Love, Aspen

I rolled over in my bed and shoved my hand down the back of my boxers, scratching my ass. I opened my eyes to look at the clock, realizing it was already one in the afternoon. I rubbed my face and untangled myself from the blankets, stumbling into the bathroom. I stood in front of the toilet and watched as my piss hit the water, turning it an ugly yellow color. Suddenly, a knock came at the door and I jumped at the noise, getting piss on the back of my toilet. I muttered to myself and stuffed my dick back in my pants, flushing the toilet and walking out the other side of my bathroom into the entryway. I looked out the peephole to see Craig’s face jammed right in the glass.

He pounded on the door with stupid grin on his face. “Open the door! It’s the po-lice!”

I turned the handle and pulled the door open. “Guess you’ll have to take me naked.”

“Aw dude!” He yelled, putting a hand over his face. “Come on man, cover up your junk.”

“Oh shit.” I laughed, looking down and covering the hole in my boxers.

I turned around and walked into my bedroom to pull on some jeans and Craig let himself into the house, closing the door behind him. I saw him from my open bedroom door, looking around my apartment like if he sat down anywhere, he might be eaten by something. He moved a blanket by pinching it between his fingers and then sat down on the arm of my couch.

“You just get up?” He asked, grabbing the cord to the blinds and twisting it.

“Yeah,” I yelled from my room. “How long you been up?”

“Got up around ten this morning, been getting shit set up over at my house to get some practicing in. We’ve all been sitting around and calling you, waiting for you to answer the damn phone.” He paused, walking into my room now. “But I guess you had better things to do.”

I shrugged, fully dressed now. “I was just sleeping. I didn’t realize what time it was until I woke up. I walked into the bathroom to take a piss and you knocked on the door.”

“Well we need to get some shit started for drugs or else we’re all going to be shit poor.”

I laughed. “I’m already shit poor.”

“Well then we’re gonna be dirt poor. You’re gonna be wearing plastic gloves and making burgers if you don’t start getting up earlier.”

I nodded. “Sorry dude. Just been tired lately, it’s hard for me to sleep at night.”

“I’m not trying to give you shit. I’m just telling you, we seriously need to get started. I’m running into problems and if Aly and I don’t come into some type of money sometime soon, we’re going to be homeless.”

“All right. I’ll work on some shit tonight.”

“You’ll be there tomorrow?” He asked. “At ten thirty?”

I nodded.

He walked over to me and patted my back. “Take it easy, man. You sure you’re doing okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

“Okay.”

I watched as he turned the knob to the front door and walked outside. The wind grabbed the door and pulled it shut, causing it to slam against the door frame. I sighed loudly and sat down on the couch, rubbing my face. It was so fucking embarrassing that Craig had to drive over to my house to make sure I was still alive. I needed to get my shit together. It was one thing to lose From First To Last, but I already knew we were going to shit. If I lost my spot in D.R.U.G.S. too, I was fucked. I had to find some way to hold myself together long enough for me to get happy again.

Every day was a fucking struggle for me. Even if I happened to wake up before noon, I had to practically throw myself on the floor just to get out of my bed. Even then, I’d lie on the floor until I absolutely had to get up unless I wanted to piss all over myself. Everything had gone to shit all at once. I could have dealt with losing Courtney and then losing From First To Last, or the other way around. But when it all happened at once, I couldn’t handle it. I still can’t. Everyone decided that From First To Last was done; we’d lost all our fans to Sonny’s shitty techno dance music. I had gotten home that night to find a nice little note from Courtney, explaining that she loved me but she’d found someone who had grown up, who wasn’t stuck in some high school band that was getting absolutely nowhere, someone who could take care of her financially.

I always had that bad feeling about Courtney, like no matter how much I loved her, she wanted money. She waited and waited for me to get filthy rich, like we were going to be some band like KISS or something, and when that never happened, she was done with me. She didn’t want to budget, she wanted to be able to buy whatever the fuck whenever the fuck. I took care of her when she was sick, I scraped together some change to go buy her a god damn candy bar when she was on the rag, I always managed to make her happy when she’d had a shitty day, I sang her songs all the time, I loved her with everything I had; and she didn’t even care enough to stop worrying about all the shit I didn’t have. She walked out on me and didn’t even have enough respect to tell me good bye. She left me a note. A fucking note. A two year relationship and all she left me was a note. It was hard for me to live without her, and it still is. It’s been four months and I’ve been trying my hardest not to fucking lose it. I saw her at the movie store a few weeks ago. She was walking down the aisle with some guy who reeked like the inside of an Axe can. Her voice had changed, it sounded wrong, sounded fake. I saw them get into one of those big ass trucks, the ones that practically rattle the entire ground when they start; one of those trucks that everyone drives now. Then they just sped off out of the lot and that was the last time I saw her.

