Forever Fades Away

BRIAN

“YO ZACK!” I yelled into his home. The door was open so I had decided to let myself in before his fat ass came to open it. I didn’t hear a reply. “ZACK!”

“Down stairs!” I heard his voice come from his downstairs entertainment area. I walked downstairs and saw mounds of boxes everywhere.

“What are you doing? What is all this stuff?” I asked him. There was packaging all over the floor and tables. I peeked inside a box and saw the familiar V symbol.

“Sending out stickers to the street team kids.” He checked off some things from his list and sat it down.

“I wish I could work on my shit, start a street team or whatever. I’ve just been so stressed that it’s not even worth doing it anymore.” It was true. I didn’t care for anything at the moment. I was suppose to set up the site a while ago, but decided against it because I was lazy. Now I wouldn’t set it up because I just didn’t care. I didn’t care about a lot of things anymore.

“Is Mae not helping you out with it anymore? What’s up with her?” Zack asked.

“She’s fine. She doesn’t bug me about my shit anymore. It was getting pretty bad. I told her how it was though,” I laughed.

“You laid down the law?” Zack pushed the boxes off to the side.

“Something like that,” I started to really laugh now.

“You’re really strong dude,” Zack said. “ I don’t think I would have handled it the way you did.” I didn’t say anything back to him. I didn’t know how to. He immediately noticed.

“Sorry. I won’t bring it up anymore.”

“What do you mean? Have I been that snappy with towards you guys?” I couldn’t believe this. My phone started to ring. Zack looked at my phone, waiting for me to answer it. He wasn’t off the hook just yet. I grabbed my phone off the side table and looked at the screen. It was Jimmy.

“Hey Jimmy, what’s up?” I said to him.

“YO! What’s up with you? I haven’t heard from you in a couple of days. I figured I’d call and we can go pick up some hookers like the old days.” I heard Matt yell out in the background. He called him an idiot.

“I’m with Zack right now. Mae was saying the other night that everyone should come over to our place to hang and grill. You guys up for it?” I saw Zack nod his head.

“Yeah! I was just telling Jason that yesterday, well about getting everyone together for a party."

“We can party if you want, B.Y.O.B though.” This was starting to sound fun.

“What about the bitches?” Jimmy asked. Zack heard him and chuckled.

“Bring them, whatever.”

“Today sound good?” I glanced down at my watch. It was only 10:15 AM.

“Tell everyone to come over around one or so, I don’t care. Mae should be home around that time, if I’m not there.”

“Sweet. I’ll have Matt buy some hamburger meat or shit. I’ll call everyone else too.”

“Ok, sounds like a plan. Late.”

“Peace, bitch.” I placed the phone back down.

“Aren’t you going to call Mae to let her know? Especially if people are going to show up with beer and shit,” Zack said. I shrugged. I reached into my pocket and took out my medication.

“She can flip on her own today. Have anything to drink?” I asked Zack. He had grabbed some papers off the floor and started reading them.

“Yeah, upstairs in the kitchen,” he said. I started to get up. Zack threw the papers off to the side. “I’ll get it for you. I got water, bottled of course, pomegranate juice, milk, pop, orange juice, uhh, green tea,” Zack listed all my options; all of them besides beer, which I knew for a fact he had. Asshole. I sat back down.

“Green teas cool. I can go get it.”

“Oh nah dude, its cool. I want something too.” He got up and went to get drinks. So not only do I get treated like a child, I fucking get treated like I’m suddenly immobile. Maybe getting everyone over to my house was a bad idea.

Zack came back and handed me my drink. He took a seat next to me and turned on some music.

“So I’ve been thinking,” I started to speak. Zack looked over to me.

“Yeah?”
“I’m gonna ask Mae to marry me.” He started laughing.

“Why? I mean, how long have you been thinking of that?”

“I dunno, just recently.” It was true. I woke up last morning and looked over to Mae. Her mouth was slightly open, and I swear she was drooling. It was as though an epiphany hit me. I wanted to wake up to that for the rest of my life.

“Go for it man,” Zack said. He looked back at me and smiled. “Do you think she’ll say yes?”

“Oh yea. We’ve been together about two almost three years now. We’ve sort of talked about it too before.”

“So is this going to stop you or…?” he asked. I popped my meds into my mouth and took a long drink of my tea. I looked at him. I didn’t understand what he was saying. Nothing was stopping me. I mean, I had only thought of it recently.

“Never mind, sorry.”

Great, he was talking about my fucking heart.

“Did you know MVP is common. Most people that have it live their life normally. It doesn’t affect them whatsoever,” I said. Zack never looked back at me. His eyes wandered over random objects in the room.

“I swear if you say sorry or make me feel like an invalid mother fucker one more time, I’ll break your Rudolph nose so fucking hard you’ll--”

“Dude, lets go. Your wife is waiting for you,” Zack said laughing. I got my point across to him just fine.

“Lets go to the store. We can pick up some shit for today,” he said.

________

We grabbed whatever looked good from the aisles.

“Grab a fruit tray,” Zack instructed me.

“Why?” I asked him.

“ ‘Cause it looks good.” I grabbed two large trays and threw them in with the rest of the shit.

“We got fans, 9 o’clock,” Zack shot out. Just flippin’ great.

“Syn!” a tall brunette yelled across the store. I put on my happy face.

“It is them!” another red head said. They weren’t young, definitely over 18. “Hi Zacky!” He waived back at her.

“Syn, we heard what happened. Oh my god we’re soooo sorry. You look great though,” the brunette said. I managed to chuckle.

“Everything is fine ladies, strong as an ox.” I patted my chest. Zacky, I mean Zack, smiled and nodded the entire time.

“You’re girlfriend must have freaked, I know I would have. Why isn’t she shopping for you right now? She needs to shop for you because you can’t be eating junk food right now. You shouldn’t strain yourself too,” the brunette said.

“Oh yeah, don’t want to strain myself while I swipe my credit card.” Sarcasm dripped from every word I said. They both laughed hysterically. I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit right now.

“Listen girls, I gottta get Gates here home, ya know the less stress the better. So it was nice meeting you two but we gotta bounce.” Zack was always so nice with fans.

“Oh my god, are you feeling ok?” the red head asked. She took notice of me breathing heavy. I was going to have an anxiety attack, I knew it already.

“Yea I’m fine, its just hot in here,” I lied. I was starting to sweat now. I pulled Zack close to me.

“Go pay. I’m going to get some air.”

“We can just leave. I can come back for it later.”

“Just go,” I said through gritted teeth.

“Syn?” the red head said. She was worried.

“Bye ladies.” I pushed through them and I headed outside. As soon as the fresh air hit, I felt an immediate relief. I don’t know what made me react that way. It could have been because it was so hot in the store, but it also could have been the fact that two complete strangers were telling me how to live my life.

“How are you feeling?” Zack pulled up to me with a buggy full of food and beverages.

“Better actually. I’m just really tired now. I didn’t take the other pills this morning because I figured I didn’t need them anymore. My chest hurts now.” Zack threw everything into the back of his car in record speed.

“Ready to go home?” he asked.

“Lets go.” I needed Mae right now.