Second Chance

He didn't join his brothers when they went to greet some of the fans after the show.

He turned and walked in the opposite direction, absently shooing away the few fans that had attempted to approach him. They looked devastated only for a moment before deciding to focus on the rest of the band instead, who were all too happy to stand around chatting and signing autographs for a while. I kept my distance from them as usual, though this time I was forced to debate over whether it would be smart to leave Zacky on his own or attempt to comfort him.

I decided on the latter; he had been a great comfort to me over the weeks, and if there was any way that I could return the favour now, I was going to do so. Judging by the way the rest of the band had been acting about his attitude the entire night, there wasn't any way that I could make things worse than they already were. The thought was somewhat comforting. I only hoped that I could make things better.

He had taken refuge at the far end of the car park, placing himself almost completely out of sight. The only tell-tale sign of his standing there was the tiny orange glow of the cigarette he had just lit up.

He didn't say anything when I sat down beside him. He didn't try to push me away either, so I took that as a good sign. There was a long silence between us as he smoked his cigarette and I watched the rest of the guys back over by the building; it wasn't uncomfortable, but it wasn't natural. I opened my mouth to break it.

"They told you, didn't they?"

"I...what?"

"About Gena," he clarified. "My girlfriend."

My mouth snapped shut. I hadn't been expecting him to speak, let alone bring up the one thing that he clearly didn't want to talk about. There was no emotion in his tone, and his eyes kept staring straight ahead of himself, unseeing. I could lie. I could pretend like they hadn't said anything at all. I could steer the conversation in any other direction.

"Yes," I said instead, knowing I would probably regret it within a matter of seconds. "They told me. And I know you don't want to hear it, but...for what it's worth, I'm really sorry."

"Did they tell you how it happened?"

There was a bitterness in his voice now. One that had me immensely curious. He threw the butt of his cigarette to the floor and grounded it into the gravel before quickly lighting up another. His eyes flickered to me at long last, assessing my reaction to his last question.

"It was about a month before we were due to start this tour," he began. "She and I were on our way home."

I realised what he was doing then, and cut him off quickly.

"Zacky, you don't need to tell me," I assured him. "I know you don't want to talk about it."

But he held up his hand to silence me and went on.

"We decided to take the long way back. Y'know, spend a little more quality time together before everything started getting really busy. We weren't that far from Brian's place when it happened. Couple blocks down." He narrowed his eyes at the ground. "This group of guys came at us. Drunk off their fucking faces."

He took a long drag from his cigarette, in what I assumed was an attempt to calm himself at least a little. I kept my eyes fixed on him, unable to look away. Why was he putting himself through this little ordeal? Why couldn't I just get up and walk away.

"They attacked us," he told me, as if that needed to be cleared up. "I had three of them on me - holding me back, kicking the crap outta me. Another two had Gena on the ground. She was kicking and screaming the whole fuckin' time." Another long drag, and then this cigarette was on the ground, too. "They made me stand there and watch while they had their fucking fun." He glanced at me, as if he were assessing whether I was ready to hear it or not. "They raped her. Beat her to hell. Left her there to die. The medics didn't get there fast enough."

I didn't know whether it was the story itself or the fact that his now emotion filled voice finally cracked with his final sentence, but I was crying. I hastily wiped the tears away, hoping that he hadn't seen them.

"I could have saved her," he went on bitterly. "She was right there, right in front of me, and I didn't..."

He buried his face in his hands, and I couldn't help it any more. I wrapped my arms around his middle and hugged him tightly, feeling sick to my stomach now that I knew more about his suffering. I came to the sad realisation that he too was crying when I felt him take a couple of shaky breaths. After several moments, he looked up again.

"And when I saw you being attacked in that alley..."

For the first time, I thought back to when my father had been attacking me and considered what it would have looked like to an outsider. What it would have looked like to Zacky. In that second that he had come to my rescue, he hadn't known that my attacker was also my father. All he had known was that there was a middle aged man attacking a teenage girl, and that it was most definitely not right.

"I couldn't save Gena," he said regrettably, "but it was like I was given another chance when I saw you that night, and this time I succeeded."

"You did," I affirmed, "and I can never thank you enough for it, or for the past week."

"Matt's gonna send you home soon, huh?" I nodded. As far as I knew, that was still the plan. "Where're you gonna go?"

"I'll find somewhere," I assured him. "I've gotta get back to school, anyway. Find a job to work in my spare time. I'll be okay."

He was shaking his head almost from the moment I had started speaking.

"I wouldn't leave you on the streets then, so what makes you think I'll do it now?"

His tone had turned serious, the terrible emotion gone from it as quickly as it had come. I tried to think of an adequate response to this, but after coming up completely blank decided that the discussion might be better left to Matt. I could see the determination in Zacky's eyes already.

If his girlfriend had not been brought up today, would his reaction to my leaving still be the same?

One part of me hoped that it would be. I liked to believe that he truly cared about me - that it wasn't all something caused by his recent trauma. It was a selfish thought, I knew, but I couldn't help it. Perhaps Brian was right to dislike me.

"Everything alright over here?"

I looked up. Matt looked back, his eyes travelling between Zacky and myself curiously. A quick glance around showed me that Brian and Jimmy were climbing into their car. Johnny had opted to join them, though he caught my eye and sent a reassuring smile before climbing into the vehicle.

"Everything's fine," Zacky replied. "We leaving?"

"Yep." Matt held out a hand to me and I took it gratefully, allowing him to pull me to my feet. "Come on. Let's get back to the hotel and get some sleep."

Zacky kicked the cigarette butts at his feet aside before standing too. Matt lead me to the second car in silence, not failing to cast a few curious looks back at Zacky as he did so; he opened the back door and gestured for me to get into the car.

"He told me about his girlfriend," I said quietly as I climbed in, and Matt's expression turned to one of what I believed to be genuine surprise. "He told me how she died."

"Try not to dwell on it," he replied gently, as if he knew exactly where my thoughts were going to be. "I'll speak with him tonight. See if I can't fix things."

He shut the door and got into the front passenger seat as Zacky got into the back with me. He didn't speak and I didn't really have anything to say, so I rested my head against the cool glass pane of the window and took to watching the city lights as they passed us by.