Don't Let Me Cave In

You would have thought that being a tour manager for a band would mean my flights would never be screwed up. I mean, I was the one dealing with the flights all the time. I booked them, I paid for them, I held onto tickets until the last possible second so the guys wouldn’t lose them. So you would think that I would always have the most direct flight possible at any given time.

But, you would be wrong. I could count on one hand how many times my flight hadn’t been screwed up and I hadn’t landed three states away from where I was supposed to be.

I let my body collapse into one of the bar stools inside of the Philadelphia International Airport bar. I ordered a beer and took my phone out of my right pocket while digging in my left for my wallet. I set both items on the bar and unlocked my phone to see how many messages I had waiting for me. There were a couple texts, mainly from the guys informing me they had all made it home safe. There was a missed call from my sister and a voicemail, also from her.

I didn’t even bother calling or texting any of them back before I locked the phone and set it back on the bar. I didn’t feel like dealing with any of them right now.

The bartender set a glass of beer in front of me and I handed him the last ten dollar bill in my wallet. I took a drink while I rubbed my temple; I could feel the headache coming on.

I set my drink down when my phone started buzzing obnoxiously on the bar. I sighed and picked it up, inspecting the name flashing on the screen. “Hello?” I answered finally when I decided I didn’t have a choice.

“I’m sitting at the BWI Airport, but surprisingly enough, you aren’t here,” she replied. “What’s with that, Flyzik?”

“Shit!” I hissed into the phone. “I’m not at BWI, Nat. I’m sitting in Philly because my flight got messed up. I’m sorry,” I apologized, but I didn’t sound very apologetic. I was running out of steam, and this phone call was almost the icing on the cake.

I heard her sigh and utter a few curses before she returned to the conversation. “Again?” was all she said. She was referring to my flight screw up. I wasn’t lying when I said it happened all the time. “Okay, what time is it?”

I pulled the phone from my ear and checked. “Almost two thirty. Why?”

“I can probably be there in 2 and a half hours, if we’re lucky. But I might hit traffic so I don’t know. I could probably get there by five if we’re lucky.”

“You don’t have to, Natalee. I can take a cab.”

She just scoffed in response. “I’ll be there as quick as I can,” was all she said before she hung up.

***

Natalee Stevenson was my saving grace, and she always had been. She was always there for me when I needed something, and after all of the favors she had done for me I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to repay her.

I tried, of course. I gave her tickets to the guys’ shows, I gave her plane tickets to come out and see us, and she even came to Hawaii with us a time or two. She was one of my best friends, and the guys loved her too.

Natalee kept me sane. She helped me out, she was willing to pick me up if I needed her too, and if I couldn’t do it then she tried her best to keep the guys in check for me. Nat was everything I needed her to be, when I needed her to be, and I couldn’t thank her enough.

Of course, she had her moments. She wasn’t perfect, that was for sure. She may have had a mouth like a teenage boy, but she was my best friend. She could name the entire starting line of the Philadelphia Eagles, she knew every player on the Philadelphia Flyers, and she could sing every single word to every single Blink-182 song known to man. We were “two peas in a pod” as they said, and despite the times we often clashed heads with one another because we were so alike, I wouldn’t trade her in for anything in the world.

***

Several hours later, and definitely one too many drinks, I was climbing (read: falling) into Nat’s old, beat-up Tercel. As soon as I was seated and maneuvered myself into a comfortable position, I slammed the door and relaxed into the seat. “Home please,” I mumbled, laying my head back on the headrest and closing my eyes.

“You know Matt,” she muttered as I heard her turn her blinker on. I felt the car move, but then again that could have just been my head spinning from the large amounts of alcohol I had consumed.

“What Nat? Please, I’d love to hear you lecture me. Let me just throw myself out of the moving vehicle first,” I spat. What could I say? I was an angry drunk sometimes.

She sighed, but said no more. I slowly reached forward and turned the volume on the radio down before my head exploded. But then it was the deafening silence that was making my head spin. Either that, or I was getting carsick.

