For the Love of the Game

A week later we hit the road for the first show in Michigan. Nikki, Tommy, Farmer and me were on one bus and Vince and Mick had their own separate buses. We hadn’t even been on the road for two hours and we were already raising hell. It was definitely going to be an interesting few weeks with all of us together.

“You guys better be ready because I’m going to terrorize the hell out of y’all during the shows. Nikki is going to regret bringing me along.” I threatened Tommy.

“I promise whatever you pull during the show my payback will be twice as bad.”

“We will see.”

“God help us all.” Nikki said pulling his blanket up over his head.

Things settled down a little bit as we got more into the trip and like most long vehicle rides for me, I found myself getting sleepy pretty quickly. I don’t know what it was about road trips but I always wanted to sleep on the way to wherever. Tommy was on his computer doing who knew what, Farmer was back in the bunk area researching potential colleges like the over achiever that he was, and Nikki had been passed out for a while on the couch which I decided to share with him. He woke up as I was trying to lay beside him and he made room for me and shared his blanket. I was out cold in record time.

My nap didn’t last long though as thoughts and memories of my dad ran through my head. They were all good and happy memories until it all of a sudden swapped to me walking through a plane crash site and finding Dad’s bloody, lifeless body hanging out of a piece of the broken apart plane. I started to breath heavy as I ran toward the plane part screaming his name, hoping he would wake up or move or something. But it didn’t matter how much I screamed his name, his body remained lifeless…

“Collins!”

I sat straight up and found Tommy and Farmer standing over me and Nikki was still on the couch looking at me with a worried look on his face. I could feel the lump in my throat and the tears stinging my eyes as I pushed myself off the couch and went into the small bus bathroom to catch my breath for a minute. To say that I was embarrassed was an understatement. I was hoping I would be able to move on and not have these kind of issues, but that didn’t appear to be the case.

I cried for a good ten minutes, trying to be as quiet as I could be. I hated crying with a passion, but sometimes you just couldn’t help it. I couldn’t get the image of my dad’s lifeless body out of my head, even though I had never seen my dad’s body and no idea how he had been found. I was glad I didn’t know the details of his death. I just kept telling myself that he died instantly and felt no pain. If I knew any different I wasn’t sure I would be able to bear it.

“Olli? Are you okay?” Nikki asked from outside the door.

“Yeah. I’ll be out in a minute.”

“Alright. Come to the bunks when you come out.”

I splashed some cold water on my face, trying to get some of the redness to go away. I did as Nikki asked and met him in the bunk area after I had convinced myself to come out of the bathroom. He was laying in his bunk and put my pillow beside his and made room for me. I grabbed my favorite Mississippi State blanket off of my bunk and laid down beside him.

“I’m sorry.” I told him.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“I didn’t hit you or anything did I? I tend to do weird things when I have bad dreams.”

“No, you didn’t. You were just twitching and shaking. That’s what woke me up. Do you want to talk about it?”

“I…I don’t know if I can.” I said fighting off the urge to cry again.

“These things are going to happen for a little while, Olli. It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“I know. I’m just so sick of crying. I hate crying.” I said, tears falling down my face again.

“Crying is nothing to be ashamed of either. I know your personality though. You know I’m not afraid to cry.”

“I don’t ever want to forget Daddy, and I know I never will, but I want to forget this happened and move on with my new life with my new dad and just…I don’t know.”

“Collins, you don’t have to call me your dad, you know that right? I will never take the place of him, nor am I trying to.”

“Nikki, you’ve always been a second Dad to me. This is nothing new.”

Nikki wrapped his arms tighter around me and pulled me to him, resting his head on top of mine. I knew what he was thinking, I had seen the movies. Some new father figure comes along after the death of a dad and the kid gets mad about something and yells at the new guy that he isn’t their dad and never will be. Yeah, that wasn’t going to be me. Nikki and all of these guys had been in my life since I was born and I was super lucky that he had even stepped up and taken me in. My dad would have come back to haunt me if I had pulled that with Nikki.

“Maybe let’s talk about something not so heavy. Like…what do you want to do after high school? College? Something else?”

“Ah hell, Nikki. I don’t know. I don’t have a clue what I would go to college for.”

“You could be a doctor.”

“Um…yeah, no. I honestly don’t know. I like playing music but I highly doubt I would ever make it.”

“You wanna play music, really?”

“Yeah, I think it would be fun. I love the atmosphere and losing myself in the music.”

“Well, I’ll tell ya what. You get through your senior year and if that’s what you still want to do, I will do everything in my power to help you get started. I’ll even get Sixx AM to be your opening band.”

“Ha. Whatever. It would be more like my band opening for Sixx AM.”

I resituated myself and got comfortable to try and go back to sleep. After having the dream about Dad I had to admit that I was now exhausted. I was kind of scared to even go back to sleep, but the way I felt right now, I wouldn’t be able to fight it much longer.

“Try to get some rest okay? I’ll be on the couch if you need anything.” Nikki said removing his arms from around me and moving to get up.

“Don’t leave me please? I mean, unless you have something to do. I’m scared it’s going to happen again.”

He gave me a warm smile and laid back down beside me again. “I’m not going anywhere. Get some sleep. I’ll be right here if anything happens.”

“You’re awesome, Nikki. I love you.”

“I love you, too, Collins.”