These Bright Lights Have Always Blinded Me

I was hanging out with Meckie and Tom at their house. Ali was hanging out with Craig and Leila, Haley was on a date with my brother, and everyone else was busy. Tom and I were watching a movie on the big screen TV when I heard singing from the kitchen.

“Leb die Sekunde. Hier und jetzt, halt sie Fest,” I heard from the kitchen. Okay? Was Meckie playing a CD?

I looked at Tom and stood up. I grabbed my crutches and hobbled into the kitchen. I looked in to see Meckie dancing around and singing. “Mein Kopf ist voll bis oben. Meine Schatten holen mich ein. Ich hör 1,000 Diagnosen. Ja ja. Schon klar, egal! Heute sind wir hier. Die Welt bleibt vor der Tür. Was jetzt zählt seid ihr. Wo sind eure Hände? Chaos im System. Auch wenn wir untergehen. Ich will euch alle sehn. Wo sind eure Hände? Eure Hände,” he sang. The singing sounded familiar.

Suddenly, a light bulb lit up. Well, both in my head and literally right above me. Funny, huh? Anyway. I knew where it sounded familiar! Wow. And it took me this long to figure it out.

Meckie continued singing when he saw me. I gave him a knowing smile that said, “I know you’re famous because I recognized your singing,” and he looked at his feet. I hobbled over to him and motioned him over to me. He walked over to me and I hugged him the best I could. “It’s my fault. It took me this long to figure it out,” I told him.

He hugged me back. “How long do you think it’ll take for you to find out just how much my brother likes you?” he asked, “And I’m glad you’re not mad about us not telling you. We didn’t want you to go all crazy fan girl on us.”

“That’s totally understandable. Now I can tell myself that four of my best guy friends are internationally famous rock stars. This does explain the Escalade and all the Tom’s guitars,” I said when I remembered something, “Wait, how much does Tom like me?”

He opened his mouth to reply when I heard Tom ask, “Hug fest in the kitchen? And you didn’t invite me? I see how it is.”

I looked over to see a pouty Tom. I stopped hugging Meckie and hobbled over to Tom before hugging him. “Yay hugs. Especially from famous rock stars,” I said.

“Yeah,” Tom said hugging me back in a zoned-out voice, “Wait, did you say something about famous rock stars?”

“Yeah. You and Meckie. Ist k. I’m not mad,” I replied, my face buried into his chest. Did I mention that he smells really good? I love hugging both of them just for that fact. Tomi more though. I don’t know why though.

“Gut. I would be a sad Tom if you decided to be mad at us. And Bill would be a sad Bill,” Tom said.

“We can’t have that, now can we?” I asked.

“Nope,” he replied when we stopped hugging.

I looked past Bill and saw the pool. “Damn it I wanna swim! But I can’t with this fucking cast!” I exclaimed hitting the cast, hurting my hand as well, “Oww.”

Tom grabbed my hand and kissed it. “There. Better Chelsea?” he asked.

I nodded. “Bunches,” I replied smiling.

“I’ll be back,” Meckie said before leaving the kitchen.

“Oh-kay?” I said, making it sound more like a question.

“Right,” Tom said, holding out the ‘i’ as he spoke.

I looked at him and said, “I’m bored.”

“Well, I have an idea,” Tom said in a joking/suggestive manner.

“No I will not have sex with you,” I said, “Not the right time nor I’m not married.”

“Then we’ll go to Vegas and get married!” Tom said jokingly.

“Dude! We live in Vegas! We can have a drive-thru wedding!” I joked along with him.

“But Bill has to be with. He’ll be pissed if he’s not invited to the drive-thru wedding.”

“And Ali. She’ll kick my ass.”

“We don’t want that. You’ll need your energy for the wedding night.”

“Really now?”

“Yeah.” He leaned in and, in my ear, whispered, “Because when we’re done having fun, you’ll be so worn out you won’t wake up for days.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“Good.”

“Are you guys seriously planning your drive-thru wedding?” Meckie asked.

We looked over at him and Tom, jokingly, asked, “What? You didn’t know? We’re getting to go to the Strip and have ourselves a drive-thru wedding. You’re invited. So is Ali.”

Meckie rolled his eyes. “Pah-lease. If Mutti found out you two got married, not only still in high school, but also via drive-thru, she’d kick your ass and then ask if Chelsea was pregnant,” he said.

“Nope. No baby in me,” I said patting my stomach.

Tom rolled his eyes and looked at me. “Come on. I wanna show you something,” he said.

“No I do not want to see your dick thank you,” I said following him up the stairs.

“Damn,” Tom said jokingly, “There goes my plan of seducing you.”

“It’s not like we could do anything. Just look at my leg,” I said as I hobbled up the stairs.

“We can fix that,” he joked.

We reached the top of the stairs and walked towards his room. With the door wide open, we walked in and Tom said, “Sit on the bed.”

I nodded and sat down. I laid my crutches next to me and relaxed. Tom was going through his closet looking for something or another when my phone rang. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was a private number. I silenced it and let it ring. After it stopped ringing, I put it back in my pocket. Tom surfaced from his closet with a guitar strap. He walked over to his wall of guitars (only a few of them are in his room. The rest are in their music room.) and grabbed his black acoustic guitar. He put the strap on the guitar and walked over to me. He sat down next to me and said, “This may not be the best because I just learned this song, but I wanted to play it.”

