Forgive Me

Maddy’s POV

The young woman opened the door of the hotel room. Ollie was sat on her bed, of course with a book in her hands.

She was taller than Maddy, about 5'5, and had long wavy black hair. Her green eyes were highlighted by her tanned skin. She only had a pajama short and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, too big for her.

"Yo!", Maddy began enthusiastically.

"Hi. "Ollie said calmly. "How was it?"

Maddy seemed surprised that her sister asked her, but after all, she wouldn't be the one to complain about that.

"Yes! They played Unholy Confessions, you know, my favorite ... ", she replied, smiling. "I even met the band after the concert. There was also another girl. Alyssa. It was cool. "

"Okay.", Ollie said, sending a faint smile to his half-sister.

"Seriously, Ollie! You should have come! I think you'd have loved them! "Maddy complained.

"Maybe, yes. But hey, what's done is done. Anyway, I'm almost done with everything I had to do, so I'm not disappointed ... "Ollie retorted.

"Yeah ... except that we are supposed to be on vacation, sis! "Maddy replied. The young woman hesitated before adding. "Actually ... we are invited for lunch tomorrow. "

"Oh? ", Ollie was surprised. "How's that you said "We" ? And then you say invited, but by whom? "

"Oh oh, calm down! Only one question at a time, please. So, as I said, ... the guys from Avenged proposed this Alyssa and me to have lunch with them tomorrow, and I told them that maybe you'd come with me ... that's it! "Maddy explained.

"Oh, okay. But I won't go with you. ", the brunette said, crossing her arms.

"Oh come on! Aren't you tired of spending your days reading those boring books? There are many things else than philosophy in the life of a normal human being! Don't you want to meet people, to have a little fun? ", the brown-eyed woman insisted.

Ollie hesitated. She wasn't very sociable, but very reserved. She didn't want to hang out with several unknown people. It made her feel uncomfortable. Nevertheless, her half-sister was right. For a long time she hadn't just...hang out. Instead, she was focused on her work for the university.

"Okay, but It will be JUST and ONLY this time ..." she finally said.

Maddy ran to Ollie's, and engulfed her half-sister in a tight hug.

"Thank you!", she said.

They then decided it was time for them to go to bed.

***The Next Morning***

Zack’s POV

The green-eyed guitarist woke up by someone’s complaining. He got up slowly from the bed, and made his way where the rest of the band was. In fact, everybody’s was in the small kitchen area of the bus.

“What’s up guys ?”, Zack asked, sleepily.

Everyone laughed, and Johnny added:

“You could have put some clothes, Baker!”, Johnny tried to sound shocked.

“Admit you like what you see, Christ.”, the rhythm guitarist winced. “So, what were all those complaints I heard about?”

Matt sighed, and Brian rolled his eyes.

“Brian doesn’t want to come with us at lunch.”, Matt explained.

“And why that?”, Zacky asked, surprised.

“I don’t want to meet those groupies. All they’ll do is to speak, speak and speak again, in a fan girl way. No thank you, my friend.”, Brian groaned.

“They’re not groupies, dumbass!! So, you don’t want to come, and then what? What are you gonna do instead? Sit down on the sofa and cry again? Stop that, Gates. You have to move on. You can’t destroy yourself like this. Move on!”, the guitarist replied, obvious annoyance in his tone.

“Maybe I don’t want to. I don’t want to move on. I can’t.”, Brian insisted.

“You haven’t even tried!”

“Zack’s right. But anyway, it’s just lunch. Don’t you want to spend some time with us? We’re your friends, Brian, and you sometimes you seem to forget that…”, Matt added.

Brian looked directly in the singer’s eyes, obviously shocked by those words. Their eye-contact lasted a few minutes before Brian broke it.

“I’ll come, guys. But if those group…girls start to be annoying, I’ll return to the bus. So, where are we going for lunch?”, he asked quickly.

Matt and Zacky smiled.

They all decided on a Mexican restaurant that they saw yesterday.

“So, we have to tell this to the girls.”, Matt said.

“Yeah, I’ll text Maddy. Maybe I’ll propose her to come to her hotel and walk with her.”, Zacky replied.

“Okay, I’ll call Alyssa, and suggest her to call a cab.”, the singer added.

