Trashed and Scattered

Peyton had introduced the second string of Js with enthusiasm, quietly thrilled to have her childhood and adulthood best friends co-mingling. She’d poured coffee for the triad before forcing them outdoors into the midday sun. As they soaked up the rays and ingested the java, Peyton found Joanna curiously examining the drummer to her left.
“Turns out today was a guitar day,” Jimmy smirked at his green-eyed friend. “And as much as I fucking love to watch Brian bitch, I thought a nap sounded better.”
Peyton laughed, “And yet, here you are.”
“I saw your car,” he smiled. “Didn’t expect you to have a stowaway though!”
“I’m always a pleasant surprise,” Joanna assured him with a sly grin.
Peyton nodded, “You’re something alright.”
“So, tell me, Jimmy,” Joanna spoke, leaning forward to rest an elbow against her knee. “How’s my girl been? Everything good? Has she been behaving? Anything worth noting? Catch me up.”
Jimmy tilted his head, a playful look sprawling itself across his coyote face, “She got into a brawl with my ex-girlfriend.”
Joanna slowly turned her head to face her best friend, her brows pushed to the very top of her forehead, “Why does that not surprise me?”
“She had it coming,” Peyton shrugged.
Peyton was, as far as Joanna had always known, entirely docile. She’d seen Peyton throw a punch or two over the years, but it usually required some seriously heavy event to conjure up such violent rage from the artist. Peyton had always explained her temperament as I need my hands to work, I can’t go breaking my knuckles on people’s jaws. Joanna, though admittedly weak, was a firecracker. She operated under the hit now, apologize later mantra of life.
So, to hear that Peyton had gotten herself entangled in a brawl—but not just any brawl—was music to Joanna’s investigative ears.
“She did,” Jimmy concurred with a laugh.
“Natalie’s a real piece of work,” Peyton groaned.
Joanna smirked, “I’m sure you can get me up to speed on the little bitch later, right?”
Peyton glanced cautiously over to Jimmy, relieved to find him snickering to himself, “I can.”
“You’ve been taking care of her though?” Joanna asked, whipping back around to face the drummer. “Sudden spurt of violence aside?”
Jimmy smiled, his eyes affectionately flickering over to the artist as she sipped from her mug, “Yeah, I’ve been trying. When she lets me.”
“Amen to that!” Joanna sang playfully.
“So what brings you to town, anyway?” he asked the blonde curiously.
She shrugged, “Peyton withdrawals. She’s a bit…addictive. Don’t you think?”
Jimmy narrowed his eyes briefly before laxing into playing it cool, “Yeah, sure.”
“Joanna,” Peyton grumbled warningly, suddenly nervous of her best friend’s presence.
The strawberry blonde could keep no thoughts harnessed. Once she’d gotten a whiff of something theatrical, she’d pounce like a limelight-starved diva. It wasn’t always without it’s positives, but Joanna had a tendency to overstep her bounds and create drama where it simply wasn’t warranted.
Whatever game she was playing, Peyton was hoping to put a sudden and brisk end to it. She refused to let Jimmy suffer under the thumb of Joanna’s suspicions…as unfounded or founded as they may have been.
“Besides,” Joanna continued, taking the less than subtle hint as Peyton dig her fingers into her skin, “Pey said she has quite a bit of stuff to bring home. Figured we’d road trip it!”
Jimmy’s face was overrun with perplexity, “What stuff?”
Peyton shrugged, “My dad’s drums mostly. The rest of the shit inside I’ll probably just get rid of. Any chance you want the TV? Or the couch? Or…well, anything?”
Jimmy wasn’t sure what to say. While he’d known she’d be leaving—soon, to boot—he hadn’t realize she’d already planned it out so permanently. It was almost if he’d half-heartedly assumed Peyton might change her mind at the last minute and settle down into her roots. Instead, she’d already begun foraging a plan to depart.
It was real.
“Uh…maybe,” he replied slowly. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe Brian will want the guitars,” Peyton thought aloud.
Jimmy stared at the artist, a blank canvas of a face. While he knew there was no reason for it, he couldn’t help the hostility that surged through him. She was leaving in only five short days and her attention now seemed wrapped up in tying loose ends, rather than focusing on the present. He knew it was logical—necessary, even…but it ripped at his flesh until he was barren.
