Manning: You hear the news everywhere today?
Cal: The world wants Zayne for themselves
Jax: Greedy bastards
Zayne: Ur all just jealous
Me: You’re all twats
I set the phone down and guzzle half the bottle before digging through the pantry and taking what I need to make a late lunch.
When my cell goes off with rapid succession, I turn it on silent to tune out the noise. I’ll regret it when I have over 100 unread messages waiting for me, most which won’t amount to anything more than petty banter from the guys.
The only one I see pop up before busying myself with cooking makes me snort.
Kyler B: Once was, huh?
“Bugger off,” I muse aloud, picking up the device and typing a quick reply to my biggest solo competitor. We have a history that the media used to love highlighting, but he took the outlets by storm with news of the budding romance with his current fiancée. It was nice to have the heat off me while it lasted, but it appears the newest cycle is back and more determined than ever to get a rise out of Violet Wonders.
Me: Checking in on me, lover?
Kyler B: You wish
Me: Aww you love me. Try not to make little Bishop jealous
Kyler B: I regret texting you
Me: Your life would be boring without me in it and you know it
I don’t get a response back, but we both know it’s true. He can pretend he hates me all he wants, but the past is the past. I’ve done things I’m not proud of, things I can’t change, but I’m not that person anymore. I tell myself as long as I remember that it’s all that matters. But when the world is constantly against you, the truth blurs with the mixture of everybody else’s perception of who you are.
Talk about a mind fuck.
My mind wanders back to what the world wants to know regarding me and Zayne. We’ve had our fair share of arguments, but it’s expected. Close quarters even with friends grates on you after a while and being with four other guys in close proximity like we were on the bus can wear a person down.
We swore when Violet Wonders got back together that if we called it quits for good, it’d be a mutual agreement with amicable terms. Something all of us agreed on after taking time to consider the come-back. Nothing the media could use against us, even if they tried their best, would tear us apart then.
Sometime later I glance at a few messages that the very same drummer the media is suddenly obsessed with sends me. I know everything is okay between us despite what the sharks want everyone else to believe when I read what he says.
Zayne: Lazy Croc tonight?
Me: Count on it
2 Rylee
The heat blowing into my 2001 Nissan Altima is the only thing filling the silence around me on the halfway abandoned street I’m parked on. The car is a hand-me-down from Grandpa Al that he gave me on my sixteenth birthday. Even though he offered to co-sign a loan to help me get a better vehicle years ago, I hold onto the one gift that still reminds me of my favorite person in the world.
Since his passing, all I have left is the blue beaded necklace hanging from the rearview mirror that I gave him when I was little, a picture of him, Grandma Birdie, and me taped to the passenger dashboard, and the oddly comforting smell of his favorite cigars lingering in the gray upholstered seats.
I’m sad not having him around to tell me corny jokes or check in on me all the time because he’s overprotective, but toward the end he kept saying, “I just want to see Birdie again.” And he did. Knowing they’re together makes the pain settled into my chest worth it.
Blowing out a breath, I bring my hands to the heating ducts that blow measly lukewarm air onto my shaking palms. I know the unsteady quake of them is from more than just the cold 59-degree weather California has been plagued with far too early. It’s not even October yet, and Mother Nature is already doing whatever she can to make things more difficult for me. You’d think growing up on the east coast would make these temperatures manageable, but I’ve always been cold blooded according to my mother and have the sweatshirt collection to prove it.
Thanks to my job writing for the L.A. Free Press, I was able to move to a warmer climate and soak up the sun like I’ve always dreamed of. Unfortunately, the sun doesn’t even out Cali’s many cons. Like the price of living. I know the area well enough to be okay sleeping in my car for the night until I figure something better out, because spending money on a hotel room is out of the question when I have more important things to use my funds for.
Almost on cue, my phone dings with the same reminder it gives me every evening at this time. I grab my bag, dig through the contents of piss-pour organization thanks to my bad habit of tossing everything inside freely, until I find what I’m looking for.
Unzipping the little black carrier, I stare at the nearly empty weekly pill organizer. It’s a reminder of why I’m sitting in my parked car stuffed with all the belongings I could fit into the backseat and trunk instead of my cozy two-bedroom apartment right outside of Los Angeles. I was proud when I signed the lease—feeling grateful that I could live my dream as a journalist and afford such a great place of my own at only 21. But when work got rough, rent got raised, and my health started declining, I’d had to succumb
