Shattered Glass & Broken Hearts

“I don’t know,” Emily sighed as she looked at herself in the mirror at the small clothing boutique that she, Hanna, and Jocelyn were all shopping at. Her friends had both decided she was in dire need of a shopping trip to get a new outfit for the concert they were going to this weekend, though Emily had drastically different ideas of what kind of new outfit she should wear as opposed to her friends. “It…It shows my legs, guys.”

“Oh, for goodness sakes,” Joss giggled. “We’re not in the middle ages anymore, Em. In case you didn’t realize,” she teased her before she wrapped her arm loosely around Emily’s shoulders, knowing already that modesty wasn’t the reason Emily didn’t like the dress she was wearing right now. “You look fine. Really. Nobody’s gonna notice the scars.”

“Yeah. All their attention is going to be on the guys on stage,” Hanna spoke up brightly. “From what I understand, all the girls are crazy about the singer. Nobody’s gonna be looking at your legs.”

“But what about before the show? When we’re standing in line, we’ll—”

“What line?” Jocelyn asked coyly, a smirk on her face. “Sweetie, our boyfriends are in the band. There’s no line for us. Ryan’s coming to my house the night before the show and we’ll swing by and pick you up before he heads to the show, that way you can get in with us and get a backstage pass.”

“But I’m not with the band,” Emily countered.

“You’re with the band if you’re with us,” Hanna smiled before Jocelyn nodded her head in agreement.

“Seriously, everything’s gonna be fine, Em. You need to stop worrying about yourself so much. God knows Max does enough already. How many times has he called you today?” She teased Emily, eliciting a groan as the brunette’s head fell back.

“Don’t remind me. I’m supposed to call him tonight so he knows I’m okay,” she grumbled.

“He’s honestly too overprotective of you, y’know. I guess I can’t blame him, though. He is your brother, after all. And the fans of his band are freaking crazy,” Jocelyn giggled, causing Emily to nod her head, agreeing with her friend. Max’s band, Escape The Fate, definitely had some crazy fans, though Emily herself had never needed to deal with any of them.

“Not as crazy as some,” Hanna mused. “Jacky says their fans are really insane sometimes.”

Emily watched as Jocelyn and Hanna talked with one another about the band that their boyfriends were in. She couldn’t help but wonder what kind of music it was, though both of her friends were keeping that a secret. Both of them told her they wanted her to be surprised when she went to the show. Hell, they hadn’t even told her the name of the band Ryan and Jacky were in, which made Emily wonder if something was up.

“So when is the show again?” Emily asked her friends as she walked towards the changing room again, deciding on a whim that she would get the dress. She wasn’t all that comfortable with wearing it, especially since it showed a lot of scars from the car accident. But she knew that her friends were right, and if anything, she could always wear a pair of leggings with the dress, or decide against wearing it altogether and come up with an excuse as to why she hadn’t.

Maybe if you get a cat within the next couple days, you can say it scratched it all up… she thought to herself as she walked inside the small room, knowing her friends had followed and were standing outside waiting for her.

“Three days from now,” Jocelyn spoke. “Ryan gets in the night before, though. Said he couldn’t wait to see me.”

“Lucky bitch. Jacky’s not gonna get in ‘til the next morning,” Hanna pouted.

Emily couldn’t help but chuckle at her friends as they once again started playfully bickering with one another about which of their boyfriends was better. She remembered what it had been like to be in love with someone and to have that affection returned. It had been a long time, sure, but still, it had happened.

She missed it.

“I say we go get pho after we finish getting your dress,” Hanna said matter of factly. “I haven’t had any in awhile and I know you guys are just dying to try it.”

Both Emily and Jocelyn groaned at their friend’s suggestion for lunch. Neither girl had ever really tried pho before, unlike Hanna, who was in love with the stuff. Emily tended to be more traditional with her food choices, sticking to stuff she knew and was familiar with. Jocelyn tended to try more new foods, but she wasn’t too keen on trying anything that didn’t sound the way it was spelled.

“No chickening out this time,” Hanna added in, sensing her friends’ hesitation. “Jacky never goes and gets any with me when he’s here and you guys haven’t tried it before. If you don’t like it, there’s a burger joint next door for you boring people.”

“We’re not boring,” Jocelyn defended herself and Emily playfully. “We just know what we like.”

“I guess we can try it,” Emily spoke as she walked out of the dressing room, holding her dress in her hand. “Trying new stuff isn’t too bad, I guess.”

“That’s my girl,” Hanna grinned as she wrapped an arm loosely around Emily’s shoulder. “Now to convince Joss.”

“Oh, alright,” Jocelyn grumbled. “But I swear to god if it tastes weird…”

“Oh, pffft,” Hanna waved her friend off jokingly before the three of them started walking towards the checkout counter. Emily couldn’t help but smile as she did so, feeling happier than she had in a long time. She knew that having friends like Jocelyn and Hanna were the reason she’d gotten through the last ten years.



“This is where we’re watching a band perform?” Emily asked three days later as she looked up at the building that was being advertised as the House of Blues. She’d heard her brother talk about this place before. Apparently, he’d played a few shows with his band here in the past, but she couldn’t see how it was a concert venue when it was so shabby looking on the outside.

“Don’t let the outside fool you, it’s not bad on the inside. Nice and dark, perfect for rock shows,” Jocelyn told her from the front seat of the car they were sitting in. The windows were all rolled up, and Emily knew that none of the fans that were in the long line standing outside the doors could see the three of them.

