Wish You Were Here

Brandon didn’t know how long he stayed gripping the sides of the pay phone ‘til Chris’s voice reached his ear drums.

“There you are! Brandon we looked everywhere for you.”

Brandon pulled his fingers away from the hard surface and gazed at the flat ruby surface of his fingertips. Pins and needles began to arise throughout his stiff hands.

“What were you doing anyway?”

“Nothing…,” Brandon mumbled walking towards the van. Chris looked at the sulking lanky frame of Brandon with a puzzling gaze, what exactly had happened?

“Mannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, where were you? You like missed the best after party EVER. Hot chicks everywhere! It was insane, man my penis could not make it its mind on who it wanted to bone first!” Jose rambled next to Brandon, a giant smile plastered on his face.

Brandon smiled half-heartedly at his horny band mate, “So did you score any then?” he ask slowly putting away his broken heart. He dug within himself and placed his shattered heart inside the black hole. There it would lay dormant and far away from his mind.

“Not exactly, but I did get to feel up this girl…I think her name was Kara or was it Lara…I can’t remember.”

“Ah,” Brandon replied chuckling at his friend.

“So did you get any Brandon? You disappeared for quite a long time and I did see you leave with a bottle of Southern Comfort.”

“I didn’t get any.”

“WHAT! Liar, why’d you get the bottle then?”

“I wanted to get wasted.”

“By yourself?” Jose gasped, “The lead singer of Incubus, Brandon Sexy Boyd, did not receive any action what so ever tonight?”

“Jose, leave him alone, you know he wouldn’t cheat on Luna,” Mike said from the passenger seat.

“Yeah, they’re like in love,” Chris added from behind Brandon and Jose.

“What!” Jose exclaimed looking around, “ they’re not even together!”

“Yeah they are….aren’t you?” Mike asked looking at Brandon.

Brandon felt the blood of his entire body rush to his face, “No, me and Luna were never together.”

“SEE!” Jose responded.

“Then why spend the last night in town with her? Why-”

“Mikey were just close friends!” Brandon snapped, “That’s all we ever were.”

Mikey glared at Brandon through his thin blonde eyelashes, “Liar” he thought. Brandon could claim all he wanted that Luna and him were just “close friends” and pull the wool over the rest of the band’s eyes but not over his. He knew him too well, he knew Luna too well and could not understand why Brandon had reacted in such a way, when apparently he loved her so much.

Brandon looked away from Mike to his hands. He knew Mike was throwing daggers at him with his blue eyes, not comprehending the sudden burst Brandon had just displayed. The van fell quiet after and filled with the smoke of tension that coated everyone and everything within the van, leaving its smell on their clothes. Brandon slept uneasy that night, he didn’t know if it was because his long-limbed body had been pressed and curled to fit the tiny space left for him to rest or because all he could dream about was Luna and her sharp words. He had hurt her without even trying, he had ripped her heart from her chest and left it out for the crows to devour and she had returned the favor by burying him alive.

“Wake up Brandon,” Jose said in his ear, “we’re here.”

Brandon felt as if someone had pressed fast forward on his life after that night. Before he knew it, they were in a new town, in a new green room with a new girl on their laps. And this time Brandon didn’t care who it was he was fucking, he just knew that for that moment they erased his pain and loneliness; they erased Luna from his mind.

“Here’s my number, just give me a call when you’re back in town,” the girl said handing him the thin scrap of paper.

“Sure,” he replied politely, but he wouldn’t call. He couldn’t even remember her name.

“Bye Brandon,” she said giving him a kiss on the cheek before leaving.

“Bye.”

He crumpled the piece of paper in his hand and laid back down on the soiled sheets that stuck to his moist skin. They smelled of cigarettes and sex, a scent he lately had become accustomed too. He turned to face the clock on the night stand, 2:30 AM, it declared in bright red letters. He tried to remember what city he was in or at least the day it was. But he found that the alcohol in his blood stream has erased his memory. Staring at the black ceiling of his cheap motel room, Brandon felt loneliness slip beneath the covers beside him, her cold hands once more wrap around his throat, her lips once more upon his sucking the air from his lungs…