In My Dreams It's Me And You

Twelve hours later we found ourselves in Europe. With the exception of a few awkward encounters and minor “Matt Attacks”, as I had come to call his temper tantrums, the rest of that night went by smoothly. The first uncomfortable situation occurred when walking into the airport, Brian was pushed into me from behind. A moan unconsciously found its way through my lips at the contact and Brian’s hands, which had secured themselves to my hips in order to prevent me from stumbling and falling to the ground, tightened their hold. Remembering the situation we were in, Brian removed his hands and apologized for having run into me. I accepted the apology and moved forward, hoping he hadn’t been able to see the blush on my face.

Fate somehow found a way to throw us together again that night when the hotel had us booked to share a room. Not only was that a bit awkward, but Matt had a bitch fit to top it off.

“There is no way that shit is happening!” Matt exclaimed, slamming his hand on the desk. The receptionist jumped and ducked her head. “I don’t care how much I have to pay you or your manager: change that arrangement.”

The effects of jet lag kicking in, I tiredly stepped up to my livid cousin. “Seriously, Matt? I don’t give a fuck who I share a room with right now; I just want to get upstairs and go to sleep.”

Matt gave me a scathing look and responded, “No, Natalie. This mess is getting fixed this instant.”

Sighing wearily, I stepped back and let Matt continue on his tirade. “I know that us sharing a room would be a little awkward considering our current situation, but I honestly don’t care about sleeping arrangements either,” Brian whispered, shooting me a small smile.

I offered a smile in return and replied, “At least someone agrees.”

“Natalie, you’re going to share a room with Val and myself,” Matt interrupted, grabbing my bags and heading toward the elevator. “You’ve got your own room, Haner.”

I could go on to explain the details of the other mishaps, but they are all similar in sequence: Brian and I have a run-in, we apologize awkwardly, and act as though it never happened; Matt sees or hears something he doesn’t like, throws a fit, gets his way, and all is good. Matt Attacks and awkward meetings aside, though, there wasn’t much I could complain about.

However, if I was going to complain about anything, it would be my ‘conversation’ with Zack. It wasn’t so much a conversation as it was him trying to apologize and me losing it on him; he had finally summoned up the courage to speak to me after what he did and I did not appreciate the effort. In all honesty, I blamed him for my problems with Brian. If it hadn’t been for Zack’s selfishness, arrogance, and disregard for my relationship, Brian and I would still be okay. Because of that, it goes without saying that I wasn’t very receptive to his entreaty.

Despite all of that, I woke up this morning in a much better mood than I had been since the breakup. Depression still lingered about me but the determination to push that aside and make tonight, the first night on tour with Iron Maiden, a great night pulled through. If I learned one thing from the time I’d spent on the road with the guys, it was that even if you’re not okay, you put on a brave face and give the fans the show they paid for. They deserved at least that much.

With that thought in mind, I pushed myself off the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. I felt that a warm shower would work well in keeping me in high spirits, and I eagerly stripped myself of the pajamas covering my body before stepping into the enclosure. The sudden blast of cold water chilled me to the core, but it soon warmed up to the temperature I desired and I went about the task of washing my face, hair, and body. I basked in the warmth of the shower for a few extra minutes, reveling in the temporary comfort it provided and preparing myself for the harrowing day I undoubtedly faced.

‘Keep a smile on your face, girly,’ I thought to myself as I shut the water off and wrapped a towel around my body. ‘You’re strong and you’ll make it through. Everything just takes time.’

Feeling my stomach, which had decided to punish me for not having eaten well the last few days, grumble with hunger, I wasted no time in getting ready for the day. I left my hair to dry naturally before dressing myself. My attire was simple: it consisted of denim shorts, an Avenged Sevenfold tee layered over a blue tank top, and a pair of blue flip flops. Mascara and some eyeliner brought out the hazel of my eyes, and I was set to go.

“Hey girl, you ready for some breakfast?” Val asked as I left the confines of the bathroom. “I know Matt is; he woke up and instantly started complaining about food.”

I laughed and slipped my flip flops onto my feet, looking down at the remnants of the purple nail polish still on my toes. “That sounds like Matt,” I replied with a smile. “I’m getting to that point too, though: my stomach is making some gnarly sounds right now. I feel as though I could eat a whole buffet.”

Val joined me in walking out of the room and linked an arm with mine. “That’s good to hear,” she answered. “It’s better than a few days ago when you wouldn’t eat anything.”

“It’s not that I wouldn’t eat anything, Val, it’s that I couldn’t eat anything,” I defended. “My body rejected everything I tried to consume as a reaction to the shock of what happened.”

