Mad as a Hatter, Thin as a Dime

“Sup Ry.”

Ryan lifted his head from his cup of coffee, hands scrabbling over the table to find something to rest his mug on as he did.

“Hey Jon, how’d you sleep?”

“Alright,” Jon nodded, a small smirk taking place. “Better than Spence at any rate…”

Before Ryan could do anymore than throw a quizzical glance towards the bunks, a groggy-looking Spencer tumbled out, purple rings under his wandering eyes and hair a frightful mess. Hungover was almost an understatement.

“You right there man?” Ryan laughed.

“Shut up,” Spencer grunted. “Coffee. I need coffee. And I need you to stop being so fucking chirpy just because stuff’s peachy between you and Kyra’s sister again.”

Ryan looked down. He didn’t know he had been so obvious. But who could blame him? She was his best friend. Everyone knew that. Right?

“Sorry,” he smiled. “Well Kyra and Vesper left this morning. They went to visit The Maine guys in Phoenix, they won’t be back until after the LA show. We should hang out, Spence. I feel like we’ve hardly just chilled since the start of the tour.”

“Alrighty,” Spencer agreed. “I know what you mean. It might be good for us to clear our heads while the girls aren’t here to cloud them, eh?”

Ryan laughed as Spencer nudged him. He was right. Ever since they’d met Kyra and Vesper his world had been a haze of complications and a tossed-around mixture of emotions. It’d really do him good to hang out with his oldest friend, knock back a couple of beers and reminisce. That could be what he really needed to get his head straight.

“Holy shit!”

Ryan’s thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Jon, choking on his coffee and spluttering it all over the small table in front of him.

“Smooth,” Brendon commented, walking out from the bunks and taking a seat beside Jon, yanking a magazine out of his hands. “Sweet! Dirty magazine!”

“It’s not a dirty magazine…” he started, as Brendon began to flip through the pages, disappointed to find most of the pages filled with makeup advertisements. “And that’s not what I choked over, and I’m fine, thanks for asking…”

“Shit…” Brendon exclaimed as he returned his focus to the front cover. “Is that who I think it is?”

“What’s up guys?” Spencer asked, moving round the table to join in. When he saw, his eyes widened considerably.

“Uh, Ry?”

“Mhm?” Ryan responded, not looking up from his coffee and newspaper.

“You might want to come have a look at this…”

With a curious frown set on his brow, Ryan maneuvered himself through the bus to see what his friends were looking at. The others all seemed to be watching him expectantly as he took the magazine from Brendon, not able to blink as he fingered the corner of the cover.

He’d recognize her face anywhere. But this… this was something else. Her beauty stung him; it was almost like a slap in the face. This was not the timid, lost girl he had first met. This was not the girl he’d stayed up with for nights on end, throwing grapes at each other or just talking. This was not the girl who confused him, left him, and returned when he was ready to beg for it. This was not his best friend. This was not Vesper Ashelford. This was just a picture, but this photograph, no matter how digitally manipulated, depicted someone great, someone strong, someone happy. And he realized, with the most unpleasant pang, that this was a side of her he did not recognize.

He flipped through to the middle of the magazine (why Jon was in possession of a magazine called Blush, no one knew) and looked at the other photographs with such scrutiny the others were sure one of the veins on his forehead would burst from concentration. Vesper looked glamorous, elegant. Beautiful. Striking. Dazzling. Stunning. He found every adjective he could think of to disguise his first instinct; hot. She was his best friend. She was the sister, of the woman he’d been madly in love with since before he knew her. And, as these photos so clearly pointed out, she was untouchable.

“Nice…” Brendon nodded his approval, licking his lips. “Who knew little RyRy here was tapping that!”

Spencer high-fived him and John grimaced slightly.

“I’m not ‘tapping that.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Making love.”

“Shut up Brendon,” Ryan snarled. “It’s not like that.”

“Okay… Sorry man…”

Brendon’s apology was thrown back as Ryan slammed the bus door behind him after tossing the magazine back to his vulture friends. But he knew, deep down, it wasn’t Brendon he was mad at. It was himself, because for the first time, he almost wished it were true.

***

Three days. Was that really all it had been? God, time passed slowly. Every time he managed to banish the magazine spread from his mind, it would pop right back up again. Some sort of internal torture. It wasn’t right. She was his best friend, he’d told himself over and over again in his mind. It was Kyra that he wanted. Besides, if it was merely a few glossy pictures in a magazine that twisted his view on Vesper, what did that say about his character? He liked to think himself above the physical; he liked to think that a woman’s mind and chemistry was far more important than beauty. But he loved Vesper’s mind; she was his best friend. And sure, they had chemistry… he connected with her on a level he never had with anyone else before. Throw this physical attraction… No, it wasn’t an attraction, it was just confusion… Throw this physical thing into the mix… What did that mean?

Three days, five hours, twenty-six minutes. Yes, he’d been counting down the time since he’d slammed the door on Brendon in his whirlwind of thoughts. This same string of thought looped over and over in his mind. His performances weren’t the same, even the crowd could tell. He didn’t go out with the guys for some drinks, he just couldn’t. His thoughts were too complex, and adding alcohol to complicated thoughts was a renowned mistake. So once again, instead of following his bandmates to the local pub, Ryan made his way back to the buses.

“Ryan!” He turned his head slightly to see Mitch, the drummer for Feign Eloquence tossing him a quizzical look from their smaller bus. “You’re not going to join us at the bar? It’s for Benji’s birthday…”

Ryan stopped himself from scoffing. Like they needed an excuse to get wasted.

“Sorry Benji,” he nodded towards the bassist. “I’m not feeling great. I’m just going to go get some rest.”

“Okay,” the boys nodded, though none looked convinced. “Get better.”

Ryan waved them away as they hopped in their van, brown dust flying up from the ground in the wheels’ wake. He was about to turn around when he noticed something lying on the dusty ground where the van had been parked. A book, making a tent on the ground as its pages bent. He recognized the purple cover straight away and leant down to pick it up.

Sure enough, her notebook. She was never without it. He knew she’d be missing it. He picked up all the fallen loose pages and took the notebook with him back to his bus. After putting together a strange alcoholic mix for himself, he went into his bunk to try to find his phone. He should just give her a text, just let her know that he’d found it. Right? That wasn’t weird… Why was he over-thinking this? He texted her just as much as he texted her sister nowadays, this was just being nice. He knew that the notebook was important to her. It was totally normal.

Upon finding his phone, he returned to the main room and lifted his drink to his lips. His eyes rested downwards, accidentally catching a string of words on one of the loose pages atop the book. His eyes widened. He took a large gulp of his drink before setting it on the table. With shaking hands, he brought the piece of paper to his eye level.

This wasn’t right. This couldn’t be. These couldn’t possibly be her words…

Sure enough, the blue ink was smudged on the page and there were bumps in the back of the paper from where a pen had once travelled.

And right then was when everything he thought he knew was turned upside down.