Early Sunsets Over Newark

I hated being in the dark. I always have. When I was a kid, I had to know everything. Every time someone walked out the door, it was "where are you going? When will you be back? Can I come with you?". The life of a skeptic. The paranoia is in my DNA. "Daddy Gee". When we got back on the bus, we split up completely. Terra, Zacky, Mikey, and Sammy on on bus, and the rest of us on the MyChem bus. The first half of the drive was silent. No one knew how to react. She didn't seem like the type to me to go out and get high. I could imagine the call I would get from our representative, cursing me out for even associating myself with someone like that. I got it in rehab, from my mom, and now I was sure to hear the exact same thing again.

We drove until the daylight turned into night, and the night turned into dawn. In the morning we pulled into an iHop and had breakfast, still not speaking. I ordered a big plate of hash browns and french toast. I was on an egg-hating binge. Across from me was Brian, who scraped his fork along his plate, creating soft screeching sounds that pinched my ear drums. He sulked and kept sighing until finally the silence was broken.

"This was a mistake."

I looked up from Brian's plate to see Frank, fists balled up and biting his lip. I could see how angry he was, veins popping out on his neck.

"I knew from the moment I met you that you were bad news..."

Sammy jumped to her feet, her chair falling to it's side behind her heels as she slammed her hands down on the table top.

"Says the faggot who hits girls! Cheap trick!"

Frank stood to his own feet, fists clenched tight as he retorted back to her, using the same volume of voice and tone.

"Junkie whore!"

"You don't even know me!" Terra stood up, grabbing Sammy by the shoulder and pulling her from the table, when Sam shrugged her away and flipped the whole table over, causing a commotion. Anyone who was ignoring us before had all eyes on us now.

"Don't fucking touch me! You're just as bad, traitor!"

The manager came out, checking to see what was going on and informing us of our expected bill for the table. Sammy stormed out, and Terra went after her. I had a feeling that this tour was going to be one that I remembered for the rest of my life.