(Even When It's Not) About You

About You

A lonely Chanukah in Rob's small Portugal flat came and went, along with Christmas, and then the New Year. 2018 came, despite the world feeling as though it had collapsed around him last July 20th, and Rob watched with amazement as the sun rose on a new year. 2017 was in the past, and despite his escape from L.A., he felt no closer to moving forward. He didn't want to go back home and face the realities waiting for him. The thought was less crippling than it had been a few weeks earlier, but still distressing enough to send him into a panic attack if he wasn't careful. Mindful. Aware that making everything about Chester was unhealthy.

But the world kept spinning, and January progressed, causing him to dread the next milestone on the calendar. His thirty-ninth birthday was fast approaching, and Rob was no more motivated to celebrate that day than any other date that had passed. It wasn't that he was moving through life in a fog. Rob had simply made a decision to disengage from anything that took him away from simple thoughts of the life he was living, the beach and the waves that made up the bulk of his days.

His birthday was a day he normally would have been surrounded by friends. Years when they weren't on tour, Rob would take his mother to lunch and buy her flowers. When he was younger, the guys would get together and go to a bar. Or a strip club. Rob remembered Chester in both places with the type of wistfulness that erased the drunken mistakes and replaced them with an idyllic recollection of camaraderie. He didn't think about nights they'd watched Chester get black out drunk, or high, or engage in some risky behavior. That was all before the very firm no drinking, no drugs stance they took during Chester's divorce from Samantha. Birthdays after that were tame - Chinese food and pool, or backyard cookouts, or vegan cupcakes on the road. Rob couldn't imagine not getting a call from Chester at some ungodly hour of the morning, singing Happy Birthdaywith gusto. So he tried to ignore the date as it crept closer, as the Earth kept turning and the days moved uneventfully from one to the other on the backs of pink sunsets that always, always reminded him of Chester.

On January twentieth, Rob woke up in the cool darkness and stared at the ceiling. He knew he should call someone. Brad, maybe, or Dave. He hadn't talked to the bassist even once since he'd been in Portugal. He lay there and his thoughts turned to Mike and the way he always slapped a jovial hand to Rob's shoulder and pulled him into a happy birthday hug. He thought about Joe. Then he thought about his mother and it became obvious what he should do. If he'd been home, he would be taking her to lunch. But he wasn't home, and so the person Rob Bourdon wanted to talk to most on his thirty-ninth birthday was his mother. He would call his mother.

He got out of bed and pulled the blankets back into place before he dug the dead phone and the charger out of the drawer it had lived in since Brad's birthday. Six weeks had passed, and he hadn't needed it once. He plugged it in to charge and went about his morning routine. The shower was quick and hot, then he tidied up a bit, assessing the waves from his balcony with his coffee. It looked like it would be an excellent surfing day, and his spirits lifted at the thought of getting out on the waves. Rob enjoyed each slow sip of his coffee on the balcony before he walked down to the corner, to Santiago's produce stand. It had become his favorite, and the Portugal native knew his name after weeks of daily visits. It was comforting to only be the American Rob and not Linkin Park's Rob. The thing he appreciated most about his new life in Portugal was the fact that this small coastal village kept his secrets well.

Rob spent most of the rest of his birthday on the water. The winds were perfect, the ocean waves strong, and by the time he was finished every part of his body was worn out and thoroughly exhausted, his muscles burning. There was something empowering about dominating the water the way he could, knowing that a lapse in concentration or skill could be deadly. It focused his mind, kept his thoughts off of Mike, and cleansed his soul. His daily workout on the ocean had him more cut than he had been in years - his abs chiseled, his arms and shoulders strong, his thighs powerful against the rise and fall of the waves. It was physically and mentally taxing, and Rob was grateful for the hours of peace afforded to him while mastered the ocean and rode his surfboard into shore again and again.