Trashed and Scattered

"Did Brian die?" Johnny asked whimsically, sipping at the bottle of beer tucked safely into his hand.
"Call him," Zach offered casually in response.
Johnny narrowed his brows, "You call him."
"What do I look like, a Oujia board?"
"Give Brian a break, guys," Matt laughed, shaking his head at the pair. "He's with Peyton, so he's probably not dead."
Johnny raised his eyes wide and nodded in understanding, "Oh, right. So he's off getting his dick wet is what you're saying?"
Matt grimaced at the thought. When he looked at Peyton, all he could see was her former youth self. Maybe she'd matured and maybe she had aged, but he didn't know adult Peyton. He'd had nothing new to wipe the slate clean with.
"Can you not be disgusting?" Matt groaned. "Just once, man."
Jimmy rolled his eyes at the exchange, taking his leave to head out back and busy his mind with a cigarette. The notion that Brian might be putting the moves on Peyton made him want to curl up and die. He was in a mess of his own doing, he knew that. But it didn't make it any simpler to sort through the baggage it had packed.
He wanted to be putting the moves on Peyton. He wanted to know her that way...Know her better.
Jimmy found himself wishing he was unattached; things could have been so simple. They could have taken off on some whirlwind romance, the kind of shit fairy tales are made of. He could have swept her off her feet and it would have been like they were never severed. Like they'd never been apart.
But, no. His life had progressed while she was away; he'd moved on. He reminded himself that beyond his current situation, Peyton's life was not wrapped up in California anymore. She lived across the country; that's where her life had progressed to. The mechanics of their lives made it clear to him that it couldn't have worked, even if Natalie wasn't a pressing thorn in his side.
It never could have worked, he told himself over and over again. Even if he desperately had wanted it to.
He ran a finger over the flaking bits of skin that the ink had dried out, sighing to himself as he relived the events of the previous night. If he didn't know any better, he wouldn't have been able to recognize himself. He'd never been unfaithful; that was the others' routine...But not his. It wasn't as though he'd never had the opportunity. Night after night on Warp Tour, girls and fans alike would throw themselves at his feet. One girl had asked him to cut her with a knife one time; shit was wild.
But he'd never taken anyone up on their offers. He respected Natalie more than that; he respected what they had.
So what about Peyton was so different? Why was he so willing to throw away every moral and every value he'd worked so hard to protect? Was it simply that he'd been excited about her return? Or was it something else? Something deeper...Something uncontrollable.
He groaned to the sky, letting the ember of his cigarette act as a beacon for his misfortune. He was no stranger to the ties of life and the hardships that could bring; but this felt somehow unavoidable. Like he was destined to make this mistake. His mind twitched as the word 'mistake' ran past it. Nothing about Peyton was a mistake; not their years of friendships, not the secrets, not the pining he'd endured throughout their years apart...And, certainly, not their one night of indulgence.
Natalie had never given him such a rush. He knew he shouldn't compare, but he couldn't help it. His fingers tapped at his thigh as he ran Peyton's body over in his mind once more. What was it about her?
"Hey," Brian's voice squeaked from behind.
Jimmy felt himself tense up; a reaction entirely foreign to his muscles. He hated what was happening; resentment was building before anything had really begun.
You did it to yourself, he reminded himself lowly.
"Hey," Jimmy replied finally.
Brian grabbed the chair across from his lifelong pal, sizing him up as he collapsed into it and pulled his pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
"What are you doing out here all alone?" Brian asked simply.
Jimmy held up a cigarette in lieu of a response.
"Peyton's here," Brian said flatly.
"Cool, man," Jimmy grunted.
"Dude, are you okay?" Brian asked as he leaned forward, pushing through the cloud of smoke rising from his fingertips. "You seem pissed."
"Did you fuck her?" Jimmy asked point blank, figuring there was no point wasting time with eluding.
Brian's face contorted itself with shock and offence, "What? No."
Jimmy raised a suspicious eyebrow.
"No," Brian said again, more firmly. "But even if I did...What does it matter to you?"
"It doesn't," Jimmy shrugged, sinking into depths of despair.
He wanted to be honest. He wanted to come clean to Brian about everything that had happened; what it all had meant...But he'd told Peyton he wouldn't. They'd vowed to keep it locked up, burying it down with the bones of their past. Another secret bestowed upon their friendship.
"Convincing," Brian noted with a roll of his eyes.
"She's my friend," Jimmy offered callously. "I just got her back...I don't want you chasing her off with your dick crusade like every other chick that comes around."
Brian desperately wanted to laugh about the implication that he was on a dick crusade, but given Jimmy's less than impressed face, he resisted.
"It isn't like that, man," Brian assured him. "Nothing happened."
It was true; or a partial truth, anyway. Nothing had actually transpired that could be mistaken as a crusade of any kind. But Brian had felt a spark of something; he just wasn't convinced it was anything more than lust. He could read Jimmy with ease, and knew better in that moment than to offer up his newfound perspective.
But the begging question was still prominent in his mind: why did Jimmy care?
Jimmy had Natalie. Surely he'd had the opportunity to let something go on with Peyton, but he'd let it slip him by. Or maybe, Brian thought, Jimmy hadn't let it slip by at all. For the first time in over a decade, Brian felt disconnected from his soul mate. It wasn't like Jimmy to slip up--he couldn't have. He wouldn't have.
...Would he?
"Okay," Jimmy sighed.
"Was there something you wanted to share with the class?" Brian asked, feeling suddenly bolder from within his chain of thoughts.
Jimmy scrunched up his face, "Like what?"
