We Knew That Time Would Kill Us

The next day, I woke up on my own terms. Which was surprising, to say the least. Jimmy, and in the worst cases he was usually accompanied by Johnny, wasn’t there to scream in my ear until I couldn’t take it anymore and had to get up, and Brian wasn't there to threaten me with bodily harm.

In other words, the day was off to a great start.

When I stumbled into my bathroom, I realized that I hadn’t taken all the Halloween makeup (or the costume) off and it was clumped and uneven in a lot of places, making my face look like it was straight out of a horror movie. No longer being able to stare at my reflection, I peeled the costume off hopefully for the last time and jumped into the shower. I came out; squeaky clean and free of anything that made me even remotely resemble Dr. Evil or Mini-Me.

I chose to dress casual, just a pair of dark cargo shorts and a black tank top. I didn't want to do much today, just laze around until Dannii came later that night for the sleepover we had planned. It was officially Halloween, and we had planned to just hang out down in the lounge and watch a couple of scary movies. We were thinking about stealing some of the candy Matt and Val had piled up by the door for the trick-or-treaters, too.

After I finished my morning routine, it was around eleven AM and the house was quiet, Matt and Val's voices filtering through the hallways from the kitchen as I made my way down the stairs.

Last night was still as fresh as ever in my mind, and truthfully I was still buzzing. I played a solo with Slash. And I aced the solo with Slash. Dannii and I made conversation with the Madden twins, Bert McCracken asked for a picture with me, and I had just about the coolest birthday cake ever.

How could it have been any better? Well, if a certain person had been there... it would have been perfect.

As soon as I began thinking about him, I pushed the thought to the back of my head. No. There was no use wishing for someone who pretty much hated my guts to be there. I was just ruining everything for myself by thinking like that. Ruining a near perfect thing that everyone had worked so hard on just for me. Once again, I felt like I was being selfish.

Matt and Val gave me a welcoming smile when I made my appearance in the kitchen, sitting across from them at the island. I was surprised to see that there wasn't a plate in my spot filled sky high with breakfast Matt expected me to eat, but I didn't say anything about it.

"Morning, Patey," Val greeted, glancing between Matt and me. That made me slightly tense, wondering what they could have been planning, or what they were talking about before I came downstairs. But the smile never left her face, so I tried not to think too much of it. "You ready to go out today? I have a lot planned. It's gonna be a blast."

Crap. I'd completely forgotten about that. In my defence, Matt had picked a bad time to tell me when I was practically falling asleep on my feet. Nonetheless, I kept my easy-going smile up and nodded enthusiastically. "Just you and me?" I asked, that was sort of odd. Rarely, if ever, was it just the two of us. Matt visibly nudged Val with his elbow, and I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.

Could they have been any more obvious?

Her grin became even wider then, to the point where it was almost strained. No, there’s nothing going on there. “Just us.” She confirmed, and then sent another look toward Matt.
“No breakfast,” Matt began, his smile becoming even wider, too. “Val’s taking you to the Ruby’s on the pier.”

Hesitantly, I nodded. I’d only been to Ruby’s Diner a few times before, and it felt like I didn’t belong. It was always filled with locals, surfers and whatnot, people who lived in Huntington their entire lives. Most of the time I did not regret living in Canada for most of my life, but I did when I went in there. And I did not like regretting the time spent in my first home in Canada.

“Yeah, we’re gonna walk around a lot today and visit some of the local shops and stuff. It’s about time you really got a feel for Huntington,” Val easily continued, the tense feel in the air had pretty much disappeared by then. Once again, I agreed with a nod. Maybe after today I wouldn’t feel like such an outsider when I’m out of the house. She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “It’s gonna be fun.”

Needing to get away from their almost worried stares, I quickly made up an excuse to get back upstairs for a minute. “Just let me grab a hoodie and then I’ll be ready to go, okay?”

Even though it was October, and it was usually a little cold out for California, it was oddly warm out today. I still slung a hoodie on though, just in case as I knew we’d be walking quite a bit.

The drive to the beach was quick, and when we got there Val said we wouldn’t be needing the SUV anymore today until we were ready to go home. I’d never actually walked around Huntington just to enjoy all of the sights and sounds, so I was sort of excited for this today.

Despite feeling awkward at Ruby’s Diner, it was still a great experience. It was everything you expected from a diner at the end of a pier, it was sixty’s themed and had all of the classic stuff like red and white leather seats and tables and whatnot. The food wasn’t too bad, either.

