Like You to Me

The drive to Dallas was, for lack of a better term, exhausting. Then again, the first day back in the van always is. Zach wasn’t keen on driving straight through, unlike the rest of the band, so he made sure to make frequent stops which only prolonged our journey. We’d stopped at fourteen different gas stations and six different convenience stores by the time we reached the Texas state line. I guess I wouldn’t have been so unhappy about our stoppages if I hadn’t had a lasting promise with Mike that I’d call him every time we stopped. When it was every half-hour, the conversations proved to be a bit strained and repetitive.

“You’re quiet,” Saxon said to me as Zach, once again, pulled onto the highway.

“I’m tired,” I replied. There was no longer a hint of bitterness in my voice. I’d accepted my fate once we left California and I decided to make the best of it. There were already enough negativity in the van and it didn’t make sense for me to add to it.

“I heard what Andy said earlier.” I winced then. It wasn’t unlike Saxon to keep such things to himself. He was a loner in a lot of ways, which was ironic because he tried so hard to get noticed most of the time. But he was my brother. It was my job to notice the things other people didn’t. “I talked to the rest of the guys and we’re gonna talk to him when we get to the venue.”

“Saxon, don’t kick him out because of me-”

My brother cut me off with a sharp jab to my ribs. Anderson had been sitting in the passenger’s seat while I remained all the way in the back. When I wasn’t driving it was my seat of choice. It was far enough away from the boys’ often perverted and idiotic conversations and I always had the bench seat to myself. Regardless, the reason for the sudden violence was Anderson turning off the radio and turning to face us.

“So, Shea, about that new boy of yours-”

“Leave her alone,” Saxon snapped. He was sitting in front of me so it wasn’t hard to see the way his jaw clenched and his eyebrows furrowed. When my brother got angry, he took it a bit too far. I was hoping he’d have enough common sense to keep it bottled until we got out of the van and there was more than a six-foot radius to move around in.

Anderson didn’t say anything right away, just smirked and turned around in his seat. Then, in a sarcastically sweet voice, he said, “Aww, that’s cute.”

I placed a hand on my brother’s shoulder. I was almost positive he was in the process of getting out of his seat and giving the singer a piece of his mind. There were certain things I was not going to let happen on this tour and my brother getting kicked out of his own band because he couldn’t control his emotions was one of them. Letting Anderson get under my skin was another. The latter was already proving to be a difficult task, though.

“It’s not with it, Sax,” I told him, in the most calming voice I could muster. I wasn’t exactly above average in the consoling your outraged brother department but I was willing to give it a shot.

Darby, who was sitting next to my brother on the bench seat in front of my own, hadn’t said a word during the entire conversation. He usually didn’t. As outgoing and loudmouthed as Anderson was, Darby was the exact opposite. The only time I ever saw him completely let loose was when he was on stage. I’d always ask him about this and he’d always tell me that performing was kind of like blacking out; he never remembered what he did while he was up there after it was all said and done. His stage persona, as I liked to call it, made up for his regular self’s quiet nature, though.

“I can’t wait until the day someone shuts him up.” My brother and I snapped our heads in Darby’s direction simultaneously. It was Saxon who spoke first, though, when he asked him what exactly he meant. “Look at how he talks to you, Shea. The kid’s just an asshole.”

I was backed into a corner then. I didn’t like the feeling I got about the whole situation. No matter what I said, I’d play a huge role in them ultimately kicking him out of the band because of how he treated me. That’s not to say he didn’t deserve it, because he did. I just didn’t want anything to do with it. As a non-member of the band I didn’t have a say in who stayed or who went.

Saxon and Darby resumed their conversation while I shoved my earbuds into my ears. I needed to take a nap--at least until we reached the venue. It was nearing hour twenty of our trip and I was nearly bursting with anticipation. From our previous travels I at least remembered that the venue they’d be playing in Dallas had a separate bathroom for tour members that included a shower. I needed one of those more than I needed a nap; I could function on only a few hours of sleep, but nothing could compare to an on-tour shower.

I dug a blanket out of my duffel bag and spread it over my legs, using the now-deflated bag as a pillow. As hard as it was to get comfortable in the last row of a passenger van, I made the best of it. If Zach drove at the correct speed, we only had four hours left--not much, but it’s more than I was used to getting. No matter how many times I said it, it always held true: trying to sleep while on tour was one of life’s most difficult tasks.

Once I felt the music that poured through my earphones lull me to sleep, I began thinking. Thinking was my downfall because I did it so much--probably too much. It didn’t take long for me to come to the conclusion that I missed Mike. This wasn’t a particularly groundbreaking discovery, really, because I knew that I would. I always did when him or I went on tour. But this time was different. It wasn’t the same kind of longing that it once was. It was more than just missing your best friend and everything that kind of friendship entailed. This was missing someone you had once in a lifetime feelings for.

How long could this possibly go on, though? It’d happened twice before we pulled the plug on the situation and left it to die. Should I be happy that it didn’t or should I cut my losses because I’d never get it back? I wanted Mike in that way but I didn’t know how to handle it. Losing him entirely wasn’t an option. If that meant harboring every feeling, emotion, and desire I had towards him, then I didn’t have a choice. I just wish I knew how he felt about it all.

Perhaps I was never going to know exactly how he felt. I was strangely okay with this. I mean, it would’ve been nice to know where I stood with him, but I knew him well enough to know that I held some special place in his life. Maybe that place was temporary; maybe it was permanent. I didn’t know, and that’s the part that scared me. Even if I knew slightly how he felt about me I didn’t know how long he was going to feel that way. And that left me with only two options: tell him how I felt and speed up the process, or keep it to myself and watch as we slowly grew apart over time.

Roughly four hours later, Saxon shook me awake and told me we were finally at the venue. The world was groggy and blurred for a few minutes. During that time I completely forgot about the war waging inside of me. My life felt normal for the first time in a long time. In those few minutes, I was Shea Carle, the owner of Nova and sister of that one dude in that one band.

But as soon as my vision cleared and I sat up, reality came rushing back to me like someone had just opened a fucking dam. And, once again, I was just Shea Carle, the girl who was helplessly in love with her best friend and couldn’t keep her hands to herself.