After several miles of silence with nothing but the very low hum of the radio surrounding us, I spoke up, feeling bad for snapping at Natalee. “Ok, I’m sorry Nat. You drove all the way to New York to pick me up and I bite your head off. What were you going to say?”

She looked at me briefly out of the corner of her eyes with a glare on her face. When she directed her attention back to the road, she spoke. “You’re being a huge douchebag,” she said simply.

I barked out a laugh before slipping my sunglasses off of my face. I turned in my seat and looked at her full on before she turned and looked at me. Her face softened almost instantly, I’m assuming from the look on my face.

“Oh Matt...” she sighed, turning her attention back to the road. “You’re a mess.”

I didn’t answer. It was hard to argue with an absolute truth.

“What happened? I thought tour was going good.” She didn’t take her eyes off the road, so I turned in my seat so I was facing the windshield again and stared straight ahead. I didn’t really want to talk about it, so I told her that. “Oh no, Matt. You don’t get to brush me off, not now. We’re stuck in this car with each other for the next few hours and I’m not going to let you just give me the cold shoulder the whole drive.”

I grunted in response.

“Fuck you!” she exclaimed suddenly, startling me. “What’s wrong?” she asked when I turned to figure out what was wrong with her.

“Nothing is wrong, Natalee! I just had the longest fucking flight known to man and you’re making me feel like I should throw myself out of this moving car, but I’m just fucking peachy!” I yelled at her. I regretted it instantly when my head started pounding in protest.

“Chill out, alright? We don’t have to yell.”

I scoffed. She was the one who started the yelling. I didn’t answer her.

“Alright, I’m sorry Matt. I just wanted to know what was wrong with my best friend, because when he left the country a month ago, everything was fine and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to put him on suicide watch.”

I didn’t respond, again. I figured that would shut Natalee up, realizing I wasn’t going to speak, but I should have known better. This was Natalee I was talking about.

“Is it Emma?” she said suddenly, making me freeze up. Sometimes, I swear she could read my mind. “Did you and Emma break up, Matt?” she pushed, obviously not getting the vibes that I didn’t want to fucking talk about it.

“Did the bitch cheat on you Matt? Because I swear, I’ll knock her out,” she rambled.

I closed my eyes and flinched, feeling my heart tugging in eight different directions. I couldn’t believe she hit the nail on the head so quickly. I mean, it was Natalee, but still. Even she wasn’t this good. I sighed. “Who told you?”

I watched as she chewed her lip. “Alex may have mentioned it when I was at the airport. And Jack. And maybe Rian, too.”

I groaned. “Good to know the whole world knows what’s going on in my life,” I grumbled.

“Aw, you think I’m the whole world?” she joked. When I glared at her, she promptly shut up. “Okay, it’s not that big of a deal though, I mean... I was going to find out, Matt. You would have told me eventually.” I just closed my eyes and relaxed into the seat, trying to let what she was saying go in one ear and out the other.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know that Natalee cared about me. She was my best friend, and she wanted what was best for me at all times. But sometimes her judgement was clouded by other things, usually her feelings for other people or her opinions on certain things. It wasn’t her fault, it’s just the way it was. She had been that way her whole life, and at 23, she wasn’t going to change now.

When I finally tuned back in to what she was saying, it was at the worst possible time. “You know Matt, I’m just trying to help. I was trying to help before you two even got together too, but you pushed me out of it. Like what I was saying wasn’t totally out of your best interests or anything. I mean, was I or was I not completely spot on about Emma?”

“I don’t want to hear it, Nat,” I ground out.

“I’m just saying! I said from the very beginning she was a bitch, and I know you think you were in love with her and shit, but that was not love, Matt. That shit you two had going was fucked up and ridiculous, but it most certainly was not love.”

“Fuck you!” I screamed at her, causing every single sound in the tiny car to be drowned out by my voice. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!”

She stopped, finally. She stopped babbling and she stopped lecturing me and she just stopped. She was quiet for the first time during the whole car ride. I took a deep breath to try and calm my anger, but it didn’t really work. “You want to jump on your fucking high horse and lecture me right now, Natalee? Fucking fine. But please, do not tell me that I wasn’t in love with her alright? Because you are not me and you do not know shit,” I spat at her. I waited for only a few seconds to see if she’d respond, and when she didn’t I turned my entire body away from her and stared out the window.

