Slow Burn

“I’ve been gone for far too long”

Plane ticket in my hand, luggage already packed onto the plane, I stood in line behind a business woman on her phone. Although her conversation was loud and obnoxious, I didn’t manage to catch a word of it. My mind was reeling as the ten people in front of me slowly boarded the plane. The plane that would take me to LAX where Zacky Baker, the boy I hadn’t spoke to in four years, would take me to my brother’s vacant apartment.

My stomach knotted as another thought floated into my head, a general thought. Even though it was so simple, it made me feel sicker than the thought of lying in Jimmy’s apartment without him.

I was going home.

Huntington Beach, it was always absolutely gorgeous. Although I had spent my whole life walking on the beach, setting up bonfires and drinking underage with my friends, I had never grown tired of it. Sure, my dreams wanted to take me into the jungle of a city, but even there I yearned for the cool ocean breeze to whip into my face, blowing my hair back as I shut my eyes and smelled the ocean burn up the night. There were Saturday nights where I wanted nothing more than to walk out into my backyard, set fire to the wood in the pit, invite the guys over, and drink with them, watching Brian and Jimmy run into the ocean in their boxers, acting like complete idiots while Matt and Johnny spoke about girl problems and Zacky and I toasted marshmallows and ate smores until we were about to throw up.

Just the thought of how my life used to be, how unbelievably perfect it was sent me spiraling down into silent tears. Standing behind the loud woman, I inhaled sharply and quickly wiped my tears away with my sweatshirt sleeve. Once she was out not my way, I took a deep breath, handed the woman my passport and plane ticket, and stared ahead. The tunnel that connected the building to the plane made my head pulse. If I walked down there, the next place I would be on the ground was in Huntington.

“Here you go Ms. Sullivan, have a nice flight”, she handed me the ticket stub shoved inside of my passport. For a moment, I hesitated. Fright washed over me. Going back to Huntington Beach with Jimmy waiting for me at the airport sounded comforting, but having Zacky there, it was almost as bad as having Brian there.

It was just scary.

Shaking it off, I stumbled off down the tunnel. Eyes moving slowly around the glass walkway, I watched the planes taking off down the runway, soaring off into the air, defying all the rules of gravity. With a heavy sigh, I looked up to see the entrance to the plane. Not wanting to accept reality, I looked back out of the window to watch the planes take off, only to see the runway completely empty.

I had to get on the plane, I had to go home. I had to attend the funeral, and then…

Blinking, I walked into the plane, took my seat in the middle next to an older woman and then put my seatbelt on. What was I going to do when all of this was over. Once Jimmy was gone, what was I going to do? I was sure Zacky was only being nice to me because of what happened, so what’s going to happen to me once the funeral is over, once the sour feelings come back. Should I just go back to my job as an artist, leaving my friends behind again? Then again, what else did I know, what else could I do?

Nothing.

The plane was up in the air, the bright sign to keep your seatbelts on was off, and all of the people in the plane had complimentary headphones in their ears listening to the horrible old movie that was playing in the plane as they drifted to sleep. All of them, except me. My mind was too busy, too caught up in my future. I keep thinking, why would it be any different, Jimmy was never with me anyway, but for some reason, I felt like he was. I felt like without him, I just couldn’t make it.

An hour into the plane ride, a welcoming feeling ran through me. My body grew tired, my limbs were comfortable, and my eyelids grew too heavy to keep up. Sleep; the one thing I had been dying to do since the second I hung up the phone with Jimmy. Why I haven’t slept, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was because if I fell asleep, the memory of him whispering ‘I love you,’ might leave my mind. Maybe it was because if I fell asleep, I would end up like him, dead. Maybe it was because if I fell asleep, I’d dream about him only to wake up and try to call him only to remember that he wasn’t around anymore.

With the less than comforting thoughts running through my mind, my eyelids won the battle and shut my eyes off from the lights of airplane. Within seconds of staring into the darkness of my thoughts, my body drifted into a dead sleep.

- - - - - - - - - - -
“Dear”, something started to shake my arm, “Oh Dear, wake-up, honey!” Whoever was shaking me managed to shake me out of the comfortable spot on I was in, and with another shake, my head slammed against the small window of the plane. As the pain from the hit on the head and sleeping for five straight hours rolled through my head, I groaned and sat up looking up at the older women who had rode next to me on the plane.

With a deep inhale I looked down, unbuckled my seatbelt and stood up. "Thank you very much”, I breathed and gave her a small smile before walking passed her with my carry on in hand. Step by step, my mind slowly defogged itself. I was in Los Angeles. I was in California. In about a half hour I was going to be standing in front of Zacky Baker. In an hour and a half, I would be at my brother’s apartment without him. Jimmy Sullivan was dead.

The urge to cry boiled up in my veins, but as I headed out of the tunnel connecting the plane and building, I remembered I was in public, and crying like I wanted to would not be a good thing. Too much fake sympathy, too much embarrassment, something I tried to dodge as much as possible.

From the tunnel, I followed the group of people over to the large conveyor belt going around in a circle. As I took a spot next to a family laughing about something, I bit the inside of my mouth to stop the overwhelming envy I had for them, for how perfectly they seemed to get along, how perfect their parents seemed to be.

Eyes set to a glare; I turned away from them and watched as the luggage started to pass me. Luckily I had decided to go with the suitcases that had zebra print on them, making them extremely easy to spot in a situation like this. As more and more suitcases were spit out onto the belt, I watched as people started to leave. First it was a few businessmen, then a few girls, two sets of newlyweds, and then finally it was a few older men and women, and the family right next to me.

As a familiar print was finally placed onto the belt, I looked over to my side to see the older boy look over his sister, say something and they both laughed. When they had stopped laughing, he took her into a hug and kissed the top of her head.

