Just Before You Go

I’d successfully made it through my very first night behind the merchandise booth. It was hectic and impossible to hear what anyone was asking for but I’d somehow made it through. However, I didn’t get a chance to watch either band play because I’d been so preoccupied. I was disappointed—but I was poor.
By time we finally packed everything back up, I was exhausted. The idea of attending a nightlong bus party was less than appealing. I think I’d excited Jimmy at the prospect of condoned and encouraged drug use…but the mood had sort of passed me over. I wasn’t sure I’d survive anything else in my system beyond the current exhaustion.
Once I was freed from my merch shackles, I found my way back to the bus. The road crew was busy reloading the gear, warning everyone that we were leaving in thirty. A smoking Brian caught my attention from within the shadows, his face lit only by his burning cigarette.
“Hey,” I said nervously to the shadow creature.
He hesitated, “Hi.”
“What’s, um, what’s the plan for tonight?” I asked mostly to make an attempt at conversation.
“Party on our bus.”
“I know that,” I replied flatly. “I meant…I don’t know how it works.”
“Well you see, Aria,” Brian said smugly, stepping into the light of the bus, “everyone comes together and sometimes they bring alcohol, and sometimes you drink said alcohol—”
I narrowed my eyes at him, “Do you ever stop being an ass?”
“No,” he shrugged.
“Did you apologize to Blair?” I asked.
He scoffed at me, flicking his cigarette aside and pushing passed me without another word. I took that as a no. And that he hadn’t quite forgiven me for losing my cool on him earlier.
The only way out was through, so I climbed aboard the bus.
“Hey!” Jimmy cheered at the sight of me.
He pranced toward me, his arms still in the air. I didn’t find it strange until he was going on and on about their show and still hadn’t put his arms down.
“What’s with your arms?” I finally asked with a smirk.
He furrowed his brows, “What do you mean?”
I tried to pull one down but he fought me. He took a step back and shook his head.
“He thinks if he puts them down he’ll die,” Johnny told me from the couch.
“What? Why?”
“Because I’m really fucking high,” Jimmy snickered. “Some might say I’m too high…like there’s such a thing.”
Now, I know that I’d sort of given permission…But I’d honestly assumed that we’d get high together. Like a group activity of sorts. So, to stumble my way aboard and find my boyfriend tripping balls was not exactly my idea of a fun time. I was mad. Really, really mad.
But I wasn’t about to start flipping out for the second time in one day, so I ate it.
“Matthew!” Jimmy called over his shoulder.
Matt perked up, “Sup, Jimbo?”
“Itinerary, please!”
Matt cleared his throat loudly—and dramatically—to get everyone’s attention.
“Party will commence on the A7X Band bus in fifteen minutes sharp! There is a stop four hours down the line; at which time if any of you pussies wants to bail, that would be your opportunity! The roadies have graciously offered us their bus for sleeping. Once you get off the party bus, there is no reentry.”
I couldn’t help but laugh as Matt used his most convincing authoritative voice. Everyone cheered and hollered about the no reentry portion. Perhaps that had been an issue in the past.
Zach handed me a beer as Matt wrapped up his little information session.
“Is Haven not coming?” I asked as I cracked it.
He shrugged, “After the way Brian’s been treating their singer? I’d assume not.”
“You guys are so fucking dramatic,” Brian groaned. “So, I called her lame—we’re not in the second grade. If that word lame offends her, maybe Little Miss Thing should grow some thicker skin for fuck’s sakes.”
A throat clear.
“She’s right behind me, isn’t she?” Brian asked blankly.
“She sure is,” Blair retorted with her hands on her hips.
Brian rolled his eyes, running from the situation instead of smoothing it over, “Of fucking course.”
“Hey, B,” Matt smirked at her, immediately tossing a beer her way.
Haven followed her inside the bus and it was immediately feeling insanely cramped. A woman was with them but I didn’t recognize her from the group. I would have to ask Tyler who she was.
As everyone picked out places to sit, and got straight into the alcohol, the bus lurched forward. The Avenged boys cheered.
“Ladies and gentlemen!” Johnny called loudly, twisting his body as he hollered. “It’s fucking party time!”
“What?” Zach called from the table. “You have to speak up, man! We can’t hear you from way down there!”
Johnny pouted, sinking back down onto the couch with a thud. Jimmy used those long ass upward arms of his to crank up the stereo, filling in the awkward silences.
Tyler found me right away, stealing my focus away from my anger with Jimmy, who went straight for Blair Peterson. I tried not to let that fuel the rage.
“Did you check out our set?” he asked me before taking a sip of his water.
I frowned, “I really wanted to but I was stuck at the Avenged merch table all night.”
