Just Traveling Through

It didn’t take long for things to go back to the way they were before I left. The guys had limited time to catch up before they had to do some band-related things prior to taking the stage that night. We were able to talk for 25 minutes before their manager, Pat’s older brother Tim, came into the room and gave them their next ordered duty. They promised we’d catch up later, that this was a one-night show, not part of any tour.

Eric and I sat at the bar in the back while they played. He and I hadn’t said much yet, but I supposed that was to be expected from this trip. I knew he wouldn’t easily warm up to my return, therefore wouldn’t start gabbing instantly about what had happened since I left.

“Can I ask you something?” he slurred. I forgot that by now he would be legally able to drink. I nodded feebly. “Why’d you do it?”

I licked my lips. It wasn’t exactly going to be easy to explain, especially to him of all people. We had been in love. Plain as day, it was a simple, pure love. Our relationship was exciting; we thought it would last forever. We ultimately gave each other everything.

“I had to,” I said. “I had to escape. You had your bands, I had nothing. I needed to make something of myself. I didn’t want to be the only one without something to be remembered by.”

“You had me,” he replied heatedly. “We had each other.”

“Do you know what the girls at school said about me, Eric? They called me your groupie. I was nothing but a slut to them,” I nearly shouted. “A slut! I was in the top of my class, I never went to parties to hook up with random boys, and I worked my ass off at a stupid ice cream shop to make money for college. But I was still a good for nothing leech and slut.”

“What?” he asked, appalled.

“Yeah, I bet you never knew that, did you?” I sneered. “That’s why I pulled away. That’s why I asked for more hours at work so I wouldn’t have the option of going to those weekend parties. That’s when I realized I would never amount to anything in this stupid, fucked up town, so I had to leave.”

“They called you that? Those names?” he asked. I could barely hear his voice over John’s booming through the speakers.

I nodded, averting my gaze. “That’s why I stopped trying. I realized I would never fit in with anyone, so I gave up on making friends because all of my real friends had graduated with you in your class. I isolated myself from everyone and focused on leaving. But I couldn’t tell anyone because they would stop me, and I couldn’t afford to be talked out of it.”

He licked his lips before downing the last of his fourth beer. “Who was it?”

I looked at him. I was dumbfounded. “What are you going to do? Yell at them? They’ll just laugh, Eric. They’ll say I played into it and they were the ones who made me leave. Yeah, they helped me realize I had nothing, but they weren’t the reason I left.”

“That’s what you just said, though,” he said slowly, confused. “They called you names, so you left.”

“No. They helped me realize I had nothing. I had nothing because you did have something. You had a band that was going to be touring around the country, and eventually you’d be touring the world. I would be stuck here, waiting for you,” I explained. “What was I going to do? Go to college with those same girls? Get tormented because my boyfriend was away living his dream, and I was just some girl he could come home to and fuck?”

“Amelia,” Eric said softly.

I shook my head. “Don’t. I did what I had to do.”

“Amelia,” he tried again. I eyed him. “You were never that girl. You never cared what anyone thought about you, and you certainly never listened when they said things about you. What got under your skin with those girls? You knew what they were saying wasn’t true.”

I felt myself leaning away from him. He had no idea what it felt like to be ridiculed day in and day out for doing nothing other than exist. “You’re scum,” I said to him. The words left a horrible taste on my tongue. “You’re an asshole and a waste of my time.”

I got off the bar stool and walked away from him. I didn’t have the heart to turn around and see how he had reacted. Maybe he would understand now, after I had seemingly called him negative things with such ease. To go from your friend to your enemy in less than a millisecond.

“Amelia, what the fuck?” he growled, grabbing my arm and pulling me from the crowd I had started to walk into. “What the fuck was that?”

“It hurt, didn’t it?” I snarled, snatching my arm from him. “How about getting that said to your face every day for a whole school year? It’s not true, Eric, so why are you this pissed off? Hm?”

Eric recoiled in shock. He definitely got the picture now. John belted out a farewell and a thank you to the crowd and I turned my head to look at the stage. They were setting their instruments down and walking off stage. The crowd slowly disbursed, kids walking aimlessly around us.

“I still love you, Amelia,” Eric announced over the chattering girls walking past us.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “I can’t love you anymore.”

“Okay, you can’t love me anymore, but do you anyway?” he asked hopelessly. I hesitated, my eyes searching for something else to focus on. “Amelia.”

“Yes, okay. Yes,” I shouted. “I love you, Eric, but I’m getting married.”

His eyes never left mine as he placed his hands on my cheeks. The overwhelming feeling of familiarity came flooding back and my stomach gurgled with butterflies. His lips ghosted against mine, his breath hot. My breathing became increasingly jagged as he stepped closer, closing the space between us. My heart was about to explode in my chest, and then it happened. His lips were against mine, fitted perfectly.

As quickly as it happened, it ended. I pulled away from him and gave him a slight shove. “I’m getting married, Eric, whether you like it or not.”

“You kissed back, Amelia,” he stated. When his words hit me, I realized I really had kissed him back.