I Swear I Love You

Brian’s POV

How could I have done that to her… Oh God I’m such an idiot. Stupid…stupid… fucking idiot…

“Brian?” I glanced up dismally at Holly, who looked worried. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I replied automatically. “Sorry.”

As I lapsed back into silence, brooding over the shit I had managed to create in the space of about five minutes, Holly and her parents exchanged looks which I guessed primarily spoke ‘perhaps we should leave’. I must have been right since about a minute later Holly’s dad asked for the bill, which I then paid for out of common courtesy (basically as an apology for ruining the night on two different fronts), and resulted in us all outside, waiting for the valet to get the car.

“Dinner was lovely, don’t you think?” Holly’s mum piped up, obviously just trying to break the awkward mood. “It was lovely for you to pay for it all Brian.”

“It’s not like I’m short of money,” I replied with a shrug. Immediately after I knew it was an extremely conceited and shallow thing for me to say, since it was basically me just saying ‘yeah, I’m loaded’. For fuck’s sake. Could anything else go wrong?

“Brian.” Holly tugged on my arm. Behind her, her parents were waiting in the car, ready to go. “Do you need a lift to the hotel?”

My gaze dropped to her. “No, it’s alright.”

“Oh. Okay.” She sounded disappointed. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“I guess so.”

“I just come to the side door right?”

“Yeah… I’ll have someone wait for you. Just give them your name and they’ll show you through.”

“Okay.” She looked up at me expectantly- it took me a few moments to realise what she wanted.

“Bye Holly,” I mumbled, kissing her rather lamely on the lips. It wasn’t anywhere near the passion she was expecting, but right now, it was all I could muster.

She clambered in the back of the car, giving me a light wave. “See you tomorrow!”

I didn’t even wave back as the car drove away.

--

Throughout the whole of the forty minute walk back to the hotel I couldn’t help but think of numerous scenarios I could have chosen to follow instead of the one I did with Jess- I could have at least tried not throw in her face that I had got with her sister while she was in Australia, or that I never bothered to tell her.

Great idea there Brian.

The next great idea came in the fact that I didn’t have the key to the room I was sharing with Zack, and after trying (rather unsuccessfully might I add due to my lack of photo identity and some very disgruntled concierge) to try and get one from the front desk I just resigned to sitting on the floor outside. At some point I must have fallen asleep since the next thing I knew I was woken up to see the unhappy expressions of Matt, Val, Johnny and Zack.

“Well, if it isn’t the infamous Brian,” Val remarked, crouching down in front of me. “Looks like someone had a good night, eh? Couldn’t even make it to your hotel room?”

“I didn’t have a key,” I yawned. “When did I become infamous?”

“Ever since you said something to Jess that made her cry.” She looked at me, unimpressed. “She exhausted herself.”

Everywhere I looked, the disappointed faces of the people I loved stared back at me. In the end I fixated my gaze on the one place they couldn’t reach; the floor.

“What did even say to her Brian?” She sounded sad. “I’ve never thought you could reduce a girl to tears like that. Well, maybe from happiness from seeing their favourite guitarist perform, but not from a hurt so deep that sleep was the only thing that could stop her tears.” She reached out and squeezed my hands. “Why did you do it?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

She shook her head and sighed. “I don’t know how you are going to get your friendship back after this. Time fixed the last fight you guys had, but you didn’t do anything this bad to her.” She patted my knee as she got back to her feet.

“Do you know where Jess is now?”

She frowned. “I don’t think now is a good time to go talk to her Brian, you should leave it for now.”

“Val.” I looked up at her. “Just… I just have to know.”

Her eyes shone at me sympathetically. “She’s staying on the bus.”

“On her own?”

“Jimmy’s with her,” she replied. “As a helpful tip, you might want to avoid him in the morning. He’s not too happy with you.”

“I wouldn’t expect him to be,” I murmured. “I’ve been nothing but horrible to Jess this whole tour and I don’t know why.”

“Brian…” She sighed, motioning for the others to go.

“Val, I’m sure Gates is fine, come to bed,” Matt tried to say only to be stopped by her refusal, saying she’d be there soon. He knew not to protest and meekly kissed her on the cheek and like the others, left us alone in the corridor. Zack left his key with Val and followed Johnny into his room so I guessed I’ll be sleeping alone tonight- great. Exiled from my friends. Not that I seriously should be allowed near them anyway.

Val joined me on the floor. “Look, I don’t know what you said, and to some extent I don’t want to know, but I think you really need to take a step back and look at the whole picture. You need to really think about what you are doing; why you are doing these things. Why don’t we start at the beginning?” She stretched her legs out in front of her. “Why did you leave Jess at the hospital back in Huntington?”

I turned to her, surprised. “How do you know about that? You weren’t there.”

“Matt told me.”

“Oh.” I laughed. “Should have known. And how the hell am I supposed to know about why I did it?”

“Well… because you did it. No one told you to leave.”

“No one told me to stay.”

“Of course they did.” Her tone made it seem like it was the most obvious thing in the world, yet I didn’t understand. “You’re meant to be her best friend. You automatically promise to be there for the other person. It’s just the same as being in a relationship with that person. You’d give up your life for them.”

“A promise…?”

I had. I had promised her.

--

reached up to her hand and took it down, clutching it in one of my own. “I promise I’ll be there whenever you get scared. You don’t need to think you are selfish anymore; I’ve promised to it.”

She looked up at me and smiled; the expression of disappointment melting away into trust. “You promise?”

I gave her a smile of my own. “I promise.”

--

“You should have been there for her, but you haven’t been, so something has to have been stopping you. From my experience, it has only ever been because of one of two things.” She held up one finger. “One is that they have done something that you can’t forgive them for. Jess hasn’t done that, so that only leaves the other thing.”

“And what’s that?”

“That you like them. That’s why you try to push them away; so you don’t have to pay attention to your heart. You don’t want to cross that line.” She laughed quietly to herself. “That’s how Matt and I started out. We had so many fights in 8th grade- they ended only when he finally plucked up the courage to ask me out. Soon you’ll have to decide whether you want to do the same or watch as you push them away forever.”

“But… but she’s married to Jimmy.”

“Yet she hasn’t decided whether to give her heart to him, now has she?” She smiled and wrapped her arms around me. “If you don’t try, then you’ll never know.”

“And what if she doesn’t choose me?”

“Then at least you’ll know you still have a heart to be broken,” she murmured, getting back to her feet before helping me back up. “Come on; I’ll stay with you tonight.” She smiled brightly. “Just like old times.”

“What about Matt?”

“I’ve slept next to him for the last eight years so he can give me one night to help out a friend,” she replied. Of course she didn’t care about the repercussions since there wouldn’t be any for her. Me on the other hand, would probably get a nice dose of ass-kicking from Matt for stealing his girlfriend. Especially on a day that everyone has pretty much turned against me.

“Come on Brian.” She had already swiped the card to get into the room and was hovering in the open doorway, holding her hand out. “Come on. You need to be rested up for tomorrow’s show. We can’t have everyone’s favourite guitarist performing below par, now can we?”

I chuckled weakly. “Don’t let Zack or Christ hear you say that.”

She winked at me, pulling me inside. “I won’t tell if you won’t.”