“Ah,” he shrugged. “You’ll have plenty of chances to see us play.”
“Yeah,” I smiled. “Next time.”
“So Blair mentioned that you guys had a little chat about me earlier,” he said coolly. “I’m sorry if she got weird on you. She does that sometimes.”
I shook my head, “It was okay. I get defensive when I think people are attacking Jimmy, so I get it.”
“She’s protective,” he agreed. “But I’m protective of her to a fault, too…So I can’t really blame her, I guess.”
“I remember your protectiveness,” I smirked. “I seem to recall you and Brian breaking out into a fist fight.”
Tyler laughed, “Yeah, yeah.”
I glanced over at Blair, who was laughing hysterically with Matt and Jimmy. Jimmy had managed to put his arms down at some point. At a quick glance, she and Blair looked almost like the same person, save for the serious difference in height. They both had hair dyed jet black and their arms were painted with colors and pictures, opposite to my clean and untouched skin. She was dressed all in black, just like Jimmy. I decided their connection could probably be summed up with the birds of a feather anecdote.
I hated that I was jealous. It wasn’t even so much that I thought Blair would steal Jimmy away, I think it was that I knew she could. They had far more in common than Jimmy and I ever would. They were musically talented and passionate…They liked the same weird music and had bonded over their love for all things Oingo Boingo. I, personally, found the music more annoying than anything.
Though, I couldn’t be sure that Jimmy could ever view Blair as anything more than a comrade. He was weird about women from what I understood, and he’d been more than willing to endure all of my bullshit thus far. Maybe he was the committed type and I needed to stop worrying about it.
But I couldn’t…not yet.
As I was stewing about their friendship, I watched as Brian stepped into their crowd. Matt stiffened immediately while Blair pretended not to notice Brian at all. He leaned into her and whispered something that made her scowl.
He, to my surprise, relented. He banished himself away once more and plunked himself onto the couch with Johnny, looking defeated as ever.
“I hate that guy,” Tyler growled into his bottle of aqua.
I turned back around, “I swear he’s really not that bad. I don’t know what it is about Blair that makes him act like such a tool.”
He shrugged, “Sexual frustration.”
I laughed loudly, nodding vigorously at the nail on the head deduction Ty had made. He smiled as I caught my breath. Brian was scowling at us from the couch, I assumed he couldn’t hear us—but he had likely extrapolated that we were very much so talking about him. Johnny patted his friend on the shoulder before climbing to his feet and making his way to the fridge.
“That’s probably right,” I giggled.
“What’s so funny?” Blair asked curiously, hypnotizing me with her scent.
“Just talking about what an idiot Synyster Gates is,” Tyler said nonchalantly.
Blair smirked, “Oh.”
“Synyster Gates equals dick sandwich,” Johnny slurred at us, his head popping up from behind the fridge door.
We all just kind of stared at him, unsure what to make of it.
He tipped a bottle of beer toward us before slamming the door shut once more, “It’s true.”
“Okay then,” Blair laughed finally, pushing her hair behind her ears.
The party went on, I occupied most of my time with Blair and Tyler, which was perfectly fine by me. The bus had grown louder and louder as it drove forward, everyone nearly incoherent by the halfway mark to the rest stop. Tyler looked bored and sleepy, which I attributed to his inability to party with the rest of us. Blair and I were pretty hammered.
“Oh, I’m serious,” Blair laughed, trying not to slur her words together. “She’s the queen of Hell. For sure.”
Tyler agreed loudly, “She’s the actual worst.”
“Carolyn is a champ, though,” Blair noted with a swig of beer. “I’ll give her that.”
“Her aunt is a lawyer,” Tyler told me. “A pretty highly revered one at that.”
This caught my interest, “A lawyer? Really?”
“Oh, right,” Blair smirked, pointing at me. “You’re a lawyer!”
“I was supposed to be,” I nodded sadly. “It’s impossible to find work, it seems!”
“Maybe you could come work with our legal team when we get back,” Tyler suggested emptily. “That would be pretty cool.”
“Seriously?” I gasped, excited even though I knew it was probably an empty offer.
He nodded, “Totally!”
Blair just sat back, watching. She looked like she might say something but Jimmy bounded over to the table and loudly interrupted.
“How’s it going over here?” he asked, his pupils the size of quarters.
“Good,” I lied.
“I’ve come to rally troops to get fucked up,” Jimmy grinned. “Any takers? Aria?”
If I’d thought I was too tired earlier to partake, then I was way too far gone by then. I was half cut and ready to puke and sleep—no way could I stay alive if I added drugs to the mix.
“No thanks,” I shrugged.
Tyler shook his head.