“No?” she asked slowly, sensing Jimmy’s trepidation. “I know he likes Schechter but they’re free and I’d like them to go to a good home…”
“Oh yeah,” Jimmy replied callously, a scowl etched into his features. “Because Brian takes such good care of shit.”
Peyton was taken aback, but Joanna was not surprised. She hid her validated satisfaction inside her coffee mug, taking long and uninterrupted sips of the hot coffee.
Peyton narrowed her eyes at the drummer, “Why do I get the sense that’s some sort of dig?”
“Because you’re weirdly protective of him,” Jimmy shrugged. “As always.”
“Jimmy,” Peyton choked, unsure how to place the sudden surge of anger.
He shook his head, forcing a smile as he climbed to his feet, “You know what? I’m tired. I’m gonna go take that nap.”
“Jimmy,” Peyton repeated, bewildered.
“It was nice meeting you Joanna,” he said as he passed her. “I’ll see you both tomorrow.”
Peyton gasped, “Tomorrow? I thought we were going to go through the shit in the basement tonight.”
Jimmy hesitated at the back door, his fingers laced around the handle, “You’ve got your best friend to help with that. Or if all else fails, just call Brian.”
And with that, Jimmy disappeared.
Peyton fell into a humiliated silence, endlessly embarrassed by the first impression Jimmy had made. She’d hoped he might impress Joanna, she’d hoped they might get along. If she knew Joanna at all, she figured her best friend would now hate Jimmy forever.
“Well that was…wow,” Joanna half-laughed, setting her mug down onto the crooked deck board.
Peyton ran her fingers through her hair, glancing over her shoulder in hopes Jimmy might reappear, apology in hand. She was eternally disappointed.
“So, um…Friends, right?” Joanna asked knowingly. “That’s what you’d said you and Jimmy were?”
“We are,” Peyton maintained. “He…I don’t know what that was about.”
Joanna let her shoulders slump, “Oh, Peyton, come on. You seriously don’t get what that was? How are you so dumb?”
“I’m not dumb,” Peyton retorted.
Her best friend raised her brows, “Could have fooled me.”
“Why, Dr. Joanna?” Peyton groaned. “Please, enlighten me. Why did Jimmy just storm off?”
“He’s jealous,” she replied simply.
Peyton scoffed, “He’s over the Brian thing.”
“Seems like it,” Joanna laughed incredulously. “But it’s more than that, Pey. Are you being naïve on purpose? Is this some coping mechanism?”
Peyton stared blankly at her friend.
“Oh god,” she moaned loudly. “You’re actually this naïve! It isn’t an act! Oh god, that’s tragic.”
“Stop antagonizing me,” Peyton sighed.
Joanna chuckled, “Sorry, sorry. It’s just…Wow, Pey. Just wow.”
“Stop that right now,” the artist groaned. “Use full fucking sentences. Give me some of that Yale education.”
“He’s obviously heartbroken,” Joanna informed her best friend. “You started some fling with his best friend after ghosting him for…ten years?”
Peyton corrected her friend gravely, “Thirteen.”
“Wow,” Joanna stated, earning a warning scowl from her friend. “Sorry. Anyway, as I was saying before your horrible past interrupted, you dated his best friend. Blatantly. In front of him.”
“He said it was fine!” Peyton argued, exasperated by the same old issues.
Joanna frowned, “It’s never fine. You know that as well as I do.”
“He had a girlfriend,” Peyton reminded her. “A long-term girlfriend.”
She nodded, “And now she’s an ex-girlfriend. Probably in large part because of you, right?”
Peyton didn’t want to, but she nodded.
“Then you guys start hanging out all the time,” Joanna continued on her detective crusade. “You’ve basically been living together the whole time you’ve been here. Every time I talk to you, you’re either with him or have just been with him.”
“We’re friends,” Peyton said softly.
Joanna shook her head, “I love you, Pey. But even I wouldn’t want to see your face that often. That’s how faces get ripe for the punching. Overexposure!”
“I can appreciate that at the moment,” Peyton teased.
