Shattered By Broken Dreams

The next morning, I woke up as I normally did, without a hangover. Once I was ready to go, I opened the door to see a comical sight. It was the aftermath of any good party: bottles of random alcohols spread over any flat surface, a tower of roughly 80 beer cans, and people passed out in random places, one of whom was Michael—who likes to get naked when he’s drunk—in front of my door. Thank God I had enough sense to lock the door when I went to bed that night.

I made my way through the maze of wreckage and scribbled a quick note to my brother saying I’d call him when I was at my best friend’s house to let him know I got there safely.
An agonizing four and a half hours later, I pulled up to my best friend Jayne’s house. As per normal, I walked into her house as if it was mine.

“Honey, I’m home!” I called into the house.

“Rebekah Suzanne! You are a full day late. What the hell did Mark do?” She laughed as she hugged me.

“You aren’t going to believe it. Mark pushed Michael at me and told me to fuck him just to get him off Mark’s back about wanting to. Then he got me drunk at a send off party he just had to throw, I had to pry Michael off of me and throw him out of my room like a dozen times, then I was too hungover—for the first time in my life—to drive anywhere. And Mark had the bright idea to throw a Part 2 last night.” I summed up the events of the past two evenings as we walked up to her room.

“Bek, I don’t want to worry you, but Mark telling you to have sex might be one of the signs of the Apocalypse!” Jayne laughed.

“That was kinda my thinking too.” I laughed with her while mentally counting down to when she would ask about Cody and the few pictures I had of him.

“So… Do I get to see the pictures of what is undoubtedly an absolutely adorable baby?”

“Damn it. I was only at 2. You asked a full second and a half early.” I laughed as I pulled out a small flash drive with the pictures of my now four month old son.

“You did the mental count down.” She sighed. “You ought to know better than that by now.” She laughed.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you want to see my son or not?”

After she cooed over how cute Cody was, we decided that we’d have a chick flick marathon for the night. I needed an excuse to cry as I hadn’t allowed myself to since I was in labor.

Jayne and I went to bed around 1:30, which is early for us, so that we could go to Warped the next day and enjoy some music before I had to start working. Jayne and I decided to deck ourselves out in all our favorite bands. She was wearing a Panic! At The Disco tee shirt, Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship, Taking Back Sunday, and The Academy Is wrist bands all up her arms. I was wearing an Avenged Sevenfold tee, my belt buckle was AFI, and I had Fall Out Boy and Green Day wrist bands.

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“So I’m thinking that spraying these kids with a massive hose would be a good idea. What do you think, Deb?” I asked the nurse I was going to be working with for the rest of the tour about three hours into my shift.

“I think these kids’ll like it and if you had a hose long enough, I’d say go for it.” She laughed.
“Until you find one, though, you get to handle cooling down and re-hydrating everyone who doesn’t know what water looks like.”

“Gee… Thanks.” I laughed. Just then, an apparent dehydration and borderline heat exhaustion walked in. “I got it.” I sighed.

After doing the preliminary check to see if anything else was wrong with this guy was done, I decided I should probably figure out who I’m dealing with.

“So how long have you been out there, hun?” I asked the strangely familiar man in front of me as I placed a cold compress in his head and gave him a water bottle.

“Only about an hour. But I didn’t drink anything before I started jumping around the stage and I was too into it to really take a break. Not my smartest move.” He explained, chuckling.

“Oh! You’re one of the performers! That must be why I feel like I’ve seen you somewhere before. What band and what instrument?” I asked, now intrigued.

The man stared at me like I had lost my head. “You don’t know who I am? That’s saddening and refreshing all at once.”

“Nope. Sorry, hun. I prefer to listen to the music, not go and Google what the members look like, what they like to do, who they’re dating. It’s creepy.” I laughed as I told him.

“Well alright then. I’m Avenged Sevenfold’s lead guitarist.” He smirked in what I could assume was his normal expression of smugness.

“No way! I love you guys. Everything about ya’ll’s music is amazing.” I said as I tried to recheck the man in front of me so I could clear him to go back out.

“So what’s your name? The guys won’t believe that the hot nurse in an A7X shirt didn’t know who I was.” He laughed.

“Yeah… I’m totally the hot nurse…” I said as I rolled my eyes with a smile on my face. “I’m Rebekah. And at the risk of sounding really rude, I hope I don’t have to see you in my tent again.”I laughed as I checked his pupil dilation and temperature.

“Ouch! Nurse, I have a bruise on my ego. Can I get some ice for that?” We laughed. “No, seriously, why don’t I get to come back and bother you?”

“Only three reasons. 1: I’m working. 2: if I see you back here, that’ll mean that you’ve done something stupid or hurt yourself. I’d like if we didn’t always see each other under those circumstances-”

“So you do want to see my sexiness again!” He interrupted in triumph.

“And 3: I still don’t know your name.” I laughed.

“I’m Brian Haner. Synyster Gates when I’m on stage.” He smirked again.

“Well, Brian. If you sit still and are quiet long enough, I can get your blood pressure checked and let you go mingle with your fans.” I smiled.

“Yes ma’am.” He said dejectedly as I turned my back to the entrance of the tent to strap the cuff on his muscular arm.

“Brian! Are you OK, man?” A male voice called out from behind me. I felt eyes on the back of my head.

“Hey Shads! Yeah, I’m good, man. I got the hot nurse taking care of me.” I could hear the smirk in his voice.

“Could you please not stare? It’s rude.” I said as I charted Brian’s blood pressure and removed the cuff. “Alright, Brian. You’re good to go back out and mingle with the fans. Please remember to drink water and don’t just sit around in the heat getting shitfaced today, OK?” I laughed.

“Yes ma’am! So I really can’t come back to bug you at work?” He whined adorably as he went to stand next to his friend and – I’m assuming – bandmate.

I just laughed as I turned to look at him when I spoke. “No, Brian. Not at work.” I then saw who his friend was. “Matt?” I asked, confused. This was the guy I met at Mark’s party in California.