Winter Nights

We boarded a bus early the next morning after a delicious hotel breakfast, (sarcasm, the eggs were rubbery and the toast was stale) to head to another city. I kind of enjoyed this; going from city to city. Doing some sightseeing, it was enjoyable. It was a whirlwind of excitement and I didn’t have a lot of my old stress placed on me. Part of me just wanted to settle down somewhere and stay awhile though, but not quite yet. I hadn’t quite found the place I wanted to call home yet, maybe soon but not yet.

I had started to get sleepy and close my eyes when I felt a nudge against my shoulder. I opened my eyes and noticed Kaleb had sat down next to me and was taking out his sketchpad to draw. I glanced over his shoulder and noticed how detailed his drawings where.

“Wow, amazing!” I exclaimed as he flipped a page and showed off more of his drawings to me, he was extremely talented. He blushed slightly at my excitement, and closed the sketchpad.

“What are you good at?” He asked me randomly. I thought about that for a moment and truthfully I just wasn’t sure, I mean… there were things I liked to do, and things that I had some talent in but being actually good at something like he was good at drawing? Hmm… wasn’t sure.

“I can sing in the shower.” I blurted out, which made him laugh.

“But are you good at it?”

“I haven’t made anyone deaf.”

“Touché, aha come on there has to be something…” He insisted.

“Well, I can play guitar….”

“No way, me too!”

After a while of riding the bus and looking out the window, we finally reached our destination.

“Now what?” I asked looking at Kaleb who was texting someone secretly on his phone. He put his phone back into his pocket and glanced up at me and looked around, his eyes glazed to someone walking off one of the busses, he glanced at us with a mysterious grin and Kaleb grabbed my hand and darted around a corner.

“What the he—“He cut me off by putting his hand in front of my mouth and pulled me away with him into the building. “Kaleb what is going on, who was that?”

“Don’t worry about it, let’s go get food.” I shrugged and forgot about the incident and followed him into the street and we flagged down a taxi and took it downtown.

My phone vibrated and I had a text appear on my phone, it was from an unknown number.

‘Why are you running? I know your secrets, and they’ll catch up to you.’ I closed the screen closed after feeling a chilling feeling race down my spine… who was this and what secrets where they talking about? I felt frightened now.

“Hey, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost?” Kaleb nudged me zapping me back to reality, I looked up at him didn’t say anything as the cab pulled up to the curb of downtown. We got out and paid the driver.

“What now?” I asked him glancing around the town, taking note of everyone around us going about their daily lives. Kaleb all of a sudden started walking towards a cute restaurant.

“I don’t know about you but that hotel food was shi-taaay, let’s get some real food.”

I laughed in agreement as we made our way over to the small little café, we ordered our food and headed over to a booth and sat down and waited. Just then some guys entered the café, the gestured towards Kaleb and called out his name. His head shot up from his phone and he called them over.

“Hey man, how’s it going; it’s been years!” One of the darker haired guys had said to him as he approached. The other shorter one with blond hair glanced at me funny but they both sat down across from each other in our booth. “What are you doing in town? Don’t you still live with your girlfriend?”

My heart sank a little when I heard that, but I shook it off as I just met the guy and hardly knew a thing about him.

“Oh, we broke up a while ago; caught her cheating on me with some guy, but meh life goes on.” Kaleb replied glancing at me.

“Aw, that’s shitty man, hey listen; our band is playing tonight at the Atomic Caverns you guys should come by and check us out.”

“That sounds like fun.” I smiled, I always enjoyed checking out new bands and going to shows. “We’ll definitely stop by.”

“I’m in if she is.” Kaleb replied, “How long have you been in a band?”

“We started about 6 months ago and have been playing random shows since; you know it’s always been my dream to be in a band.” The darker haired guy replied who I learned was named Kyle told us.

“Yeah man, didn’t think you’d actually pull it off. Good on you bud.” Kaleb replied smiling. The waitressed stopped by our table and dropped off the food for us, I ordered chicken fingers and a salad and Kaleb ordered a burger and fries. Kyle and his friend whose name was Liam ordered some food and I awkwardly sat there while they caught up and picked at my salad. Kyle’s phone rang suddenly and he picked it up.

“Hey babe, oh yea just out for lunch with Liam; okay see you tonight. Love you too.” He hung up just as the waitress brought their food by.

“Girlfriend again?” Liam asked nudging him.

“Yeah, that’s the fourth time she’s called me today…” He replied seeming a little bit annoyed. “She hates that I’m in a band, and constantly convinces me to not be.”

“Wow dude, how long you’ve been with her?” Kaleb asked curiously.

“Nearly 3 years now.”

Just then my phone had rang, I looked at the display and seen it said ‘Unknown number’ I debated on not answering as I don’t like to answer my phone if I don’t know who is calling. But I answered anyway.

I heard nothing but silence at first, then a screeching noise; like nails against the chalkboard sound which made me cringe a little. And then all I heard was the words ‘you can’t escape’ in a very eerie whispered tone. I hung up the phone and practically threw it down on the table, freaked out by what had just happened.

“Hey, what’s up? You okay?” Kaleb asked noticing my reaction to the phone call.

“Yeah just… strange phone call; nothing too big.” I decided not to go into any detail about it, I didn’t want Kaleb to think I was weird; I mean I literally just met the guy.

After we finished eating we all decided to hit up the mall for a bit to check it out and do a little bit of shopping before heading to the show. Liam had his own vehicle so Kaleb and I sat in the back while we drove through the city to the mall.

It was a fair sized mall, and we wandered around for a bit and checked out all the stores. I bought myself a pair of shoes and a new purse that I really wanted, Kaleb bought a new video game and the guys got some stuff for their show tonight.

“Hey guys were headed to the Atomic Caverns now for sound check! Want to come grab some pizzas with us and head down there?” Kyle asked approaching us with a few bags from the malls music store.

“That sounds like fun!” We both replied glancing at each other and laughing.

The Atomic Caverns was a busy place, with lots of bands signed up to play the show tonight. The vibe around me was very exciting and full of enthusiasm; there was also a signup sheet if anyone wanted to play a song or two. I walked past it and considered it for a moment and signed my name up to play a few songs. Kaleb appeared behind me and snickered at me signing up.

“Feeling brave tonight are we?” He asked.

“Why not? We left to start over right, this feels like starting over to me.” I also signed up with a fake name, Silvia Tyler. No one needed to know who I was, and Kaleb wrote a fake name next to mine; to indicate that we would be playing together. Ryan Williams.

“This definitely does feel like starting over.” He smiled.