Right Here Waiting

Brian woke up to immense sunlight. Before he could even open his eyes he knew he wasn’t at home. Cracking one open, he saw a female lying on his right arm. He followed the body to a head full of pink hair and realized it was Eliza. She was lying on her back using his arm as a pillow. Somehow, she had twisted her body so that one of her legs was draped over his, and her head was turned toward him. Sometime during the night she’d removed her dress and she was only wearing her bikini. That didn’t help his thoughts. He realized then that when he’d woken up, his head had been facing hers which was weird. Waking up like this was completely weird to him; whenever he and Amber slept together, they ended up facing different directions.

He lay there thinking about the previous night for a few minutes. He remembered how she’d laughed so much. She’d even confessed she hadn’t laughed like that for years and it felt good. She’d acted like a kid with him, something Amber never would’ve done. She wouldn’t have wanted to go out to the beach at night, and she would’ve gotten so pissed off at him if he’d splashed water on her, not laughed about it. There were so many differences between Amber and Eliza it was insane. Whereas Amber said exactly what was on her mind at every point in the day, Eliza was holding secrets. He couldn’t figure her out completely and it was damned frustrating.

His thoughts were interrupted by a twitch from Eliza. He looked down and saw her eyebrows were drawn together and her hand clutched at his shirt. Her forehead glistened due to sweating. She whimpered and then softly cried out. Brian realized a little too late she was having a bad dream. Brian slowly slid his arm from underneath her head and sat up on one elbow. He was reaching to wake her up when she shook with a cry and her eyes popped open. Her breathing came fast as she sat up and looked around.

“You okay?” Brian asked sitting up beside her.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What was your dream about?”

“I don’t remember,” Eliza said, turning slightly to look at him.

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Eliza said and she stood up. She saw her dress on the floor and bent to pick it up. She threw it over her head and walked around her room.

“Do you mind if I take a shower here?” Brian asked as he stood up.

“Sure, go ahead. Towels are below the sink.”

“Thanks,” he said and made his way to the bathroom.

Eliza looked around her room. Clothes were thrown everywhere, boxes and bags were lining the walls. She started by making up her bed, and then sat at the end, looking at the boxes. She stood back up and moved all of her dirty clothes into a pile in one corner. Brian came back in then, wearing just his boarding shorts and towel-drying his hair.

Suddenly the doorbell rang. Brian looked from the doorway back to Eliza and she motioned that she would answer it.

Eliza pulled the door open to reveal Matt and Val. Val waved.

“What are you doing here?” Eliza asked as she stood aside, allowing them to come in.

“We were on our way to Matt’s house when we saw Brian’s car here, so we stopped,” Val said enthusiastically.

Brian came down the stairs at that point, pulling on a shirt.

“This is awkward,” Matt said looking from Eliza to Brian and back.

“It’s not what you think,” Eliza said.

“She wants to get a death bat on her and wanted to see what one looked like. That’s why I had my shirt off. I saw her running this morning and I came over. We were talking about her tattoos,” Brian said, looking from Eliza to Matt and smiled.

“Oh, okay. Well, I was hoping you could give me a ride to the house so we can get to the studio,” Matt said signaling to the door.

“Sure, let’s go ahead and head out now,” Brian said pulling his keys from his pocket. He turned to Eliza. “See you later?”

“Yeah, we’ll be there soon,” she said and waved to Matt. She watched as he kissed Val and they guys were out the door.

Val watched them go and then rounded on Eliza. “Want to tell me the truth?”

Eliza looked at Val, confused. “What do you mean?”

“Why was Brian putting on a shirt as he came down the steps?”

“He stayed last night after he dropped me off. We talked and then fell asleep. He woke up and took a shower here.”

“That’s the truth?”

“Cross my heart,” Eliza said, making an X over her heart.

“Well, come on. Let’s get ready,” Val said and motioned toward the stairs.

Eliza showered as quickly as possible and stood in front of Val in her towel, holding up clothes.

“You wear too much black,” Val said, shaking her head at the shirt Eliza was holding up.

“No one can wear too much black. Plus, it goes with my hair. Everything else clashes,” Eliza said, throwing the shirt into the discarded pile.

“You’re just not doing it right,” Val said and stood up. She started rooting through the boxes while Eliza pulled on a pair of underwear and a bra. “Put these on.”

Eliza barely had enough time to react as a pair of shorts flew at her. Val didn’t even look as she threw the shorts behind her. Eliza shimmied into the shorts, and struggled to pull them over her hips. “I think this is a pair I wore when I was like eight.”

Val paused in her search to turn around and watch Eliza struggle into the jeans. She laughed as Eliza finally buttoned them and stood there. “They make your ass look amazing, though.”

“Yeah, because that’s the look I’m going for.”

“Just go with it,” Val said and turned around looking for another shirt. Finally, near the bottom, she found one. “Perfect!”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Eliza said as Val held up the bright pink shirt.

“There’s black in it, depressing. Why not this shirt?”

“You do realize my hair is bright pink, right?”

