her excitement was incredible, and she demanded that we explicitly have a girl’s lunch, even offering to ask Jimmy’s wife to tag along. I would have loved for her to come too, except she’d wanted kids for so long and couldn’t get pregnant. I didn’t want to make her feel like she’d failed at becoming a mother, something I knew she’d be so good at. Nonetheless, Gena was ecstatic about finally getting out of her similar situation and enjoying herself. We agreed to meet for coffee at a discreet little diner just off Redondo Beach, about twenty minutes’ drive from home.
It had been weeks since I saw her, and she looked the same as I did: tense, antsy, wishing for some contact. I couldn’t imagine Zack neglecting her, nor could I call it neglect rather than being merely burnt out, but I could tell she missed his touch just as I missed Brian’s. We hugged like teenage girls outside our cars, not caring who was staring. Inner city girls like us generally didn’t come all the way down to Redondo but it was out of the way of crazy fans. Even in a city like Los Angeles, hiding was quite difficult for us.
Our waitress sat us at a secluded window booth with a beautiful beach view. I didn’t bother taking a menu since my stomach was acting up again, and honestly I was getting sick and tired of being sick and fucking tired. Being almost a month pregnant was exhausting and taxing enough. I couldn’t bear to think of what the next eight months to come would bring with them.
Gena opened her menu and ordered a small sandwich and a coffee. I asked for a glass of lemon water. “Well, it’s been so long since we’ve actually gotten together. I was starting to miss human contact outside of Brian and his grumpiness.”
She rolled her eyes and crossed her hands on the table. “Zack’s been a real pain in my ass. It’s this and that and everything else about the album and the tours, and I’m stuck with the kids all the time. Christ, getting them to a sitter was painful enough. No wonder we can’t have any life of our own. Has Brian been obsessing?”
“He doesn’t talk to me about the music much. He knows I’m intimidated still by his being in a rock band.”
“Ah, and Brian isn’t intimidated by his fiancée being an aspiring journalist?” she cocked an eyebrow but didn’t lose her smile. I didn’t have to be on guard with her, as she was one of the few people involved in the band that I knew I could trust.
I nodded understandingly. “He knows I wouldn’t leak to the press.”
“I’m sure there’s things you’d rather write about than a bunch of troublemaking lost boys from Huntington Beach anyways. Lots of bigger, better things in the world.”
“Surprisingly I haven’t seen soil outside the States. Never even been so far as Canada or Mexico.”
Gena’s eyes went wide with surprise. “No shit! Girl, we gotta get you out. Plan a ladies trip to Baja or something in the near future. Beers go on for ten cents at happy hour. Zack and Brian could manage with the kiddies.” I giggled, but my face turned sour again. “Or…not?”
Waving her off, I sipped my cool, lemony water. God, my stomach wasn’t letting up today. “I don’t see myself drinking in the next while. Might have to wait a couple years.”
Needless to say, Gena was a little annoyed. But I saw a spark in her eyes where I knew she understood what I was talking about. “Are you and Brian planning anything else between you?” she coaxed. I bit.
“He mentioned kids before, but wanted to get married first.”
“Oh, there’s something you’re not telling me. I know all about that cross look on your face. Confusion, fear. Have you told Brian yet?”
I briefly shook my head. She managed to beat it all out of me without having to say the word. “He’s too busy to be concerned about that right now. I mean the producers are really railing on them to get that record done. I don’t blame him, I mean the sooner he gets it done, the sooner we can kind of go back to normal, before the tour anyway.” I sputtered on the last few words, my lip quivering. My face fell into my hands. Fucking pregnancy hormones.
Gena came to my side of the table and wrapped her tanned arms around my body. The embrace was unfamiliar, but very comforting. “Darling, you gotta talk to him about this. Is it a for sure thing? Like have you taken a test or anything?” I shook my head, wordless. Sobbing uncontrollably. It was becoming embarrassing. I wish she were Brian. “What is there to be scared of?”
I didn’t want to think about why I was scared. What truly was there to fear? Oh, so very much. I managed to calm down a little, just enough that I could choke some words out without making a blubbering fool of myself. “I feel helpless enough when they’re on tour as it is. How am I going to be with a big baby belly and no man that will come home to me at the end of the day? No one to help me around the house. My mom lives so far away that turning to her would mean me living with her, and we don’t exactly see eye to eye as it is. Christ, I know how she’d react when I tell her.”
Rubbing my back, Gena remained quiet. Even though we were all in the same boat, she had different struggles than I did. Her children were two now, and when Zack left on tour, it would just be her and the kids. One less gaping mouth to feed. She didn’t see Zack the way I saw Brian. “Listen, the best you can do is take the test. And when you find out, tell Brian. Tell him even if it’s negative. Just open up some communication. If he wants kids, then he’ll be forced to leave his work alone to cater to your needs. I wish Zacky and I could go back to before we had Xander and Levi. Not saying that what happened to us will happen to you, of course.”
“Ugh, I don’t know. He gets so intense sometimes. Just raw fucking emotion. It’s like he’s an exposed nerve, you know, just waiting to get set off.”
“And finding out that you’re having a baby might set him in the right direction. It’s worth a shot, honey, don’t you think?”
I nodded somewhat nonchalantly. Yeah, it was probably in my best interest to tell Brian, but all the same, now wasn’t the right time for this baby. We were freshly engaged.

Notes

Okay, so it probably seems bland, but things are going to be picking up. Haven't updated due to working late at night. More to come soon!