Dichotomy.

She’s been ignoring me since what happened in the bus.

Even more than usual, I mean.

It’s driving me insane, but I don’t really know why.

Am I that needy that someone has to be paying attention to me at all times?

Fuck it; maybe I am.

“You’re mad at me,” I say. She’s in the back of the bus, reading, before we all go out for lunch.

“I’m not.”

“Is it because of Kellie?”

“Who?” she looks up, raising her eyebrows at me.

“My girlfriend,” I clarify. She looks back down at her book.

“I don’t care.”

“Yeah, and I’m dressing in drag for the show tonight.”

“What?” she asks, confused. That gets her attention.

“I’m sorry. I thought we were telling bullshit lies here.” She rolls her eyes.

“Just leave me alone, Brendon. You only make things worse. Or don’t you see that?” her tone challenges me. I shut up, my frown turning into a pout.

I can’t think of anything to say for once, so I decide to leave her alone.

Also, I can’t fucking stand to be in the same room with her much longer.

Already my mood is spoiled as I turn to leave, letting her read.

Kellie calls me, but I let it go to voicemail.

I dislike her because she’s everything I want.

Everything I don’t have with Kellie.

I hate her, but I want her.

I hate her because I want her.

Rewind to where I’d never met her and I was perfectly happy settling for Kellie, because I didn’t know any better.

Rewind to when ignorance was bliss.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Tour is drawing to a close; too soon, it seems, and Tina and I are still at ends.

Spencer and the rest of the crew have befriended her by now, but we still haven’t progressed – as friends or enemies, even.

We’re at an impasse.

I get bored and we still have almost five hours before bus call, so I wander around outside where the busses are parked.

She’s sitting nearby on a bench in the direction of the venue.

My immediate reaction is to make a sarcastic comment, but I control my mouth and decide to try a different approach - talking to her like she doesn’t know I hate her.

“Can’t sleep?” I attempt.

“I’m not sure I’ve ever had a good night’s sleep in my life,” she replies, barely looking up.

“Me either,” I agree, sitting down next to her. “It’s like…all those thoughts running around in your head. How does anyone sleep?”

She stares at me for a few seconds.

“Yeah. I know.”

She always proves our similarity in the most subtle ways.

I understand her, so I know she’s the only one that can understand me.

I want her to understand me.

I hate her because she refuses.

She pretends that she doesn’t majority of the time.

Rewind to the days I was convinced no one understood me and I was a dorky emo in highschool that couldn’t get a second glance from girls.

“What are you thinking about?” I try again, after a long silence.

“Oh. Nothing. Well…” she starts, and I wait. “I guess I was just wondering where I would’ve been if I…if the band hadn’t broken up.” She sighs. “I just never want to go back, before music, you know?”

“Smoothie Hut,” I mutter knowingly. She frowns, raising her eyebrows, confused.

“What?”

“I worked at Smoothie Hut.”

A smile breaks out on her face unexpectedly.

“What?” I ask.

“I’m trying to imagine you in the uniform.”

“Bitch,” I mutter under my breath. She laughs, finishing off her bottle of beer I hadn’t noticed she’d been drinking. “I thought you don’t like to drink,” I muse.

“I said I don’t like being drunk,” she corrects me. “I’m perfectly fine with the drinking part of it. Here,” she offers me one, which I gratefully accept.

One six pack later, and we’re still talking nonsense.

“Do you believe in soulmates?” I don’t know what possesses me to ask such a tired, cliché question.

But she doesn’t look at me strangely or call me stupid.

“Yeah, I guess. Sometimes. I don’t know.”

“How do you think you know when you find them?”

She shrugs.

“I think everything would be easier if you could know who isn’t your soulmate.”

As lame as it sounds, I know that she’s not not my soulmate, but at the same time, I don’t know if she is.

Because if she is, then I suppose it would have to be possible for someone to hate their soulmate.

The one thing I know for sure is I’ve never even considered that Kellie might be mine.

Rewind to when I believed soulmates were bullshit lies hopeless romantics told themselves to fall asleep at night because they were lonely.