“Okay, and? Pink goes with pink, stupid.”

“That would clash, horribly.”

“What the hell ever, just put it on, okay?” Val said and threw the pink shirt at her.

Eliza caught it and slipped it over her head, settling it in place. She moved to the mirror and straightened the bottom out, twisting and turning making sure it was in the right place. Surprisingly, it didn’t look bad. Of course, her hair was still wet, but even wet it didn’t look that bad.

“See? What did I tell you?” Val asked, coming up behind her and smiling.

“Fine. It looks decent.”

Val moved away, laughing. “Come on, you still need to fix your hair.”



A couple hours later, after their visit to the hospital and to the coffee shop, Val and Eliza entered the studio to Brian and Zacky recording their guitars. Matt, Johnny and Jimmy were sitting on couches in the large area outside of the booth.

The music stopped and Brian could be heard yelling “Fuck!” loudly, indicating he was frustrated. Eliza glanced at him to see his head thrown back in frustration, and she moved on to the couch, sitting beside Jimmy. He snatched up her coffee and immediately started drinking it. She laughed and tried to take it back from him, but he kept it out of her reach. Everyone laughed as she tried to fight him back for it, drawing Brian and Zacky out of the booth.

“Could you guys just shut the fu—Oh, hey you guys,” Brian said as he spotted Val and Eliza. His eyes lingered on her a bit longer than normal, smiling when he noticed her straight hair.

Jimmy noisily sipped her coffee and her attention was snapped. She jumped on him, trying to grab her coffee back. Finally, she was able to get a hand on the cup and snatch it back. Laughing she sat back in her spot, sipping her coffee victoriously, until she realized it was empty. He drank it all. She stared at the cup while Jimmy laughed and then she threw the cup at his head. He punched her in the thigh, not hard, but a solid punch. She retaliated with one of her own, and they started hitting each other more.

Everyone laughed and started talking until Val interrupted, saying it was time to get back to business. Brian and Zacky headed back to the booth while Matt went to the soundboard.

“Eliza, why don’t you come over here?” Matt asked, not looking away from the computer screen.

She stood up, getting one last punch in on Jimmy before hopping away from his try, and sat down in the chair beside Matt, pulling her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees. Brian looked up at them before Matt nodded, and he and Zacky counted off. They started ripping through a song.

“We’ve got two songs written already,” Matt explained, listening.

“What are they?”

“’Critical Acclaim’ and ‘Afterlife’. Those songs are done, pretty much. We’re working on the rest of the album now, which kind of sucks, because we’re not really sure where to go. We’ve got that one song you heard Saturday, but that’s kind of a different vibe. We really want to go ahead and get these songs written so we can think more about that.”

“This sounds good,” Eliza said, nodding toward Brian and Zacky. “I think Zacky should go a little higher, though.”

“Tell them,” Matt said, motioning toward the microphone. He pressed a button and held it down for her. She explained to Zacky about the note, and he nodded, playing it again. When he and Brian got through the part, they stopped and Zacky held up his thumb.



Hours later, it was Matt’s turn to record. Jimmy and Johnny had thrown a couple of things down, and they were at a decent point with the guitars. Brian and Johnny were in front of the booth. Jimmy was lying down on the couch opposite of Eliza who was sitting beside Zacky. Actually, Zacky had his back to one end of the couch, Eliza had her back to the other and she was painting Zacky’s nails. She had thought it was a weird request but went along with it. Val had gone to get lunch for everyone and had insisted Eliza stay there with the guys to help them out.

She was back with food, and Johnny was the only one who started eating. Everyone else kept working. Val sat on the arm of the couch behind Eliza.

“I think I did something bad.”

“What are you talking about?” Eliza said without looking up from Zacky’s hand.

“I accidentally mentioned something to Amber.”

“What?” Eliza asked and stopped what she was doing to turn around and look at Val.

Suddenly, the doors burst open and Amber pranced in. Her eyes immediately found Brian, but he was so engrossed in Matt’s singing that he didn’t hear her. She scanned the room and her eyes settled on Eliza who had turned back around to continue painting. She’d looked up when Amber had entered the room, but she immediately went back to painting his nails. She missed the look of pure hatred that passed over Amber’s features. Val didn’t, but she also didn’t move from Eliza’s back.

Amber didn’t waste any time and marched right over to the couch to confront Eliza.

“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you have got some fucking pair of balls.”

“Excuse me?” Eliza said, looking up to realize Amber was talking to her.

“I don’t know what you did to seduce him but I want you to fucking admit it.”

“Admit what?”

“You need to leave my boyfriend alone! I don’t get why you think you can waltz in here and just take him away—”

“What the fuck is going on here?” Brian said, finally coming to stand near them. All the guys were crowding around now. Zacky had been looking back and forth between Amber and Eliza wondering what was going on. Eliza slowly put the top back on the nail polish and screwed it back on, setting it down on the table.

“Please explain to me what the fuck you think I’ve done, Amber.”

