Seize The Day.

After a couple hours, Johnny went up to the front of the bus to swap driving duty with Zacky. Zacky came walking back to where Jenny was sitting and sat down across from her. He waited for her to turn and see him. She jumped a little but then gave a half-hearted smile as she pulled out her earphones and looked at him, “Hey.” He smiled at her, “Hey,” he paused for a second and looked down at his hands, “I…I have something for you.” She raised her eyebrows in curiosity, “Oh really?” He laughed and nodded as he handed her the notebook, “Read it when you get the chance okay?” She smiled at him and nodded, “Sure thing.” He patted her on the shoulder as he walked back to his room. He flopped down on his bed and sighed. He had re-written that thing a million times and it got shorter each time. He just wanted to make sure that she knew everything.
As soon as he closed the door behind him, she opened the notebook. “Dear Jenny,” as soon as she read that, she turned back to where Zacky had walked away and smiled, even though he couldn’t see her, “Well, there’s a lot that I want to say. And there’s no really poetic way for me to say it. So, sorry if this all sounds really unintelligent. But I just want you to know, I don’t want you to leave. I know that you aren’t really planning on signing the deal and I’m happy about that, not going to lie. But I don’t want you to go back home either. You’ve become a part of the band and a part of our lives. I don’t know what I’d do if you left. It’d be like losing a little sister or a daughter or something of that sort. I don’t want to go through that. Now, I’m not saying any of this to try and pressure you into staying either, so sorry if it seems that way. But you mean a lot to me. I don’t like seeing you hurt or upset. And even if you don’t say anything, I hope you know that I can still see it in your eyes. It worries me Jenn. I just want you to be okay. I got this letter a few years back. Maybe you know the girl who wrote it. Her name was Jennifer, but she said to call her Jenny since that what all her friends called her. It was one of the sweetest fan letters I’ve ever gotten. But what really got me was what she wrote as the post script. I’ll tell you what it said in case you don’t remember, “P.S. I just want to say that I’m proud of you for being so strong about everything that’s going on with the band and Jimmy. It takes a lot to be strong at a time like this. Thank you for being strong enough for you and for Brian; I don’t think he could get through this without you.” That made me tear up Jenn. And I never got rid of the letter. I keep it in my wallet. I always wanted to meet the girl who wrote that letter and do for her what she did for me, give her motivation to keep on going. I hope that I’m doing that for you. I love you Jenny, I hope you know that. And I’m always here for you. Please don’t leave all of us behind. We need you. The band has been getting along so well since you walked into our lives. Please don’t walk back out. I’d be lost without you, and so would all the other guys. Especially Johnny. You’re like a sister to him. He hasn’t been this happy since Jimmy’s death. None of us have been. You mean a lot to all of us you know. We love you so much and we don’t want anything bad to happen to you. I just want to make sure that you’re okay. I know that things are going to get hard for you at times and I just want you to know that I’m always here for you. I could go on and on, but I won’t. Just, take care okay? I love you. A lot. Love always, Zacky V”
She smiled and re-read the letter a few times before finally closing the notebook and leaning back in her chair. That was just the thing that she needed to make her day worth it. She stared at the closed notebook for a minute, wondering what had made Zacky write that. It was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever done for her. But what had gotten her the most was the fact that he had kept her letter for all that time. She had written one to all the guys, even Arin. She doubted that any of them remembered besides Zacky though. They got so much fan mail, what was one letter compared to another? She got up and grabbed a sweatshirt and sat back down with her music and took a book out of the bag that she had gotten with Tyler. She started reading a book that he had suggested for her called The Hunger Games. She knew that there had been a movie made for it, but she never saw it. She opened it and started reading. She soon realized though, that she wasn’t really reading. Her eyes were just skimming over the words and her mind was elsewhere. She couldn’t remember anything that she had just read. She sighed and closed the book and started staring out the window again.
She didn’t hear Arin come out of his room and grab a beer from the fridge. He saw that she had her headphones in so he just stood there for a minute. He hated seeing her like this but he couldn’t just forgive her for doing that to him. “Or should I?” he thought to himself. He shook his head and walked back to his “room”. He flopped down on his bed and put the beer bottle on the side-table. He sat up on and rested his back and head against the wall. He got out his own iPod and started listening to music as well. He tried to forget about everything that was going on with him and Jenny but he just couldn’t. He couldn’t shake the feeling that she didn’t really want to be with him. He felt like it was going to be like high school all over again. He didn’t want to go through that again. It took him such a long time to get over that girl, and he didn’t want to have to go through that with Jenny too. He drank some of his beer and turned his music up louder, just trying to tune out the sound of his own thoughts and memories.
