Some Peope Would Love To Have A Rockstar As A Brother

“I created the sound of madness, wrote the book on pain, somehow I’m still here to explain that the darkest hour doesn’t come in the night.” -Shinedown

I was the first up the next morning, having rolled out of bed at a nippy 5:30 AM. And, just to remind me how unlucky I am, the coffee maker and I got into an argument which it won when it exploded.

Covered in coffee and in a bad mood without my morning caffeine, I trudged to the other end of the bus to take a shower-which went much more smoothly until the end.

Do you know why after one thing goes wrong the rest of the day seems to fallow? It’s because you are so pissed that that one thing went wrong that you don’t pay attention to the rest of the sorry world, and when you are distracted you do stupid things like forget a bra when grabbing clothes for after the shower while on a small bus filled with men.

I put on what I had of my underwear and pants before wrapping my torso in my fluffy towel and creeping back to the bunks. I had just put my sleek black bra on when Jimmy announced his entrance to my bunk with a very loud- “WAKIE WAK- oh.” He froze and I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I’m- I’m so sorry I didn’t- uh, yeah, I’ll just be leaving now.” He tried to back out of my bunk with a red face but I pulled him in and shut the curtains behind him.

I had done a lot of thinking last night in preparation for talking to my brother. From Johnny my thoughts had somehow strayed to the enigma that was my feelings for the flustered man in my bunk.

“Jess, what are you doing?! If your brother finds me here-“ he cut off as I leaned over him.
“shush. Do you want him to find you in here?” I asked as I peeked out of the curtains. I sat back on my haunches and looked at him and couldn’t help the snort of laughter that shot out of my mouth before I could stop it. He was staring at my bust with his mouth open from when he had cut off his own sentence. He looked to cute and funny. But it made me realize that I probably wouldn’t get this conversation through his head without a shirt on.

True to my speculations, as soon as I had my Snoopy and Woodstock T-shirt on he focused on what I was saying.

“Jimmy I just wanted to know why you want my brother and me to talk. It would mean exposing your issues and that you used my brother as a cover that could have cost him a lot.” It had dawned on me last night that Jimmy had no obvious motives for wanting me to repair my relationship with my brother.

“well,” he seemed to be choosing his words carefully, “you did have to pay dearly for my issues for one; and I have fixed myself of my ‘issues’ and being clear of them has made it clearer that this isn’t something that I can keep from my best friends- even if it means exposing my flaws.”I was shocked that he was so brutally honest with me.

“well you aren’t quite ‘clear’ of them as the man who was trying to kill you proves, but I’m glad that you’ve stopped the drugs.” He took the word ‘drugs’ like a punch in the stomach: wincing and getting a painful look on his face.

“you know it was a lot easier to ignore that you know about my problems when you hadn’t said it out loud yet. I could almost forget that you were in the thick of it. I’m sorry.” I knew what he meant but he would have to go through a lot more of it if he was set on my brother and the rest of the band knowing about his past.

I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.

After Jimmy left my bunk and I thought about what I was going to say to my brother after the show tonight.

We had left Two-shot bound and gagged and with his gun in pieces on the doorstep of one of His' safe-houses. While the others gone back to the bus I had written "$ 0.00" on his door in sharpie. That night my brother had kept glancing at me and Brian had told me later that was worried about why I had written that on the door. I suppose that would be as good of a place to start as any.

But I had the entire day to figure out what to say to him- and I was going to procrastinate like cleaning my room.