‹ Prequel: Zoned
Status: Part Two

Zoned: Waking Up

4th Shot to the Brain

"Richi. Wake up." I groaned as the car came to a stop. She yawned and opened her eyes. She looked at me and smiled slightly. I opened the car door and got a sinking feeling in my stomach as I stood in front of the bus. Jorel walked to the bus door and went inside. I stood staring at the door as Richi came up and stood next to me. She sighed and looked at me. We both stared at the door for a few seconds until the curtain, to the window the was next to the door, moved. Matt's face was showing and he was talking. I felt a huge knot in my stomach and a rushing sensation to my head. It was like butterflies but also confusion. Richi noticed and nudged my arm.

"You're alright, babe. We're okay...." She grabbed my hand. We both took a deep breath and I walked up the 2 steps to the bus and opened the door.

"Dude, dude...shut the door." George waved his hand over his face and shook his head as he sat on the couch. "And the window."

I shut the door and leaned against it as Richi stood next to me. She was quiet and I could tell she was disappointed that Dylan wasn't in there. Neither was Jordon or Danny, actually. Just Matt, George, and now Jorel were in the front room on the bus. Matt took some aspirin and I felt sick every time I looked at him. I wasn't sure if it was like the cute butterfly feeling or nervousness or what, but I knew I felt ill. Probably because I was hungover.

"Okay so did you guys get my text?" Jorel said. He stood in front of Richi and I and we listened.

"My phone's dead." Matt said. He looked at me and then took a drink of water and looked back at Jorel and George.

"I just haven't checked it. Jordon and Danny are still asleep and Dylan came home earlier to go back to go back to bed. He was limping pretty bad." George said.

"Why, what's wrong?" Matt asked.

"Nothing! I got a call this morning saying the construction went faster than expected. They're ahead of schedule and we can start moving in tomorrow."

George and Matt looked at each with half smiles. Their eyes were wide and Matt shook his head a bit out of disbelief. "Dude, that's great! Are you two going to move in, too?" George asked.

I looked at Richi. We had one of our mental conversations.
Her eyes talked to me, "A....Dylan..."
"I know, but it'll get better."

"Yeah. I think so. If you guys still want us to, then we will..." I said out loud. I heard Richi hold her breath.

"Yeah! Definitely! You guys are our best friends so why not?" George said to us. He had the cheekiest grin on his face and he was leaning forward in excitement.

"Why are you fuckers so loud?" Dylan walked in from the bunk room. He was rubbing his face as he came in. I felt Richi's hand tense up in mine. He locked eyes with her, burped, then asked, "What's going on?" Just then, Danny came out. I saw that my chance to go see Jordon.

"We're moving in tomorrow!" Matt said all excited. "We can finally get out of this crammed piece of shit!"

I walked passed Matt and Dylan to go to the back of the bus. Jordon was rolled over on his right side asleep. I poked his arm and his eyes slowly opened. He saw me and then rolled over.
"Are you okay?"

"I'm asleep."

"Can I join you?"
He rolled back over and looked at me. He sighed and scooted towards the wall so I had room to lay down. I climbed up and lied in his arms. He was on his back and I curled up next to him.
"Seriously, are you okay?" I was worried.

"Yeah. Just hungover." He looked at me smiled.

"What?" I was surprised since I danced with his brother. I wasn't sure why I felt obligated to not do that, but I felt it was wrong. I was kind of upset that he wasn't mad at me. I wanted him to be jealous,actually, that I danced with Jake and not him. Just so I knew he cared about me the way I cared about him. But he smiled and acted like nothing happened.

"You and Matt get it in?" he joked. Just then I knew why I felt ill when I saw Matt. I remembered exactly what happened with him the last night. After Jake left the dressing room, I stood there thinking I knew who had a thing for me. I assumed it was Matthew, actually, and didn't want to ruin a good friendship by rejecting him or anything. I actually had a small "crush" on him after the first year we all were together. Since then, I've been in love with him every time we talked. It was only when we were together that I liked him. When we weren't, I saw him as a friend. I felt the same with George. He was so cute. I know I didn't like him all that much, but after actually getting to know him (finally), I started to love every word he said. It was different with Jordon, though. I liked him even when I wasn't with him. It's more than just liking someone. It's more of an immense care for him. I felt so safe with him. It frustrated me that when I would be with Matt, I didn't think about Jordon. I only focused on Matthew. Only him. Same with George. I never thought about Jordon when I talked to George. But every time I'm with Jordon, I constantly want him to just....be mine.
After standing in the dressing room, I tried to focus on walking. I stumbled to the door and almost fell down. I gathered my barrings, and walked out to the couch. Jake was standing with Matt and Danny.

"Sup, fags!" I said as I put my arm on Danny's shoulder. They looked at me and smiled. Jake didn't really have an expression, though.

"Hey! Are you okay!" Danny asked. I nodded and laughed.

"As good as I'm gonna get, baby!"
They all chuckled at that. A girl started eyeing Danny and motioned for him to join her on the dance floor.

"Excuse me, ladies!" He said as he walked away. Jake sat down on the couch and drank more of his beer. Matt kept looking at me and scanning my body oh so subtly as he drank his beer. Jordon stopped paying attention to everyone and was checking out the people in the crowd. As he was doing so, a girl was eyeing him and flirting by purposefully grinding on another girl. She and Jordon had eye contact the entire time she danced. I remembered feeling angry and very jealous. Jake noticed me giving Jordon a look, I guess, because he got up and hit Jordon's arm and distracted him from the girl. I was annoyed but also didn't want my night to be ruined by jealousy, so I grabbed Matt and took him to the dance floor. I wanted to be away from Jordon and the jealousy he was making me feel.

"Why are we dancing!" He asked as he barely moved to the beat.

"Just feel like it!" I said. We grinded on each other and I could tell he was tired from it. He walked away and came back with another Everclear. I wasn't questioning it, so I drank it. By this time,I had already had 3 or 4 shots of Everclear. I was extremely pissed and kind of numb from it. Then I blacked out. The next thing I remembered was Matt smiling at me and pulling me extremely close. I thought I smiled back at him, but I wasn't sure. Then I remembered him kissing me. It wasn't a sloppy make out session; it was more of a cute make out session...for like a second. I realized he kissed me and pulled back and awkwardly smiled. I then tried not stumble over my feet to Richi and told her he kissed me. I didn't remember what happened after that.

"Uh, no. We did not...." I answered. Jordon chuckled and said, "Whatever."

"Are you jealous, sweet Jordon?" I joked. I sat up to where I was somewhat over him. He looked up at me and smiled.

"Not at all. You mad about that or is that just your hangover face?"

I smirked at him. "My hangover face. I could care less."

"So you do care, then?"

I was quiet but still smirking. "Oh shut up. Wanna stop being anti-social and go talk to everyone? Jorel has some news for us about the house. It's pretty exciting, actually."

"Yeah, why not. We need to record for our new album later, though."

"Sounds good." I jumped down and then turned to Jordon to where our faces were right by each other's. He was laying down, still and I stood with my arms on the bunk.

"You know, I could kiss you right now and you wouldn't really be able to pull away. There's not much room for you to squirm." he said smiling.

"Sounds a bit rape-ish." I stepped back and leaned up against the bunks parallel to the ones George, Matt, and Jordon use. "Now get up. Y'all got shit to do, remember?"
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A bit long, sorry