The Federation

“I swear I’m going to punch his fucking lights out,” I muttered to Carter underneath my breath as we sat together in a deflated loveseat backstage after everyone had done their sound checks. The fans wouldn’t start arriving for about another hour or so; until then, everyone was relaxing or prepping for the show. “If that doesn’t work, I’ll just settle for stabbing him with a stiletto in his trachea. At least then he won’t be able to talk, the fucking bastard.”

“Asher, babe, don’t pay attention to him,” Carter murmured back. The thumb of his hand resting on my knee began to rub back and forth against the denim of my jeans soothingly.

“If I lunge for him, don’t hold me back,” I told him. “If you do, I swear that I will turn around and punch you so hard in the eye your eye socket will retract several inches into your skull.”

“Asher—”

“Don’t Asher me. I’m sick of his fucking immaturities. If he can’t stop acting like a tantrum-throwing five-year-old, then I simply refuse to stop ignoring him like he is one. I’m sure he realizes it’s coming,” I snapped. Carter sighed and wrapped his arm tighter around my shoulders as though that would hold me back. He said nothing further on the subject, and neither did I.

A few months had passed between my kiss with Carter and this moment that I’ve so kindly dropped you in upon. Carter asked me to be his girlfriend only about a week after our date. I’d instantly said yes. I expected Jimmy to be upset about it, but he’d taken it way beyond upset.

Jimmy’s attitude towards me had darkened considerably over the span of these past three months. In contrast to ignoring and avoiding me, he intentionally makes sure he’s close to annoy me. Rather than offering words of encouragement before I step up on stage, he instead tells me that he hopes I fall down. He tells me to literally break a leg. After a few nights of this repeatedly happening, I’d simply tuned him out and went to kissing Carter passionately right within his range of vision, mostly out of spite. Carter usually didn’t mind until he figured out what I was doing. For some reason, he didn’t like it when I did things to intentionally piss Jimmy off. I think Carter was scared of him.

“Pretty shocked myself,” I heard Jimmy say from across the room. For the past five minutes, we’d been glaring daggers at each other, until I’d looked away to speak with Carter. My attention instantly snapped to Jimmy, knowing from the look in his eyes that he would say something to piss me off. “I always figured Carter was a little...you know, fruity.”

“Fuck you!” I yelled, launching to my feet, wrenching my wrist out of Carter’s hand as he snatched it in an attempt to drag me back. I would take Jimmy’s jabs at me, but he wouldn’t get by with insulting Carter.

Jimmy turned towards me as I advanced towards him. He looked gleeful at getting such a response from me. I doubt he looked like that for long, however.

I pulled back a clenched fist, all bottled up with fury and frustration until it might as well have been made of iron, and slammed it so hard into Jimmy’s nose, I felt the tremor shake through my bones all the way up to my shoulder.

Blood instantly spurted from Jimmy’s nose, spraying a fine layer across my knuckles before I had a chance to pull away my fist. It dripped down over his tightly closed lips and clenched jaw, dripping to the floor and his shoes and his shirt. I stretched out my fingers, swearing that I’d heard one of my knuckles pop from punching Jimmy so hard. However, I felt better and didn’t resist as Carter pulled me away from Jimmy by the waist as the guys hurried to give Jimmy something to stick under his nose to absorb the blood and also to clean up the blood smearing down his face.

I stood passively as Carter found a paper towel and wiped Jimmy’s blood off of my knuckles. My blood had settled down to a simmer; moments before, it’d been boiling violently. Carter looked disapproving. I didn’t care. Jimmy had it coming to him.

“Okay, you two need to talk this out. Go out into the parking lot and talk through this like mature adults,” Amy snapped, speaking to Jimmy and I. His nose, for the most part, had stopped bleeding.

“Fine,” Jimmy growled. “I need to get a new shirt anyway.”

Carter released my hand, and I led the way out of the room, Jimmy following slightly behind.

As we walked towards the row of tour buses, Jimmy instantly began to talk.

“Asher, I really don’t trust Carter,” Jimmy began. I scoffed and turned to walk back towards the venue, but Jimmy grabbed my arm with the hand not holding the towel against his nose. I wondered if I’d broken it. It hadn’t felt like it when I’d punched him. It would definitely bruise, however.

“Jimmy, honestly, I don’t care what the hell you think,” I snapped, turning back towards him.

“I know that,” Jimmy said. “But you need to listen to me. You’re so oblivious to what he looks like when you aren’t looking.”

“How else would he look?” I snapped, wrenching my arm from Jimmy’s hand. His hand left a smear of his blood on my arm. Good thing I wasn’t squeamish.

“When you turn your back on him, he gets this look on his face...like...like he’s planning something,” Jimmy continued. “He looks like he’s planning something that isn’t good. I can’t describe it really, but he just looks like he’s scheming.”

“Maybe he’s thinking of a romantic date for the two of us,” I said. Jimmy frowned.

“No, it’s not that kind of scheming,” he told me.

“Well, I’ve only got one thing to say,” I said. “You better put your glasses back on---obviously, you’re seeing things.”

I turned and walked towards my tour bus to wash his blood from my skin. Nothing had been solved. Maybe nothing would ever be solved.