Almost Easy

“I did something stupid,” I said, taking a big puff of my cigarette.
Jimmy tilted his head, “What’d you do?”
“May or may not have told Brian that I love him,” I laughed nervously.
Jimmy reacted differently than I’d anticipated. His eyes lit up and the ends of his lips curved up into a mischievous grin. He pulled me into a sloppy hug, nearly burning his leg on my cigarette.
“That’s the best thing I’ve ever heard,” he told me happily.
I pushed him away, “Stop that.”
“What did he say?” Jimmy asked excitedly.
I bit at my lip and shrugged, “He didn’t.”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes at me, “What does that mean?”
I laughed, “It means that I told him I loved him and he just kind of…stared…at me…”
“You broke Brian?” Jimmy cackled. “That’s awesome!”
“He slept in his own bunk, Jimmy,” I told him more seriously. “I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
Brian had fled from me as fast as humanly possible. It was humiliating and heart-wrenching. I pummeled myself for letting it slip. I knew there was a good reason for keeping it a secret—and Brian’s reaction was validation of that. I’d fucked up.
And now I was sure I’d scared him off.
“Give him a day,” Jimmy shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Jimmy,” I tried again to get him to understand.
But he shook his head, “Brian is grossly in love with you, man. Maybe he doesn’t know it yet but it’s the truth. Scout’s honor.”
“Were you even a scout?” I asked playfully as I flicked my cigarette butt into the street.
He just stared at me. I assumed that meant no. But maybe it meant yes. Jimmy was fucking weird.
“I have to say,” Jimmy mused as we walked back to the bus, “any man would be lucky to have you love them.”
“That’s so sweet,” I smiled up at my tall friend.
He grinned, “You have an ass that just won’t quit.”
I giggled, “Yeah, there it is.”
The bus was deserted. Everyone was inside doing sound check—I had been excused temporarily while they worked out a problem with Brian’s inputs. Apparently the speakers were glitching, it was effecting John’s bass too. They were trying to get to the bottom of the issue before the show tonight. That meant that I had nothing to do but wait.
So, since Jimmy was the only other one that had nothing to do, we’d paired off and were wasting time together.
“Love is beautiful,” Jimmy sung as he stretched himself across the couch, his hands folded over his head.
“Have you been in love?” I asked curiously from inside the fridge.
We had no food.
He nodded, “Oh yeah.”
“I haven’t,” I sighed. “Until Brian anyway.”
“What?” Jimmy demanded, sitting straight up. “Are you fucking joking?”
“No,” I answered awkwardly.
“And that little shit didn’t even say it back?” Jimmy gasped. “That’s fucked up.”
“That’s what I was saying!” I groaned with a laugh. “Welcome to my reality.”
“If I ever decide that I’m in love again, and she doesn’t say it back…” Jimmy paused. “I’d have to drop her.”
“I’m not going to drop Brian,” I smirked.
He shrugged, “Maybe you should. I’ll love you.”
I smiled, walked over and planted a little kiss on Jimmy’s cheek, “I appreciate that.”
Jimmy was blushing. It was adorable. I’d grown so much love for this man in the time we’d known each other. He was exactly what I needed in a friend to step in and fill the void that Tyler had left.
Not that he could replace Tyler…but he was certainly a good distraction.
“He’ll come around,” Jimmy smiled. “You’ll see.”
I hoped that he was right. But I still felt like I was walking on eggshells around my own insecurities. Maybe I wasn’t loveable. Maybe I’d misjudged the seriousness of our relationship. Maybe I’d thought it was heading in a direction that it wasn’t. I thought we had something strong, something real. Now I wasn’t sure.
“Blair?” a voice called from outside the bus door. “We need you inside!”
I looked to Jimmy and shrugged, “Duty calls, I guess.”
“Hold on,” he called to my back. “I’m coming!”
He walked with me to the venue’s back entrance and skipped as we walked down the hall. Whoever had called for me must have been Houdini because they’d vanished.
The guys were scattered across the stage, Brian and Mona seemed to be in a heated discussion. I’d assumed that when I was called, it had meant that the problems had all been resolved. But the tension between the band seemed to suggest otherwise.
“What’s going on?” I asked Justin, who was standing just off-stage.
He rolled his eyes, “Guitarists broke everything.”
“It’s still not fixed?” I gasped.
He shook his head, “Nope.”
I trotted over to Mona, who was looking all but thrilled. Her face was beat red and she was doing a lot of hand gestures. Brian seemed to be on the defence, always eager to fix everything.
“What’s going on?” I asked Mona.