“What’re we taking?” Blair asked curiously, eying my boyfriend up suspiciously.
Jimmy lowered himself to rest his elbows on the table, “Well, Miss Peterson, it would appear that you have some choices tonight. I, however, was about to indulge in a nice big bump of coke.”
“You had me at well,” she snickered, sliding out from the table.
“Aria?” Jimmy asked me specifically. “You’re sure you’re good?”
I nodded with tight lips. I’d hoped that Jimmy would have picked up on my distaste for his behavior and would have made the choice to cool it. But he hadn’t. Or maybe he had and he just didn’t care. Either way, I was not happy. It was sort of my own fault, I guess…
“Okay,” he shrugged, standing up again. “I guess it’s just me and Blair.”
They crept away passed the bunks. I immediately took a head count, relieved to find that they weren’t alone back there. I hated myself.
“Not into drugs?” Tyler asked me curiously.
I shook my head, “I’ve sampled here and there but no, it isn’t really my thing.”
“How’d you end up with Jimmy?” he smirked.
I glared at him.
“Sorry…I just meant—”
“I know what you meant,” I interrupted. “He’s not always like this, you know.”
“You say that a lot,” Tyler noted sympathetically. “About all of them.”
In Brian’s case, it was true. He wasn’t always such an asshole—or a dick sandwich as Johnny had so eloquently worded it. He had his moments for sure, but he could also be caring and thoughtful. Blair brought out a troublesome side of him that made him act like an absolute idiot. I think it was because she made him genuinely nervous.
Jimmy, however…He was kind of always like this. He wasn’t always so outward about how fucked up he was—but I almost always knew. Even when he was supposedly not using, there were definitely times where I knew it to be a lie. I should have just been grateful that he was being honest with me for once. Maybe he deserved to be with someone like Blair; someone fun, someone who wouldn’t expect him to be someone he wasn’t.
But he’d told me he wanted to be better. He wanted to be a better version of himself…I was at a loss.
“No one’s perfect,” I said weakly.
“I’m not judging,” Ty smiled at me, reaching across the table to give my hand a tiny squeeze. “We all have problems…But I think you’d probably be happier if you stopped trying to justify other people’s behavior all the time.”
I was immediately defensive, “I don’t do that. You hardly even know me; who are you to make that kind of judgement call.”
He shrugged lazily, “You remind me a little of Blair sometimes. She’s the goddess of justifying. I’ve put her in that position more times than I like to admit…She’ll cover for me right until the bitter end. Maybe even after.”
“It’s what you do when you love someone,” I replied seriously.
“It is,” he agreed with a heavy heart. “But at what cost?”
“Now you remind me of Blair,” I smiled.
“That’s a high compliment. I’ll take it.”
“You guys are really close, huh?” I asked, slipping out from the table only for a second to refresh my beer.
He smiled fondly, “She’s like my sister. There’s no one quite like her in this world.”
“I can attest to that,” I smirked, climbing back into my seat.
“So what’s your problem?” Tyler asked weirdly.
“My problem?”
He nodded once, “Yeah. Everyone has problems. What’s yours?”
“I’m unemployed,” I joked.
“I’m serious,” he smirked at me.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” I suggested, mostly because I thought he’d fold and I wouldn’t have to get personal.
He flipped his arms onto the table so that I could plainly see the damage he’d inflicted onto himself. They were deep and they were big. It pained me to look upon them.
“It started when I was, like, eleven,” he said casually. “I think I’ll probably always be like this…But it’s my cross to bear.”
I pouted at him, feeling genuinely and wholeheartedly broken.
“And Blair’s too, I guess,” he added. “But she’s got her own world of issues. That girl is riddled with problems.”
He laughed to ease the tension.
“So?” he mused as he pulled his arms back. “What’s your problem?”
This was an awfully heavy conversation topic for a party. But, as I looked around, everyone else was on a totally different plain. Everyone was stumbling around, or half-dead on the couch. People hung off of other people, some laughing, some green.
Tyler was the only sober person in the entire bus. He was also delightfully easy to talk to. If I wanted to really be friends with this person, I’d need to open up to him eventually.
“I’m not sure,” I said, thinking about it. “I guess…I have some pretty deep-seeded trust issues.”
“Oh?” Tyler bit.
I considered it for a minute before making a definitive claim, “I had this boyfriend for a few years and he…he was a real son of a bitch. A serial cheater if that were a thing. I guess it left me pretty insecure, which I don’t think I was before I met him.”
“Well,” Tyler paused, “I think anyone who cheated on you is a moron. And I don’t think you need to worry about that with Jimmy. He seems like a good guy.”