I nodded. He grabbed a pick, a black and lime green one, and positioned his fingers on the fret before he started playing. It didn’t take me long to recognize the song.

“It’s twelve o’clock and I need your attention. It’s like the alcohol making my head spin. You scent is the rum, the room is a bottle. Keeping me hopeless ‘til I wake tomorrow. And if tonight ever makes a difference, the way that I feel, the way that I’ll remember it. I’ll take this down until the glass remains. Swallow the words that I was meant to say,” he softly sang, looking down at his guitar while he played.

Oh. My. Buddha. I felt myself smile as Tom played his guitar. No one’s ever done this for me. Hell, when I was dating Ronnie, he never sang to me. Ever.

After Tom finished the song, he looked up at me and his face softened. “Chels? Are you okay?” he asked.

I nodded. “Why?” I asked.

He set his guitar to the side and leaned forward. He ran his thumbs under my eyes. “There. Much better,” he said.

I touched my face to see that I had been crying. Wow. I didn’t even notice. I smiled and leaned towards him before hugging him. He hugged me back and pulled me close to him. We stayed like that for a moment when there was a knock on the door. “Was?” Tom asked.

“Guys! Quit fucking and come on! We wanna hang out with you losers!” Ali exclaimed from the other side of the door.

I rolled my eyes. “Give us five minutes, okay?” I asked.

“To what? Fuck?”

“No Ali. We’re not going to fuck. We’ll be out in a moment.”

“Okay Chelzers,” Ali said before walking away from the door.

I looked at Tom and smiled. We continued to hug and I muttered, “Danke. Für alles. Du bist das Beste.”

“Jederzeit. Gerade meine besten Freund-Aufgaben erfüllend,” he whispered.

“Come on and let’s get down there before Ali barges in and assumes we’re fucking,” I said as we stopped hugging, reluctantly on my part.

He nodded and helped me stand up before handing me my crutches. “Let’s go,” he said before leaving his room.

I started to follow him as I thought. Damn it. We both know we like each other. Why in the hell can’t I just let Ali do what she planned on doing and get us together? I mean, really. Fuck I need to talk to someone.

(Mall)

I was walking around with Ali, Leila, Frank, Haley, and Gerard. Mikey was with his whore, Meckie and Tom were having ‘twin time’ as Meckie put it, and Craig, Max, Monte, and Robert were at FYE. I think Georg and Gustav went to Guitar Center. I think.

Anyway, we were walking around when I grabbed Gerard’s wrist. He looked at me and asked, “Yeah?”

I looked at Ali and said, “I’m stealing Gee for a moment. I wanted to get his opinion on a shirt I wanted.”

“That’s fine,” Ali said before I dragged Gerard away.

We walked into Hot Topic and Gerard asked, “Okay, what do you need?”

“Advice,” I replied.

“Okay. About what?”

“Whether or not I should listen to what my heart is saying and go out with Tom.”

“Do you like him?”

I nodded. “And he likes me. And yet here we are not going out. I don’t know what to do, Gee. I was thinking I wanted to stay single. Not have to worry about guys for a while. But it’s kind of hard to do so when you hang out with a guy who told you he liked you. I’m just lost, dazed, and confused and I don’t like it!”

He gave me a thoughtful look before placing his hands on my shoulders. “Chelsea, do what you want. Honestly, it’s better to do it now than later and find out he’s with someone. You’ll regret not letting him ask you out when you both had the chance.”

“I know, Gee. But I just don’t want to get hurt again. I guess I’m scared. I really like him, but I’m afraid that somewhere down the road, I’ll get hurt. I want to trust him enough to know he won’t hurt me like Ronnie did.”

He nodded when I noticed him look past me. He smiled and said, “Close your eyes.”
I shrugged and closed them. I felt myself get turned around, facing the opposite direction Gerard was. I stood there for a second, my eyes still closed, before I felt arms wrap me in a hug. Familiar arms, too. Okay, it’s not Frank or Gerard. These arms are stronger arms. Like…

I opened my eyes and saw Tom. I smiled and leaned into him, seeing as my arms were currently being used to help me stand with the crutches. God I hate these things. I felt him kiss the top of my head and whisper, “Chelsea, wirst du meine Freundin sein?”

I looked up at him and, without hesitation, replied, “Yeah.”

He smiled and pressed his lips to mine in a sweet, passionate, kiss. He pulled away and said, “You can trust me enough to know that I’ll never hurt you. It would kill me. Plus I know a lot of people who would kick my ass for it. I never want to have to see pain or hurt like I did when you were being held against your will by Ronnie and know that I was the cause of it.”

I smiled and kissed him. “I believe you,” I said.

“Okay, enough of the love fest! Come on! I wanna shop!” I heard Ali say.

I flipped her off and she laughed. “Come on,” I said, “Let’s walk around and let Alikina shop,”

Tom nodded and kissed me again before he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and we continued walking around the mall.