An hour or so later, Jenny felt the bus come to a stop. She pulled her earphones out and looked around, waiting to see where all the guys would come from. Brian and Zacky appeared from their section of the bus, and Matt and Johnny walked back from the front. When she didn’t see Arin come out of his room, she sighed and stood up to stretch and go out with the guys. Johnny smiled at her, “Hey.” She looked up at him, “Oh, hey.” He gave her a hug and she smiled; they were finally getting back to normal again. There was still a lot to fix between them, but they were so much closer. She smiled at him as she stepped away. Matt came up behind her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, “You comin’ with us?” She nodded, “Yea, I gotta stretch my legs. You were right, this sitting shit really is too much haha.” He laughed as they all walked off the bus.
Jenny and Brian were running around the convenience store and Matt watched them and laughed. He called over to them, “You guys are like a couple of five-year-old’s.” Syn laughed as he picked Jenny up so she could reach something that was on the top shelf of the drink cooler. When he set her down she tossed him one of the beers that she had grabbed off the shelf. He laughed, “Please tell me you got something else for yourself right?” She laughed and nodded as she showed him her bottle of Mountain Dew. He nodded approvingly before snagging it from her and taking off with it through the few aisles of the store. She smiled as she took off after him. She finally caught up to him in the aisle with the candy in it. They each picked a couple of bags and she grabbed a big bag of trail mix. When they walked up to the counter with Matt he looked at the two of them skeptically. Syn gave him the fake puppy-dog eyes, “Please let us get the candy! Pretty, pretty please?” Matt laughed, “Oh shut up and just put it on the counter.” Jenny laughed as she put it all on the counter and watched as the boy behind the register put it into the bags. Syn looked at her, “Don’t even think about it.” She stuck her tongue out at him, “I didn’t say anything did I?” He laughed and nudged her shoulder, “Yea but I saw the look you were giving him. You can’t fool me Jenn. I’m the flirting master.” Jenny laughed, “Yea, that’s what you are. Look Brian, you’re an extremely attractive guy, and girls love you for that. But your flirting skills? I don’t know man, I’m not so sure you’ve got it.” He raised his eyebrows in shock, “You’re questioning my skills? Look, I was the fucking man back in the day when I was single.” Jenny nodded, “Uh-huh, I’m sure you were.” And before he could retaliate, she grabbed her bag of food, waved to the boy behind the counter, and walked out the door. As she was walking back to the bus she passed Zacky who had just finished refilling the gas tank. He smiled at her, “You and Syn are ridiculous. Be thankful that we only come here once in a while and that it’s not a regular thing. They would’ve thrown you out.” She giggled, “Yea, I know. But it was so much fun!” Zacky shook his head at her. Jenny waited for him to look at her again, “Oh, and thanks for the note by the way. It means a lot.” She gave him a hug and a kiss on the cheek before getting back on the bus.
She took all the food and drinks out of her bag and put it in the cabinets and fridge. She grabbed her bottle of Mountain Dew and a candy bar and sat back down with her Hunger Games book in front of her. She opened it again and started reading. And this time, she actually focused on what she was reading. She could picture it all happening as the words formed pictures in her head. She didn’t even notice the other guys getting onto the bus. Syn Sat down across from her at the table and just watched her in bewilderment. He didn’t know how someone could be so wrapped up in a book. That happened to him when he was listening to music, but never while he was reading. And even though she had brought her soda and candy with her, she didn’t touch either of them. It seemed like nothing could deviate her attention from the words that were written on those pages.
After about a half an hour, she closed the book. She had gotten through almost half of it already. She looked up and saw Brian asleep in his chair at the table. She smiled as she threw a blanket over him and opened her soda. She watched him twitch slightly in his sleep and couldn’t help but to let out a quiet laugh. She took her sketchbook out of her bag and started drawing a picture to go with one of her favorite lyrics. It was a line from the song What a Shame by Shinedown, “The choir sings, church bells ring, so won’t you give this man his wings?” She was drawing a picture of a pair of angel wings being put on Jimmy by two smaller angels. She normally drew Jimmy in pictures where she needed to show a guardian angel or a protector of some sort. He was just one of the first people that came to mind. Her plan was to draw that, and then write in the lyrics swirling around the paper as if they were the wind.
