The Beating of Our Hearts

It had been ten days since the argument with Jared. I hadn’t spoken to him, texted him or seen him; I wasn’t going to be the first to cave on this. Mind you, he hadn’t made any contact with me either. Nonetheless, I was going crazy without his company. I think if it hadn’t have been for Shannon and Tomo I would have crawled into bed and stayed there for the rest of the summer. But Shannon called me every day, telling me that Jared was equally as miserable and if I just apologised... But it was there that I would cut him off, I had nothing to apologise for, and he was the one who was an arrogant jerk who couldn’t take it that he didn’t get his own way. Tomo came over a lot, he really knew how to cheer me up, and he started giving me guitar lessons again, by now I could play 100 Suns without any mistakes.

And now it was my last day of freedom, tomorrow was the first day of the new school year. I knew that Poppy’s class was going to have me as their home room teacher again, so I was looking forward to seeing their familiar faces.
I was doing a last minute check of all the stuff I would need for the next day before going to take a nice relaxing bubble bath, hoping that it would relax my constantly tensed muscles. For a week and a half I had been tensing at every sound made by my phone, by every knock on the door; half hoping it was Jared, half dreading if it was.

I poured in the all of the contents of the bubble bath bottle under the hot water and let the bubbles rise into small mountains before slipping into the water. I switched on my iPod speakers to my slow songs playlist, and of course the first one to come on was A Modern Myth. I settled back to listen to it, even though we weren’t talking and not on the best of terms, his voice still managed to soothe me better than any bubble bath could.

I closed my eyes and listened to the lyrics. When he was singing the word ‘goodbye’ I thought of our last encounter, how I slammed the door in his face. A tear slipped quietly out of my eye and trailed down my cheek; I missed him.

My phone began to ring on the sink, surprising me and causing bath water to slop over the side of the tub. I reached out a hand and checked the caller ID before picking up, it was Shannon.
“Hey Shan, what’s up?”
“Not much, whatcha doing?”
“I’m in the bath.” I stated.
“You’re naked? Oooooooh!” I could hear the smirk on his face down the phone.
“Shut up perv. What do you need? I want to get back to relaxing.”
“I’ll bet you do.”
“Stop being disgusting!” I laughed. “Now what’s up?”
“OK, here’s the thing, since I thought you and Jared would have made up by now-“
“Not until he apologises for being a prick.” I interrupted.
“I know. But since I thought you would have, I haven’t told you the news, I thought he may want to.”
“Which is?”
“Well, we’ve been organising it for a while and we’ve just gotten the last details sorted and-“
“Shannon, you’re waffling. Just tell me.”
“Fine, fine. We’re going on tour. Until December.”
“Oh.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you earlier, but I really thought you and Jared would have made up.”
“No need to apologise love. When do you leave?” I strained, trying to keep the upset out of my voice.
“Three days.” He replied timidly.
“Three days?!” I sat up quickly, causing even more bath water to cascade over the side.
“You’re leaving in three days for a four month tour?” I asked to make sure.
“Yeah. Doll I wish you could come with us.” Shannon said.
“I can’t leave my job.” I said automatically.
“I know, and I would never ask you too. But we’re all gunna miss you so much, you’re practically family. And Jared is going to be unbearable not having you around.”
“I’m going to miss you too. And Jared’s a big boy, I’m sure he’ll cope.”
“OK doll, well I’ve gotta go, I still need to get all my shit sorted.”
“OK, but promise you’ll come say goodbye before you leave, you and Tomo.” I clarified.
“Like we could leave without saying goodbye.”
“Alright then, I’ll see you soon.”
“Later doll.”

I sank back in the tub in shock. They were leaving for four months. What was I going to do? They were really the only friends I had in LA, they were the closest thing I had to family. But they had I job to do, and so did I. If their job took them all the way around the world, who was I to bitch and moan?
I lay there, staring into space, for another five minutes before a knock came at the door. Thinking it was probably Tomo, I scrambled out of the bath and covered by bubbled coated body in a towel. I padded through the apartment until I got to the door. I checked through the peephole and my heart suddenly kicked into high gear, on the other side I could see a very familiar pair of ocean blue eyes.
I couldn’t face him, I didn’t want to face him. I didn’t care how stupid the fight was now, it was the principle of it. He couldn’t just assume that he had the right to know any information about me or force me to tell him things, I felt that was arrogance at its highest.

I crept quietly away from the door and made my way into my bedroom, closing the door and drying off. So much for my relaxing bubble bath. I spent ten minutes in my room drying and getting my pj’s on, then dawdling, not wanting to go back into the main area in case Jared was still at the door. As if he may have some sort of x-ray vision where he would know when I left my bedroom.
I couldn’t take it any longer, I opened the door quietly and made my way over to the door again, sneaking a peek through the peep-hole. He was gone. He must have not wanted to talk very much if he left so quickly.

I threw myself down on the sofa, mulling over the state of things. Jared and I had a fight, we weren’t talking, it was driving me up the wall, I was starting school again the next day, and the guys were leaving on a four month tour. I was going to miss them like crazy, even Jared. I didn’t know what to do.