Brian looked at me quickly and then retreated. It was a serious blow to my ego. I must have really fucking scared him off. As much as I wanted to curl up with the rejection and let it eat me to the bone, the show had to go on.
I tried to ignore Brian’s dismissal of me.
“He’s in a fucking mood today,” Mona groaned to me.
I pursed my lips, “Great.”
“Everything is fucked,” she told me with a sigh. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
“Is it our problem or the venue’s?” I asked.
She shrugged, “We have their techs here now. They’re looking into everything…I’ve tried everything I can think of on our end. It must be their problem.”
“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” I tried to be reassuring.
“Hope so,” she nodded.
She suddenly looked distraught. Maybe confused. She gestured behind me, I turned to look.
“What’s with that?” she asked me.
Jimmy was dragging Brian off stage by the ear. Literally by the ear. My heart fluttered in my chest. I really didn’t want Jimmy talking to Brian about my declaration. The anxiety was making me shake.
“Don’t know,” I lied.
She laughed, “Maybe he’ll fix Brian’s attitude.”
“He’s that bad?” I asked, turning back to face her.
Her eyes widened as she nodded, “He’s kind of a fucking dick when he wants to be, huh?”
I scoffed, “Oh yeah.”
A tech I didn’t recognize approached Mona rapidly and stole her away from me. I retreated back to Justin and tried to busy my thoughts with meaningless conversation. He was looking stressed.
“If we have to cancel our fucking show…” he trailed off.
I shook my head, “No way. We’ll figure it out.”
Maybe we didn’t figure it out. But it did get figured out. Pretty soon everything was up and running and we were given the clear to start our sound check. Mona still looked stressed but I figured she was a professional and it was her job to stress about possible problems.
Brian was not his usual self on stage. He wasn’t Synyster Gates throughout that particular sound check. He was very much Brian Haner; a troubled and broody Brian Haner. No one else seemed to notice, and no one else (but Jimmy) knew what had happened last night…so I pretended like I didn’t notice either.
“Sounds good from here!” Mona called to us, giving us a thumbs up.
We were pushed out of the venue to allow the other band to check. We all retreated to the bus…except Brian. He took a last second detour and vanished behind the row of buses.
“He’s in a bad mood today,” John laughed, standing next to me as I watched Brian disappear.
I just nodded.
Mona grabbed my arm from behind and pulled me back from the group. She waited until they were all inside and had closed the door before she spoke.
“What’s going on?” she asked worriedly. “Are you guys fighting or something?”
“What makes you say that?” I asked lamely.
She lowered her brows, “You guys are usually all over each other. You didn’t look at each other once during that entire check.”
I shrugged, pulling a cigarette out and lighting it right away. No way was I getting into this without a cigarette.
“And he’s in such a foul mood,” she continued. “It’s not hard to figure out. What are you fighting about?”
I inhaled deeply, “I honestly…I just don’t want to talk about it.”
“Did something happen?” she asked quietly. “Callie?”
“What about Callie?” I half-hissed.
She shook her head, “No, nothing. I just thought…I’m in the dark here. I just want to help.”
“Nothing to help,” I replied shortly, power puffing my smoke.
She frowned at me, “Well…for what it’s worth, I hope you guys work it out.”
I wanted to tell her what was going on. I wanted to get her feel for the situation…but I was embarrassed. Not only had Brian not requited my love but he was now avoiding me like the plague. He was doing everything in his power to not be around me. To not have to look at me. I was so unimaginably pained that it was almost unbearable.
Almost.
I flicked my cigarette away and sighed, “Can we go in?”
She nodded reluctantly, “Guess so.”
I didn’t bother to wait for her before climbing back inside. I took a seat next to Jimmy and rested my weary head on his shoulder. He reached over and pet me for a second before returning to his card game with Chris.
What was love, anyway? Maybe I didn’t need it. Maybe I’d invested too much into Brian and for what? To have him deny me and make me question my self-worth? Was that love?
I guessed then that he didn’t love me. He couldn’t love me. I was so fucking damaged that I guess it made sense. He’d seen me at more lows than he had at highs…or somewhere in between.
Austin had unnerved him. Made him question if he was ‘a good thing for me’. I never should have told him.
But then…it was my truth. It was real. I did love him. Everything inside of me told me that it was real. He was always saving me…stepping in at all the right moments and bandaging my lacerated soul. He was all that I wanted…
But he didn’t want me.
“I’m going to go for a walk,” I announced, hoping no one would ask to join.
They didn’t.
I stepped outside and ducked behind our bus, hopeful to evade any last minute lingerers. To my relief, no one followed.
