Shattered By Broken Dreams

After the show, Savannah was walking back to the bus with Erica and Jason. Matt was tagging along behind them, pushing some of the equipment. He had gotten rid of the balloons but was still wearing the blonde wig.
“I’m starting to worry about you, Matty,” Erica smirked as Jason rolled his eyes at his brother. “Are you starting to turn on us?”
“Hey, it’s not my problem I make a hot blonde,” Matt smirked in response.
“I don’t know about hot,” Jason replied with a shudder. “I think you’ve scarred me for life.”
“If you ever wear that blonde wig to bed I’m disowning you,” Erica said to Jason, who gave her sad puppy dog eyes.

As Savannah neared their bus, she spotted Zacky lurking near the door. She tensed for a moment, and Erica shot her a concerned glance. She had had more memories assail her over the past hour and her pulse jumped at the sight of Zacky standing near the bus wearing a pair of black jeans and a red and black plaid shirt. As they neared the bus, her cell phone started to ring and she pulled it out and looked at the screen. Ryan was calling her, and she stepped away from Erica and Jason to answer it. She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Zacky’s shoulders slumped a little as she moved away.
“Hey Ry, what’s going on?” Savannah asked as she turned away from the others.
“Hey Vannah. I need to ask you something, and it’s about the case. But you can’t tell anyone.”
“Um, okay,” Savannah responded slowly. “What on Earth could I know that could help your case though?”
“Do you remember the name of the man that Dad was working with on that big shopping centre project on PCH? I can’t remember it and it’s really important.”
“What? That project that was going to get rid of all the strip shops and replace them with the shopping complex and car park? What about it?”
“It’s important to the case, sis. I wouldn’t ask otherwise.” Savannah sighed and she looked up at the overcast sky for a moment whilst she tried to think. She remembered that her father had been acting as a lawyer and contract specialist for the conglomerate that was planning the shopping centre complex. At the time the planning proposals had been submitted to the town council for approval, there had been three to four local shop-keepers who had refused to sell and there had been a lot of unpleasantness as several of those businesses had been broken into or had mysterious small fires. The fires had been small and had been easily put out by the fire brigade but speculation had been rife at the time that the conglomerate were behind the break-ins and fires as a means to scare the shop-keepers away from their businesses and to enable them to buy the businesses at rock bottom prices to make way for the shopping complex. At the time, Savannah hadn’t thought much of it but she did remember feeling sorry that the shop-keepers were being forced out, without the opportunity of re-opening their stores in the new complex. Their businesses would essentially be eaten up and replaced with the car park of the complex.
“I think one of them was named Michael, but I can’t remember his surname. Sorry Ry,” Savannah eventually replied. “It was ten years ago, and I kind of forgot all of that stuff, what with the accident and all.”
“That’s okay, sis. It was worth a shot,” Ryan asked. “How’d the show go tonight?”
“Awesome. This whole tour has been an absolute blast. We made Avenged play Hot Stuff tonight, and we played a punkified hard rock version of Dolly Parton. The Berry’s came on stage looking like porn stars.” She heard Ryan choke on a laugh.
“Oh lord, I can’t wait to see you guys when you get to Long Beach. Mom’s looking forward to it, even though she calls your music noise,” he laughed. “Dad just grunts whenever it’s brought up, and goes off on a spiel about how you should be working for him.”
“When does he ever stop that spiel?” Savannah asked with a sigh.

She spoke with Ryan for a few more minutes before she turned around to approach the bus, and noticed that Zacky was still standing there, shuffling his feet awkwardly in the snow. The door had been unlocked so she assumed that the others had already gone inside.
“You’ll catch your death standing there like that,” she chided him. “Come on.” She opened the door of the bus, and apart from looking at her with a surprised expression Zacky followed her onto the bus.

Erica and Tommy glanced at her in surprise when Zacky followed her onto the bus.
“So what’s so all fired important that you froze your nuts off just to speak to me?” Savannah asked him, and he bit his snake bites as he stared at her.
“Um, earth to Zacky? Are you awake in there?”
“I….I….”, Zacky started to stay, then broke off, flustered when he saw the others all turned in their seats and staring at him. They made no move to leave, and he sighed and bit his lip before he turned back to Savannah. “I’m, um, I’m remembering stuff from that night…” Savannah’s eyes went wide for a moment, and then she began to wring her hands together.
“Uh, so am I,” she admitted in a small voice. Erica, Tommy and Kyle all looked at them wide-eyed. Tommy stood up and motioned to the others. He walked toward the back room, with Kyle and shoved Erica along in front of him.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” Zacky said softly after the others had left the room and the door to the rear area had closed. He looked back up at her. Savannah gulped at the heat that she saw in his eyes.
“I’ve remembered bits and pieces,” Savannah said, as she leaned back against the kitchen counter. “It doesn’t change anything, though.” Zacky’s face fell. She sighed before she continued speaking. “You won’t tell me everything that happened back then, and because I don’t know the whole truth I can’t really move on. It’s like I’m stuck back there feeling the hurt all over again.” She looked up at Zacky, and bit her lip again when she saw the hurt expression on his face. She was about to speak again, when flashes of her conversation with Ryan flashed across her mind, and her eyes widened.
“What?,” Zacky asked.
“Your mother owned the salon on PCH, in that little strip of shops overlooking the beach, didn’t she?”
“Yeah, she did,” Zacky responded sombrely. Savannah’s mind raced, as she began to remember more. “They eventually gave her a lease in the new shop for the same rate as the old shop, but she was one of the ones fighting against the closure.” Zacky began to look more and more uncomfortable. “Mom told me about the new shop opening as she was one of your mother’s first customers in the new salon.” Zacky was nervously tapping his fingers against his thighs as he watched Savannah. He was about to speak when his cell phone rang and he agitatedly answered it.
“I, um, I have to go. The buses are about to pull out.” He hurriedly kissed her cheek and sped to the stairs, before he alighted from the bus. Savannah sighed, before running a hand through her hair. She felt the bus start to move, and she moved over to the couch and flopped down onto it. They had a long drive to Wisconsin, and she had a feeling that she was going to doing a lot of thinking during this road trip.