Some Say This Can't Be Real.

Johnny and I arranged to spend the week following the tour just by ourselves. It had been a while since we did so, and I know I was missing my brother. Of course the day we got back, I took a long hot shower, and went right to bed. I was positive that Johnny did the same thing. Fourteen hours later, I woke up feeling better than I had in the last two months. Johnny was still asleep as I walked out to the kitchen. It was just past nine in the morning as I opened cabinets looking for whatever food I could find. I found a jar of pickles in the fridge and began eating them as I continued searching for anything that hadn't expired while we were gone. I managed to find an unopened jar of peanut butter and a box of oatmeal. With a pickle hanging out of my mouth, I emptied a few packets of the oats into a saucepan with water to boil.

“What the hell are you cooking in here?” Johnny asked, startling me.

“Dude, I'm starving and there's not a lot of food here,” I said.

“You could've taken my car,” he said, knowing I didn't have mine at the moment.

“I didn't feel like going out.” I shrugged.

He walked in and leaned against the counter next to the stove. “So this is an interesting concoction you got here. Pickles, peanut butter, and oatmeal.”

I shrugged. “I'm fucking starving, and surprisingly, these are hitting the spot,” I said as I grabbed another pickle before stirring the oatmeal. “You want some?”

Johnny laughed. “No thanks. I'm gonna go grocery shopping, you can come when you're done with your oatmeal surprise.” He left the room to go change.

I stuffed another spoonful of peanut butter into my mouth before looking at the gooey contents of the pan. Shrugging again, I scooped it into the garbage and went to go change to go with my brother. We spent nearly two hours at the grocery store, even crossing paths with Matt and Valary. While the two men walked behind us, Val and I pushed the carts and talked. I asked her if she had heard from Leana since we've been back. Leana was doing well with the baby. Family had been around to help her out while we were gone. Before we parted ways, we declared that we needed to have a group get together soon.

When we got home, both of us were in the kitchen trying to cook something somewhat decent. Spending most of the tour eating nothing but concession stand food wasn't doing either of us any good, and I knew I could go for something healthy. After eating, we began our many loads of tour laundry before sitting down with the TV on to relax and to talk. We exchanged tour stories and other experiences during our time on the tour that we weren't together. Mostly road stories while we were driving. Then we realized that there wasn't much to talk about.

It wasn't much longer until we started playing video games and talking shit to each other while we were playing. These were the times I loved with my brother. Times when we could laugh and just have fun by ourselves. The last time we were really able to do this without drama was before I had ran away.

During a pause in the game, I saw that I had a message from Zack asking what I was up to. I felt bad for ignoring him, but as part of the arrangement, my boyfriend and I said that we wouldn't bother each other as much. He knew that I had felt like I was growing apart from my brother, and I knew he was spending time with family and his own brother as well as I had encouraged. I hadn't formally met his parents and any other family of his as his girlfriend, but we knew it would happen around the holidays. Right now I just wanted to enjoy the time with my brother.

“Zacky already missing you?”

“Yeah. I'll call him tomorrow to talk.”

“Just talk to him now.”

I shook my head. “Johnny, you and I haven't spent a lot of time together lately, and right now I just wanna be with you. You're my brother, and we're starting to go our separate ways. I don't want that.” My eyes subtly shifted to the screen where I was running around in the game.

Johnny on the other hand, wasn't paying attention to the game. “We're not gonna go our separate ways, Lisa. Everything is fine between us. Yeah we're grown up now and we have our own lives and relationships, but we're not gonna grow apart. You're my little sister, and you'll always be my little sister.”

“AHA! So you do admit it!” I shouted with a smile. “You're dating Lacey!” While I waited for his reaction, I turned half of my attention to the game as I saw his character in the game. He was speechless and couldn't figure out what to say, so to change the subject, I shot his character in the game and killed him.

“Hey!” he whined, whipping his head to the TV. “You ass!” He leaned to push me over on the couch as I was laughing.

