Wish You Were Here

Luna awoke to Yazmin’s soft laughter and muffled voice, her green eyes slowly let the real world come in focus as her dream began to perish behind her eyelids. Her mind started to replay the events of last night across her tired eyes and suddenly the mess around her made sense. She brought her sharpening senses in the direction of Yazmin’s voice and then to the bed across from hers, expecting Brandon to be still asleep but instead found an empty bed. Luna blinked twice before turning to Yazmin for answers.

“Luna? You all right?” Yazmin asked placing her full attention to her rousing friend.

“He’s gone,” she choked.

“He left with Ben in the morning. We came in and he was all dressed and whispering in your ear.”

Luna nodded slowly trying to remember what Brandon could’ve whispered in her ear, or what she could’ve said to him in response.

“Did you guys…”

“Hook up?”

“Yeah.”

“No,” Luna said looking away. She fidgeted with the hem on Yazmin’s pillow trying to distract herself.

“Are you okay sweet pea?” Yazmin asked sitting next to her.

Luna let out a long shaky sigh,“ yeah.”

“Luna,” Yazmin said placing a hand on her shoulder, “Look at me.”

“What?” Luna asked turning to face her.

“Lunita, babe you’re crying.”

“No. it’s just I get allergies sometimes.”

“Bullshit Daring,” Yazmin snapped. “ What happened?”

“Nothing Yaz. He was piss drunk, I tried leaving him in his tour bus, but he couldn’t remember. I was beyond tired and just decided t let him spend the night here.”

“And that’s why you’re like this now?”

“No. I am telling you its allergies.”

“Luna stop lying, you’re terrible at it.”

Luna glared at Yazmin, who gladly returned the favor.

“Last night just brought back too many painful memories Yaz. That’s all.”

“What happened between you two?”

Luna rubbed her irritated eyes, “ a lot of things.”

“Well what did you or him do? Why can’t either of you two breathe when the others there?”
“I can breathe perfectly fine when he’s there.”

“Luna, you were gasping for air when he left. He was fucking dead after he saw you. What the hell happened?”

“He used me.”

“He used you…how?”

“He was my best friend Yaz and all he really wanted was to fuck me.”

“Luna are you sure?”

“He fucking left in the morning, like he did just now, without even a fucking goodbye.”

“Luna.”

“And I fucking put myself in that position because deep down I keep thinking my best friend is still in there, but he’s not. The Brandon I knew, the one I have always loved has never existed. He was just a stupid façade!”

“Luna I am so sorry.”

Yazmin held a livid Luna, who grasped at her sides. Luna was afraid now that she had brought her secrets to light, that if she let go now, she would drown in her own despair that had finally grown to much for her to suppress. Yazmin held her there, close to her, ‘til the young woman had reduced her cries to small gasping breaths.

After that Luna and Yazmin never mentioned the incident again. Brandon became the pink elephant in Luna’s life that with each passing year grew more and more ostentatious. Luna reluctantly watched as Incubus climbed the billboard charts and exploded into mega stars. Suddenly they could no longer play small clubs. Suddenly touring just the states was not enough. Suddenly they were no longer her friends, just the guys she grew up next to. She watched as Brandon flirted with the elite of models and got to pick who he wore on his sleeve. And it only took for years. She finished college and he became everyone’s favorite Sex Symbol / Rock star. And that was just the beginning. Luna became an avid writer for the LA Times, while Brandon released books and more hit records. She moved to LA permanently and explored its fruits, while he explored the world and reaped its knowledge. She became the newspapers favorite journalist, he came everyone’s favorite pseudo intellectual.

Years passed , both grew into adults and finally forgot about the small incision on their hearts. He dated models, she dated up coming writers. It was perfect or at least it seemed so. He appeared content, she appeared full of life, they were both finally worlds apart and forgotten in each others mind. Or so they thought, for each had disregarded how powerful nostalgia could be.

“I am sorry,” Brandon whispered softly in her ear, his hot breath tickling the side of her neck. His fingers caressed softly the side of her face and wondered if there was some way he could go back in time and change his last night.

“Brandon?”

Brandon’s hand snapped back to his side at the sound of a female’s voice. His eyes elevated from Luna’s sleeping grace to the voice. Ben stood at the door with Yazmin, both with similar puzzled expressions painted across their faces. He stood there, feet away from Luna like a deer caught in the headlights.

“What are you doing?” Ben asked slowly.

“Leaving,” he said simply. He looked one last time at Luna and took a mental photograph, to keep until the next time they met. He excused himself and walked passed his friend and his beau onto the empty hallway and down to the crisp pavement, only to realize he could not recall his way back to the venue.

“Brandon, wait up, “ Ben called coming down the stairs.

“Do you know the way back?”

“Naturally.”

“Good, let’s go.”

“First tell me , how you end up in Luna’s dorm room.”

“I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“I just…awoke there. I was so drunk Ben, everything’s just a blur.”

“You better not have hurt her Brandon cause I’ll kick your ass.”

“We didn’t hook up. I doubt I would’ve had the energy.”

“You better not.”

Brandon nodded quietly looking onwards onto the rising sun wondering what life and fate had in store for him past the horizon. He wondered when Luna would once again cross his path and if by then it would be too late to properly apologize.

Brandon and Ben disappeared into the busy streets and onto their new lives as “Rock Stars.” Brandon no longer had time to think of Luna and she folded into the flesh of his subconscious. She became a distant memory, that at times he longed to recover. She would linger in the back of his dreams, and sway herself into his songs. Her presence would haunt him, in his loneliness and often became his faceless crave. He’d look up into the heavens and feel that ever pure happiness of being alive, swell in his chest only to have it followed by the desire to share it with her. As a result he created the most beautiful music for a muse he longed to recover but could not recall.