“Jaime,” a voice whined next to me, and I felt soft hands claw at my chest. I groaned, rolling my head to the right. My head felt like stone, and my vision was blurry, as if my eyes were open underwater.


“Good morning, sleepy-head,” a girl whose name I did not know squealed, kissing me in the nose. I blinked slowly, then sighed. Damn it, I did it again.


I forced a smile. A weak, but trying, smile. “Last night…” she sighed dreamily, biting her lip.


I felt disgusted with myself. It has been four months since I have seen Spencer; my last memories of her swarmed in a medley in my head: her psychotic outburst in the grass, her blood on her leg trickling through my hands, her fist meeting my face, her pushing me out of her life… All of the happy memories with her were buried underneath all of the pain and loneliness. And now I was lying next to a somewhat attractive yet clingy and nameless girl with no memory of last night.


I didn’t say anything. Instead, I kind of just looked at her, giving her a mildly apologetic but more uninterested look. I felt extremely guilty when her face fell. “I’ll get my stuff and leave,” she said quietly. “The name is Chelsea, and thanks for the fucking good night,” she said the words sharply, and her facial expression turned sour, but I guess I deserved that.


This was how most of my one-night-stands ended. The girls started out happy, and then they turned sad, and then they became sour and spat their names at me. Not that I did not deserve to be bitched at… I used them for sex; I was constantly using girls to fill the hole in my chest, despite the fact that they only numbed the pain temporarily, as opposed to healing the pain.


Chelsea, Monica, Hallie, Veronica, Cassandra, Mackenzie, Lynn, Helena, Danielle… the names of all of the girls I slept with clouded in my mind. It was like they knew; they always threw their names at me, knowing that I didn’t want to know them, knowing that I would not forget them if they told me no matter how hard I tried.


But, really, it wasn’t their fault. They deserved better. They didn’t deserve me, an ass, to take advantage of them. But I did it anyway, knowing that I could, thinking that I could get away with it. But I really couldn’t get away with it, could I? Because even though I couldn’t remember the sex itself, I remembered the way they looked when they woke up, and I remembered the way they looked when they yelled their name at me and hastily walked away. And, for some reason, I couldn’t get their nasty glares and names out of my head.


I guess it was a good thing though; the more names of unwanted girls in my head, the less room I have to remember Spencer.


~~


I sighed, putting both of my hands on my face. I stretched out my arms and legs, hitting the walls that surrounded me. At first I was startled, but then I realized that I was in my small bunk of the tour bus. I guess I drank a lot last night; I completely forgot that we were even on tour.


Yes, we were on tour. We released our album “Selfish Machines” two months ago, and since then we have been on the road. Touring has actually helped because it served as a nice distraction, but I knew that I wasn’t giving it my all. The guys deserved better than me; I was able to put on my usual goofy and happy façade for the fans, but by the time I was off stage and done with the meet and greets, I diminished back to nothing.


That was what I felt like. Nothing. Here I had band members who loved me like a brother and thousands of fans who actually looked up to me and the other guys, yet I still felt like nothing. Unimportant, worthless, and alone.


I dragged myself out of bed, throwing on sweatpants and a t-shirt and heading to the small bathroom in the bus. My face was paler than usual and my eyes were sunken in. My depression was literally eating me alive. I splashed my face with water and then conceded to the couch in the front lounge.


I didn’t notice that Vic was sitting across from me until he spoke. “Jaime,” he said firmly. I looked up at him expectantly. His mouth was in a tight line and he almost glared at me.


“What?” I asked, maybe a little harsher than necessary.


“This needs to stop,” he said seriously.


“What needs to stop?” I asked innocently, sinking further into the couch.


“You know exactly what I’m talking about. Do you understand how mortifying that is?” Vic asked severely, nodding his head to the door of the bus. I assumed he was referring to the fact that “Chelsea” had to walk past him in order to exit the bus.


I just shrugged my shoulders, not in the mood to talk about things. I never was in the mood.


Vic sighed heavily and impatiently. “You don’t disrespect girls, Jaime,” he scolded me. “You are the last person on earth who I ever thought would be like this,” he said. “It’s getting bad,” he added, furrowing his eyebrows.


I shrugged my shoulders again. “I don’t disrespect them,” I mumbled.


Vic raised his hands in the air in frustration. “Yes, you do, Jaime,” he said.


“They’re easy,” I muttered. My insides twisted at my own words. I was appalled at myself. I needed Vic’s wake up call, but I was afraid. I was afraid to accept it because I had nothing to wake up to.


“Jaime, she’s gone. You need to stop this and move on. Don’t you see what your doing to the band?” Vic said abruptly. His words stung. Nobody ever talked about Spencer, especially Vic. It hurt too much.


“I thought we were talking about how I sleep around,” I muttered.


“We were talking about how you are out of control,” Vic said angrily. “You’re driving a wedge through the band. We are here for you, but you won’t let us in!”


I felt terrible for that. I wanted to be here for the band. The band and the fans were the only things I had. They meant so much to me, but I just had problems showing it. “Vic, all of this,” I gestured to the bus, the guys, the tour, the music, the fans, “means everything to me. I just don’t know how to show it. I don’t know how to show any feelings anymore,” I said quietly. “I don’t know how to feel any feelings anymore,” I added, my voice slightly breaking.
“Sleeping around is not going to help the problem,” he said sternly. Then, his voice softened: “We don’t want you to be a zombie any more. We all miss her, and we all are traumatized with what happened, and I’m sorry for bringing it up. We just want the old Jaime back.”


