Just Before You Go

Brian immediately retreated back to his bunk following sound check. He was doing his best to avoid any and all people, blaming his attitude on his hangover. I’d hung around to watch Haven’s sound check, Jimmy had lingered for a bit but grew bored before too long.
“She’s insanely talented,” I’d said to him in absolute awe of Blair Peterson’s sheer vocal skill.
He nodded knowingly, “No shit.”
But she wasn’t talented enough to keep Jimmy’s attention. He kissed me goodbye and skipped off to find some trouble. I could have watched Haven play all day long—they were tight and their sound was magnetic. Blair’s stage presence alone would have been enough to keep me bolted to the floor for eternity.
Once they’d been given the clear, they filed off stage one by one. Tyler gave me a little smile as he breezed passed me, deep into a debate with the other guitarist. Perfectionists, I assumed.
Blair was wiping at her forehead, taking big gulps from her bottled water. She hesitated briefly when she caught sight of me hanging around in the wings.
To my surprise, she stopped just beside me.
“Hey,” she said like it pained her.
“Hey.”
“What’d you think?” she asked.
I couldn’t help but gush. This was the woman of my dreams, after all. She couldn’t really be faulted for also being the accidental dream girl of my boyfriend, too. And of my boyfriend’s best friend…and his other best friend…
Was this girl secretly an angel? I was starting to seriously wonder.
“Well thanks,” she laughed when I’d finally wrapped up my lovefest.
“No need to thank me,” I told her seriously. “You’re wonderful to watch.”
She laughed awkwardly—and I punched myself hard in the brain for saying something so weirdly flirtatious. Word vomit.
“Did you want to go for a walk or something?” she asked me hurriedly.
I was in no position to decline.
“Cool,” she half-smiled, leading me out from the stage and down the long hallway that I knew would eventually bring us outside.
“Are you excited to play tonight?” I asked her politely.
She nodded. We didn’t speak until we were back beneath the Vegas sun.
Blair lit a smoke immediately, stuffing the rest of the pack into her back pocket and tucking the lighter into her bra, “Look…I’m sorry I was such a fucking twat to you earlier.”
I shook my head, waving her off, “That’s totally okay.”
“No,” she sighed. “It’s not.”
“You don’t get out much,” I teased lightly.
“That guy just fucking—” she gestured lazily toward Avenged’s bus, shaking her head at herself. “Fuck him, you know?”
I frowned at her, still admiring her effortless beauty as the breeze caught her black hair and dragged it gently across her perfect face. She pushed it back with a frustrated groan, her cigarette tucked neatly between her plump lips.
“I’m sorry he’s such a dick,” I told her seriously.
She shrugged, leading me toward the back and away from the buses. Away from the bands. We walked until we found a park—a concrete park—but a park nonetheless. We made seats out of the concrete curb that ran around a fountain. Only then did Blair flick her cigarette away.
“Am I really lame?” she asked me with a hint of humility.
I scoffed at her, “Are you kidding?”
“No,” she said with a quivered look.
It had never occurred to me that she could ever be insecure. She was easily the most beautiful human I’d ever laid my eyes on. She had so many endearing qualities…and was capable of demanding, and receiving, the world’s attention with one flutter of her long eyelashes. It was humbling to learn she, too, did not always love herself wholly.
“You’re perfect,” I blurted out with no filter at all.
She laughed, “I’m not…but thank you for the lie.”
“Don’t let Brian tell you what you’re worth,” I sighed.
Her eyes found mine and she quickly perused my soul. I recognized the inner workings from Jimmy’s daily survey of my very soul. Her tattooed arm reached up to tuck her hair behind her ear. I swooned.
“I don’t even know why I care,” she thought aloud, moving her eyes away from me. “He’s given me absolutely no reason to give a single fuck about him.”
“And yet?”
She pursed her lips, silently scolding herself, “And yet.”
“Matt said you rejected Brian…Is that true?” I asked curiously, dying to know what had happened.