Maddy’s POV:

The vibrations from her phone signaled the brown-eyed girl that she had a new message.

“Ready for lunch ? I’ll come to ur hotel and walk u. Zacky xx”

The young lady smiled, and texted him back.

“Okay, see ya! xx”

Ollie and her sister were all dressed up. Maddy was wearing black skinny jeans, an Iron Maiden t-shirt and sneakers. Ollie had decided on grey skinny jeans, a black tank top, and black Converse.
Both of them had only eyeliner and mascara. They usually don’t put a lot of makeup.

Someone knocked at the door, and Ollie almost jumped.

“Relax, sis! That’s probably Zack.”, Maddy assured.

And she was right, because when she opened the door a gorgeous raven-haired man stood in the doorway.

“Hi”, he said softly.
“Hello”, she replied, a small grin on her face.

She stared at the rhythm guitarist. He was wearing a JD T-shirt, black jeans and sneakers.

“So, ready to go?”, he asked suddenly.

Maddy blushed lightly from having been caught in the act.

“Yeah, I’ll tell my sis!”, she said.

A few seconds later, she came back to the door, Ollie on her heels.

“Zack, this is my half-sister Ollie. Ollie this is…Zachary, from Avenged Sevenfold”, Maddy introduced.

They both say “Hi” politely, and everyone started to walk.

“Well slept?”, the green-eyed man asked.

“Yeah, even if I was kinda excited about today.”, she replied.

Ollie rolled her eyes, and Zack chuckled.

They arrived to the bus. All the guys, except Brian, were outside the bus, but Alyssa wasn’t here yet.
Maddy said “Hi” to all of them, and introduced Ollie.

“I guess Synyster won’t come today, I mean maybe he still feel sick or something…”, Maddy implicitly asked.

Matt explained to her the conversation they had with Brian in the morning, and Maddy was surprised, in a good way.
Ollie looked confused.

“Synyster was kinda sick after the show yesterday. Oh and he’s the lead guitarist of this band.”, Maddy explained.

“Oh, okay…But ..Synyster…Is that a real name?”, Ollie asked surprised.

Everyone started to laugh.

“Yes it is, and if you have a problem with that, then just go away.”, a strong voice said.

All the guys stopped from laughing, looking to Brian who had just exited the bus.
The brown-eyed man looked annoyed.

“Sorry”, Ollie replied in an almost inaudible voice.

A silence has felt in the group, but it felt when a taxi parked. Alyssa exited the taxi, and addressed a smile to the group. A few introductions later, Matt clapped his hands together to get everyone’s attention.

“Let’s go get lunch, guys.”, he proposed.

They all started to walk to the restaurant. Matt walked next Alyssa, his right arm around her waist. Johnny and Arin were talking together, just like Zacky and Maddy. Ollie walked next Maddy, but not directly by her side to allow some…intimacy with her new friend. Brian was a few steps behind the group.

They arrived to the restaurant, and a waitress gave them a table.
Johnny was in front of Arin. Matt was in front of Alyssa, who was next to Zacky. Zacky was in front of Maddy, who had her half-sister by her side.
Brian reluctantly took the last seat, in front of Ollie.

They ordered their food and started to talk. More exactly, everyone started to talk except Brian and Ollie.
The rest of the guys asked random things about the girls, and vice versa.

The waitress came back with their food, and they continued to make small talk while eating.

Ollie’s POV:

The young woman didn’t felt at ease. She didn’t know what to say and she had the feeling to be useless for all those people around her. She was happy though, because her little sis was smiling and giggling all the time.
Ollie hadn’t said a word since her apologizes to that Synyster guy. The said guy was sat in front of her, and looked as much annoyed as her. She hoped it wasn’t her question that drove him mad like this.

“Humm…”, she started, shyly.

She expected to get the guitarist’s attention …but failed. She rolled her eyes and spoke louder.

“Excuse me”.

Brian raised his head to look at the girl, and raised his eyebrow.

“What?”, he asked roughly.

“I-I didn’t know it was your name…I mean I was just surprised…”, she said before starting biting her lower lip nervously.

The guitarist looked at her like she was the most stupid girl he had met in his life.

“Just forget about that.”, he said, rolling his eyes.

Ollie just nodded, and looked at her hands. In fact, she didn’t know what else to do.

