Just Before You Go

I neared the black metal door, a burly man keeping close guard. I smiled politely, trying to gage whether or not the crowd to my right was a line, or simply people lingering for the sake of lingering. And then I spotted her.
It’s Blair every fucking time.
The wind ruptured from my lungs. She pushed her hair behind her ear, grinning up at the man before her. As the muscled man stepped to his side, my horror came into full view.
Jimmy.
I watched helplessly as he exchanged a handshake with the man, undoubtedly exchanging cash for god knows what. As he pulled his hand back, he snaked an arm around Blair’s shoulders and led her out from the crowd. I shrunk into the shadows, keeping close to the wall in hopes I wouldn’t be spotted. I wanted so badly to disappear.
I’d been aching all this time—and he’d been spending his time with her. Looking at him then, you’d never guess he’d just come out of a relationship. You’d never guess that he’d vowed to wear a ring on his finger. That same finger that I was sure still sported my name. My arm reached across my chest, letting my fingers fall against my back where Jimmy was permanently carved into my skin.
We were supposed to be forever.
And now Blair had taken my place.
They paid no attention to me as they waved at the burly man by the door and slithered their way inside. As the door opened, the crashing wave of melody struck everyone around. It muffled once more as the heavy door slammed shut behind them.
I wasn’t sure what to do. Something had led me there. Something had guided my steps and pulled me into its trance. I simply could not ignore fate—it seemed far too coincidental not to indulge.
So, mustering up the last of my failing courage, I sauntered to the door man and shoved the cover fee toward him.
I stepped inside, startling as the door slammed behind me. It was dark and dingy, cramped and sweaty. The band on the stage was fronted by a woman, her voice loud and it was demanding attention. Unfortunately, I had none to spare. My eyes immediately got to work searching for Jimmy. Given how tall he was, I hadn’t considered how difficult it might be in actual execution.
With no luck on my side, I retreated to the bar. I ordered the same drink Jimmy and I used to throw back in excess, tapping my fingers against the bar to the rhythm of the band.
“There you go, Sweetie,” the bartender smirked.
“How much?” I called, leaning over the counter.
He shook his head, gesturing to his left, “It’s from that handsome man over there.”
I furrowed my brows, glancing over in the direction of the vague gesture. My heart stopped as my eyes fell onto Brian, waving over at me with a trickle of his fingers. Panic surged through my veins as fight or flight kicked itself into gear.
But there was no time for decisions. Brian pulled away from the bar and rounded the curve, planting himself before me. My voice caught in my throat.
“Fancy seeing you here,” he said flatly.
I nodded, “How are you?”
“Good,” he answered feebly. “How’re you?”
“Oh, you know,” I forced a smile.
He pursed his lips, “Are you here alone?”
“Yep,” I answered slowly, glancing around and deciding to play dumb. “You?”
“Nah,” he shrugged. “We’re out celebrating.”
I swallowed hard, “Celebrating what?”
“Blair moved in,” he smiled widely, unable to hide his enthusiasm. “So, naturally, we’re out.”
Just like that, I realized life moves on. It doesn’t matter how stagnant you find yourself. It doesn’t matter what kind of hold the earth has on you. Everyone else will continue forward—even if it means leaving you behind.
Blair was getting her happy ending. Blair was going to ride off into the sunset with Brian…and with Jimmy.
And I was alone. I wasn’t even very good company.
“Well…congratulations,” I replied politely. “She’s here then...Blair?”
He looked at me skeptically; like he knew I knew she was there. But I was committed to my act. I’d never admit that I knew they were here. I’d never admit I’d followed them in just for one last chance to look at Jimmy. I’d never admit that Blair’s name had been ripping me to shreds.
But I wondered if Brian knew about the ultimatum. I wonder if he knew that Jimmy had chosen Brian’s girlfriend over his own.
Mostly, I wondered how Brian could find peace with it.
“Yeah,” he finally answered. “Everyone’s here.”
I downed my drink in one go, slamming it against the counter, “I guess that’s my cue then.”
“Don’t let us chase you off,” Brian said oddly. “We’re not staying long…Jimmy just really wanted to see this fuckin’ band.”
“That’s nice,” I groaned. “But I don’t want to make things awkward.”
“You won’t,” Brian replied flatly. “We’re over it, Aria. No one cares about everything that happened. So…stay if you want. Don’t let us stop you.”
Those words hit me like a bus. No one cared? We’re over it? Did that include Jimmy? Jimmy could get over us in a matter of three short weeks?
I guess my horror was written all over my face. Brian reached out and wrapped his fingers around my arm.
“It was nice seeing you, Aria,” he smiled. “You take care of yourself. Maybe I’ll see you around.”
Before I could think of something to say, a tattooed arm snaked around Brian’s chest. Blair Peterson shifted around his side, staring lovingly up at her man. The whole thing made me want to die.
And then her green eyes settled on me.
“Oh, shit,” she half-laughed. “Aria!”
“Blair,” I grumbled.
“Does Jimmy—” she started but was effectively cut off.
“Aria,” Jimmy stated, bewilderment in his eyes as they settled atop me.
It was too much.
“I was just leaving,” I rushed, spinning around. “Thanks for the drink, Brian.”