I felt sick. Swallowing hard, I quickly grabbed my two suitcases. Pulling the handle out to roll the larger one behind me, I held the other one in my right hand and quickly walked away from the belt, and away from that damn family. They were so perfect it made me absolutely sick. My father and mother would never do that to me or Jimmy, they probably think were both still alive, or both dead. They never took us anywhere; they never even cared to think about it.

Biting my mouth for the second time, I felt my teeth break through the skin. As blood started to fill my mouth, I sighed heavily and looked up to see the huge lobby of the building. There were thousands of tables, what seemed like hundreds of stores, and what looked like a million people. How I was supposed to find someone who I haven’t seen in years was beyond me. At this point, all I wanted to do was find an empty table and take another nap.

Unfortunately, as I walked through crowds of people trying not to kill small children with my suitcases, my eyes fell upon no vacant tables, and no one who could have been the same Zacky from her memories. Sure, Avenged Sevenfold had blown up in the last four years, but they haven’t blown up to the point of posters lining the Manhattan streets, and I had done everything in my power to keep my eyes away from them. Even a picture of them now sent me into a whole new guilt trip.

“Holy…” even with the one small word, my ears perked. It was so familiar, like someone had gone into my head and pulled out my memories. “Is that you, Kimberly?” the voice set off bells in my head, and as I stopped walking in the middle of a crowd of people and turned to my left, I felt my jaw unhinge.

It was Zacky, but not the somewhat innocent Zacky from my memories. His black hair and blue eyes were exactly the same, but now his bottom lip was accessorized in snake bites, his ears were gauged and his arms were covered in tattoos. He also look like he started working out, and he was much more muscular that I remembered. As I kept staring at him, tears rushed to my eyes and I turned away as I started crying.

Before I knew it, my suitcases were on the ground next to me, and my arms were wrapped around Zacky’s neck. “I’m so sorry”, I wept into his shoulder, my body rocking as my mouth heaved up another sob. “I’m so fucking sorry”, I whispered as Zacky sniffled and pulled me out of his shoulder, holding me arms length away.

“Listen to me, Kimmy”, he looked right into my eyes, the normal fun filled blue eyes I came to love, broken and worried, “I don’t give a fuck what happened four years ago, alright? We are not kids anymore; those are just bad memories now, alright?” When I didn’t respond to him he quickly took my face into his hands and directed my eyes into his. “Kims”, he whispered his heart breaking in his eyes as I held my silence.

With a deep breath, I looked up at him and nodded. With that, he grabbed my bags, his arms showing the large muscles he had grown while I was absent from his life. “Are you taking me to Jimmy’s?”

“You think I would do that to you?” Zacky asked as we reached the front doors of the airport. Walking side by side, we crossed the street and started walking through the rows of cars in the huge parking lot.

Inhaling the fresh Californian air I hadn’t felt in years, I almost smiled but as I looked up at the cloudy sky, I was reminded why I was here, and even the smallest thought of smiling left me. “I have nowhere else to stay”, I pointed out as we crossed another street and entered the second half of the parking lot.

“You’re going to stay with me and Bri-“

“No”, my legs stopped moving, my heart stopped beating, and the only word my mind could give me to say was ‘no’. Repeating it a few times, my body went numb. I knew I was going to see these boys at the funeral, but that didn’t mean I wanted to see them now, three days before.

Heaving up a sigh, Zacky walked on without me and up to a large black SUV. Once he put the suitcases in the car, he shut the trunk shoved the keys into his back pocket and walked over to me, angry. “I’m not letting you stay alone in some hotel, you’re staying with me”

“No”, I said sternly, the tears I had grown to accept in the last two days coming through the corners of my eyes. “I’m not… I can’t handle it”, my teeth took in my bottom lip and started to gnaw on it. “He hates me, they all hate me, you probably hate me to, just let me stay in a hotel, out of your hair, I-“

“How many fucking times do I have to tell you, Kimberly?” Zacky screamed in a pleading way, “That was the past. I’m older now, I get it. Now that I look back on it, I’m proud of you. You followed your dreams that you had since you were eleven. I commend you for that, I really do. Just fucking believe me!”

“You’re lying”, I hissed.

“If I still had bad feelings about it, Kim, I wouldn’t be here in the middle of the fucking airport parking lot at six in the morning begging you to come back with me”, he sighed heavily, putting his hands on my shoulders and pulling me into a hug. “I don’t care what happened, I miss you. I lost Jimmy, I’m no losing you now that I have you back”, and with that I broke down into hysterics in my best friend arms.

Zacky sighed heavily and kissed me on the forehead, pulling me under his arm and close to his side. “Come on Kimmy, let’s go”, he whispered and kissed me on the cheek one last time before I got into his expensive looking SUV. Closing the door, I put my seatbelt on and pressed my head against the window.

“Brian’s going to kill me”, I thought aloud.

“I’ll protect you, Kimbers”, he whispered.

“Don’t fucking call me that”, I snapped and then sunk down in my chair, my eyes wide as I realized what had slipped past my lips. Inhaling sharply, I turned to Zacky who was focused on driving on the busy freeways. It looked like my sudden outburst hadn’t fazed him.

After a few minutes, I ran my hands through my hair and rubbed my eyes of any extra tears. “I’m sorry Zacky, it’s just-“

“Its fine, Kims”, he whispered reaching over and taking my little hand in his, “I’m going to be here for you through this, I’m never leaving you again”, his words dissipated into the air, and as I kept my head against the cold window I shut my eyes and gave Zacky’s hand a little squeeze.

Maybe since Zacky grew up and forgot about everything, maybe the rest of the guys have too.

I could only hope.