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“See you around, Ry!” Sisky hollers from his porch steps, bouncing and waving goodbye to us. The kid seems more like a kindergartener than the twenty five he just aged up to.
I wave back politely, mostly because his mother is waving there at us too and head back to our vehicle, feeling a small tug at the corner of my lips as I see my other half walking beside me. Brendon doesn’t smile back though. He looks down at the concrete, his dark hair messy with snowdrops over his eyes as his polite smile to Sisky withers into a dark frown.
I’m just about to say something to him, but Brendon spurts out, “I can drive tonight, if you want.”
I look him straight in his guarded eyes, puzzled. “‘No, I’ll drive. Besides, you had a couple drinks with Jon, remember?”
Brendon bites his lip and looks to his left as he thinks, but ends up sighing and opening the door to the front seat. Odd. I make my way in the driver’s seat beside him and grip the wheel, not noticing how my knuckles whiten holding it. I back the car out of the driveway and motor into the isolated street all to ourselves.
The drive is solemn, or at least it feels that way. Brendon doesn’t turn the radio on and I dart my eyes to the drops of snow fluttering to the ground in hordes as I drive. If he wasn’t in the car with me, I’d almost feel like I was back in Machias. Depressed, lonely, and numb was how I managed to live for a while. But I’m not anymore, and I steal a glance at Brendon at a red light. Not anymore.
Bells clang one after another as a train chugs at the railroad crossing and I ease the car into a complete stop.
“I was talking to the birthday boy a while ago.” Brendon says, breaking his silence. “He was just going on about how you changed his life ‘n stuff through The Followers and well, you existing.”
I hum in response. If anyone talked about The Followers, I’d roll my eyes and change the subject,
especially
if it was Sisky. It feels more intimate remembering that band when Brendon was around though. Maybe he liked that nice little era where all we had was each other in the Jackie tour. Brendon’s eyes are cast down to his feet and the bells ring out in a quicker pace.
“I was talking to him about Followers stuff as censored as I could, but he really knew
everything
and I couldn’t dodge a lot.” Red lights flash on and off of Brendon’s face as his voice softens. “He was talking about everything from the concerts he went to and
Alienation
and then he just mentioned the crash and it slipped, I guess.”
My limbs are the first ones to react to that little surprise statement, numbing in an instant. I never told him what really happened at the crash. I’ve always planned on telling him through the little planned conversations in my head, but I knew I could never do it because every single scenario went wrong. Sure, he saw me right before it, but he only knows about it from press articles and his own assumptions. I remember reading “Followers Roadie Convicted of Bus Crash” plastered as the headline of a newspaper after I got out of the hospital. They sold it as a something shrouded in mystery. Maybe the driver lost control after someone’s bicycle hit the bus and spun them out of control. Maybe he was speeding and the road gave out on him. Anything that meant that it ended with a demolished bus at an intersection in San Francisco when we were supposed to be on the highway out of there. It wasn’t that bad for Andy in the end anyways, he only got his license revoked for a while and an expensive consolation for taking the bullet for me.
I was too famous for a DUI charge, especially at the peak of The Followers’ popularity and the injuries and star statuses of everyone. It would be bigger charges, bigger penalties, and a reputation in the gutter and all of us knew that.
But Brendon never knew that.
And I was planning it on keeping it that way.
“I know it was because of me.” Brendon murmurs with a lifeless chuckle. “I know, believe me, I fucking know, but I didn’t know--”
“It was more my fault than yours if I’m being honest.” I stop him because I know he was about to start saying sorry for something he didn’t do. He shouldn’t feel guilty for lying at that dingy laundromat, I’m the one who should (and believe me, I do) feel guilty for pridefully asking him for something I should have known he would rejected, let that inherited alcoholism get to me and crash an entire bus, hospitalizing half of my ex band and crew. Thinking about it almost makes the tiny scars crowning my forehead feel like they’ve birthed again, open and frail.
“I was the breaking point for you.” Brendon states hollowly. “We broke each other and you couldn’t face them, so you drove and you drank to numb yourself and you drank and--” He drags his palms down his face and stares at me with some intense emotion I can’t pinpoint.
I tuck my bottom lip between my teeth and graph out my words so he doesn’t distance himself any longer. “It really wasn’t your fault. Just a series of events and habits that all came to climax. The band, my addictions, Pete with us and Europe, Jac,
you
. You really don’t have to be sorry for anything.”
The bell clangs and the red light fade to a halt and the train merrily chugs away from us. It takes me a little while to remember how to drive. The functions come back to me after a little thinking and we drive on.
“Pete must’ve been real pissed when he realized what happened to the bus.” Brendon says from nowhere, a weak smile gracing him.
I smirk a little. Pete was pretty much overly proud owner of that bus and everyone on it. If I’m being honest, I’m glad I crashed it while he was there because if I hadn’t, I would’ve been stuck with in Europe with a band that all hates each other and more crowds I couldn’t bear to be in front of without some addiction and without Brendon, all I had was my handy flask. Minus all the rockstar lifestyle, I would’ve been just as good as my own father, I realize.
“Maybe some good came out of it.” I reflect out loud, seeing our house come into view in the midst of the snow.
“If you use that as an excuse to drink and drive again, I’m revoking your license myself.” Brendon jokes, before sculpting his face into a solemn, stony expression. “Just--don’t. Don’t do that again. Don’t do that to yourself again.”
Don’t do that to
me
, I can hear, even if he doesn’t say it out loud.
“I wouldn’t.” I promise, making sure he knows I mean it. “I’d never do that to the both of us.”
Our tiny kingdom in the snow fast approaches and I only really process that we’re home once I start parking the car into the driveway. Weird how time passes when we’re around each other.
Once I take the key out, we both get out of the car and walk side by side without meaning to. There’s a silence between us, but it’s comfortable for the both of us and not like the cutting edge it had a while ago.
I look at him and it feels like distant memories, fighting, loving, being next to each other even when we couldn’t stand it. It’s all a beautiful chaotic wreck he builds in my brain.
We’ve messed up more than once. We’ve made up more than once. We still stand together somehow.
I regret that bus crash as much as anyone would think, maybe even a little more. I don’t regret crashing into him though.
He interlaces his hand into mine, and it’s such a normal function, we don’t even look down at it.
The second we head inside, we already start crashing into each other, hands on skin, teeth on skin, all over again. Crash. Bang. Smoke.