Cold State Line

What the hell was I thinking? What the fuck was wrong with me? Why on earth had I allowed myself to be convinced to do this by Jimmy and Brian? Those two were always missing with my life, and I shouldn't have listened to them.

I could still turn around. I could get back on a plane and pretend like this never happened. No one would know I had even got on a plane except my close friends. This had been a crazy, stupid idea. Haylee said she didn't want to see me. That had been clear from the one and only message I had received from her. Doing this made me like Clay. Clay was not someone I ever wanted to be.

"Sir, are you going to get off the plane?" A kind flight attendant asked.

"Sorry, hate planes." It was a lie, but I couldn't burden a flight attendant with my issues. All I could do was get off the plane and go find a ticket stand to get a flight home. This had been absolute insanity to listen to the guys.

Exiting the plane, I made a beeline to the ticket counter. I was glad I had only packed a backpack because this had been the dumbest thing I'd done to date, and I was a rock star; I did a lot of dumb shit.

"What the hell was I thinking?" I asked myself, out loud of course because what better way to prove I was an idiot that by talking to myself.

"Oh my god... are you M. Shadows?" It was a question I was all too familiar with. That was the voice and question of a fan boy. They were a little harder to deal with than the fan girls. With the fans that were women, I knew they thought we were attractive, but they respected our relationships. The guys would just keep asking for shit.

I turned to face the voice. The guy was dressed in all black and had gages far bigger than mine would ever be. His nose was pierced and he had blue tips in his hair. "Yeah, man. You want an autograph."

"YES! Can I get a pic with you as well?" He was already approaching me with a camera and a picture to sign.

I nodded. I never really minded people recognizing me, usually no one else came forward. The fans were what brought us our fame anyway, so it was actually nice when people recognized me and got excited to see me.

The guy happily took his now signed picture of the band and smiled really big at the camera. I hope I had made his day. He almost skipped away from me, and I turned back to the ticket counter. Before I could ask for a flight back to L.A., someone else said my name.

"What are you doing here, Matt?" I knew without turning that that voice belonged to Anna. "Are you seriously trying to see Haylee?"

Rubbing the back of my neck, I turned to face the best friend. She was probably going to be harder to deal with than Haylee. Haylee was just resigned to the fact I had slept with someone else. The hardest part about this is that I felt guilty even though we had never defined our relationship. But I had gotten weird by texting and calling her a lot.

"Anna, I'm just trying to go home. Jimmy and Brian told me I should come, and the entire flight I just thought about how weird that was. Haylee told me she doesn't want to see me, and I'm okay with that. It hurts because I did make a mistake, but we weren't together... we weren't even dating," I said it quietly. I really didn't want attention on this. Most of the fan base still thought Val and I were engaged.

She looked at me carefully. I could tell she was trying to read if I was being honest or not. "Okay... Haylee knows you guys weren't dating. I think she just really liked you, and she thought you liked her a lot too. I guess it just took her by surprise that you were still seeing your ex."

"Yeah, that was a fluke thing. I tried to tell her that, but then I got like obsessed with making sure Haylee knew, and I definitely took it too far. I just want to start over... and that means I need to get home."

Anna smiled softly at me. "You're not a bad guy, Matt. I'll try to get Haylee to talk to you, but she has to make the next move. It's her life that she's still trying to figure out. And Matt, you guys are exact opposites. There's no real chance this is actually going to work out."

I knew that Anna was right, but I still held out hope that things would maybe work out for me and Haylee.

Notes

I finally fucking updated!