A/N: This is an accompaniment (pseudo-sequel) to my other story, Figment.
1/ONE
"So, I've been thinking about AJ."
"No way. Why?" Brush left. Brush up. Brush down. Brush right.
"It's her birthday tomorrow." Joe states, then pausing a little. "What do you think I should get her?" he said, making a rare deadpanned joke.
I spit in the sink. I rinse my toothbrush and looked to my right, where I spot Joe precariously bridging the gap between my bed and his own. In one agile yet extremely awkward-looking motion, he pushes himself completely onto his bed again, his body disappearing into his own hole in the wall. With my phone in hand.
"You know what I'm going to say. I say, just let it go. Sometimes people hate each other. It's best to just not think about it and move on. Talking to her again will only lead to more drama." I offered my advice, knowing that he's not listening. I turn on the straightener and open the medicine cabinet to get the floss when I notice a brand new, unopened box of toothpaste, taking up the entire middle shelf.
"Uh, why do we have two tubes of toothpaste?"
"What do you mean?" Joe asked.
"I mean that there's a brand new box of toothpaste here even though we just bought one, like a week ago."
"I don't know. Why don't you assemble a team to investigate?" He's diffusing. Whenever he tries to hide something, he diffuses questions by making a joke. Although curious, I drop the subject completely.
Nick and my dad walk into the bus.
"Hey, they have donuts out there! Get some before they're all gone!" Nick seems really excited today. He sat himself in our "kitchen," which was really just a booth next to a mini-fridge and stove.
Come to think of it, Joe woke up really early this morning too. Maybe I'm just getting more tired, my twenty years starting to weigh down my body. I haven't been sleeping very well lately. I'm not sure what it is, but I woke up today and felt like I only slept half the amount I actually did. The same thing happened last week. It must be all the late-night snacking or something.
Tour life takes a major toll on your body. All the food that enters your body probably took about three minutes to prepare. You sleep in a cocoon or in a strange bed in hotel rooms that are too cold or too dry. People are constantly around. You begin to get a little claustrophobic if you don't take time to just... take a breath.
J doesn't seem to mind though. I haven't heard her complain once about the constant traveling or the crazy hours or the ever-present pack of screaming girls. She really does love it on the road. She told me herself.
I decide to skip breakfast today. I have this new melody that's festering in my head, burning a hole there. So I grab my guitar case and walk to another bus, where things are a little more spread out.
On the way, I spot Jeanine in the distance, carrying a keyboard. I wave to her, but she doesn't see. She was listening to her iPod. She hardly ever listens to it while she's working. Her expression was really serious. Actually, it's about the same as it always is; it just appears serious in comparison to her demeanor over the past week or so.
I feel stupid for waving at someone who didn't even notice. I look to see if anyone noticed. I don't think anyone did. Thank goodness.
"So what's going on with you and J?" Greg asked, trying to deflect the attention from his own love life. I let him. He's having a hard time with Chloe.
"Dude, seriously, you need to get on that!" My friends can be such meatheads sometimes. As I line up my shot, Chase keeps talking and my friends keep agreeing with him. "It's so obvious she has a thing for you!"
"We're." Line the shot. "Just." One swift motion through the fingers. "Friends." Watch the cue ball hit the seven.
Too bad it ended up hitting the nine instead. I stand up, leaning on my cue and chewed on the toothpick hanging from my mouth. Wow, I really do suck at pool.
"Whatever you say, man." Greg executes his shot in a third of the time it took me. He's also three times as effective.
I get this a lot. About J. In all honesty, I would've asked her out by now, but I can't. Besides, I re-read a selection from this devotional my mom got me for my birthday. It dealt with dating. Love comes in many forms, it said. The Greeks had three words that equate to the English word "love" – eros, philia, and agape. Right now, I'm okay with philia, not just with J but with all girls. Watching my brothers flounder around with their love lives, I definitely don't miss the strange, awkward, confusing world of trying to turn a girl friend into your girlfriend. Eros can wait, even indefinitely. And agape? I'm not sure if that's even worth attempting at my age.
But when I saw her this morning on stage, and she looked at me like that, it gets just the slightest bit harder to suppress those feelings of eros. It gets even harder when she tips her head to the side when I talk, and I can tell she's actually thinking about what I'm saying. She takes those extra seconds before saying anything in return. She does the same routine: she looks down, then she looks at my nose, places her hand under her chin and says something insightful.
Chase and I lost, so we bought dessert at a drive-thru on the way home. Home is the bus now. Home is that clump of buses, vans, and cars that follow us everywhere. I love home.
The guys raid our sleeping bus, displacing Joe in the process. He asks for my phone. When he asked I gave him a suspicious look. I don't think he noticed. Well, at least this time he asked. When I hand it to him, he runs off. I stay behind for a few minutes.