I didn’t look back as I peeled out from the dive bar and back into the alley from whence I’d come. The crowd was still gathered, everything outside the walls unchanged. I was struggling to keep air inside my lungs and to keep the whiskey in my stomach. The look on Jimmy’s face stained itself into my memory.
The pain in his eyes. The shock on his face. The perfect curvature of his lips.
I ran my hands through my hair, glancing around for the best escape route. I decided that the best path was probably one of least resistance, so I hurried in the direction I’d come.
“Aria!” Jimmy’s voice bellowed out behind me.
I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t bear to look upon that man again.
“Aria!” he shouted. “Fuck! Wait up!”
Giving in to his last whim, I slowed my pace. He caught up quickly—damn drummer stamina. He stepped before me and wrapped both hands around my arms.
“What are you doing here?”
I scowled, “What kind of question is that?”
“I’m just surprised to see you,” he confessed lowly. “And then you ran off.”
I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“What are you doing here?” he asked again. “You don’t even like punk shows.”
“Is that what this is?” I half-laughed. “I just followed the music…It reminded me of you.”
His lips fell, “Aria…”
“I really miss you,” I confessed emotionally. “I’ve been missing you.”
He sighed, “I know…”
“Do you miss me?” I asked, hope ringing clear. “At all?”
His face flinched as he combatted whatever response had sprung to mind. He let his silence speak volumes.
“I just keep thinking about when we first got together,” I told him quietly. “We had fun, didn’t we?”
He nodded, “Yeah…”
“I loved you so much,” I whimpered. “You showed me a whole new world…You helped me come out of my shell.”
“Yeah,” he hesitated. “But…I don’t know if that was a good thing, Aria.”
My heart snapped all over again.
“I’ve been thinking about it too,” he breathed. “And we did shit that I don’t think you’d ever do on your own…I made you into a stranger. I did that.”
“No, Jimmy,” I argued feebly, stepping closer to him. “You made me adventurous. You helped me see life was more than academia and structure.”
“And look what fucking happened!” he replied loudly. “You lost your fucking mind, Aria. And that’s my fault. I’ve brought out all this crazy shit in you…You weren’t jealous when I met you. You weren’t spiteful or angry. You definitely weren’t into drugs and shit. I gave that stuff to you…”
“I don’t care,” I lied. “I love you.”
He sighed, letting his hands fall from my skin, “I told you before, that isn’t the problem. The problem is that I make you into an insecure person. And you make me really fucking bitter, Aria. I hate feeling caged…and you make me feel like shit for doing things that come naturally to me. I like to enjoy my life…and I get the sense you aren’t enjoying yours.”
“Not now,” I frowned.
“Aria,” he spoke, letting his blue eyes move up to the moon, “I’m letting you go because I love you. You deserve someone that can make you feel like you’re worth something. Because you are. You can be wonderful…and funny and compassionate…You can be really sweet and so, so fucking smart.”
I smiled a little.
“But…” he added slowly, my smile immediately fading out. “You aren’t those things with me. And I could stay with you to be selfish…but then neither of us will be happy. Not really. And you deserve to be fucking happy, Aria.”
“I’m not happy,” I told him, my heart aching.
“I hope you find it,” he smiled. “I really do…It’s all I want for you, Aria.”
My eyes burdened, “I want you. I want what we had. I want to go back in time and change everything…I’d take it all back, I would. I’d take it all back.”
“I wouldn’t,” he told me solemnly. “Shit happens the way it’s supposed to. We just…weren’t meant to be.”
“You told me I was your soul mate,” I burst, unable to suppress the emotion any longer. “You said that!”
He nodded, “I know…but you…you were a different person then. I was different.”
“So, what? When I was high, I was your soul mate? Is that what you see in Blair? A high drug tolerance?”
He groaned, “This. This is why we don’t work. It has nothing to do with that and nothing to do with Blair.”
“You chose her!”
“You made me!”
We fell into a still, each frustrated with our own feelings—and each other.
“Jim!” Blair’s voice cut through the air.
I couldn’t help my eyes as they rolled into the back of my skull.
“Jimmy! We’re going!” Brian added loudly. “You coming or staying?”
He looked at me apologetically, “I’m coming! Give me a second!”
I felt like I was being passed over all over again.
“I’m sorry,” Jimmy sighed. “I have to go…”
I nodded, sensing no point in arguing about it.
“Aria, if you need me, just call me,” he said shallowly. “There’s still a part of me that loves you…And while I know we can’t be together…that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”
I stared at him helplessly.
He smiled faintly, leaning down to brush his lips against my cheek. As he straightened himself out, he managed those same infamous words everyone had been throwing carelessly my way.
“Take care of yourself, Aria.”
I watched lifelessly as he meandered away from me and rejoined his family. They sauntered down the alley, away from the music and away from me. My feet implanted themselves into the ground, aiding me in my masochistic audience. Even after Jimmy had disappeared around a corner, I couldn’t bring myself to move.
We’d been so close. He’d been beside me—right beside me. How had I let him go again? How had he slipped me by?