She shrugged, “I wouldn’t say rejected…”
“Well what would you say?” I pried shamelessly.
I smirked as she adjusted to pull her cigarettes from her back pocket. She pulled a single smoke out and placed it between her lips before tipping the pack to me in offer. I’m not sure why, but I took one. She reached over to light it for me before lighting her own and then stuffing the lighter back into her bra.
“At Jimmy’s party,” she said with a lung full of smoke, her eyes still cast off in the distance. “He tried to kiss me…Or I think that’s what he was trying to do. I casually reminded him that he was an arrogant fuck—and that if he seriously thought I was going to swoon the first fucking time he was nice to me, he had another thing coming.”
There was that moxie that I admired so much. The visual was deeply entertaining—I wished I’d been able to see it go down in person.
“How’d he take that?” I asked knowingly.
She scoffed with a laugh, “Well, he’s deemed me lame and pathetic…and he showed up a week later with a fucking girlfriend…So…”
“I don’t know what that’s about,” I said truthfully, trying not to choke and die on the cigarette. “We all thought he liked you…I know he does.”
She scrunched her nose up, “Doesn’t matter anymore. Whatever little flicker of a sort of crush I had is totally dead now. There are only so many times a person can show you their colors before you need to take off the rose-colored glasses, you know? I’m done. With Brian, with Synyster Gates…whoever the fuck he is. He’s nobody to me.”
I was devastated to hear the news. All I wanted was for the Bs to get together, get married, and have many, many beautiful B-named babies. Was that so much to ask?
“And what about Matt?” I grinned.
She raised an eyebrow, looking back at me then, “What about him?”
“Anything going on there?” I asked curiously.
“Why do you keep asking me that?” she laughed oddly. “I told you, we’re just friends.”
“Maybe you’re just friends, but…”
“No, no, no,” she cut me off frantically, taking a long puff of her smoke. “Just friends. Mutually.”
I shrugged, selfishly pushing her onto anyone other than Jimmy.
“You could do worse.”
She nodded slowly, “Yeah, I guess. Don’t get me wrong, Matt’s sexy as hell…It isn’t like I’ve never thought about it.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
She looked like she didn’t want to answer. She had a whimsical look on her face as she finally looked me in the eyes once more.
Finally, she said, “Because then that’s it.”
I didn’t know what she meant.
“It for what?” I asked confusedly.
“For Brian,” she explained simply.
I still didn’t know what she meant.
“What?” I laughed.
She smiled at me, shaking her head ever so slightly, “I don’t know, Aria…There’s something about him…It’s like I know him. I know that sounds weird.”
“You do know him,” I stated.
“Yeah…but I mean know him…Never mind,” she dismissed with an awkward chuckle. “The point is that maybe I hate Brian right now, but tomorrow I might not…and if I sleep with his friend, I might hurt him…I get the sense that it would hurt him.”
I agreed immediately, “It would.”
“If I hook up with Brian’s friend, whatever is going on between us will die,” she shrugged at me. “I’m not sure if I’m ready to put the nail in the coffin yet, if that makes sense.”
“It does,” I smiled.
It was nice to have someone to talk to other than Jimmy or judgemental Jenny. Sometimes I’d work myself up so much that Blair would become a villainous caricature of herself and I’d forget that she was a living, breathing, and feeling human being. Seeing her human side only made my crush for her grow stronger.
“Speaking of friends,” she moved on choppily, “Ty seems to like you.”
“Yeah, I think so,” I smiled fondly. “He’s really sweet.”
She nodded absently, her face grim with burden, “He can be.”
I wanted to ask her about the rumor I’d heard but knew I couldn’t. I didn’t want her to think I was the gossiping type—especially since she’d entrusted me with her own secret. But Tyler was becoming my friend, too, and I was genuinely concerned that he might not be alright.
Blair pulled hard at her cigarette.
Word vomit struck again, “Can I ask you something? I saw something on Tyler earlier and I have questions.”