When I eventually go outside to take that necessary breath of fresh air, I couldn't spot him. I look up at the clear black sky and think it's perfect weather for a stroll around the sleeping buses. The stars were visible and the waning gibbous (Nick was covering Earth and Space science last month for home school) was shining extremely brightly in the mostly clear sky.
"Hey, rockstar, isn't it past your bedtime?" I look down from the sky and see her walking towards me, hands stuffed in her pockets as always.
"Hey, yourself." We walk side by side, weaving through the monstrous vehicles.
"So, thanks for that text today. It really made my day."
"No biggie. What was wrong anyway?"
"Nothing was wrong. I was just tired, I guess."
It sounds like she's lying, but I don't want to seem too nosy. I just avert the conversation to something else.
"Oh, so I'm working on a new song. I'm really excited about it."
"That's great."
"The only problem is, I can't get it out of my head and into... here. Real life."
"Weird."
"Yeah, I know. I have this vague idea of what I want, you know? But when I try to play it, it just comes out disappointing."
"Hm... you know what helped the Beatles write their music?"
"What?"
"Lots of weed."
"Oh, right. My parents would love that. Thanks for the help."
"Just trying to help, bud," she says with a just a trace of laugh.
We walk the entire length of a bus before she began to talk again.
"So I have a completely intrusive, nosy, and altogether inappropriate question..."
"Oh, my favorite kind." She lets out a small chuckle. "Ask away."
"What were you thinking of when you wrote 'When You Look Me in the Eyes'?"
I smile a little to myself. I'm sure she didn't see. We usually are doing something when we talk: watching a screen, concentrating on a book, walking. Our eyes are always careful not to focus on the other's for too long.
I'm glad she asked. I think it was two days ago that Joe told me that she asked him that. To be honest, I guess I was a little surprised, I wouldn't go so far as to say I was hurt. I just didn't think that she would go to talk Joe before me. And then Joe made that remark about potentially going after her. I just blew it off. Joe talks a lot and I could tell he wasn't being very serious. If he were, I would've stepped in as 'older brother Kevin' and advised against it.
"A girl."
"Oh my god..." she moaned, comically frustrated at my evasiveness. "What is with you boys? Don't you trust me?"
"Only as much as you trust me."
Okay, so realistically, I couldn't trust her as much as she trusted me. That is, if she trusts me as much as I think she does. My face is plastered all over some stranger's walls. Even our friends are subjected to it (e.g. Mandy. Believe me, we have learned our lesson. That is the first and last time we name a song after a girl). Hardly anything in my life is private anymore. Everything I do is recorded, posted online, and ready for judgment from masses. I have to regulate what I reveal to anyone, except for immediate family and maybe couple friends.
Actually, she might not trust me all that much.
I begin to answer her question earnestly. I tell her about my first girlfriend and my romantic dinner with her. Since we couldn't drive, I got my mom to drive us to the shore and we went rollerblading on the pier in the evening. Cindy. Puppy love is grand. I tell her about writing love letters too.
She looked over at me. She looked surprised.
"I didn't think you had it in you."
"Thanks." Wait... "I guess?"
"So I guess Joe learned from you, huh?"
"Oh definitely. He asks me for romantic ideas all the time. Of course, he would never admit that."
"Interesting. I think I had you labeled all wrong, rockstar." The words just hang in the air. We turned a corner and passed our starting point.
"Oh, so I finished that book you gave me. And actually I re-" she stopped mid-word because her ankle rolled, causing her to fall gently against my arm. She quickly balances herself on her own.
The contact is fleeting, but the feeling she left on my arm lingers.
She wasn't a very touchy person. I've never seen her give a hug. The most I've seen her touch another person is probably a high five here and there. We've established the status quo in regard to physical contact: there isn't any. It was this silent contract. It was broken rarely and never on purpose. The brush is not acknowledged; she continues with her book review.
I try my best to concentrate on her, but all I could think about is that residual tingling left from her touch.
Philia, I repeat to myself in my head. Philia. Philia. Philia.
I know a secret about her. I have for awhile now. She doesn't know I know. Every so often, I just mess with her.
About a month ago, I was telling her about Greg and Chloe. They seemed to have complications lifting off from the friend stage.
"So, what would you do if you wanted to date someone but you couldn't?"
"Well, you mean like Chloe? Like, why wouldn't I be able to date someone?" she always tried to pin down my hypothetical questions.
"I dunno. Maybe you promised someone you wouldn't," I said casually.
"Well... I don't know. I can't imagine anything like that happening."
Right then and there, I wanted to burst out and tell her that I knew. I didn't though.
At the time, I found it funny and ironic (the kind that means the audience knows something that the characters don't. What's that called again?). But now, it gets me a little depressed. I like to believe that she keeps secrets to protect me.