No Halo

As soon as we finished playing the last song for the fifth time, Dylan carefully lowered himself down onto the carpet and laid back, sweat dripping from his hairline. Shutting his eyes, he threw his hands over his head and let out a long scream. Shaking my head, I pulled the guitar from my shoulder and hung it back into the rack I had set up in the garage.

My arms were exhausted, my throat felt like I had swallowed a hand full of razorblades, and for some reason my eyes were burning like I had just shoved my face into an onion. Laying back on the carpet next to Dylan, I pressed my hands into my eyes and groaned.

For the first two weeks of school, I tried to focus on getting myself back into the swing of classes. I tried to shove the band and practices to the back of my head. I tried so hard to distance myself from Brian and only talk to the guys about school and food. I tried to get into the books, focus on learning and the upcoming tests.

But right now, all I could think about was Saturday. I kept picturing the five hundred kids sitting in that room, screaming my words back at me. I thought about Brian sitting at the bar with Owen, I thought about all of the people I screamed about, all of the people that weren’t around to watch us.

All of the people I couldn’t share all of the good news with.

When we were picked up to go on tour over the summer with Modern Baseball, The Front Bottoms, and Brand New, I thought about dropping all of my classes and spending the next few months in the studio with Brian recording and practicing as much as possible.

I ran the idea by him. He had taken the roll of my extremely over protective older brother while the guys and I spent bout four months in his studio recording our album that was going to released the first day of our summer tour. I valued his opinion more than others.

It was probably the one and only time his fatherly voice came out in conversation with me. While I appreciated how much he valued my education, I was upset. I wanted to focus on music, but at the same time, I knew leaving college now would be the stupidest thing I could ever do.

I was so close. So close to graduating with honors and a BioMedical Engineering degree. I already had teachers willing to help me get an internship when I got back from the tour. They believed in me, they knew I could do it. They wouldn’t let me achieve anything but greatness.

Amy would be proud.

“Are you thinking about her?” Corey asked in a quiet tone as he laid down next to me, his big brown eyes holding mine as I looked over at him. “I can always tell.”


“She would have kicked my ass if I told her I wanted to drop out because of this tour.” I felt a smile creep onto my face as Corey let out a loud laugh and nodded his head.


“You would have had about four broken ribs, cracked orbital bone, and a concussion, no doubt.” I could hear the smile in Corey’s voice.


“And she would expect you to go to your classes on Monday,” Dylan chimed in with a smile, causing the three of us to laugh.

As we lay there on the carpet in the middle of my garage, I couldn’t help but to smile as my eyes traced along the ceiling. Amy had always been more of a mother to me than an older sister. We never lost our mother, she was around when she could be, but she was a career driven human being, much like our father. They were always out, traveling, or working late.

I never minded because I always had Amy. By the time I realized that she didn’t have any parental figure like that, it was too late to help. She never gave any signs of what was going on, she never let onto me that she was dying from the inside out. Our mother and father spent every waking moment they were home with us. They tried so hard to manage their careers and be a family.

Holidays they never left our sides, vacations we spent every waking moment together. We never fought, we got along so well. We looked like the perfect family.

Then Amy killed herself.

My parents had a falling out months later. So instead of rebelling, starting in on drugs and losing myself like so many other kids I knew, I pressed my face into books. I took up her major, the major I was always so proud of her for choosing. I went to the same school she attended, I had the same teachers.

They always told me how alike we were, how bright we both were, how they saw so much of her in me.

“She’d be so proud of you, Cam.” Corey whispered, his eyes never leaving the ceiling.

“Yeah, I know. I think everyone would be, at least I hope so.” I hummed as I thought about the list of people I had lost since Amy.

It was up to five.


“Sean would have made you a one hundred slide powerpoint on why you should drop out and become a rockstar.” Dylan whispered.


“He would have dropped out for me.” I joked and shut my eyes, letting faces I hadn’t seen in years flash behind my eyes. “I miss them.”


“We all do, Squirt.”



I was back to myself by Thursday. I felt that the day off from classes on Wednesday and the lengthy practice helped pull me out of the kiddie pool of depression I was trying to drown myself in. It also helped that after practice Dylan and Corey took me to Taco Bell and didn’t judge me one bit when I inhaled two crunch wraps, two soft tacos, and a large baja blast.

Even though I was feeling back to myself, I couldn’t help but get a knot in my stomach when I thought about walking into Matt’s class. I felt horrible for snapping at him, for being so harsh and cold. My mind was so cloudy, I was so lost in what was going on that I almost thought I dreamt the whole thing up. I get like that sometimes, so buried in my thoughts that I go on auto-pilot. I don’t remember where I walk, who I talk to, or what I talk about.

I just shuffle through life, one step at a time.

After I laid next to Amy’s grave and talked to her about everything, I felt the fog start to clear up. I obviously didn’t get a response, but I felt like she was listening. I felt like she was sitting next to me her arm around my shoulders, giving me that big sister advice I always needed from her.

I told her about how well everything was going. I told her that all of her professors missed her. I told her about the bands tour again, and Brian. I told her how horrible it was when I went to buy my Schecter from Brian’s dad’s shop. I swore I almost heard her soft laugh when I told her about Zacky. How incredibly awkward it was to hold a conversation with someone whose cheeks were so red.

