Breaking Hearts Still Looks Pretty Cool

I was woken up one morning a few days after, to the sound of overpowering rushing traffic that never seemed to ebb. It was strangely, excitingly familiar. I didn’t dare to open my eyes to the glare of the morning light for fear of it ruining the picture I had in my mind of where we were. I was imagining the street I lived on in New York City, the place I loved, and that had become my home over the past year; that is, before my friends positively forced me to leave to come on this tour. That seemed like an age ago.

I could hear the distant sounds of chatter downstairs, and just as I rolled over to try and get some more sleep, I found that Gerard was not with me. That was enough to ignite my curiosity sufficiently for me to drag myself out of bed (or Gerard’s bed; mine had now become an extra place to store my copious amounts of luggage and clothing).

I quickly pulled on a printed high waist mini skirt and a plain strap top, with a cardigan in case it was colder than the sunlight advertised, and having quickly checked that my hair was vaguely presentable, tripped down the stairs.

“Morning,” said Annabelle, the first person I saw, and I registered that she looked pretty excited.

“What’s going on?” I asked, walking slightly more into the centre of the room. There was the same sort of buzz of excitement around everyone.

“Morning, Sugar!” Gerard came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, causing me to turn around so that I could easily place a kiss on his lips.

“Morning,” I replied sleepily, “why is everyone so excited?”
“You’ll see,” he said gleefully, “I bought you breakfast,”

“How did you ‘buy me breakfast’” I imitated his voice ironically, “we’re on a moving bus,”

“We weren’t moving when we pulled over to stop half an hour ago, you know, just as we entered New York City...”

He said this in an off-handed way, but I could tell that he was anticipating my excited reaction; he knew how much I loved NYC.

“Are we seriously back in NYC?” I asked, grinning like a maniac, “we’re really here?”

I had been right; I knew I recognised the sounds of that traffic.

“We sure are,” he seemed happy that I was happy, and retrieved a small brown paper bag from the table in the kitchen area.

“I believe that pain au chocolat is your favourite,” he said, holding the pastry out to me.

His French pronunciation was dreadful, but I didn’t care. Instead, I threw my arms around his neck and layered multiple kisses all over the side of his face. Everyone around laughed at how excited I was.
“The thing is, C,” said Frank, with an air of sadness, “this show, the New York show, is the last of the tour for us...”

“Oh,” I had forgotten that minor detail. Although the boys all looked fairly downcast at the thought of not being off the road, I was excited at the prospect. As much as I had enjoyed the tour, I would not miss the lack of privacy, the pathetically tiny and rickety bathroom facilities, the endless hours of hanging out doing nothing, and least of all the bus itself that even now only served as a spiteful memory of those few horrible days.

“I can’t believe it’s over,” said Ray sadly, sitting down on the nearest surface he could, “no more touring with Green Day,”

“Yes,” I agreed, “we’ll all miss it, I’m sure,” I caught Annabelle’s eye and knew that she was longing to live permanently in a proper house as much as I was, “But it’s summer! School’s out, so technically I made it through my penultimate year at Columbia! We have months now just to hang out, enjoy the sunshine, and spend time together...”

Frank smiled at my optimism, “I know,” he said, “and it’ll be nice to see the parents and everything...but we won’t be playing every day anymore,”

Annabelle rolled her eyes, “well, I suppose we’ll let you play for us,”

We had been so deep in conversation that we hadn’t even noticed the bus gently roll up into a quieter side street, presumably at the back of the venue for the evening.

“You know what guys?” I said, standing up as soon as the quiver of the engine shut out, “I’m going to drop in to my dorms, pick the last of my things up, surprise my friends...”

“Can I come?” asked Gerard suddenly, walking closer to me and stroking my wrist gently,

“Um...sure,” I answered, not wanting to think what my college friends’ response might be to me walking in with Gerard on my arm, “don’t you have a sound check though?”

“I think that they can survive without me just once?” he addressed everyone else with this question,

“It’s our last sound check, dude,” Frank pretended to sob but then quickly recovered, “Yeah do whatever you want,” he said, “we won’t miss you anyway,” he stuck his tongue out at us, and I rolled my eyes as I pulled Gerard off of the bus and onto the sidewalk.

It felt good to be back under the domineering New York skyline; it was familiar and welcome to me.

“You really love it here, don’t you,” commented Gerard, watching me as I hungrily took in all of the sights in my eye line.

“Yeah,” I replied blissfully, “it’s become my home,”

He bit his lip thoughtfully and then shook his head, a habit I’m sure he picked up from me, because I did it all the time whenever I was confused or having an internal battle.

“You ok?” I asked, leading him to the descent to the subway,

“Yeah,” he said, not sounding distracted at all, “what are we going to pick up, anyway?”

“You’ll see,”

I had only left one thing behind.