“What?” she asked confusedly, seemingly shaking away whatever thoughts had been plaguing her reality. “Saw what?”
“Stitches,” I said flatly.
She clenched her jaw as her eyes bore into me. If I hadn’t just touched on a sore spot, then I don’t know…She looked…mad?
“Is he okay?” I asked quietly.
Her face softened a little, “For now.”
“I understand if you don’t want to talk about it,” I said weakly. “But…I care about Tyler…”
“You should probably stop,” she told me bitterly, taking another puff of her cigarette before crushing it under her foot.
She stood abruptly, looking around with impatience. I didn’t move. I was confused.
“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked sternly.
She sighed loudly, blinking away her feelings, “I’m going to level with you, Aria, because you seem like the emotional type.”
It felt like a jab, but coming from a perfect creature like her, I decided to just take it.
Besides, there was nothing wrong with being emotional…right? It was that word ‘type’ that got under my skin.
“Tyler has some problems,” she told me blankly. “They’re big and they’re bad and he’ll probably fucking succumb to them one day. I’ve been on this ride for most of my life…but you don’t have to be…So…If you want my advice, from someone who’s in the center of it all…Get out while you can. Don’t get invested in him—it’ll just make shit worse for yourself.”
She spoke so callously, as if from behind a thickened brick wall. But I could hear the pain in her throat and I could see the fear in her eyes.
“Did he try to kill himself?” I asked point blank, feeling a lot like crying.
She shrugged weirdly, biting at her bottom lip with aggression, “For the millionth time.”
“Why?” I gasped, my heart crushing in its cage.
“I…I don’t have an answer to that, Aria,” she sighed. “Sorry.”
“I’m not asking to be nosy,” I clarified because I felt like I should. “I—”
“Care,” she finished for me. “Yeah, I got that. But like I said…”
Blair was beginning to make a lot more sense to me. She’d suffered so much loss in her life by losing her parents at such a young age. And now to know she was at the risk of losing her best friend every day, too…I could empathize. It wasn’t exactly difficult to start piecing together why she was the way she was. She had been hardened by this world, and it wasn’t her fault at all. It was seriously heart wrenching.
“Are you okay?” I asked her compassionately.
She made a face at me, putting up another wall no doubt, “I’m fine.”
“If you ever need to talk—”
“We should get back,” she interjected, trying to sound less grim than she had a few seconds before.
I frowned, tossing the burnt-out cigarette aside and climbing to my feet. She walked with her arms folded across her chest, unspeaking and without even glancing at me.
Once we were back at the buses, she waved weirdly at me and then climbed aboard the Haven bus. I felt like we’d taken a step forward and then slid down a mountainside. We were polar opposites, that much was clear. But now not only was I totally in love with her, I was so, so curious about her.
“Hey,” Tyler smiled at me as he neared his bus’s door.
“Hey,” I smiled back.
He pointed at a window, “She okay?”
I nodded, unsure how much Blair would want me to divulge. I assumed the correct answer was nothing.
“Are you going to catch the show?” he asked me cheerfully.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” I replied happily. “I should go find Jimmy. I’ll see you later, though!”
“At the party for sure!” Tyler winked before climbing onto the bus.
Well…At least Blair would have to talk to me at the party…Assuming she accepted the invitation. What if I’d made everything worse? What if now she didn’t only hate Brian but she hated me too? Or worse, what if she felt compelled to start avoiding me? What had I done…
I needed to get out of my head…At least for one night.
As soon as I found Jimmy, I pulled him aside. He looked at me with expectant giddiness.
“Can we get high tonight?” I asked him seriously.
His eyes fell a little, both in confusion and concern.
I laughed, trying to calm his rattled suspicions, “It’s a party, isn’t it?”
He nodded slowly, unsure how to respond to me.
“You can say no,” I backpedalled.
“I can’t say no to you,” he smirked. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up.”
And just like that, we were both falling into old habits.

Notes

Three in one day? Why not.

xx