New Kid

[Intermission]

        That kiss.. What had it meant? Was it just because Brian and I were both drunk? I was so confused.. How did I feel about Brian? Did I like him? Did I hate him? I just couldn't fucking figure it out for the life of me! It frustrated me to no end.. I spent hours thinking about it. My school days were spent writing out my feelings instead of actually doing my work. After the kiss, Brian just seemed to get more hateful as the days went by.. And one day, everything snapped.

        "I'll fucking kill you all!" Justin screamed as he threw his bass out into Matt's driveway. I was backed up against the wall behind Matt and Brian; Jimmy was in front of the two of them. "You can't fucking kick me out of this band! I started this band with you guys!"

        "Justin, this is the fuckin' reason we're kicking you out! You can't control your goddamn temper!" Jimmy roared, his fists clenched in frustration. I shrunk backwards a little more, sniffling quietly. I always cried when it came to scary situations, and this was no different. Brian glanced back at me, but he seemed to ignore me as Justin lunged for Jimmy. "Fuckin' get off of me!" Jimmy screamed, rolling the distraught bassist underneath him before giving him a hard punch to the face.

        "I'm gonna fucking kill you and then kill myself!" Justin shrieked as he threw Jimmy off of him, then jumped up and lunged for Matt, obviously a bad decision, seeing as Matt has always been the bulkiest one of our group. Something seemed to suddenly snap in Brian; he shredded his leather jacket from his body and grabbed Justin by the arms, throwing him to the side and then taking his fighting stance, just in case.

        "You have two decisions. Get out of here and calm the fuck down, or I'll have Baker call the cops while I'm in the middle of beating your ass. It's your decision. Choose. Wisely." Brian growled, but Justin seemed to pick the latter option, seeing as he shoved Brian backwards and also took his fighting stance.

        It was all over in a matter of seconds. Matt was talking into the phone in a panicked voice, and Brian was on top of Justin, his bloody fist raised in preparation in case he had to throw another punch.

        Even after losing our bassist, we didn't stop writing music. We just had Jimmy fill in the bass parts when we wrote them. We decided to call our next record Waking the Fallen, and on this one, Matt had more singing parts than screaming. He said it was a relief to his voice to have a change for once.

        We went on without a bassist for a month, two months, a year, two years, until we finally discovered some talent in a place least expected. His name was Johnny, and he was about three years younger than the rest of us; since the rest of us had graduated by the time that we found him, Johnny had dropped out of school to join the band. He put his complete faith in us, not even knowing if our band was going to really take off or not.

        We were all pretty happy that we had found such great talent in such a small package; I mean, hell, the kid was shorter than my great grandmother. Technically, we didn't even find him, he found us. He walked up one day when we were practicing, picked up Jimmy's bass, and started playing. After that.. The rest was history.

        During the writing of Waking the Fallen, Brian and I fought more than ever. I tried to push the memory of our kiss out of my mind, but every time I saw his jaw clench or I saw him smirk, it flooded back, and I craved it even worse than before. He was just so.. Irresistible. He had a girlfriend, though; Michelle DiBenedetto. Matt was dating her twin, Val, and the four of them seemed pretty much inseparable.

        I'm not going to lie, it hurt, seeing Brian with Michelle, but.. As long as he was happy with her, I wasn't going to intervene. I wasn't one of those people, and I never had been. But Brian had been my first guy kiss.. How could he have just forgotten about that? Was he really that much more drunk than I was?

        Days and nights were spent practicing, recording, rewriting, creating and designing all the things needed to make Waking the Fallen an official album. After every song was finished and sounded perfect to our ears, we started on the album art. It took maybe a week to get the design we were all satisfied, but once we had it, we knew we weren't going to change it, no matter what our manager said.

        Once Waking the Fallen took off, we set out on our first actual tour outside of the state of California. Five guys (along with Val and Michelle) cramped into one van with all of our equipment in another.. It was stressful, but it was the greatest time of my life. Except for when I saw Brian walk off stage and Michelle pulled him into a kiss.. I had to excuse myself most of the time. I think Jimmy knew what was going on, but I'm certain that he wanted to wait until I was ready to tell him what was wrong. He had never been the pushy type, especially when it came to things like that.

        Groupies, drugs, alcohol, meaningless sex, it all came and went by so fast, I don't remember one girl from another. Every time I was on top of someone, all I could imagine was Brian; his lip between his teeth, his gorgeous cheekbones flushed to the point of boiling, his back arched into me, his hair falling over his shoulders when I stroked it away from his face.. It was the only thing that made me.. Ahem, perform well.

        We eventually got our own tour bus, and, in turn, our own spaces. So I didn't have to deal with hearing either Brian and Michelle or Brian and an air headed groupie going at it for the third time that night. It was kind of peaceful.. For a while. I began to miss hearing Brian snore next to me, or his little sleeping grunts.. It was pretty much the only thing that helped me sleep at night. After weighing the options and my feelings, I could only come to one conclusion.

        I was in love with Brian.