“There’s already that many people lining up? But it’s only two,” Emily told her friend. “I never even saw lines this long this early for Max’s band.”

“Our fans are fucking crazy like that,” Ryan, Jocelyn’s boyfriend told her from the driver’s seat as he came to a stop. A man in a yellow shirt walked over to them, and he rolled the window down, showing his pass before he was directed to drive further down into the parking lot. “We love them, though. They’re great most of the time.”

“Oh, relax, Em,” Jocelyn told her as she turned to look at Emily from the passenger side. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’re gonna have a great fucking time.”

“I know. I just…I worry, you know that,” Emily sighed as she looked down at her lap. She heard her phone vibrating in her brown bag, but she purposely ignored it, not wanting to answer because she already knew who was on the other end of the line. It was Max, and he was probably asking her whether or not she’d already left for the show and if so, if she was alright. She’d told him last night that she would be okay, but he wasn’t convinced, especially since he was in Texas.

“Well, you don’t need to worry. It’s gonna be legen..wait for it,” Jocelyn grinned. “dary. It’s gonna be fucking legendary, Emily.”

Emily couldn’t help but giggle at her friend’s joke as the car came to a stop. Ryan turned the engine off and took a big breath as he turned to look at Jocelyn. “You ready to go inside, babe?”

“Yeah,” Jocelyn nodded before she turned to look at Emily again. “She knows how to handle crowds ‘cause of Max.”

“Max is who again?” Ryan asked Emily as she got out of the car along with the two of them. “I know you told me, I must have forgotten already though.”

“It’s alright,” Emily smiled. “Max is my brother. He’s a bassist for another band,” she explained.

She could see why her friend had chosen a guy like Ryan to date. He was tall and lean, and he had a great sense of humor that matched well with Jocelyn’s. He was also extremely down to earth, which was just what Jocelyn needed in a man. Overall, Emily thought, she could see the two of them being a great couple and she was glad to have met Ryan.

“Oh yeah,” Ryan nodded before he turned to look at Jocelyn, stopping. “Babe…Is she…?”

“Yes,” Jocelyn cut him off as she grabbed his hand quickly, flashing Emily a smile before she muttered something incoherent to Ryan. Emily wanted to know what her friend had said, especially when she saw Ryan’s eyes widen as he turned to look at her again before he groaned, though she wouldn’t ask because she knew that with Jocelyn, it could be any number of things that had been said.

“Just make sure I’m not around when the fireworks start,” Ryan muttered under his breath as he walked inside the building, Joss not too far behind him as Emily followed. No one stopped her, though she figured it was probably because she was with Jocelyn and Ryan.

“What was that all about?” Emily asked her friend as they walked inside the darker interior of the back part of the House of Blues.

“Uh…” Jocelyn started before she stopped, turning to face her friend with a guilty smile. “Before I answer that…how much do you love me?”

Emily arched an eyebrow, wondering what her friend had done this time. “…Like a sister,” she replied cautiously. “Why?”

“And you swear that no matter what, you’ll always love me like a sister and that you’d never get angry enough to…say, stop talking to me forever?”

“Joss, you’re scaring me,” Emily frowned. “What’s going on?”

“Well…I mean, it wasn’t my idea originally. It was Hanna. She figured it all out and I just went along with it because you know how she is when she gets one of her ideas…” Jocelyn murmured as she played with her fingers, looking down at the ground. “But then it seemed like a good idea to me too because…well, it’s been a long time, Em, and people change.”

“What?” Emily asked, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means…” Jocelyn bit her bottom lip before she opened her mouth to finish her sentence. But before she could, someone else spoke instead. Someone that Emily hadn’t seen in so long, she’d never thought she’d see him again.

“Emily? What are you doing here?”

The person asking the question was none other than Ronnie Radke, and he looked just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. The shock was clearly written all over his face, and Emily immediately understood that Jocelyn had to have known that this was Ronnie’s band since the very beginning. She had to have, because this was her boyfriend’s band and that meant she had to know the other people in the band, too.

It meant she had to have known that Ronnie was in the band; that Emily was going to be seeing him here if she came. And that had to have been why Jocelyn had been so nervous.

“I uh…” She started before she took a step back, shaking her head. “I didn’t know you were here. I’ve got to go, Joss. I can’t…I—”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” she heard Hanna’s voice say from somewhere behind her before she turned to see her friend standing in front of the exit of the building, a stern look on her face. “It’s been ten years, Emily. You can act like an adult and at least talk with him.”

Emily turned again to see that Jocelyn had fled the scene, probably worried about Emily’s reaction to Ronnie. She bit her bottom lip, studying the man she hadn’t seen in a decade.

He’d aged well, she decided in an instant. His arms were no longer thin and stringy like they had been when they’d been younger. He’d put on a lot of muscle, probably from prison, and he’d added a lot of new tattoos to his collection. His hair hadn’t changed much, it was still messy like it always had been, and his eyes were still the same shade of chocolate brown that she remembered. All in all, this Ronnie was very reminiscent of the Ronnie she had known ten years ago. Time had done him justice, though she could see it in his face that he too still wore old scars and that they hadn’t all healed.

“If she doesn’t want to see me, she shouldn’t have to, Han,” Ronnie told her friend before he turned. “We’ve got things we have to get done anyway. No time to talk,” he finished off before he too left the room, leaving Emily standing there in shock, wondering what in the hell had just happened.