The silence didn’t last long though, which I guess I should have expected. This was Natalee. She was never going to let me get away with what I had just said to her.

“No, James,” she spat, like the words were distasteful on her tongue, “you don’t know what you’re fucking talking about. I, however, know exactly what I’m talking about, and that’s why you’re mad. You hate the words I’m saying because I’m right. You knew from the day I warned you that Emma was bad. I fucking spelled it out for you, Matt! I told you she was going to fuck you over, and you ignored me. Like I would fucking lie to you after all these years!” she yelled, slamming her closed fist onto the steering wheel to emphasize her point.

“Fuck you! You literally are out of your mind if you think any of that is true!” I yelled right back.

“Oh whatever, Matt. Deny it if you want to, but it really doesn’t change anything. You’re still broken up with Emma because she’s a lying, deceiving whore, and you’re still heartbroken about it even though you and her not being together anymore just may be the best thing to ever happen to you.”

That was the last straw. Hearing Nat talk like she knew what was best for me and like Emma was the worst human being on the face of the earth (when I was pretty sure Natalee should have taken that title for how shitty she was being), I had had enough. “You’re the worst best friend anyone could ever ask for, Natalee!” I screamed. “You’re such a fucking bitch! Are you thinking about my feelings at all right now? Do you even realize how much it hurts to hear you tear me down like this right now, and tell me how stupid I was? Don’t you think I realized that somewhere along the line, probably when, oh I don’t know, Emma was ripping my heart into tiny shreds and throwing them on the ground?”

“Of course I thought of that, Matt! You’re so fucking stupid!”

I was puzzled as to why she thought I was stupid this time, but I didn’t even ask. It was then that I realized we were back in Baltimore, back where I belonged. I saw my house as it came into view as she drove through the neighborhood, and before she even had time to stop the car I was climbing out of it. She was still yelling at me, but I didn’t care. I needed to get away from her, into my own house, and possibly, into my own bed. I didn’t even worry about my luggage, just got out of the car and walked towards my front door.

Unfortunately though, as I was trying to find my key to unlock the door, she was coming up behind me, still screeching about one thing or another. I tried to tune her out before I walked into my house.

“Matthew! I am fucking talking to you!” she roared, following me into the house.

Apparently, she wasn’t finished.

“No, Nat! You’re screaming at me! And I’m fucking sick of it! So will you go home, please? I’ll talk to you later, maybe when you’re done with the yelling.”

“Fine,” she said simply, shrugging her shoulders. As if she hadn’t just been blowing my ear drums out with her exceptionally loud voice moments ago. “I won’t yell. Just know this: you need to get over her, and fast, because she wasn’t good for you to begin with. Dwelling on her and moping around isn’t going to do shit for you, alright?”

Before I could answer, she was turning on her heel to leave. But I wasn’t finished. We were not done with this conversation, not now. “You don’t get it Natalee!” I called to her, stopping her in her tracks.

She turned around to face me. “I don’t get what, Matt?”

“You don’t get it,” I stressed. “You don’t understand what it’s like to be so in love with someone, so head over heels for them that you don’t even know which way is up anymore. I mean, really,” I went on, suddenly on a roll, “how many serious relationships have you been in? You don’t know what it’s like to be in love.”

I watched as her face contorted into something I’ve never seen before. For a few brief moments, I thought Natalee was going to cry. It was like I was watching her heart break, right in front of my face, and suddenly, I got it. I wanted to take back every word I had just thrown at her, but I couldn’t. It was too late, and besides, the damage was done.

Before I could say another word, she was speaking. “Yeah, you’re right Matt,” she laughed bitterly, “I have no idea what it’s like to be in love. No fucking idea,” she spat angrily before she stormed out of my house.

“Natalee, wait!” I yelled, following her out of the house. I caught her before she climbed into her car, grabbing her by the arm firmly and pulling her back. “Hold on!”