Temporarily losing my mind, I convinced my body to move. My feet carried me back toward the door, but instead of heading into the melancholy of sound, I turned into the crowd. Positioning myself before the man I’d seen Blair and Jimmy talking to, I tried my best to summon some sort of proper inquisition.
Jimmy had always come with the narcotics. I wasn’t sure how to acquire them for myself.
“What do you need, Kid?” he grunted at me.
I stuttered, “I, um…”
He smirked, “I’ve got X or I’ve got Oxies. What are you looking for?”
I was a bit surprised by his brashness. What if I was an undercover cop? What if I was a narc?
“Or did you just want what Jim was after?” he volunteered next. “Friend of yours, right?”
My head nodded, “Uh…yeah…”
“Eighty bucks,” he told me.
My heart nearly gave out. What the hell was Jimmy buying? Nevertheless, I passed over the contents of my pockets. I had a twenty left, which I rationalized could, at least, get me home.
He casually slipped a white bag into my palm. The entire thing felt far more scandalous than it had when Jimmy and I had leaned over my coffee table. Oh, how the times had changed.
I thanked him—which seemed to confuse him—and then made my way back inside. I figured the coast was clear now that the Avenged group had dispersed. The band played as I slipped into the bathroom and promptly locked myself in a stall. The lights overhead flickered, basking the grotesquely dirty walls in and out of focus.
Surveying the bag of powder in my grip, I tried to work out how much to take. All I wanted was to recreate the high Jimmy and I had found together. I wanted to go back in fucking time.
Trying my hardest to remember how Jimmy had divvied it up, I was sure he’d sprinkled about the same amount onto my table as I currently held in the bag. Without much more consideration, I abandoned my germaphobia and dumped the contents onto the sticker-clad lid of the toilet.
It took a few minutes, but I’d managed to pull every single crystal of powder into the deepest cavities of my nasal passage. I wasn’t even sure what it was, but I hoped it did what I’d purchased it to do.
I slipped back into the bar, meandering my way into the grooving crowd on the floor. With my eyes pursed shut, I swayed my hips to the beat and pushed myself to lose my mind in the music. I couldn’t think anymore.
I’d have all the time in the world to think about what Jimmy had said. I was sure his words would rip me into pieces by time daylight broke. I wasn’t entirely sure I’d survive giving it any real thought as I swayed to the sound.
But as my heart began to thud and my fingers grew numb, I started to get a little paranoid. It was different this time than it had been before. There was no Jimmy here to keep an eye on me—no one knew what was going on but me. The loneliness of that revelation had me running for home.
I struggled to keep my steps straight, the world hazing and twisting with each lift of my leg. The alley seemed to go on forever. I must have made it though, because the next thing I knew, I was in the back of a cab. On my back. Staring up at the grey fabric ceiling.
What about this feeling did Jimmy love so much? What luster was there to being entirely out of control? I was quickly beginning to panic as my chest began to strain itself with the simple task of breathing.
“This it?” the driver spoke.
I had no idea what he was talking about. I used the front seat to pull myself up, squinting out the window to find my parents’ house. What the fuck was I on?
Digging in my pocket for my last twenty, I crumpled it into my palm and passed it to the driver. By time I’d crossed the lawn, I was sure my legs would give out. Everything felt painfully sluggish. Every single breath, every single step, everything was incredibly drawn out.
The door was unlocked as I collapsed through it. The moonlight beat through the glass, casting an ominous glow atop the bottom step. Mustering all of my strength, I told myself I had to get to bed. If I could just get to bed, I could sleep this off.
I kicked the door shut and began a slow crawl up the stairs. Under the blanket of evening, it was proving difficult to get anywhere.
But somehow, I managed. As I slipped back into alert consciousness, I found myself in my bed. The darkened room spun overhead, daring to spill the contents of my being across the floor.
And that’s when I began to panic.
Something was wrong. As my throat erupted in those most horrific sound known to man, I knew I was in trouble. I desperately fumbled for my phone, the only person I could think to call hanging off the edge of my thoughts. He’d know what to do. He’d know how to fix this. Jimmy would save me. Someone would save me.
They’d saved Blair, right? So why not me?
But as my fingers wrapped around the case of my phone, my breathing nearly gave out. My limbs tightened my head collapsed. The world developed a fog and it moved swiftly to cloud my vision.
I figured I’d come back in a moment. It had been happening throughout my entire journey home. I’d fade out but soon be back in action with a temporary ability to command my extremities. It was becoming increasingly difficult to function—my lungs made horrific sounds as I struggled to pull air into them. My skin ran cold, a chilled sweat breaking out across my forehead.
The world rang like church bells against my mind as I wavered in and out. I lost my senses. The universe folded into itself as I closed my eyes and fell asleep and the darkness welcomed me home.

Notes

The end.

Thanks for sticking with this story through 116 chapters! That's insane! It's truly the end of an era.
I figure if I babble long enough, I can distract you all from what just happened.
No?
Hm.

xx