“He is,” I agreed hurriedly. “But…You know…Things aren’t always what they seem.”
“Have you ever cheated?” Tyler asked courageously.
“No, never,” I said sternly. “Have you?”
He shook his head.
Blair’s laughter cut through the bus. Knowing full well that it was my boyfriend making that sound erupt from her throat, I was anxious as hell. My stomach tied itself into knots as I tried my best to tame the jealous beast.
“They have a good time together, huh?” Tyler laughed, his eyes fluttering toward the bunks.
I growled lowly, “Mhm.”
Blair and Jimmy came skipping out from the abyss, giggling and imitating one another. I absolutely hated it. But, Jimmy wasn’t so far gone that he’d lost all of his good sense; he slid into the seat next to me and wrapped an arm around my shoulders.
“You should hear Blair’s impression of Brian,” he told me seriously. “It’s fucking hilarious.”
“Your impression of Johnny is better,” Blair rebutted, scooting into the seat next to Tyler.
Jimmy grinned widely, “Fair enough!”
“Fair enough!” someone called back from behind us.
They all burst into laughter, breaking the sloppy and drunken stupor that had enveloped this bus.
Brian appeared and forced himself into the crack next to Jimmy. I scooched over to try and help him fit, but it wasn’t of much use. Jimmy was unmoving.
“You can sit in my lap, honey,” Jimmy cooed at his best friend.
“Not when you’re hard,” Brian faked disgusted, moving quickly away from Jimmy.
Jimmy pouted, “I thought you liked it when I was hard, Bri.”
“Not tonight,” Brian smirked. “It’s not much fun when you’re fucked out of your tree. Right, Aria?”
I froze.
Jimmy turned to look at me, looking a little more hurt than I think Brian meant. He frowned at me, but I refused to even acknowledge what Brian had said. Or what Jimmy was feeling.
But Jimmy knew. He had to have known.
“Do you get off on running around and fucking with people?” Blair growled up at Brian.
He flinched a little, “What? No.”
“You sure about that?” she dared him, taking a big swig of her beer. “Because there’s just no way you’re genuinely that big of a piece of shit. It isn’t humanly possible.”
“Oh, fuck you, Blair,” Brian rolled his eyes.
She grinned deviously, peering up at him through her beautiful green eyes, “Like I said last time, no thanks.”
Jimmy oo’ed lowly with serious amusement on his face. Brian’s fists clenched and released as he cycled through possible retorts.
“I have a fucking girlfriend,” he retorted weakly.
“Oh yeah,” Blair fake laughed. “What a lucky girl. I’d die to have a boyfriend who chases another girl around, desperate for her attention. I’m super jealous of that broad.”
Brian was embarrassed. He opened and closed his mouth several times in an, I assumed, attempt to make some sort of comeback. He came up short and unarmed.
I, however, was trying to take solace in the fact that Blair identified that as an issue Brian had—but not herself. Maybe her friendship with Jimmy was actually innocent…Maybe I was actually paranoid. Brian was sad but I was a little relieved.
“You can go,” Blair told him coldly, making a little hand movement to shoo him away from us.
Brian shook his head but said nothing. He retreated to the bunks and I could just barely see as he tucked himself into his bunk and slid the curtain closed. The kicker was that Blair looked miserable the second Brian was gone; like it brought her joy to banter with him.
“You guys really should just kiss and make up already,” Jimmy leered.
Blair rolled her eyes, “I’m good.”
The bus creaked to a stop, sending the standing drunkees flying across the room. It was hilarious.
“Rest stop!” Zach called from his place on the floor.
“That’s my queue,” Tyler yawned, pushing at Blair to get out of his way.
“I’m coming,” she told him as she moved out from the table.
“Lame!” Jimmy called at them.
Blair rustled his hair as she passed him, and said goodnight to Matt on her way out the door. Just like that, she and Tyler were gone. Jimmy turned to me happily, but I was about to disappoint.
“I’m going to bed,” I told him.
“On the roadie bus?” he frowned.
“No, in the bunk…But…”
“But?” Jimmy asked.
I sighed, “I’d kind of like to sleep alone.”
Jimmy’s face fell with confusion.
“You’re all hyped up,” I explained with a bit of honesty. “And I assume you won’t be ready for sleep any time soon…I just don’t want you to wake me up later.”
He was still pouting.
“I’m tired,” I sighed, pushing at his arm so he would move.
He got in my way, putting his face in my view, “Still love me?”
I nodded, “Yeah.”
“Convincing,” he seethed, abandoning me without another word.
But I was too tired to fight. So, I did what I said and I went to bed.
He didn’t wake me up later. Or at all. I slept the whole night through…alone.

Notes

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