My feet carried me passed the line of buses, some bustling with noise, others deadened in their abandonment. I considered going to watch Still Bourne’s sound check. It would give me something to do, a way to distract myself from my life for a bit.
Anything to distract myself.
I turned around to head back toward the venue when I caught Brian headed my way. He looked panicked when he realized that if he turned away, he’d be too obvious in his avoidance. Then we’d have to talk about it.
I figured we already had to talk about it.
My breaths were shallow as we approached one another. He was taking my breath away in a different way than I was used to. The moths in my stomach began to snack.
“Fucked up sound check,” he said to me quickly once we were near enough to speak.
I nodded, “Glad it got worked out…”
“I forgot my smokes on the bus,” he told me. “Can I bum one from you?”
“Sure,” my voice trembled.
I handed him a cigarette and his hand sort of lingered over mine for a second. His eyes met mine and finally, they softened.
“I don’t know what to do here,” he told me as he pulled his hand back with the smoke.
My face fell, “Do where?”
“With what you said,” he said, his lungs full of smoke making his voice sound raspy. “I don’t, uh, I don’t know what to do with it.”
“It’s fine,” I lied.
“I don’t mean to be an asshole,” he said, breathing heavy on his cigarette. “I don’t…Fuck I don’t know.”
I was trying not to cry.
“I shouldn’t have said it,” I managed. “I’m sorry.”
He almost smiled but then his face fell. He was shaking his head, which looked kind of funny with his hair spiked out like a hedgehog.
“You don’t need to be sorry,” he told me, his voice almost soothing. “I’ve…I’ve never heard those words from anyone…that meant them…”
I was watching the gears in his head turn.
“It’s too soon,” I sighed. “I know.”
“It’s not…” he stopped himself. “I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Okay,” I was blinking hard now.
He sighed at me, “I’m fucking worried, Blair. I don’t know what this is,” he gestured back and forth between himself and me. “I don’t know what I want it to be.”
I honestly didn’t know what to do with that….so I did nothing. I just stood there.
This felt a lot like the prelude to a breakup.
“I need time,” he finally said.
He was just turning to leave me when finally my brain snapped awake, “I don’t get you.”
He stopped in his tracks but didn’t turn back around.
“I’m really fucking confused,” I snapped, my vision blurred with frustrated tears. “You want to be around me…all the fucking time…You came to fucking Massachusetts with me. Why would you do that if you don’t know what this is?”
He turned then and I suddenly wished he hadn’t. I shouldn’t have said anything. I should have let him go.
“Why?” he barked at me. “Because you’re a fucking mess, Blair. Because I was afraid that you’d go and it would be too much for you and you’d do something stupid.”
My jaw dropped.
“It had nothing to do with love or whatever you seem to think was my motive,” he continued venomously. “You’re a fucking flight risk as far as I can tell.”
This was a Brian I hadn’t been introduced to yet. He was cold and he was unmoving in his defence.
“You saying that you love me was nothing but some feeble attempt to make yourself feel better,” he hissed. “You don’t love me, you’re just fucking sad. It isn’t the same thing, Blair.”
He was contradicting himself. A second ago he’d said he hadn’t heard I love you from someone who meant it…now he was saying he doubted my intentions. I was confused and I was angry and my heart was breaking apart in my chest.
This was definitely a prelude to a breakup.
“I can’t do this right now,” he finally said. “This is too much.”
I couldn’t speak. My throat had rebelled and it wasn’t going to allow it.
“I’m not good for you, Blair,” he told me. “You’re pissing off your manager by being with me, you’re ruining plans for your career by being with me…I can’t be what you need me to be.”
“What do I need you to be?” I hissed. “Last time I checked, you were the one that said we should date. You were the one that said you didn’t care about it being public. So how, the fuck, is it now my problem?”
Brian sighed, shaking his head, “I can’t talk about this right now. I need time to think.”
“You take all the fucking time you need,” I snapped. “You can go fuck yourself while you’re at it.”
I stormed off, pushing past him. He didn’t call to me. He didn’t ask me to stay. He didn’t even chase after me. Instead, he let me go. He was so concerned about “being good” for me, that he was effectively now being a total piece of shit.
Jimmy caught me coming around the corner of the bus. I practically had smoke coming from my ears.
“Blair?” he asked, immediately surveying my rage.
I growled, “If you want to keep your fucking friend alive, I suggest you keep him away from me.”
I slammed the door behind me before crawling into my bunk to completely fall apart.
Anguish.

Notes

Oh boy.

xx