Hesitating and Suffocating

“So, you’re telling me that I can bring Jamie on our three week tour?” John said, skeptical. Garrett looked at Kennedy, who both nodded.

“We just are so happy that you are moving on from Cally, and we want to get to know Jamie, since you clearly care about her,” Kennedy said, being very careful not to say or indicate that Cally was alive. This had to be played out carefully, and so far, it wasn’t working as well as Gare had hoped. John nodded slowly, tugging his shirt down over his pants and nodded again.

“Okay.” He stood and walked towards the microphone in Garrett’s basement. Garrett had been nervous about having everyone there, but Cally had an appointment with a therapist, and Halvo had offered to take her. After awkward introductions and Cally murmuring that she had seen pictures of him and Halvo had smiled.

He wanted to bring Jess, but Garrett thought that’d be far too much for her to handle. He could see her stressing about Halvo, but Halvo promised he’d take as good care of her as he could physically.

They played through their songs for their tour, and that’s when Tim made his announcement. “Okay, boys, so, as you know, on this tour, we can’t have you guys selling merch and I can’t do it either, and there isn’t enough room for a merch crew, so, we found one of Garrett’s friends to do merch for us.” Tim began doing math quietly, and they were silent. “With Jamie and the merch girl, that makes eight of us, enough to fit in John’s pedophile van. Is that okay, John Oh?” Tim asked, and John just nodded.

“It seems that we need to address the elephant in the room,” Jared said, and looked at John. “John, we’re so happy that you found Jamie. And it’s good for you too, since we all know what happened to-”

“Stop.” John’s voice was cold. “I get it. Cally’s gone now and I’m not going to get her back. And it’s not okay, but I’m working towards it because that’s what I have to do to get over these things. But that doesn’t mean that I’m ever going to stop loving Cally. I wanted to marry her, Jared.”

John stood and headed into the kitchen, getting a glass of water while everyone stood in silence. Garrett felt guilty for not telling him about Cally, but what was he supposed to do? Cally explicitly said she hadn’t wanted to see John again, not yet. But Garrett had explained his predicament, and Cally had wanted to go. “Make new memories,” she had muttered, hugging him tightly.

Garrett shook it off. “Whatever, John,” He said loudly, partially sick of John’s bullshit. “Van call is Friday morning at eight, remember that!” Garrett called as everyone walked out of his house, leaving just him and Pat, both straining for the sounds of Halvo’s piece of shit car.