I Swear I Love You

Jess’ POV

Until now, I hadn't actually seen the band play- well at least not properly. I discounted the time on the set of Bat Country since they were shooting a video, but here, nothing could be said other than the fact they were absolutely amazing. Of course I couldn’t say anything for the others but Brian had certainly improved since I last heard him play for me a few years ago, on the day I was leaving for Australia. Back then I thought he was perfect.

What’s a better adjective to use than perfect?

“This is Brian trying to contact Jessica. Jessica, can you hear me?” Even though I had heard him, for some reason my brain must have decided not to inform my body, so I remained on my back, on the floor, staring up into space. That was until Brian decided to empty the contents of his bottle onto my face. Thank god it was just water and not beer like it could have been.

Unfortunately Brian hadn’t thought that by doing this it would make me suddenly sit up; since he had decided to hover his face a few inches above mine. Two collided heads and some choice words later, I finally answered him. “You know, a prod in the side would have been just as efficient.”

“Probably,” he agreed, rubbing his head in the opposite spot to mine. Whoever said opposites attract really hit it on the head. No pun intended. “What did you think?”

“About the practice?” He nodded. “I have to admit, you rocked it out up there. I can’t wait to see you go all out tonight.”

“You know it,” he replied with a grin. “You going to watch from off-stage?”

“No,” I said. “Snow said he could hook me up with front row.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You know that means you’ll be in the pits, right?”

“So?”

“So… You’re going to get crushed?”

“Man Brian, protective much?” I rolled my eyes as I got to my feet, followed shortly by him. “I can handle myself.”

He shrugged and shoved his hands in his pockets, walking off. “When you come back to the bus tonight looking like Jason’s nickname then remember that I will say, without fail, I told you so.”

--

“I told you so.”

Brian looked at me unimpressed, expressing no sympathy whatsoever. Having no retort, I simply scowled at him.

“If you don’t start looking pretty again I will have to leave you behind.”

“I have such a caring, and understanding friend,” I stated. It wasn’t my fault- well, it was- that my whole body ached and I had to have Brian help me back to the bus. We were going so slow that I watched a snail pass us on the way. I sighed.

Brian caught the sigh. “What’s the matter? Your blood sugar low or something?”

“No, nothing like that.”

“Then what?”

I stopped the practically non-existent pace we had been walking at for the past forty-five minutes. Considering the bus was a normal five minute walk away and we had only managed to get about two-thirds of the way across that was pretty poor.

“I told you that I’d be trouble if I came with you on this tour.”

Echoing my sigh he simply gave a slight nudge and started us moving again. For the first few moments he didn’t say anything until I eventually poked him in the ribs. “Ever since you came back you’ve been nothing but pessimistic about everything. Where has the bubbly girl I knew from kindergarten gone? It’s like you’re basically a whole different person.”

“What?” I pushed away from him, hurt. Mentally from what he said, and physically from the fact I’m pretty sure that when I got squashed in the pits my right foot got angled wrong and was at least sprained and the left some stupid girl wearing heels had stepped on. I mean come on, who wears heels to a concert, knowing they’ll be in the pits? “Do you really mean that?”

His gaze seemed to avoid mine. “Well you have changed Jess. I’ve changed too.”

“Except I haven’t changed for the better?” When he didn’t answer I turned and attempted to hobble off on my own, ignoring his protests and his attempts to help me out. In the end I just snapped at him. “Just leave me alone!”

For a moment I thought he opened his mouth to say something but then he just shut it again. Apparently he wasn’t in the mood for trying to cheer me up; just put me down. I swear that’s all he ever seems to be doing ever since I came back. Instead he just walked off in silence and left me for the bus, easily clearing the last of the distance in about a minute and a half, leaving me where I was. The icing on the cake was the fact it started to rain as I began to hobble along at an even slower pace than before. It hardly ever rains down here- especially not this time of the year.

So not only does my supposed best friend try to piss me off but it seems Mother Nature wanted to take a crack at it as well. It felt as if the weather itself was trying to inflict its cruelty upon me.

Could this get any worse?

--

Brian’s POV

To say I didn’t feel a little bad when I noticed the rain start just as I got onto the bus would mean I was lying, but it wasn’t like I didn’t do as she asked. She wanted to be alone, so I gave it to her. If she wants to make her own way back, then who was I to not let her? Jess has her own mind after all.

“What took you so long Syn? We finished the fan greeting like an hour ago.”

Not wanting to show Zack the guilt in my expression I made sure to keep my face hidden from view as I passed and got a beer from the fridge. “I just got held up.”

“What by?”

Taking an extra one for Zack I straightened back up. “Just some girl.”

“Anyone hot?” He asked as I passed him a beer and slumped down next to him. “Cheers.”

At first I didn’t know how to answer. “Depends how you look at her I guess.”

“Depends… how you look at her?” He repeated slowly, not understanding what I meant. Hell, I barely knew what I meant. “What the hell?”

I shrugged. “Not everyone likes the same gorgeous girl. Like you and that pink-haired Australian chick for example.”

“What? I don’t know what you are talking about,” Zack quickly replied before focusing with all his might on the beer in his hand.

I raised an eyebrow at his reaction. “So there is something there.” I brought the beer to my lips, speaking briefly before I drank some. “I thought so.”

Zack still refused to admit it though, even though I had blatantly caught him out. “I still don’t know what you are on about.”

“Yeah yeah,” I replied with a roll of my eyes. “I saw you ask to borrow Jess’ laptop earlier to talk to her.”

