Memories Be Out All Night

ZACKY’S POV

I was sitting on the couch with Icabod watching reruns of The Real World. Yes, I did say The Real World. Leave me the fuck alone about it.

Gena had gotten me in to this show a long time ago and since then, I’ve been hooked on it.

I took another sip of the beer I had in my hand and set it down on the coffee table in front of me next to my phone just as one of the girls on the TV started screaming at the top of her lungs because she was so drunk. I chuckled remembering when Matt was still dating Val and her and her sister got so shit faced drunk that they stood up on his pool table and started singing and dancing to their own version of Love Is A Battlefield.

Which reminds me, I needed to call Val and ask how her job hunting was going.

Even though Matt and her broke up some odd time ago, we all still talked to her. She was after all our first tour manager and the girl that took care of us in our early years. She was forever part of our very tight and very close family.

A loud thudding noise came from the front door and Icabod jumped off the couch, running towards it and barking.

“Hush it puppy,” I said, following him to it.

“Jimmy!” I greeted.
“You need to call Hayden,” He ordered, not even giving me a second to ask if he wanted to come in.

“Why?”
“Because then ……” He began but stopped himself and gave an angry huff in defeat, “Just fucking do it.”

I opened the door and pushed Icabod back, letting Jimmy come in. We walked back in to my living room and sat back down on the couch.

“The Real World?” He questioned, “Seriously?”
“Shut up. It’s Gena’s fault.”

Jimmy nodded his head understandingly.

“Why won’t you call her?”
“I just can’t.”
“Because…” He urged, wanting to hear the other half of the excuse.

“I’ve moved on,” I lied.

“Bull fucking shit!” He shouted, “Vegas girls do not count as getting over someone!”

I hung my head low and closed my eyes. He was right.

Jimmy sighed, “What happened to you?” He asked, “You’re in your huge ass house with your dog fucking watching The Real World. The Zachary Baker I knew would be throwing a party or chasing a girl. But here, you aren’t doing shit!”

“Maybe I wanted change.”

“That’s a lie. You know that,” Jimmy said with a scowl in my direction, “You know you want Hayden. I saw the way you two looked at each other in that hospital. Obviously you two had something fucking going on behind all of our backs!”

“She’s probably over me by now,” I sulked.

This comment earned a well deserved smack on my back from Jimmy, “She is not over you!”

“And you know this because?”

“Because I’m dating Violet and she’s my girlfriend. She won’t tell Hayden about me because it hurts her to know that you won’t grow the fucking balls and call her already! She wants you Zacky, she wants all of you. All of you forever, you and her, every day.”

I snapped my head up and looked at him bewildered, “Did you just quote The Notebook to me?”

Jimmy shrugged, “Just call her,” He said getting up from the couch and leaving me by myself. I heard the front door open and then a soft thud letting me know that he was gone.

I sighed and put my head in my hands, dragging the palms of my hands up and down my face, running my fingers through my hair.

Why was I acting like this was the toughest decision I’ve ever had to make?

It’s not like it was one of those choices where someone had to die while the other got to live; or something that could jeopardize my future.

It was a simple phone call. How hard could that be?

But it was that hard.

So hard because she was all I thought about since we left that hospital. All I wanted to talk about and all I wanted to see. Yet there was still this constant fear that she had moved on with some other guy and that I would make a complete fool out of myself if she did.

Maybe that’s what was keeping me from picking up that phone and hitting the green button.

Or that she made me nervous.
Or made me stutter.
Or lose my train of thought.
Or made me want to find her again.

Or the fact that I was definitely in love with her.

I wanted her, I wanted all of her. All of her, forever, her and me, everyday.