You Are the Best Thing That's Ever Been Mine

Miami was generally too hot for Nicholas Matthews’ liking. He’d sweat in his skinny jeans and his long, dyed black hair would stick to the sides of his face. The humidity fucked with his voice. The blinding, blistering Sun felt a million times stronger against his pasty skin. He really was a creature of his childhood- growing up in the snowy mountains of Utah meant little contact with beachy, sandy summer spots.

But he couldn’t help the fact that his band, Get Scared, had fans in Florida, and his bandmates/their crew was setting up a stage on one of the boardwalks as he peeled the sweaty, sticky hair from his neck.

“You know, you could stop being such a crab ass and help out,” Johnny B, Nicholas’s best friend and bandmate, grunted as he lugged a couple instrument cases onto the stage.

“Right. Sorry.” Nicholas muttered as he walked back towards the tour bus and began separating some cables. Truth was, he was distracted by more things than just the heat. Miami Florida meant Miami University. Nicholas was well aware of the fact that his ex-girlfriend, his first true love, Bonnie Riscles, was studying music management there. He kept tossing the idea around in his head of calling her. Did she know he was in town? Did she have tickets to the show? Would she ever want to talk to him, after the way things ended?

“Stop thinking about her, dude,” Johnny said as he came back around to grab more stuff, seemingly reading Nicholas’s mind. That just comes with being friends for so long. “There are going to be hundreds of people here tonight. There’s no way you’d be able to find her. Even if she did show up.” He clapped him on the back reassuringly before leaving Nicholas alone once more.

No matter how long the day progressed, or how high the temperatures soared, Nicholas couldn’t get his mind off Bonnie.

“Five minutes, Nicholas,” Get Scared’s tour manager, David, said to him as he zipped by to make sure everything was all set. Nick, who had barely left the confines of the bus since setting up, nodded absentmindedly.

The escalating roar of the crowd on the other side of the curtain was static noise. While his bandmates high fived and got stoked to perform, Nick took hold of the cool, smooth microphone lacking luster. The lyrics to “The Finer Things,” their opening song, played on loop in his head. Feeling like he was under the ocean water that he could see out of the corner of his eye, Nicholas shut his eyes as the curtain opened wide, revealing the overwhelming crowd- barefoot in the sand.

“Miami!” Nicholas was surprised by his own strength in his voice. “It’s time to GET. SCARED!”

The instruments erupted from behind Nicholas and he threw himself into the song, banging his head wildly and powering his vocals into the metal mic. For most of the song, he didn’t even open his eyes. When he did, he was nearly blinded by the blazing Sun, as well as the colors and movement of the giant crowd. Instinctively, he took a step backwards, and let his eyes travel the scene and take it all in.

And that’s when he saw, about five rows back towards right side of the stage, a figure as familiar as his own.

In a long dress, her head bobbing to the beat of the drum, stood Bonnie Riscles. Alone. Her eyes gazing curiously at Nicholas.

The shock was so great Nicholas almost forgot the words to his own song. He found himself looking around, to see if everyone else was staring at her too, but the rest of the world had their eyes focused on him somehow holding it all together on stage.

Johnny did manage to catch Nicholas’s eye, and judging from the look on his face he had seen Bonnie too. He gave Nicholas a quick nod.

The only thing Nicholas could hear was his own heart in his chest- not the screaming crowd nor blaring speakers or even the words coming out of his mouth- just his racing heart.

The adrenaline ran down his body like a cold shower. He felt exhilarated and scared and elated all at the same time. Finally, he drew his eyes back to the spot where Bonnie Riscles herself had been standing in the flesh.

She was gone.

----

The rest of the show blurred by like the view of the highway from the tour bus. Over and over again, Nicholas scanned the crowd for Bonnie, but he couldn’t find her. Had it not been for his look exchanged with Johnny, he would have questioned if he had even seen her at all.

He had snuck off after the set was over, to avoid clean-up and to get some time to think. The beach was nearly abandoned now as the last sliver of Sunlight was just resting against the waves in the distance. Scraps of beer cans and water bottles were scattered lightly across the coastline. Nicholas, feeling a little bit of relief knowing the heat was finally dissipating for the day, walked up to the rocky, wet shore. Miami was lit up behind him, and he felt caught between the natural light and the fluorescent falsehoods of the city.

The water, fluxing and flowing over the earth, soaked the bottom of his old, nasty vans and seeped up the legs of his jeans. It smelled of salt. Brine. Bitter.

“Hi, Nick.” whispered a familiar, soft voice. Nicholas jerked his head up. She was the only one to ever call him Nick.

The dusk wind whisked by, rippling Bonnie’s lavender dress around her tanned legs. As she pushed her deep brown beach hair behind her ears to prevent it from blowing across her freckled cheeks, she blinked one, two, three times in Nicholas’s direction. It was as if each one was in slow motion so he could fully take in the curve of her eyelashes- like a brunette wave at high tide- and the color of her sea-glass green irises. She was beautiful.

“You ok?” She asked in her sweet sounding murmur. “You seem a little lost.”

“Not lost.” He answered, the corner of his mouth twitching into a smile. “Not lost at all.”

She smiled and stepped over to where Nicholas was sitting and sat down beside him, tucking her legs under her.

“I’m sorry you had to come to Miami in August. I know how much you hate the heat.”

“It’s no big deal, I haven’t really thought about it,” he lied with a shrug.

“You guys are doing well. I really like the new album.”

“You’ve listened to it?” He blinked.

Bonnie nodded, “of course I have, Nick,” she answered as if Nicholas had just asked her if she still breathed oxygen.

“Remember how much fun we had the time we went snowboarding at Holiday Valley?”

“I remember you spraining your ankle on the very first run and us spending the rest of the weekend sprawled out in the hotel room drinking beers and eating room-service nachos.”

Bonnie laughed, running her fingers through the cool sand, softened from a day of high tides and running feet. Her septum piercing caught a flicker of the failing light. “We kind of wrecked everything, didn’t we?” She whispered with a sad smile.

“Everything we touched.” Nicholas answered. The breathy roars of the waves filled the silence for some time.

“Is that just us?” Bonnie whispered after some time. “Is it in our nature to ruin things, or was it just time? Circumstance?”

Nicholas narrowed his gaze over the horizon. “I don’t think it’s us. I think it’s just me.”

Bonnie reached out and put a soft hand on his arm. “Nick...”

“No, really. I’ve always been that way. As soon as I get something good in my life, I send it away. It’s like my aversion to the heat. Warmth is supposed to make you feel good- alive- and I just want to stay as far away from it as possible. I want to spend all my time in some dark, cold cave thing or whatever. It’s not normal. It’s actually kind of miserable. But it’s me. Being that way never bothered me until I met you, and you showed me how GOOD the world can be outside of my little pity party. And I still managed to fuck it all up.”

There was an unmistakable sadness in Bonnie’s eyes. Despite all the pain their relationship had caused her, she never wanted Nicholas to feel this way. She loved him too much.

“Truth is, Bonnie,” he sighed, letting her lean her body against his, “you are the best thing that’s ever been mine.”