She was working on that when she saw Arin come out of his room. He walked over and put his bottle in the garbage and looked at her. She looked down at her paper and then back up to him, “Hey…” He looked at her, his face nearly expressionless, “Hey.” She looked down at her hands, “I guess saying that I’m sorry would be kinda useless at this point right?” He sighed and sat down on the couch, “I just don’t get it. I mean, after everything you’ve said and done, you just go around like that with some other guy. I just don’t get it. I thought that what we had actually mattered.” She looked up at him, “But what we have does matter. It matters so much to me.” He snapped, “Well then why don’t you act like it?” She rested her head in her hands, “I’m sorry alright? I fucked up. I know that. But I just, I don’t wanna lose you Arin. I don’t know what I’d do.” He waited for her to meet his gaze before he said anything, “Look, I don’t want to lose you either okay? But I can’t just act like nothing ever happened. Do you know how scared I was Jenn? I thought that I was gonna lose you to that kid.” She fought back her tears, “But I’d never-” He cut her short, “What? You’d never what? Leave? Yea, join the line of all my ex’s who said the same exact thing.” She looked down at her hands, “I’m sorry.” He shook his head, “Look I just, I don’t know.” She looked at him, “So now what? Are you just going to stay mad at me forever?” He sighed, “No, but right now, I’m still kinda pissed about it.” Jenny gave a small laugh, “Yea, I can see that.” He ran his fingers through his hair, but gave the slightest hint of a smile, “What am I gonna do with you Jenn?” She walked over and sat down next to him on the couch, “I don’t know, what are you going to do?” He shrugged, “I don’t know,” he stood up and stretched, “But what I do know is that I am going to go take a nap so I don’t fall asleep during the show tonight. Keep an eye on the vicious killer over there,” he said as he nodded to Syn who was still fast asleep in his chair. Jenny laughed as she watched Arin walk away, “I think I can handle that.”
When Arin disappeared into his room again, Syn opened one eye and looked at Jenny. She laughed, “Have you seriously just been listening to me and Arin this whole time?” He laughed and nodded as he stretched his arms, “Yea,” he paused and smiled at her, “I can’t believe it, you two trying to solve things like grown ups. It’s so cute.” She stuck her tongue out at him, “I don’t need your sarcasm Mr. Haner alright?” He laughed, “Alright, so maybe you two aren’t acting like grown ups. But you guys are acting a lot more mature than I thought you would.” She smiled, “Thanks. I think haha.”
Johnny walked into that part of the bus and Brian looked back and forth between the two of them, “Well, I think I’m gonna be like Arin and catch a little shuteye before the show tonight.” He walked to the back of the bus. Johnny sat down on the couch next to Jenny. He looked at her and smiled, “How you holding up?” She shrugged but gave him a smile, “Better than before.” He nodded, “That’s good.” She nodded too, “Yea.” He looked down at his hands and she waited for him to look back up at her. “I’m sorry,” they said in unison. Jenny looked at him in shock, “Wait, why are you sorry? You didn’t do anything.” He sighed, “I shouldn’t have been such an asshole about the whole thing. Getting mad at you for it wasn’t going to fix anything. And I knew that but I still…” his voice trailed off. She gently put her hand on his arm, “Johnny, listen to me okay? I don’t blame you for getting mad. I would’ve too if I were you. And, well, I know that I got mad at you for being mad at me but I realized how stupid I was being. I’m sorry for being so stupid in the first place and doing…well…you know.” He looked at her and put his arm around her shoulders, “Don’t be sorry. Just, just please talk to me next time something bad happens okay?” She nodded, “I will, I promise.” He wrapped her in a hug and she couldn’t help but to throw her hands around his neck. He smiled and pushed her hair out of his face. She pulled back a little and looked at him, “Can I tell you something?” He nodded, “Of course.” She took a deep breath, “It really sucked not talking to you. I missed the shit out of you.” He smiled at her, “I missed you too.”
They sat there and talked about everything, from the most pointless things to the things that meant the most to them. They were laughing and joking around like they had when they hung out that first night she had met him. She looked at him and she couldn’t help but smile. He just looked so happy and so, well, so much like the Johnny she knew and loved from the first Avenged Sevenfold song that she’d heard. She thought that she’d lost that Johnny for good, but she hadn’t; he was right there next to her. She laughed as he told her about all the crazy things that he’d done over the years with the band while he was drunk. And all the crazy things he’d done while he was sober. She couldn’t help but to think that if she had an older brother that this is what she’d want him to be like. She loved having that crazy, somewhat stupid person in her life that could turn serious in a matter of seconds.
Johnny was just watching Jenny; he loved seeing her laugh. It was like she was okay again. And, even though he hadn’t known her before everything went to hell with her family and all, he liked to think that this is what she was like. He listened as she told him about all the stupid stunts her and her friends had pulled in school and gotten in trouble. He just laughed and shook his head, thinking that that was what he and his friends used to do.
After a while, she turned to him and rested her head on his shoulder. She looked up at him, “Johnny?” He nodded, “Yea?” She smiled at him, “You’re the best guy I’ve ever met.” He laughed, “Thanks. You’re a pretty cool girl.” She gave a quiet laugh as she closed her eyes, “Thanks. Hey, wake me up when we’re there?” He smiled, “Sure thing.” He watched as she drifted off to sleep again. He kissed the top of her head and sighed, he couldn’t help but to think that it was so much like that first night with her.