Jealous Orchard

"They love it!"

"No, they love Pete, so they listen to us," Brent mumbled as he tuned his guitar for the third time today.

"You're looking at it all wrong," Pete said butting in. "Think of me being your vehicle. I'm just showing everyone how amazing you guys are, and once your whole album comes out, they'll see how amazing you are without my help."

I sat there rewatching our music video that had just been finished in the editing room. It seemed like one big splash or red, white and black.

"And how come Brendon's the only one that gets face time? Because he's the smallest?" Brent almost yelled pointing at the screen with my face on it.

"You dipshit! They asked everyone who wanted to do it, and Brendon was the only one that would. So stop complaining," Ryan said smacking Brent upside the head.

"Guys, please, let's not fight and break up before the first album goes out. Okay?" Spencer said standing between the two of them. The whole time I sat in a large leather swivel chair spinning aimlessly in circles. My phone laid in my lap, as I waited for her response.

"She's probably in class. She doesn't have the same schedule as we do, Brendon."

I planted my feet on the ground, stopping myself directly in front of Ryan. I looked up at him, and all he had to offer me was a shrug.

"Who's she? We all agreed there was no girlfriends," our tour manager asked looking back and forth between Ryan and I, clearly only worried about issues on the road.

"No, girlfriends," Pete assured him. "Just good friends."

He continued to look curiously at me as I palmed my phone, and tried to see if it was on silent by mistake.

Four months in Maryland sounds long, but it's longer. I've only been outside of Nevada twice in my life, and that was just to the boarder of California.

Four months in some foreign land can do a lot of damage to someone's head. Just having to meet all new people, and dealing with the strange accents and the strange way they all believe that sixty five degree weather is short shorts and tube top worthy. It was just a strange bizarre world to me.

And even though I had Ryan, Spencer, and Brent to keep me from forgetting how it used to be, it's hard. I can't help but miss the dry heat that hits you the moment you step outside, and the ability to get a farmers tan just walking across the street. The constant light glowing in the distant. Living sinless in sin city. It was all I had ever needed, even if it was all I'd ever known.

Four months did shit to you. Sure I talked to my family, and Andrew, but it's nothing like waking up knowing you'll see them.

And Morgan. Four months since I've seen her. Four months since I last held her in my arms. Four months since I last kissed her. There's not a day that's gone by in these four months that I haven't thought about her. How she had gotten up early with all of us the next day after our second break up, and drove with our parents to the airport. How she was still in her pjs, and how I couldn't help but feel some sense of hope that she still wore my wife beater.

That hope that she still might want to be with me. I know that it was stupid, and such a misled hope, with virtually no real possibility for us to ever be together. With our Ninetendo Fusion tour coming up, and her being in the middle of Minnesota, I'd be lucky to talk to her once a week.

"Brendon?"

I snapped out of my stare down with the four guitars laying against the leather couch.

"Hm?"

"We're going to pick up lunch. You want to come?"

"Nah, just pick something up for me. Whatever is fine," I said already standing up and going toward the door.

"Hey, Brendon."

I looked up from my phone I was holding in my hand. Pete was standing in front of me, with this smile that could break anyone's heart.

"What's up?" I had a sudden itch on the back of neck that took up most of my attention.

"Just, don't let these calls go to your head. I know how it goes. I've done this, and I know how her calling you makes you feel like things are gonna go back to normal," he paused, as if he had to take a large breath for what he had to say next. "But it doesn't always go back to normal. It never goes back, Brendon. And I know Morgan is a great girl and she means the best, but you gotta stop. You know you can't have both, and once you stop believing-"

"I know I can't have her, Pete. I know," I said cutting him off. "But it's Morgan and I can't just let her go."

Pete opened his mouth but soon The Smiths came softly from my phone. Her name flashed across the screen, along with a photo I took months ago. I looked up at him to see he was also staring at the phone. Except he didn't have the same smile as I did on my face. It was more of a face of remorse.

"Just remember that you chose," he mumbled shaking his head and turning.

I looked back down at the phone and quickly flipped it open. I lifted my the phone to my ear letting out a long sigh, already imagining what she was doing.

Sitting on her small twin size been, with her books surrounding her, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail. Her dorm room probably the size of her walk in closet.

"Hello?" I breathed into the phone.

I could already see her smile matching mine. Those soft lips spreading into the most genuine smile you could see. The Minnesota area already turning crisp in the September air. She'd be already to tell me about her classes, and probably a new shop she found in the city, or her roommate, who was a firecracker compared to her. She'd tell me all about her life without me, and I'd listen as long as she talked, and pretend that I was right there with her. That I had the same intense classes as her and was dragged along on she shopping, and that I had also witnessed the bizarre things her roommate had done the night before. But it was hard to pretend. With the new cd playing in the background, and when she says the same line every time I answer, that always makes my heart skip a beat in jealously, and makes me wonder for a split second if I had made the right choice.

"I miss you, Bren."