“Ever since you showed up Friday, it’s been about you. Eliza this, Eliza that. You think you can waltz in here, steal my fucking boyfriend like there’s nothing wrong with that. Do you not have any respect for anyone? Not only that, but you’re stealing my best friend. This is fucking ridiculous.”

Eliza just stared at Amber for a minute before she laughed. That only increased Amber’s fury, but Eliza didn’t care. “So please enlighten me as to how I stole your boyfriend.”

“He stayed at your house last night! He slept at your house last night! He ignored all my calls yesterday to spend time with you. He ignored my calls last night because he was with you.”

“Whoa, Amber, chill out. I didn’t ignore your fucking calls to hang out with her. I told you I was meeting the guys. We have a Sunday ritual when we’re at home. You fucking know this. I told you when I left your house I was meeting up with them. Why the fuck are you jumping down her damn throat?”

“Why the hell are you defending her?” Amber screeched.

“Because nothing happened!” Brian exploded. Everyone paused and looked at him. He was shaking with anger. “You are jumping down the wrong person’s throat. You have no business yelling at her. Nothing happened, and as far as you’re concerned, she knew me first. We hung out last night and talked. We even talked about you. I told her that I loved you. We are just friends and I don’t know why the fuck you’re being a bitch about this. This is the second time you’ve been a bitch to her for no fucking reason and it needs to fucking stop!”

Amber just stood there with her mouth hanging open. Eliza looked the same way. Hell, even Jimmy had his mouth open, too. Brian had never yelled at anyone like that. They watched as Amber’s eyes shone with tears and she turned from them, leaving the room. Brian curse and ran a hand over his face before following her. Everyone else stayed where they were, in shock.

“I guess we’re done in the studio for today,” Johnny said.

They all left the studio a few minutes later, and Val dropped Eliza off at her house. Since then, she’d killed a bottle of Jack and was working on her second one. She sat on the steps of the patio with the bottle in her hand. She’d been silent ever since the incident with Amber. She hadn’t meant to cause problems, and she knew she’d done that for Brian and Amber. Her eyes felt heavy and tired. She ran a hand over her face as her phone ringing broke through the silence. She rolled her head to the side to read the screen. Instantly, tears sprung to her eyes as she read “Katie” on the screen.

“Katie, I miss you so much,” she said as soon as she slid the screen to “answer”.

“Liz, what’s wrong?”

Katie was the only person Eliza had met that used her full name. Elizabeth Allison Grey. She shortened her name to “Liz” after Eliza had told her about her past. She said a fresh start deserved a fresh name and she’d picked Liz.

“Everything. I’ve screwed up so much.”

“You’ve been there since Thursday, I’m sure you couldn’t have fucked up that much.”

“Trust me, I did.”

She spent the next thirty minutes telling Katie everything. She told her about her dad, about her feelings for Brian, about becoming friends with Val and helping the guys out. Katie had asked her question after question, and Eliza had answered all of them.

“Well, just think, I’ll be there in a few weeks and you’ll have your own little army against this bitch. It sounds like Val doesn’t like her either.”

Eliza thought about how profusely Val had apologized in the car for bringing it up. She said Amber had called her and it had slipped out by accident. She explained that she’d said it just passing, but it was the one thing Amber had picked up on. She kept apologizing, but Eliza had said it was fine.

“Yeah, she doesn’t like her.”

It was then Eliza noticed someone walking on the beach. As they got closer, she recognized Brian’s form. His head was down and he was walking slowly, but he was heading for her house. When he was a few feet away, she stopped Katie in mid-sentence.

“Katie can I call you back?”

“Yeah, are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just need to call you back,” she said and pressed “end”.

Brian was standing in front of her, his head still low. He lifted his gaze to her face. Her eyes were brimmed red, and she had two bottles of Jack around her. One was completely full, and the other was completely empty. The ashtray was full of cigarette butts. She slid everything over and made room for him to sit down. He sank to the steps beside her.

“I’m sorry for the way she acted today.”

“Brian, really, it’s fine. We shouldn’t have done that last night—”

“We didn't do anything, is the thing, Eliza. We hung out, we talked, and we ended up falling asleep in the same bed. There’s nothing wrong with that. There is something wrong in the way she came at you, though. She was being a complete bitch about everything.”

“Honestly, I don’t blame her. If my boyfriend was with another girl, I’d be pissed, too.”

“Yeah, but she could’ve handled everything differently. I’m just really sorry.”

“I promise, Brian, it’s okay. I’m just really sorry I caused problems.”

“You didn’t cause any problems, Eliza. I swear.”

“I made you guys fight, though.”

“We’ve fought before.”

“Not over me,” she said emphatically.

“No, not over you, but we’ve fought before.”

“I still feel horrible,” Eliza said, taking another long swig of the Jack Daniels. Brian watched her and felt bad. “Why are you even here?”

“I wanted to apologize, Eliza.”

“Yeah, but won’t Amber get mad?”

“I don’t care. C’mon, let’s stop talking about her.”

They didn’t say anything for a long time. The only sound was a drag from a cigarette or Eliza taking another swig of the bottle.