When Happily Ever After Fails

The last week had been absolute hell for Ricky; not only were his friends now pushing for him to perform, he also had a random stranger breathing down his neck. His expertise was not in the performing arts, nor was it in public relations, so he absolutely despised how they were all trying to shove him into the lime light. The chaotic situation caused him to consider how everyone he knew wanted to grow up to be famous; everyone but him. If he had his way, he could just fade into background, meet someone nice and have a bazillion kids.

"The grass you can't touch is greener;
you're a monochromatic dreamer.
You see the city as black and gray,
the nights as bleak now as your day," Ricky hummed in near silence.

Sighing, Ricky rubbed his hands over his face in an attempt to refresh his mind. Unfortunately, he found his thoughts wandering back to the same tired old tune that had been playing in his mind for days. No matter which words he tried to place with the music, they always sounded wrong.

"This is shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit..." he muttered to himself as he tossed his guitar down on the bed next to him.

After a mere moment of contemplation, Ricky flopped down on the bed next to it and covered his face with a pillow. and screamed his frustration into it. Ever since that dumb little bar owner had taken a shine to their "band," he had barely had a second to catch his breath. Between trying to keep his job steady and his friends trying to make it in the music business, his hours weren't adding up. Something had to give, and Ricky wasn't entirely sure which building blocks he wanted to let tumble.

He could hear his friends shouting his name, but he didn't have the heart to pull himself out of the gutter to crawl over to them. For a moment he contemplated locking his door, but even that was beyond the ambition he had left. Heaping the covers on top of himself, he managed to push the guitar off of the bed and he would have sworn obnoxiously had it not hit a strange note when it hit the ground. Inspiration hit him; at least he hoped it was inspiration, and he put words to music.

"Monday you will still be fine.
Tuesdays will find that all a lie.
Wednesdays rot you down to the core
Thursdays we find you flat on the floor;
Fridays we'll know it was all in your head,
'cause weekends are meant for burying the dead."

A small displeased sound passed his lips as he scrunched up his nose at the words. He scratched the words onto the bleached paper and then left his room. Half a dozen unknown faces greeted him, and he rolled his eyes and walked by them in the direction of the kitchen.

Danny was talking to one of the people that he considered strangers, and Ricky couldn't help but notice that his friend was clenching and unclenched his teeth every few seconds throughout the conversation. Before Ricky could intervene, Danny had the man on his back and was knocking the teeth out of his mouth.

"Whoa there, buddy," Ricky said as he pulled Danny off of the bleeding man. "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"He suggested we call the band 'the faggots'." It took Ricky a minute to understand exactly what he was being told and, but when he did, all he could do was laugh. Ricky helped the bruised and bloody man off of the floor and shooed him out of the door. "Why the hell are you laughing about this?"

"Because it's funny?"

"Since when do you find homophobes funny?" Danny screeched.

"Since I figured out that I can't change them."

"If you can't beat them, join them?" Danny sneered before stalking out of the room. Sighing, Ricky put his back against the counter and then slid down so that he was sitting on the floor. Despite the insult that Danny felt, Ricky could not muster the energy to distinguish between the indifference he felt and the mockery Danny perceived it as.

Tucker walked into the kitchen to the sight of Ricky crying on the floor. He crouched down in front of him and just stared; waiting for him to finish sobbing. When Ricky wiped away the tears that had streamed down his cheeks and met his unblinking eyes with his own glistening ones, he knew that Tucker saw right through them and into what he was thinking.

"You want to go home, huh?" Tucker asked quietly. A small, curt nod was all that Ricky offered in reply and Tucker laughed quietly, but didn't scoff. He had grown to know his friend a lot better than he had ever intended to. "You know that you'll never be able to explain it to them, right? I mean, you left before you were ready to be out by yourself, and they had enough support to be able to stay. They're never going to understand risking everything to go back..."

"I know, Tucker, but it's not finished!" Ricky exclaimed with not so much enthusiasm as resolve. Without saying another word, Tucker helped Ricky to his feet and dragged him into the living room and over to where Danny was visibly seething. Even though Ricky apologized, he could see that Danny's anger did not fade.

"I really want to stay with you guys and see this through, but I'm not cut out for it. I'll stay with you until you find a new guitarist, but that's it. I can't handle the critics..."