His cheeks flushed the exact same colour as that girl’s hair. “It was just like talking to a fan; there’s nothing there.” He tactfully decided to change the subject. “So where’s Jess?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. A big, fat, outrageously morbidly obese lie. “Maybe she’s helping the Berries put away the stage stuff.”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “I saw them about half an hour ago.” Just then the rain suddenly picked up, battering the windows. “Shit will you look at that? I feel sorry for any fucker caught in it. Who would have thought, down here in San Diego at this time of year…?”

“Yeah, who would have thought…?” I murmured, unable to help but look aimlessly at the raindrops racing down the window. “For fuck’s sake…” I pushed off the couch, leaving my beer on the side. Zack just watched me as I grabbed my jacket, pulled the hood up and began to walk towards the exit before he called me.

“You’re not thinking of going out in that are you?”

“I forgot something at the venue,” I replied, not bothering to even listen to what he said next as I stepped out into the rain. Thankfully since southern California never really gets too cold- at least not at this time of year- the rain was mildly warm, but I could easily tell that spending a longer length of time in the stuff wasn’t probably a good idea.

“Come on Jess, where are you?” I muttered under my breath as I quickly scanned the area, hoping that I would see her slow-moving figure some time soon. Once I was sure I was out of earshot from the bus I proceeded to yell out her name. “Jess! Jessica?”

I guess to some extent the fact that she had at least one busted ankle along with basically a body sporting more of the colour purple than a plum was actually helpful, since it didn’t take me long to find her. However considering she looked a hell of a lot worse than when I left her, such as the numerous cuts on her bare legs and forearms for example, I couldn’t stop from gasping.

“My god Jess, what have you done?” She was completely soaked through- I highly doubt there was any part of her that was even remotely dry. “Jess…” When I tried to place my hands on her shoulders to look her over she shrugged me off.

“Don’t you dare,” Jess growled, causing me to withdraw my hands. Without another word she just renewed her pace, improving her speed slightly but only for a great sacrifice; if the pain in her expression was anything to go by. “I’m fine on my own.”

“Don’t be stupid Jess. Look at the state of you!”

“Well it’s not like you care now is it?” She seethed, turning to glare back at me. “Or am I mistaking some other guitarist as the person who left me here earlier? As the person who was meant to be my best friend since kindergarten?” I couldn’t say anything; what could you say? “No answer huh?” She laughed. “I may have changed Brian, but you’ve changed too. Changed into some arrogant, selfish prick that I don’t want anything to do with.” She started to move again. “You got the idea right the last time Brian; just leave me alone. Don’t worry about meeting me on the tour, I’m going to get my stuff off the bus and get the next flight to Florida.”

“Come on Jess, you can’t be serious-”

“Oh I am very serious Brian!” She snapped. “You obviously don’t want me around, so I’ll be taking my little rain cloud with me and I’ll be out of your spiked hair forever!”

“But I don’t want that-”

“Just don’t bother.” There must have been a hole or something since the next thing I knew she had fallen over, creating a new cut to form on her left knee where she had fallen. From the nature of it, I guessed that’s how all the others were made as well. “Ow.” She wiped at her knees as she got back onto her feet again, smearing the blood across her skin. “Stupid holes.”

“You know what? That’s it.” Not wanting to argue any longer I swooped down and picked Jess up in my arms, taking care to hold onto places where the least bruises and cuts were so not to hurt her. Of course where I was trying to be gentle, she certainly wasn’t, if her repeated kicks and punches into various parts of me were anything to go by. “For fuck’s sake Jess, will you please just quit it?” From the fact she didn’t stop I guessed she wasn’t going to so I simply increased my pace to a light jog to get back to the bus as soon as I could, essentially kicking Zack off the couch with my foot so that I could lay Jess down on it before retreating to the back cupboards to try and find some kind of medic kit.

“Geez Jess, what the fuck happened to you?” Zack asked as he crouched down to her level on the couch, his eyes widening at each new bruise and cut. “You like you’ve gone ten rounds or something.”

“It’s just a shame that I had no one there to throw in the towel for me to stop it,” Jess replied cryptically, knowing full well I’d be the only one who’d get what she meant. “Unfortunately no one did, so I had to do what I could.”

“Eh, that’s what the pits do to ya kiddo,” he replied before straightening up again. “A girl like you needs a man to protect her. You should’ve dragged Jason with you.” He tapped his chin thoughtfully. “Or Logan for that matter.”

“Blue was helping out Snow with the merch booth and Lumberjack was downtown, so I couldn’t ask.”

“Lumberjack?”

“It’s what I call Logan- because he has Log in his name.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier just to call him Logan?”

As I approached with the medic kit she turned her head away, so that she was staring at the back of the couch, away from me. “Probably.”

“Eh, you and your funny nicknames for people,” he mused. “I’ll leave you so Brian can patch you up.” He clapped me on the shoulder. “Just call if you need anything alright? I’ll go watch the TV in Matt and Val’s room.”

I turned to him. “Where are they?” I glanced around the place. “In fact, where are everyone?”

“Didn’t I tell you?” I shook my head. “Oh. Well they all went downtown for dinner after the greeting.”

“Didn’t you want to go with them?”

He shook his head. “I said I’d wait for you to come back. After all, best friends don’t leave each other right?”

My gaze instantly dropped to stare at Jess’ back. I could have sworn I heard her laugh cynically at the irony.

Out of all the things he could say…