Nodding her head, Val led us down the stairs. “I know. I’m sorry - ”

“Please don’t say it,” I sighed, not wanting to hear the sentiment again. It didn’t matter how many times anyone said it: ‘I’m sorry’ wasn’t going to fix anything.

“Has Brian tried to apologize yet?” she asked instead.

Another sigh left my lips. This wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have simply because I felt guilty whenever I thought about it. “Yeah, he has,” I responded. I could see the smile forming on Val’s lips and I immediately added, “But it hasn’t gotten him anywhere.”

“Well yeah, that’s to be expected,” Val began, and I cut her off.

“It’s not because I won’t accept it, Valary. It’s because I won’t talk to him.”

Val stopped in her tracks and yanked on my arm, bringing me around to face her. “What? What do you mean you won’t speak to him?” I went to reply and she gave me a pointed look. “I’m not stupid, I know what it means literally. What I want to know is who gave you the dumb ass idea to ignore him, because I sure as Hell know it’s not yours.”

Despite knowing I was going to get my ass chewed if she believed the lie, I took the credit for Matt’s idea. “Actually, it was my idea,” I stated meekly.

“Since when do you, Natalie Marie Sanders, avoid confrontation?” Val questioned, crossing her arms over her chest. This was going to be a hard sell, but I had to do it.

“Since I decided I want to protect Brian,” I answered, earning a skeptical look in return. “Even though I’m still very hurt by what he did, and still very pissed off he didn’t believe me in the first place, I don’t want Brian to suffer another beating at the hands of the over-protective man I call my cousin. You and I both know that if I speak to Brian, Matt will be livid - ”

“Who the fuck cares what Matt thinks or does?!” Val exclaimed, throwing her hands into the air. “It’s your relationship, Natalie, not his.”

Remaining calm, I added, “It’s not yours either, Val. I know you’re just trying to help but you’re right: it’s my relationship and I’m going to do what I think is right. And it’s not as though it’ll last forever; I’m just going to wait a while and let the dust settle.”

Val chewed on her lower lip as we finally continued walking across the lobby to the breakfast setup. “Just don’t wait too long, Nat,” she warned. “I know you mean well, but you know what they say about good intentions…”

“Morning ladies!” Jimmy greeted with a grin, his glass of orange juice raised in our direction. “Sleep well?”

I took a seat at the end of the table next to him while Val took her place next to Matt. It wasn’t until I was fully settled in that I noticed the seating arrangement was a bit… odd. Unlike you’d expect, Brian and Zack were sat in close proximity of one another - right next to each other to be exact. The tension between the two made the atmosphere painfully uncomfortable, all of us aware that an explosive argument between the two was imminent. Throughout the meal they kept interaction to a minimum, only speaking to each other when absolutely necessary. Matt, being the peacekeeper he is (note the implied sarcasm), succeeded in engaging the others in conversation regardless of the awkward state of affairs; I, on the other hand, chose to keep to myself. That passive silence ended when details on that night’s show started coming up.

Matt ran through the schedule for the night, referencing a sheet that one of the tour managers gave to us whenever someone had a question. We had almost finished talking about the set list when Matt abruptly stopped in the middle of a sentence, his eyes narrowing and brow furrowing in what appeared to be confusion.

“Well, that shit isn’t happening,” he stated simply, throwing the paper on the table and shaking his head. He looked up at the rest of us and shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know whose bright idea that was, but it isn’t happening.”

“Care to explain, Shads?” Johnny asked, voicing the thoughts of the group. Matt passed the paper to him and Johnny scanned it, realization dawning on him once his eyes found what had unquestionably caused Matt’s outburst. “Oh.”

Val reached across the table and grabbed the paper, her eyes searching furiously for the offending bit of information. Having found it, she slammed the paper on the table and turned to her boyfriend. “You’re overreacting, Matthew,” she told him.

“Like Hell I am!” he cried. “I don’t care who ordered it, Natalie is not fucking dancing on Brian tonight.”

“WHAT?!” Jimmy, Zack, and myself exclaimed simultaneously. Brian choked on the drink of milk he had just taken and Val patted his shoulder as he coughed.

I snatched the paper up and searched for confirmation of what Matt had just announced. Right at the bottom of the page, written in the unmistakable handwriting of our tour manager, was the direction for me to not only sing during ‘Scream’ but to dance as well when the solo came up. And the highlight of my performance? A quote-unquote “steamy kiss” with Brian once the solo came to an end. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” I moaned, handing the paper off to Jimmy and hiding my face in my hands.

“She’s not even going to be dancing on him!” Val explained to Matt. “The worst part of that performance will be the kiss, and it’ll only have to last a few seconds.”

Matt snorted and replied, “Yeah, ‘cause that makes it any better.”