Then, I told her about Matt. I told her how comfortable I was around him, how the words just flowed from my lips. I just wanted to talk about everything with him. I wanted to see his dimples and look at his sparkling eyes. I like how he treated me like a friend and not a student. How he actually gave a shit and noticed the little things about me that indicated I was having a bad day.

I told her how fucking horrible I felt for screaming at him.

I told her about everyone else who left. I told he to go find them, to hang out, drink some whiskey and cokes and listen to the 59’ sound. It was her favorite album. I told her to sell Sean I missed him more and more everyday. I told her I wish they were all back.

A sigh left my lips as I entered the small coffee shop and noticed a small line. It happened occasionally, but it meant that Dylan couldn’t slip me my usual free coffee. As I stood on line, I felt my foot start to tap on the floor. My eyes roamed around, my heart beat fast, and I felt sweat start to form on the base of my neck.

This is where I usually saw him. I would be ordering my coffee and that smell would hit me like a mac truck. Then, there he was. Bright eyes, scruffy beard, dimples and all. He would say something sassy, I countered, and then he would order a coffee.

“What’s up, squirt?” Dylan reached over and ruffled my hair before grabbing a large cup and shooting me a smile. “Same as always?”


“You bet, dickhead.” I snapped and watched as the boy let out a howl of a laugh and went back to pouring the coffee into the cup. “I swear one day I’m going to punch you in your pretty face.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Dylan blew me a kiss as he looked around and then slid me the coffee. Luckily, all of the college students were on their phones, so no one noticed the absence of an exchange of currency. Sending him a wink, I took the coffee and leaned on the counter. Pressing a kiss to his forehead, he squealed and went to speak when I was hit.

He was here.

Sucking in a deep breath, I went to speak when I felt him next to me. “For someone so strange, you’re pretty predictable.” He sassed as he took a step against the counter and smiled at Dylan. For a minute, I thought Dylan was going to melt into the same pool where my brain currently was, but he held it together and fixed Matt his coffee in record time.

After Matt paid for his coffee, he turned to me and nodded his head toward the front door. “Mind if we talk real fast?”


“Only if I can smoke.” If I was going to talk about the other day, looking in those big hurt eyes, I was going to need one hundred cigarettes to get me through it.


“Duh,” Matt rolled his eyes as he sent Dylan a wave. Turning to my best friend, I sent him a wink and watched as he placed both of his hands on his cheeks to hide the blush and shrugged his shoulders. Laughing lightly to myself, I walked out of the front door Matt was holding for me.

We were silent until we were hit by bright rays of sunlight. Before I could ask what was wrong, the man directed us over to a bunch and parted his lips.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am for the other day.” Matt’s eyes went to mine, rendering me utterly speechless. “I just… I get a little over protective sometime and instead of being gentle I kind of… just do the opposite.”


“Yeah, you were a real dick,” I smirked as I looked over at him, his eyes rolling as that smile appeared on his lips again. After a moment of holding his eyes in mine, I bobbed my head on my shoulders and pulled out my cigarettes. “I have to apologize too, though. I’m not… an open person, per say. So I get a little defensive.”

I may have been able to scream my deepest and darkest thoughts to a room full of people, but I wasn’t one to sit there and toot the horn on the pity train while I rambled on about all of the shit I had been through. Besides Corey, Dylan and three of the people that suicide had taken away from me, Brian was the only other person that had gotten the full story. That was only because I was recording in the studio late one night and had a level nine breakdown.

I normally broke down around level four or five, but for some reason, when I was screaming those words into the mic, I lost it. I lost it so bad I was one minute away from Brian driving me to the hospital. The only person that had ever seen me that bad was Dylan, and that was a week after Amy’s funeral. That breakdown did lead me to a one week stay in a hospital.

“So, we’re good?” Matt asked, his eyes holding mine as he exhaled smoke through his nose.


“Of course, Sanders.” I sucked in a breath and then exhaled the smoke up toward the sky.

Nodding, Matt dropped his cigarette to the ground and then pressed his heel into it. As I did the same thing, we both stood up, grabbed our coffees and then headed toward class. During the walk we spoke a little bit about my classes and how intense everything was getting, then when we were a few hundred feet from the building where we had class, he slowed his pace.

“How’s the band stuff going?” He looked at me almost too innocently. Like… Like he knew something.

“Good.” I replied curtly and then watched him, watched the way his eyes stayed on me, waiting… waiting for me to tell him more.

“How is my band stuff going, Sanders?” I could hear the edge in my voice.


“I’m just asking,” Matt said lifting his arms in defense as we made our way to the door. “Just thought I’d ask.”

I hummed as we entered the building. When we reached the door, I looked at him skeptically, my heart racing as that look hung off of his features. He knew something, he knew something about me I didn’t want him to.

“If I see you at a show, Sanders,” I started and watched as his eyes tripled in size, “my size seven is going to wreck any chance of you having kids.”

Smiling at me, Matt ruffled my hair and then opened the classroom door. “There’s my Cameron.”

I walked into class with a blush almost as dark as my lipstick.