Ever since then, I’ve hated myself even more. I was living in a shit apartment; I had a shit life, a shit job, no car. I barely had enough money to keep my water running and I was lucky if I had my god damn phone working. I’d broken into my savings and was practically living off of that. The only thing I could do now was hope that D.R.U.G.S. got us somewhere. I’d end my lease and live on the road until I came back and I’d hopefully be able to find somewhere to live.

I never really expected my life to get this bad. I knew that when Sonny left the band, we’d be slightly lost. But I knew that he wasn’t the whole band. Travis, Derek and I had something. He wasn’t even part of the band in the first place, so why the fuck did we need him after so many years? So we made another album. And another. And near the end of Throne to the Wolves, we all kind of started to lose it. The Color of Violence started and then we all got together one night to hang out. We were all a little buzzed. A little stupid. Some of us said things that actually still made sense in the morning and the next day, the band was over. We were done. I couldn’t do anything about it anymore. There wasn’t anymore, ‘Come on guys just one more song, one more verse.’

I got home that night and it was the same shit with Courtney. No more second tries. Everything was out of my power in that small moment. I’d hung out with Andy for a while after everything had happened, but then he had to go on tour with BVB and that’s when I got really bad. I quit answering my phone, I never opened my mail, didn’t clean my house, and I didn’t get on my accounts anymore. I sat around in the same clothes for days, smoking a cigarette, coming inside and laying on the couch, going back outside and smoking another cigarette, eating something, smoking again, laying down. The only time I left my house was to buy a pack of smokes. It was a sick cycle that included neither a shower nor any human contact. That was about the time that Andy had called up Craig, begging him to do something about it. And he did. Craig was kicked out of Chiodos and he had nothing better to do but come over and talk me into starting another band with him and some other guys who’d been kicked out of their bands or left out, or broken up.

And now I was letting them down, I was letting my emotional problems get in the way of my music. I stretched and groaned at the same time, standing up and grabbing my pack of cigarettes. I opened up my sliding glass door and took a seat on the porch, sticking a cigarette in my mouth and lighting it. I inhaled as deeply as I possibly could and let the smoke dribble out of my mouth like a stream of water. I leaned against the storage shed door and closed my eyes. For a few minutes, I sat there just holding my cigarette and listening to the cars rush by.

I opened my eyes when I heard the noise of a dog running through the grass. I looked over to see a small dog, a Scottish terrier rushing towards me. He had his mouth open and his tongue hanging out like he was grinning. I looked down at my hand to see that my cigarette had gone out.

A girl came running after the dog as he jumped into my lap, licking my face. I carefully moved him so that he wasn’t licking my face, but merely jumping on my lap.

The girl came running towards me. She was wearing a white cotton dress with flowers splashed all over it. Her hair was a gorgeous auburn color, falling in waves over her chest and down her back. As she came closer, I could see the red in her cheeks, I noticed she was barefoot. She had a nervous smile on her face as she stopped in the grass next to my porch, breathing heavily.

“Sorry.” She smiled. “I opened the door to leave and he just ran out.”

“It’s all right. He isn’t doing any harm.” I said nervously, keeping my gaze on the dog.

“Well thanks for grabbing him.”

“Hey, he ran up to me.” I said. “Must be fate.”

“Must be.” She said quietly as I stood up.

“I’m Matt.” I mumbled, my voice shaking.

“Kelsey.”

I nodded. “Well if I see the little guy running around again, I’ll be sure to grab him for you.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She picked up the little dog in her arms and scolded him in a voice that reminded me of my mother. She then kissed him on the top of his head and walked in the middle of the road back to her apartment. I watched her little tan legs make their way across the street and through a door. I’d never really seen her before, but maybe that was because I was so in love with Courtney and once she was gone; I hardly left the house, much less looked at other girls.

I sighed and lit my cigarette again, remaining standing up and inhaling my cigarette deeply. Just after I’d finished smoking and I had turned around to go back inside, Kelsey came driving past my house in a white BMW, one of the little old ones that you could find for cheap now and then. I raised my hand to wave at her but quickly put it down when I realized she was looking nowhere near my direction.

Why should she? I’m a fucking loser. She could probably smell me from where she had stood earlier.