Shattered By Broken Dreams

Zacky’s POV

Zacky trudged onto the bus, feelings of thwarted lust flowing through his veins. His eyes angrily sought out Jimmy, who was just disappearing into the bunk area with Katie.
“Jimmy!” he snapped. Jimmy turned to look at him, and threw up his hands. “Why the hell did you do that!?” Jimmy shook his head as he looked down at his shorter friend.
“Dude, she’s not ready,” Jimmy replied. “Until you come clean to her about everything that happened, and I mean everything, I don’t think you should try to pick up where you left off before the accident. I don’t want to see you hurt her again.” Zacky sighed and looked at his feet.
“I can’t help the way that I feel,” he responded. “You know, out of everyone, how I’ve always felt about her and just being near her is driving me crazy.”
“She’s feeling a lot of the same things,” Jimmy replied as Katie came to stand beside him. The door to the bus opened again, and Brian, Trisha, Johnny and Jayde came into the bus. Brian looked slightly more human, though his hair still looked like he had been dragged backwards down a wind tunnel.
“What’s all this about?” Brian asked, seeing the tense set of Zacky’s shoulders.
“Genius over here just tried to kiss Savannah,” Jimmy replied. Trisha’s eyes widened.
“Zacky, you can’t rush into this,” she exclaimed.
“See!” Jimmy exclaimed. “There’s ten years worth of crap that you two need to sort out first. Hell, you won’t even tell us what really happened and we’ve been around you for ten years.” Zacky sighed, and sat down on the couch.
“I just don’t know how to tell anyone,” Zacky replied softly with a sigh. “I don’t know if the threat is still there.”
“Threat?”Trisha gasped. “What threat?”

Savannah’s POV

Savannah slowly walked up the steps to the bus, her hands clutching her pizza box. Her face flamed as she recalled seeing the lust in Zacky’s eyes and knowing that he had been about to kiss her. The thought of being in Zacky’s arms again was thrilling, but underneath all of that was an undercurrent of fear. He had only recently ended things with Gena, and she was consumed with fear that Zacky was on the rebound and had naturally gravitated to her because of their past history. She met Erica’s gaze as she stepped inside, and saw that Erica had been watching out of the bus window.
“That looked awkward as fuck,” Erica stated calmly, and Savannah nodded with a sigh, as she placed her pizza box on the counter.
“I wanted to kiss him, but I’m scared that he’s just on the rebound,” Savannah admitted. She opened the box and sighed as she was hit with the familiar smell of the pepperoni pizza. It reminded her of home, and the many hours that she, her band mates and Avenged had all hung around the pizza shop near the pier after school.
“Has he said anything else about what happened in the past?” Erica asked her, as she sipped her bottled water. Savannah shook her head with a sigh.
“No, he hasn’t said a word.”

After the girls had both eaten their pizza and retired to the bunk area, Savannah lay on her bunk and looked up at the underside of Erica’s bunk. She could hear Erica moving restlessly in her sleep, her soft breaths indicating that she was sleeping. Her cell phone beeped and she picked it up from where she had laid it on the little shelf above her bunk and glanced at it, seeing that the text was from Jimmy.

Hey babe, doofus didn’t mean anything by it. You just hit him with the lust monster.

Lust monster?? Savannah shook her head. Only Jimmy could think up things like that. She closed her eyes as an image of Zacky as a salivating lust monster invaded her thoughts.
“Damn, I really need to get some sleep,” she thought to herself. She quickly texted Jimmy a good night message then turned onto her side to sleep.

********************

Later on that morning, Savannah woke slowly and realized that the bus had stopped. She stretched out as much as she could in the cramped space of the bunk, then threw back the curtain. She sleepily grabbed her toiletry bag and stumbled toward the bathroom.

As she stood under the spray of the shower, her thoughts again turned to Zacky and she wondered just why he was so loathe to tell her the whole truth. Was he afraid that it would paint him in a bad light, more so than leaving her in the hospital, or did it involve her father? At the back of her mind, she thought that it had something to do with the shopping centre complex but she hadn’t really paid attention to what her father did with his job. She cursed as she stepped out of the shower and towel dried her hair. She really wished that she had paid more attention back then, as she may have seen some of the signs.

As she was applying some basic make-up; foundation, eyeliner and mascara, her hand stilled and she looked at herself in the mirror. Her hand gradually fell to land on the edge of the sink, her eyeliner pencil clattering to the floor. Shortly before her accident, Zacky’s mother had been in a car accident where she had been sideswiped at an intersection. She remembered going with Zacky to the hospital to see his mother. Maria had been very hesitant to speak, and Savannah’s eyes widened. What if the accident had not been an accident?