As usual, I let Val order for me because she’d been there many more times than I had and she knew what tasted good and what didn’t taste good. The waitress approached our table almost immediately after we got in, dressed in the standard red and white mini-skirt, blouse, and apron. She tapped her notepad almost irritably as she took our order, which consisted of two California Eggs Benedict and a few soda’s.

“So, P,” Val started after the waitress had finally walked away, her tone easy-going but the look in her eyes told me she was anxious. I prepared to choose my words carefully. “Did you enjoy the party last night?”

I nodded vigorously at that, which only made Val laugh. “Yeah, it was frigging amazing Val. I honestly can’t thank you guys enough,” I said quietly, tracing the scratches in the metal-topped table.

“This was your first birthday with us, Payton. We had to make it count,” Val said, her tone completely honest. I hadn’t thought of it that way before. “Matt feels like he needs to make up for all the years he’s missed with you.”

Why did I feel bad? I shouldn’t feel bad about this. It wasn’t my fault my mother felt like she needed to keep me away from Matt, as good of a dad as he was, I sometimes wondered why, but again, I didn’t let myself think about it for too long. Apparently, there weren't any answers to the question anyway. “He... he shouldn’t feel that way, Val,” I stated, but she held up her hand to cut me off.

“No, no, Patey. There’s no use in trying to convince him otherwise. He’ll get over it eventually. But anyway, how are things with you lately?” She asked, changing the subject to something I wanted to talk about even less.

Keeping my gaze averted to the table, I continued to trace everything in the table, finding that I wasn’t able to meet her eyes. “Everything’s been great, Val. The party was just awesome, and school’s been okay since uh, you know, Andy’s not there.”

“That’s good.”

Our breakfast came then, and I went straight to eating, thankful for the distraction from talking about things I didn’t want to talk about. It was obvious that there was quite a bit more Val wanted to say or ask, and every now and then she glanced up at me through her food for the briefest of seconds before quickly going back to her meal. I pretended I didn’t notice.

Things are almost tense when we made our way out of the diner, but I found that I really liked spending time with Val. It wasn’t that I ever disliked her (it was quite the opposite, actually). Even though I’d been there for almost an entire year, I’d never really gotten the chance to be alone with her before then.

We spent hours just walking around, I found things and places that I’d never gotten the chance to take notice of before like the Pier Plaza, which acted as an arts and culture center. Val told me that there were almost always free concerts there, but today everything was quiet and relaxed. We took a break there before heading farther down Main Street to the Surf Walk of Fame, and while I didn’t know any of the names, like everything else it was amazing to just see and look at.

Then, we ventured back to the beach, near the pier and we did something I’d heard the guys talking about, something they had wanted me to do. Mainly because I miserably failed at making sandcastles one beach day a few months ago, and I guess Val hadn’t forgotten. The locals had this thing, mainly for tourists, where they give you a tutorial on how to make sandcastles.

It went by without a hitch, mainly because the dude who was instructing was doing practically everything for both Val and me, but I can’t say I really minded. It was still fun, and I did learn a thing or two, like I couldn’t just pile a bunch of sand up and say ‘tada!’ like I had so many times before.

At the end of the day, we stopped off to get some ice cream at a cute little stand that was placed at the beginning of the pier. We ate in silence on the way back to the SUV, my feet were aching from such a long day’s worth of walking, but I could have still stayed out for another hour or so.

“Alright—wait, Payton!” Val said, stopping in the middle of the parking lot and grabbing my arm—the one that wasn’t holding my Strawberry Cheesecake ice cream, thankfully. I did a double take on her, and immediately grew apprehensive. In a split second, she’d gone from happy and carefree to exhausted, the same look that had been in her eyes at the diner.

“There’s more I wanted to talk about.” She said slowly, looking down at me as if I were going to spontaneously combust at the mentioning of ‘talking’.

I kept a straight face, like usual, and gave her a small, ‘relaxed’ smile. “Okay, how ‘bout in the car?” I asked, hoping she’d get the hint that I didn’t want to get into any heavy topics with her in the middle of a parking lot.

She gave me an almost embarrassed smile before continuing to the SUV, still holding my wrist as if I were going to try and book it out of there at any given moment. Seriously, what was up with her?

“We’re worried about you,” She stated, flatly once we were securely buckled into the seats in the car. She took a deep breath and stared straight ahead. “I mean—I know things have been a lot better of the past few months, but we—everyone—loves you and we can’t help but worry about you.” She hurried, managing to say all of that in one breath.

Already, she looked better for finally getting that off her chest. But then it was my turn to feel queasy. What the hell was I going to say? “Val, things have been getting better, I’m fine. Honest.” I said, my tone sounding hollow to me but I sincerely hoped it didn’t to her. I did not want everyone stressed out with worrying about me like they had last year.