She lost her footing from my tug and fell backwards into me. I grabbed her on the shoulders to steady her so she wouldn’t fall on her ass. She tried to pull away from me, but I was a few years older and a little stronger than her, so she didn’t go anywhere. “Let go of me,” she muttered, her voice significantly quieter than it had been in the house.

“Not until you explain what you meant back there, Nat,” I said, just as quietly. I had a really good feeling what she had meant and what had been going through her head, but I wanted her to clarify. I wanted to be 100% sure.

“Nothing Matt, it was nothing. Let me go, I want to go home alright?”

“You’ve been in love, haven’t you Natalee? You know exactly what I mean when I said about falling so far head over heels that you don’t even know which way is up, didn’t you?”

She didn’t answer and instead yanked herself out of my grip. “Of course I knew what you meant!” she hissed, throwing her arms up in frustration. “Do you really think I’ve wanted to sit by your side all these years, just to be your personal puppy dog? I mean really Matt? Do you think I enjoyed just being the friend after all these years? Are you really that dense?

“I’ve been in love with you for as long as I can remember, Matt. And for awhile, I figured it’d go away eventually, so I just didn’t say anything. But then as the years went by it just kept growing, y’know? And eventually, I would cry myself to sleep because it just fucking hurt. It was like... we were always together, but it was almost like I was never there in the first place. You didn’t ignore me, but you might as well have. It would have hurt all the same.

“At the same time though, I hated that! You had the power to control my happiness, and I just wanted to put my head through a wall for letting it get to that. But it was to that point, and by then I couldn’t do a thing about it. I just had to accept it and try and move on.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked her, completely torn up now. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

“Because! By the time I actually wanted to, you were with Emma! And I hated that stupid bitch, I really did. Not even because she had you and I didn’t, but because she was so fucking controlling, and she obviously hated the fact that we were friends. I think she knew how I felt, which wasn’t really a surprise. I mean, I wasn’t totally obvious about it, I just felt like she knew. I just felt like she wasn’t good enough though, like no one but me was good enough.”

“God Natalee! Why didn’t you just say something!?” I spoke, frustration dripping from my every word.

“Why didn’t you just fucking ask me out, Matt? Why didn’t you kiss me that time we got really drunk off Jack Daniels together? Why did you keep going out with girl after girl, even though they were clearly not the right girls for you?” she fired right back. “Why did we do a lot of stupid things?” she sighed, sounding tired.

She was right. Over the years, there had been so many opportunities where if I had just grown a pair and taken the plunge to ask Nat out, we wouldn’t be standing outside having this argument.

So that’s why I didn’t hesitate to do what I did next. I had wasted so many years hesitating and not doing what I should have been doing that I didn’t want to waste another second.

My lips were on hers in a matter of seconds. I backed her body up so she was leaning against her car while my hands did their thing, one going to her waist while the other cupped her cheek. Her arms made their way to my neck, encircling it and pulling me close. Although, we couldn’t have been any closer if we tried.

My hands made their way to the bottom of Natalee’s tank top that was slowly creeping up her stomach, exposing several inches of her sun-kissed summer skin. The slight breeze was causing her long, brown hair to whip around our faces, and I was almost sure goosebumps were appearing on her arms.

When we finally stopped to come up for air, I rested my forehead against hers. Only then did she finally speak again.

“Please do not be fucking with me right now, Matt. I can’t do that, not after so fucking long. If you need a rebound, please kindly get the fuck off of me, because I couldn’t take that.”

I just smiled and kissed the tip of her nose. “Natalee Marie Stevenson, I swear on the life of every single Flyers and Eagles player, Mickey Mouse, and my mom, dad, and sister, that I am not fucking with you. It may have taken me awhile to play catch-up to you, but I’m not a complete cold-hearted bastard.”

She grinned before she pushed her lips to mine.

“Please don’t ever leave me. Even if we fuck this whole relationship thing up so royally that we can never repair it, please don’t ever leave. That’s all I want,” she informed me quietly.

I nodded in agreement. “Always.”