“And then,” Joanna moved passed the pseudo threat, “all at once, you decide you’re leaving. You’re going to go back to your life and pretend none of this ever happened. You don’t see why he might be hurt?”
Peyton growled loudly, throwing her head back as if to summon every last demon from hell to abolish this tiresome conversation.
“Can you just admit you have feelings for him?” Joanna pressed impatiently. “Just admit it and then we can move into problem solving mode.”
The artist shook her head, letting her head fall limply to its side, “I don’t, Jo. There’s nothing there but platonic love. Like the love I have for you.”
“There’s nothing platonic about us, girl,” Joanna smirked. “And there’s nothing platonic about that little scene I just witnessed. Pull your head out of the sand. You’re totally in love with that boy.”
Peyton’s bones rattled like a symphony. She couldn’t fathom the fact that no one in this world was willing to listen to her version of reality. How many times could she insist that she and Jimmy were only friends until someone would finally believe her? She was tired of having fabled romance pushed onto her heart.
“I am not,” Peyton informed her friend firmly. “Stop fucking making this into something. You’re going to give me a complex.”
Joanna sighed, effectively giving up on her guidance counselor role for the moment, “You should go after him. If nothing else, to clear the air.”
Peyton shook her head, pursing her lips together, “I’m not chasing a man because he’s decided all of a sudden to be upset about nothing.”
Joanna fought the urge to correct her best friend. Jimmy wasn’t upset about nothing—she’d met the guy for ten minutes and she could already see what was going on. Beyond the familiarity of his persona, though, Joanna just had to visualize. Joanna pictured how she might feel if Peyton started to date a former flame of hers. She tried to imagine what that jealousy might feel like and how it might manifest itself into tentacled limbs.
Jimmy’s outburst made total and complete sense as far as Joanna was concerned. And while she normally detested men treating Peyton was anything less than a queen, Jimmy’s display of misplaced aggression actually had Joanna swooning. If he was jealous enough to fight with her only days before she was set to leave, Joanna knew he was reeling enough to fight with her to stay.
And that’s exactly what Joanna felt Peyton should do: stay.
But, unfortunately for the universe, Peyton was wildly stubborn. Until she realized how she felt—and how Jimmy felt—there would be no convincing her. Joanna knew that to continuously bully Peyton into self-realization meant to promote the contrary. She’d simply end up wedging the pair apart if she didn’t relent in her efforts to find Peyton a flicker of true love. No matter how damn apparent it was to everyone but the pair themselves.
“You know him better than I do,” Joanna conceded.
Peyton sighed, “Let’s not talk about this. This is an old subject. Let’s move onto you.”
“Oh, I love me!” Joanna smiled.
The artist rolled her eyes, “What do you want to do today, Jo? It’s your first day in California. We can do whatever you want.”
“Beach,” she stated firmly. “I know you’re definitely over it already, but that’s all I want to do. I want to put my freshly pedicured toes into the ocean and let the salt water ruin my skin!”
Peyton could never be tired of the Huntington Beach horizon.
“Well, drink up then,” she smirked, reaching down to snatch Joanna’s coffee from the wooden boards at their feet.
Joanna smirked, “And then late lunch. I’m hungry as sin.”
“Is sin hungry?” Peyton quizzed.
She shrugged, “Could be. I don’t know. But I am and that’s what matters.”
“We’ll get you a tan and then we’ll get you fed,” Peyton smiled, grateful to have her best friend by her side. “And then I’ll show you around my old stomping grounds.”
“Oh! Historical tour!” Joanna beamed, tilting her mug all the way back to drain its contents. “Let’s go!”
Peyton laughed as her friend skipped into the house. The artist lazily climbed to her feet, her eyes instinctively crossing the property line in search for the boy next door. Maybe she had one best friend to tropes around the town with, but in that moment, it wasn’t the one she wanted. Soon, though, Peyton knew that wouldn’t matter. Soon, Joanna would be the only one available.
Unwilling to dissolve into a puddle of tears, Peyton forced herself to breathe Jimmy from her lungs and tear her focus from the white house next door. With a shake of her thoughts, Peyton bounded back indoors and slammed the door behind her.

Notes

Fuckin' Pellivan.

xx