“Alright, okay...” She trailed off, finally meeting my eyes, probably looking for truth in them. I gave her my best ‘sincere’ stare. “But Matt’s mainly been worried about you because he’s noticed that you haven’t been talking to him about things as much as you used to. And he just feels a lot better when you tell him what’s going on with you.”

“I haven’t been talking to him about things because there really hasn’t been much to talk about, Val. I’m fine,” I said, stressing the word in hopes that it would make her believe me a little more.

Finally she seemed to let the topic go, giving me one last glace before turning the key in the ignition. “If you say so, Patey. But even if you just talk to him about things that don’t matter, it’d make him feel better. Can you do that for me?”

For a moment, I mulled it over. As long as Matt and I didn’t get into anything that was too heavy of a topic for me to handle, I would agree. But ‘heavy topics’ were all Matt seemed to want to talk about. “Alright, but tomorrow okay? Dannii’s coming over in like, an hour.”

Simply nodding, Val grinned and clapped her hands before she pulled out of the parking lot, again completely at ease. I felt slightly better too, but knowing the fact that everyone was worried about me, well, that in turn made me worried too.

I just wished everyone would stop worrying about me, even though I knew they only meant the best by being so concerned over me. Like I had said to Val, I was fine. Why couldn’t everyone else seem to believe that, too?

When we got back to the house and stepped out of the car, I froze, my hand resting on the door handle as I realized something. Had I just lied through my teeth in the conversation I’d just had with Val? No... I was fine. There wasn’t anything I wanted to talk about.

Thankfully, Val took no notice of my pause in step and I hurried to catch up with her at the door. Once again, the house was quiet, but everyone’s shoes were lined off in the foyer. And when we finally got into the living room where everyone was seated, it looked like someone had died. I immediately did a headcount, fearing the worst, but everyone was there. Nothing to worry about.

Matt stood up from the loveseat as soon as he saw us, and he looked nervous as hell. “Payton,” He began, not taking a step closer. “Did you—do you remember taking any pictures with anyone last night?”

Of course I did. Who could forget such a thing as Bert McCracken asking for you picture? And that was exactly what I said to Matt. When he heard it, he sighed and ran a hand down his face, exasperated.

“He posted it to his twitter, Patey. And let’s just say a lot of people—a lot of our fans—saw it.”

That got me on red alert, and I immediately began pacing around the sofas, everyone’s eyes on me as I tried to rationalize on the severity of the situation. “Okay, but it’s not like they know who I am, right?” When no one said anything, I began to panic even more. “Right?” I squeaked, my voice barely capable of being heard.

Wordlessly, Zacky stood up and handed a laptop to me. On the screen, while it was at one of A7X’s fan sites, there was a screen cap of one of Bert McCracken’s tweets, with the picture. The exact one in the dim lighting with my hair all over the place from just being up on stage with Slash. The caption below it was what really got me, though.

‘Here at M. Shadows daughters b-day party! She just played a solo with Slash! = fucking awesome!’

As soon as I had read that, I shoved the laptop back to Zacky and collapsed on an empty sofa. “I doomed! I can’t go to school. Everyone’s gonna recognize me and give me a bunch of shit! That’s it. I’m going into hiding.” I said, quite dramatically and jumped up from the couch, fully prepared to lock myself in my room for all of eternity. Or at least until my hunger got the better of me.

Matt placed his hands on my shoulders and pushed me back down on the sofa, trying to calm me down. There was no calming me down when I was in this state, though. “Payton, it’s not as bad as it seems. It’s just one picture, and Bert deleted it about two minutes after he posted it. And I know, the fans have it now, but it is only one picture and a couple of words.”

Matt’s words did not comfort me, not like I had been expecting them to. I forced myself to calm down, though. I could not get hysteric in front of everyone. But that didn’t stop me from collapsing back onto the sofa, burying my head into one of the cushions. “They’re gonna murder me in school, Matt. Seriously. Those kids are out for blood!”

“It’s not gonna be that bad, Mini,” Jimmy began, and I shifted so I could stare at him out of the corner of me eye. “Besides, if anyone gives you shit in school, we’ll be cracking some motherfucking skulls!” He yelled, and slapped Johnny upside the head for added effect.

Thankfully, that managed to lighten the mood and calm me down at least a little so I could think reasonably. Really, all I could do was lay low and wait and see what happens in school on Monday.

One thing was for sure though, I was going to stop worrying about it and just have fun with Dannii tonight, and then I’d have all day tomorrow to freak myself out over everything.

To say the least, I was dreading school on Monday.