“I figured I'd take you off the spot,” I said through laughter, still laying on the couch. “Yeah I'm an asshole.”

He shook his head and turned his attention to the game. I sat up and brought my attention back to it as we were trying to kill each other and just have a good time. Before we even knew it, it was getting later in the day and we were both hungry again. He said he'd cook, but I followed him into the kitchen anyways and dug through the cabinets again, pulling out a jar of frosting that I threw in the cart at the store.

“Really, Lisa? You seriously got a jar of frosting to eat?”

“Yeah, I did,” I said as I scooped a spoonful of the spread. “Dude, I didn't eat a lot on tour, I told ya I'm starved, sugar deprived, and I don't know, I'm just craving chocolate frosting right now, so shush.” I stuck out my tongue at him before shoving the spoon in my mouth.

“Says the one who wanted to eat healthier earlier today.”

“Yeah, once my blood sugar levels out and I stop PMSing or whatever is going on right now.”

I watched my brother cook as I continued to spoon the chocolatey contents of the container into my mouth. I knew it was PMS because all I wanted right now was chocolate.

“Dude, you're making me sick with that,” Johnny said, turning to look at me.

“Says the guy who used to eat globs of cookie dough when mom was making cookies for holidays.” I laughed.

“Duh, because cookie dough is awesome. Everybody knows that. Eating frosting is a different story.” I rolled my eyes as I capped the container and put it in the refrigerator as he emptied the contents of the large pot into the strainer in the sink. I looked over his shoulder at the steaming pile of pasta as he dumped it into a plastic storage bowl. Johnny shook his head and laughed at me. “Calm down, killer. Jeez, you really didn't eat on tour did you?”

“I told you, not a lot,” I said as I grabbed the pan of sauce that was warming on another burner.

After I scarfed down a plate and a half of the spaghetti, I did the dishes while Johnny took a shower. Before sitting back on the couch, I grabbed another pickle out of the jar in the fridge and then went to continue watching whatever was on TV at the moment. Once Johnny was done, I went to take my own quick shower. As I was heading back to the living room, I stopped out of view when I heard my brother talking to somebody. With an arched eyebrow, I stood around the corner and listened.

“I'm hoping it's just like a female thing and that's she doesn't have some kind of weird sickness. I know a lot of us were feeling under the weather while on tour, but I found her this morning eating pickles and peanut butter while making oatmeal. Then just a bit ago she was eating frosting. I know what girls go through once a month, but shit.” There was a pause which had me thinking about what my brother was saying on the phone. I had the symptoms of PMS I usually got. Moodiness, and cravings for chocolate and sugar. His voice broke into my thoughts. “Yeah, probably just the new stresses of their first tour. I hear when things change that it can sometimes interfere with that, but I ain't no chick so I don't really know that much.”

I walked in casually and sat on the couch as he listened to the phone. “Who's that?” I mouthed to him.

“Matt,” he mouthed back. “Yeah, well I'm sure we'll all get sick anyways. We usually do after touring. I gotta go now, I'll talk to you later.” He hung up the phone and tossed it to the side. “He thinks Val might be pregnant. He found her eating chocolate sauce that she dumped into a jar of peanut butter. And that was after she had woken up and was sick this morning.”

I laughed. “So you compared to what I was doing today? I'm telling you, we girls get crazy around that time of the month.”

“You're being more snarky than you usually are.” My brother arched an eyebrow at me.

“Sometimes I like being a snarky, sarcastic, asshole.” I grinned confidently as I turned to the TV.

We watched TV for a while longer until I decided I was going to head to bed. Johnny stayed up in the living room while I brushed my teeth and shut myself in my bedroom. I grabbed my phone to call Zack to talk for a bit. I felt bad for ignoring him throughout the day, and I had missed hearing his voice. We didn't talk very long before I was beginning to doze off. Once I was fighting to keep my eyelids open, I said bye to him and then laid down to get comfortable and finally fall asleep.