“Well, the way I see it, there isn’t a whole lot any of us can do,” Jimmy interrupted. “I say we just go with it.” Glaring a hole through Jimmy’s head, Matt asked him why he thought that. “It’s only one night, for starters. One night isn’t going to kill either of them. Also, unless they want their breakup becoming the whole world’s business, Nat and Brian have to keep appearances up. I’m not saying they have to be all lovey dovey, but they do still have to have some interaction in public and onstage.”

Not able to argue with the logic of the argument, Matt sighed and looked from Brian to myself. “Rev’s got a point, and honestly, I don’t think I could bitch my way into getting what I want on this one. Are you guys cool with this?”

Glancing across the table to Brian, my eyes met his and locked for a mere split second. In that second I decided I would take the chance to be able to be close to him again, even if it was only for one song. “I’m cool,” I replied.

“Yeah, me too. Like Jimmy said, it’s only one night,” Brian agreed.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Nat,” Jimmy assured me as we stood at the side of the darkened stage, waiting to be told to make our entrance. Through the rolling fog, I could make out Brian pacing back and forth on the other side of the stage. “He’s just as nervous as you, you know.”

Not looking away, I asked, “What makes you say that?”

Jimmy twirled a drumstick between his fingers as he, too, began watching Brian. He was now fiddling nervously with the tuning on his guitar. “The fact that he wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it when he and I sat down to talk about two hours ago,” he answered. I looked up at Jimmy in shock and he looked down at me, nodding his head. “I’m not kidding: he talked about how nervous he is, how much he misses you, and how much he loves you for two hours straight. Don’t get me wrong, I love Brian like my brother from another mother, but it’s difficult to sit there and listen to him sound like a sap for two hours. Oh, and to top it off, he cried - ”

“He cried?!” I asked in shock. Brian wasn’t a man to show too much emotion except when in private, and even then, I had never seen him cry.

“Yep, he cried,” Jimmy told me. Jason Berry came by to tell us we had thirty seconds and Jimmy turned to me. “Listen, I’m not trying to play Dr. Phil here or anything, but you two seriously should talk. I know you both love each other, and this whole incident is tearing your relationship apart. Just consider it, okay?”

I barely had time to nod before Matt walked onstage, our cue to follow him and begin the show. Once I was onstage in front of the crowd, it was as though my worries had disappeared. I knew they were still there, lurking in the back of mind, waiting for the first moment I was alone and had nothing but time to think about my situation. I didn’t let that thought get me down, though, and gave the fans the show they paid for. Avenged fans in every city we’d been to had come to expect the same quality of me that they expected of Matt, and I never was one to disappoint. Since we were just an opening band on this tour, however, our set wasn’t very long and the only part of the show I had been inwardly nervous about approached must faster than I would have liked.

“This next song is for the ladies,” Matt spoke into the mic, the female portion of the crowd exploding into screams as the recording came on and Val’s vocals resounded throughout the arena. Casting me a brief glance, Matt began the song and I followed suit, singing the same parts I typically did.

It could have been nerves, but to me it seemed as though the song was moving at a pace that was unnaturally fast and soon enough, the solo was upon us. I watched as Brian moved over to the center of the stage to get ready and Matt gave me the signal to carry on with what I’d been asked to do. Taking a deep breath, I tried as best I could to mentally and emotionally prepare myself for what was about to take place.

To the sound of shocked and appreciative cheers, I began dancing at the same moment Brian entered his solo. I allowed myself to feel the heavy bass of the song and move my hips in time with the rhythm, the crowd whistling and cheering as I did so. I could see our tour manager motioning me to get closer to Brian as the solo started to end, and I closed my eyes for a moment before dancing up to his side and laying a hand on his bicep. The hairs on his arm were standing on end despite the sweat covering his body and I lightly squeezed his arm in attempt to offer comfort. The solo quickly drew to an end and Brian turned to me, dropping one arm from his guitar to wrap it around my waist and pull me to him. Our lips met in a fierce kiss and the crowd went wild - screams, cheers, and whistles filling the arena. In the blink of an eye the moment was over, and Brian and I were going our separate ways.

(Brian’s POV)

You’d think that with what transpired between us onstage that night, Natalie and I would have talked about the state of our relationship. Well, you couldn’t be more wrong. If anything, all that kiss did was make things worse by adding sexual tension to the already jumbled mixture of feelings swirling around. I did try talking to Natalie, like I did every day and night since the breakup, but she continued to ignore my efforts. I had to admit that the constant rejection was starting to eat at me and even annoy me, but I refused to quit. I would not give up on Natalie that easily. Come Hell or high water, I would make things right and win her back.