The Words to Define These Feelings

I shuffled in the front door of the apartment, the handle to my suitcase in one hand and the handle to a cart with all my equipment piled on it in the other. Paige followed me in and shut the door, but I was already in my room collapsed on the bed before I heard the door click shut.

“Paige” I grumbled, drawing out the ‘i’ and flailing my arms.

“Phoebe” Paige replied, drawing out the final ‘e’ and flopping down on the other side of my bed.

“This is going to be an even longer two weeks than before.”

“Yep.”

“Caleb is being even more of an idiot than usual.”

“Yep.”

“Kyle is avoiding me and refusing to talk to me.”

“Yep.”

“We fail epically.”

“Yep.”

“Can’t you say anything more than ‘yep’?!”

“Nope.” We both laughed somberly, and I shut my eyes tightly, trying to picture again the pathetic goodbye we’d received before our departure. Granted, the guys had to be at the next venue as soon as they could get there because it was an early show, but still.

There had been a few hugs exchanged, mainly because of Jonathan though. Caleb had muttered a quick goodbye to us before darting on the bus, and the rest of them had followed him. I’d called Kyle’s name, hoping for some response from him to show that he was feeling a little better. He had turned to look at me, but his once bright blue eyes had held no life in them as he murmured a simple ‘Bye Phoebe’. He had then disappeared onto the bus as well.

“I hope we can fix everything in the last three days, I really don’t want this tour to end on a bad note” Paige said softly before leaving the room and shutting the door behind her. I let out an enormously over-exaggerated sigh and pulled my suitcase towards me so that I could unpack.

I pulled the zipper open and lifted the flap, only to see a familiar blue material. On top of what I’d packed sat my turquoise beanie and my plush Stitch. I tore through everything else, looking for a note from Kyle, anything at all, even if all it said was my name. But there was nothing to be found. I put away all my clothes and other things, then returned to my bed and turned the suitcase upside down, shaking it hard.

A small blue piece of paper fluttered out of the bag, and I immediately dropped my suitcase to snatch up whatever this thing was. But my heart sank into the pit of my stomach when I unfolded it to read words I’d already seen: ‘fuck off’ in large black letters glared in my face, now underlined a few times to emphasize their meaning further.

I bit my lip, hard, and grabbed the plush Stitch toy, burying my head in it and trying to breathe deeply. Unfortunately, my Stitch now smelled like Kyle, which wasn’t consoling me as much as I thought it would.

“I just need to get over him” I mumbled to myself, sinking down into my bed and getting ready for a nap. “If Kyle wants me to leave him alone, then that’s what I’m going to do.” I put my cell phone down on the pillow next to me and burrowed underneath my blankets, drifting off slowly into a dreamless sleep.

I awoke to my loud and obnoxious Ghostbusters ringtone blaring in my ears. “Wuthell” I mumbled, my words jumbling together. I yawned and slid my phone open, placing it to my ear and grumbling “Hello?”

“Hi Phoebe, it’s Jonathan!”

“Hi Jonathan, it’s Phoebe, you woke me up you fool.”

“Oh!” he gasped and there was silence on the other end for a second before he started talking again. “Sorry about that Phoebe, it’s only 7:30pm you know, and we figured you’d be awake.”

“Well I’m awake now. What do you want.”

“Well we have the day off tomorrow and our next show is in Indianapolis, so…” he trailed off and I just grinned and waited for him to say something. I could tell he wanted me to fill in the blank for him, tell him that they should all come over and hang out. No way in hell. “Um…do you think we could come by the apartment?”

“I don’t know, do you think Caleb and Kyle can be social?”

“I can force them to be.”

“Jonathan don’t do that, I’m sure Kyle doesn’t need that right now…” I grumbled and shoved Kyle’s well being to the back of my mind. Getting over Kyle so far: Phoebe, 0; Kyle, 1.

“No, what he needs right now is to talk to people and stop lurking in his bunk. He won’t come out except for when we have a show to play.”

“What about Caleb?”

“He’s just…acting retarded. Like he’ll trip on nothing or fall out of his bunk. Basically he gets hurt a lot." I started laughing then faked a cough to cover it up, until Jonathan started laughing with me.

“He really needs to stop being such a dick and just…I don’t even know, hump Paige or something. Just not quite so blunt.” Jonathan continued laughing and I wandered into the front room of the apartment to see Paige peeling an orange.

“They need to get their act together and just…get together” Jonathan said obviously, and I simply nodded. “By the way, we’re outside your door.”

My eyes bulged out of my head and I slammed my phone shut, dragging Paige to her room and yelling “THEY’RE RIGHT OUTSIDE THE DOOR!” before attempting to make myself look decent. I heard the guys banging on the door and I bit my lip, my eyes landing on the piece of blue paper on the floor.

I shook it off and changed from my pajamas to shorts and a red t-shirt. “OPEN THE DOOR!” I heard Austin yell; I laughed and pulled on a navy blue hoodie before darting to the door and pulling it open.

Six bodies hurtled through our doorway and Paige emerged from her room immediately flattening herself against the door so she wouldn’t get run over. “Nice apartment do you guys have any food can we watch a movie this is a big room why aren’t there more couches do you have any video games oh look a lava lamp!”

Paige and I exchanged glances as the boys ran around our apartment restlessly and I muttered “Here we go” before going to talk to them.