Ignorance

In the beginning, I never really thought twice about him. He was always just there, and nothing more to me. The most important things in our lives usually seem the most insignificant at one point. We never truly realize how important they are, how life changing they are, until they're taken away from us. And that was him. He was my insignificant thing. It seems harsh to say, but I meant it in the most affectionate way. However, the best things in life are not things. The best thing in my life was him and I never realized how important he was to me until the end.

I sighed to myself as I gazed up to the white popcorn ceiling of my hotel room. Whenever I concentrated hard enough on ceilings such as that, I always saw shapes and words. My mother used to tell me that every single thing I saw in those ceiling meant something important to me in my life. I saw letters but they meant nothing to me. R. C. A. Arc? Car? I had no idea what any of those words meant for my future. I didn't bother to dwell on it. I wasn't sure if they were important in my past or future. I never bothered thinking on either. I only lived in the present. I blinked at the ceiling to find that the letters were gone, only to be replaced with a shape that vaguely looked like a gun. I stood up and stretched my stiff limbs before I ruffled my messy black hair as I walked across the room. The alarm clock in the hotel room was flashing three o'clock in bright red letters.

I grabbed the glass of water on my bedside table to take a sip as I scratched my stomach, slightly pulling up my white shirt as I did so. I sniffed after I put the glass down and looked out the window. It was beyond dark outside. I could see the lights from the rest of the city down below from my fourteenth floor window. All was still outside except for a light wind that ruffled the trees and a few cars roaming the streets. Though I was not one to be talking, especially as of lately, I wondered why on earth somebody would still be awake and gallivanting that early in the morning. It was a thought I knew would never be answered, especially with my friends. I could hear Divine walking around with the guys in the room next to mine. I looked at the door and took a step towards it before hesitating. I didn't exactly want to bother them. I was about to take another step to the door when a knock came. I raised my eyebrows before walking over to the door. I opened it and peeked out to see Divine.

Divine always looked radiant, no matter what she wore. She stood there in a red tank top and black pajama pants. Her long, straight brown hair was pulled up into a messy ponytail to kept out of her pale face. She had no makeup on and she donned an embarrassed smile on her face. She smiled down at me as I opened the door wider.

"Hey, kid. I forgot my key card again. Besides, you sounded pretty quiet so I knew you were still up," she said as she walked past me.

"You know me too well. It kind of scares me," I sighed as I walked towards the window.

She licked her lips as she sat on her bed and leaned her back against the headboard. She pursed her lips at me as she stared at my tense form. I crossed my arms uncomfortably as I stared right back at her.

"You're thinking about that song again, aren't you?" she asked.

"Desolation?" I asked.

"I think I should rename it to Benjamin Johanson. Lord knows that's all you think about when you listen to it," she said as she leaned over to take a drink from my glass of water.

"You know how I feel about that name."

She gave me a hard stare as she pursed her lips into a tight line across her face. "If I were you, I'd be more scared of randomly meeting him on the street rather than just his name."

"Fear of name only increases the fear of the thing itself," I quoted without thinking as I looked out the window.

"Stop saying things that relate to Harry Potter," she said with a wave of her hand. I nodded once, not fully thinking about my action.

"You know, the guys and I have been thinking," she began distractedly.

"Yeah?"

"Never mind," she said quickly before standing up. "Might as well get a little sleep. We're leaving in four or five hours."

"I know," I said.

"Good night, Noel. Don't dwell and stop staring at the damn ceiling," she said before she tossed back the covers and crawled into the bed.

I stared at her lying form in silence for a few moments. I leaned against the window sill and sighed in frustration. I walked over to my bed with my fists clenched and threw my blankets back in anger. I crawled into the bed, defeated, and stared up at the ceiling, just to see the same three letters once more. I closed my eyes tightly before turning over onto my right side to reach over and turn off the lights. I grabbed fistfuls of the white sheets in my effort to fall asleep. I glared into the darkness as I thought about how well Divine knew practically every little thing about me. There was no animosity in my life when it came to Divine. As much as I wanted to keep some things secret to myself, I could not help but tell her every little thing about me. She did not know one thing about me though, and one thing only.

She knew I missed him. But she didn't know how much.