"I don't know, man," Brian said with a tilt of his head. "You seem like you've got a bit of a penchant. Something we should discuss?"
"I don't have a penchant," Jimmy countered quickly. "I just don't need you fucking around with Lexi and making everything complicated."
"The only one making anything complicated is you," Brian noted. "I love you, Jim, I do...But you're not telling me something. And covering up your past with Peyton? What's that about? What did you do?"
Jimmy shook his head with a sigh, "You know what I did."
"Did you do more than that?" Brian asked pointedly.
"No."
"Don't you lie to me, Jimmy," Brian warned. "You know I'll find out."
"I'm not," Jimmy groaned. "Can we drop the subject? I don't want to talk about Lexi anymore."
"Peyton," Brian corrected.
"Peyton," Jimmy repeated with a hand flail, "Lexi. Whatever."
A closing door broke the tension between the pair in an instant. Jimmy's spine stiffened out with rigor mortis as Brian cast an all-knowing stare his way.
"Lexi?" Natalie's sweet voice rang out into the still night.
Jimmy cringed over at Brian, begging for mercy. He wasn't ready for this particular revelation to come to light. Not yet. Not now.
"Like your childhood sweetheart, Lexi?" Natalie asked, confused.
As she came into view, Jimmy was panicked to find Peyton by her side. She looked down at him with confusion and a bit of disdain. Brian sat back, hands behind his head, and waited to see how this played itself out.
"Why are you guys talking about Lexi?" she asked with a laugh.
Jimmy let a grin peak through as he quickly realized Natalie wasn't privy to the entirety of their conversation.
"Who says we were?" he tried cheekily.
"I heard you say Lexi," she answered simply.
Jimmy racked his brain for an out.
"Who's Lexi?" Peyton asked, her tone almost convincingly curious.
Brian was even more intrigued, which he didn't think was possible. The entire conundrum was just getting thicker and thicker by the second--and he was damn curious.
Natalie shrugged lamely, pulling herself into the chair at Jimmy's side, "Some girl Jimmy grew up with. She lived next door or something. That's right, isn't it?"
Jimmy nodded.
"Cute," Peyton smirked, sinking into the chair next to Brian.
"When we first met," Natalie continued, seizing the opportunity to bond with Brian's newest fling, "he talked about her constantly. He said I was the first girl he'd cared about since her...And he hadn't seen her since he was, like, eight or something."
Jimmy sighed, "Eleven."
"Same thing," Natalie smiled. "It's really cute, if you take away the jealousy. I wish I knew what Jimmy was like as a kid; I bet he was a shit!"
"I can confirm that," Brian nodded, grinning all the while.
Peyton let herself look over at her Wiley, listening halfheartedly as Natalie ran through the basics of her childhood. He looked caught; somehow trapped in the middle. While he felt partly humiliated, he felt somehow vindicated too. It wasn't the best way to let Peyton know that she meant something to him...But it's how the cards had dealt themselves.
"So where'd she go?" Peyton asked, feigning interest as she looked back to Natalie.
Natalie paused, pursing her lips in thought before looking over to Jimmy, "Where'd she go, Sweetie?"
"I...don't know," Jimmy replied slowly. "Haven't heard from her."
Brian and Peyton were both appalled by Jimmy's lie; but Jimmy was too. He felt it swell up from within him and he hated himself as the words passed him by. But up until a few days ago, it had been the truth. He justified it to himself that the girl before him wasn't Lexi at all. This was Peyton Winchester; a mystery to him.
"Maybe she died," Natalie said carelessly. "Didn't you say her mom used to beat her up or something?"
Peyton gasped in horror, "You fucking told her that?"
Natalie doubled back in shock at Peyton's outburst. Jimmy's jaw clenched itself as he grappled with something to say.
"What?" Natalie asked with loads of confusion.
"I..." Peyton hesitated, regrouping immediately. "That just seems like a really personal thing to divulge about someone that used to be your friend."
Natalie shrugged, "She doesn't matter. People from your past kind of...evaporate. You know? They become like characters in a story, and after a while, their lives are just tales. What's the point in guarding a plot line? They don't matter."
"Of course they matter," Peyton argued, trying her best to subdue her emotions. "They're real people...They were important once."
"Yeah, once," Natalie nodded. "As in, not anymore. I don't see what the big deal is."
Peyton looked to Jimmy for some sort of consolation, some sort of justification that what they'd had was real. What they'd shared was more than some fiction they'd left in their wake. But he said nothing. His eyes fell to his shoes in defeat.
Brian, however, was cast to one side of the battle.
"You're fucked, Nat," he scoffed lightly. "Aren't you supposed to be nice or something?"
Natalie frowned, "What? It isn't like she's here. I wouldn't say that to her face! Jimmy would strangle me if I offended his dear Lexi!"
Still nothing from Jimmy. All crews below deck.
Peyton shook her head to herself, letting herself be freed by Jimmy's seeming apathy.
"No, you're right," Peyton nodded. "They don't matter. Lexi is just a work of fiction; just like Jimmy. Just like me. None of it matters."
She rose to her feet in a huff and took off, headed straight for the house with the front door in mind. Brian shrugged his shoulders, trying to diffuse Natalie's curiosity. And then, without a second thought for Jimmy's feelings, he tore after her.
"I said something stupid, didn't I?" Natalie thought aloud.
Jimmy sighed, "You really need to get a handle on your filter, Natalie."
"If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black," she smiled.
"Maybe from now on we stick to small talk, okay?" Jimmy half-laughed.
She nodded solemnly, feeling a little bad for accidentally offended the newcomer. Though, she wasn't entirely sure just how she'd offended her. Something didn't make sense, but she simply lacked the intellect--and care--to work it out.
"So why were you guys talking about her anyway?" Natalie asked casually, sinking into the back of the chair.
Jimmy hesitated, letting himself kill off all sentiment, "Just trading ghost stories."

Notes

Natalie's kind of a bitch.

And Jimmy sucks.

xx