Matt realized he hadn’t spoken much to the others, since he was in a deep conversation with a smiling Alyssa. It wasn’t his fault, after all, if the girl was gorgeous and mischievously captivated his attention. Yet, he looked all over the table, and at everyone’s face and then turned to face Maddy.

“Your sis isn’t very talkative…”, he stated.

Maddy, who was smiling before Matt’s comment, looked up to her half-sister, and sighed.

“Hey Ollie!”, she spoke.

The said girl almost jumped, once again.

“Yeah?”, she said in very light voice.

“You ok ?”

“Yeah, but…I think I’ll just come back to the hotel. See ya.”, she answered, on the point to leave.

“We’re not good enough for you?”, Brian suddenly asked.

The girl didn’t know what to reply, and looked in the guitarist’s eyes.

“Uh…since she was in front of you, Gates, I think I can understand that she got bored!”, Johnny said, playfully.

A very little smile appeared on Brian’s lips, before he spoke.

“Shut up, Johnny. You don’t know anything about that.”, he responded.

“Really, so I’ll just ask then. So, Ollie, are you leaving because Brian annoys you ?”, he questioned.

Ollie looked confused.

“…Brian?”, she asked back.

Brian busted out laughing, taking his head in his hands. And the rest of the group did so, while Ollie’s expression was more in more confused.

“Could someone tell me what the fuck is going on?”, she said angrily.

Brian spoke.

“Brian’s my real name. Synyster’s my stage name”, he explained, calmly.

Brian’s POV:

The brown-haired man wasn’t habituated to meet girls that didn’t know who he was. He thought that girl’s reactions were funny because he wasn’t used to it.

“Guys, this is the first time I see Syn laughing in months!”, Zacky chuckled.

“Eh that’s true dude!”, Matt said realizing, “Brian, man, you’re on the good way. You see, it’s not that complicated!”. The singer smiled.

And then all trace of amusement vanished on Brian’s face. He realized he wasn’t thinking about Elise for the very first time in months.
He didn’t know how to explain what he was feeling on the moment. A part of him felt guilty- he hadn’t the right to forget Elise!!- but the other part was appreciating this strange feeling.
He was confused inside his own head.

“See you guys later”, he just said before exiting almost hurriedly.

Ollie’s POV:

All the guys sighed, and the three girls looked like they didn’t understand anything.

“If I understand well”, Maddy started, “…he’s angry because you said he was…happy?”

Matt explained the girls Brian’s situation and they looked sorry, and a bit shocked.

“I think I’ll go home, now”, Ollie said. “Thank you all, for everything.”

All the guys replied it was nothing and said they hoped to see her later.

She exited the restaurant, and tried to remember how to come back to the hotel.
But then, she saw Brian, backed against the wall, his head once again in his hands. She looked at the man, and she felt really bad for him.
She approached him.

“Are you okay?”, she asked softly.

Brian slowly raised his head and looked at her.

“Obviously”, he said sarcastically.

Ollie realized he was crying.

“I’m sorry”, she started.

“What?”, he asked surprised.

“This guy, the singer, told us…your story, and I know it won’t help but I’m sorry for all what happened to you. It’s horrible.”

“Please, shut up. You’ll eventually say that I have to move on, or that it is ridiculous to cry, or something. Please don’t. I don’t want to hear this from a stranger. You have no right to judge me. You don’t know me. You don’t know her.”, he said angrily.

Ollie was shocked by the guitarist’s tone.

“I wasn’t going to judge you, or to say all of this. In fact, what I wanted to say is that you’re in a difficult situation and that I hope you’ll get through this. But you’re right, I’m stranger and I’ll shut up.”

And then she left, obviously upset, leaving the guitarist alone again.

Brian was surprised. This girl was strange. He couldn’t say that he didn’t like her, but she was just…not common.
Anyway, he hoped he’ll get through this situation too.

Maybe he could just try to be happy. To have moments of fun didn’t mean to forget Elise after all, right? Plus, Elise would be angry if she could see him like this, down and weak… Yeah, he wasn’t the strong Brian anymore, and Elise would be upset if she knew that. He had to be strong again, he had to fight like she did, he had to show everybody that he could be stronger than fate.

He had…to move on…