I frowned. The old Jaime was just like this Jaime, just maybe not as depressed. Maybe Vic was referring to the “happy” Jaime. But he only existed with Spencer. And she was gone.


Spencer was not Spencer anymore. I still to this day didn’t understand what happened to her. I couldn’t wrap my head around everything that she said, everything that she claimed to be… I just couldn’t believe it. I didn’t believe it. There had to be some other explanation…


“I think you need to visit her,” Vic said suddenly. Why did he say that? Moments ago he had just told me to “move on”. Seeing her would make things even worse.


I shook my head. “That’s a terrible idea, Vic,” I said truthfully. Who knew how she would act? Would she have another fit? I couldn’t bear to see her weak like that again. She succumbed to the darkness, she succumbed to her own mind… and, to be honest, it scared the living shit out of me.


But a part of me deep down told me that she wasn’t truly a killer. Except there was something next to that part that told me that maybe I didn’t really mind if she really was.


Maybe I was a little fucking crazy myself.


~~


I tried really hard to be happy today. I knew Vic was damaged just like me, so I felt bad. I couldn’t hog all of the hurt. I wasn’t the only one who could feel pain, too (although, I wouldn’t necessarily say that I felt it; rather, I embodied it; I was the definition of pain).


We didn’t have a show today; we had a day off. Vic told me it was better that I stayed home from a party tonight; you would think that, given my condition, I would rather stay home than party. But that was not the case. I wanted to get completely smashed so I could forget everything, I wanted to fuck some random chick so I wouldn’t be lonely when I fell asleep, and I wanted to lose control just so I could feel something.


But I knew that I would be healthier for me and for the sake of the band if I stayed home from the party. This would be my first night in the entire tour being sober and alone in my bunk. That was a disgusting fact, considering that it was a different girl every night.


Instead of a no named and unimportant girl, I laid next to Spencer. Her presence didn’t scare me; it made me happy. She didn’t contort with evilness, and her features remained calm and pleasant. It was like how she used to look, before she lost control of her mind… she snuggled into my side, her breaths steadying mine. I missed and longed for her. It was amazing how much I had relied on her in such a short period of time. I just knew instantly that she was the one who could cure me of my depression, loneliness, and nightmares. Together, we could cure each other.


It was also amazing how she left me despite knowing these things.


I turned my head to the right, staring at her peaceful features.


It was amazing how you could think that you knew someone, you think that you love someone, but, really, that someone was a complete stranger.


I really didn’t know her at all, did I? But she didn’t even know herself…


I turned my head again, staring at the bottom of the bunk that was above me. My eyes got lost in the patterns of the wood as my mind got lost in the complexity of my mind. I couldn’t decide if I was scared or sad when I turned my head back to the right, and Spencer was gone.


I guess even in the best of times, she was gone. She had always been gone, at least mentally. I sighed, giving up all prospect of hope of saving her. She couldn’t be saved. Neither could I.


These facts, I knew, were killing Vic. He went through a rough time in high school; he was over it now, but his scars remained. He shared his story and inspirational words to Spencer, yet she didn’t listen to him. Vic’s words were magical; he was always able to help someone. Vic was always saving people. But he couldn’t save Spencer. She was already dead when he tried.


Vic had a “heart-to-heart” with Spencer, barely twenty-four hours before she… before she tried to commit…


He had told me what he said to her.


“I had to remind myself everyday that I had someone to live for,” he had told her this, word for word, this was what he had said. Did I not come to her mind when she leaped from the building? Although she claimed that it was all to protect me and the guys, it hurt worse than any third-degree burn. She was never going to hurt us, I knew it, deep down, and she knew it too.


Vic had tried to convince her that it was all “chemical”. That none of this was her fault. These words apparently didn’t sway her, either.


And now he was trying to save me. Everyday he tried, but what Vic didn’t know—or, what he was starting to suspect, now—was that I couldn’t be saved either. No matter how much he and Tony and Mike and the fans meant to me, there was no turning back.


I knew all of this caused Vic pain. I felt extremely guilty, but I also knew I couldn’t do anything about it. I was trapped.


The fact that he failed saving Spencer for me, and the fact that he was on his way to failure with me, tore him up. I could see it in his eyes. I could see how painful seeing me like this was for him and for Mike and Tony, too. Why couldn't they be enough? Why couldn’t the music be enough? It killed me, too, though, because I didn’t blame Vic, and I hated to see him blame himself.


No matter how hard I tried, the nightmares would not go away. They were frequent, and they often made me sick to my stomach. I couldn’t bear to live like this much longer.


I rolled to my right again, pulling my journal out from under my pillow. This was where I wrote down things as a form of therapy. It wasn’t really working, except I used it anyway. I liked to look back at it sometimes to see what I had been thinking at various times. I scribbled messily into the notebook. The words crooked around other words onto an unorganized, chaotic, and now-almost-full page.


And if I mean anything to you… I’m sorry, but I’ve made up my mind.


I imagined that these were the words that ran through Spencer’s head before she jumped. As she said her last “goodbye” to me. Before she punched me in the head so I could physically let her go. I imagine that this would be one of my last thoughts, too.


Uncomfortable, I rolled over again, this time on my left side. I closed my eyes, falling asleep quickly. When I opened my eyes again, I felt like I had slept for a lifetime. A sober sleep was definitely a sleep that I needed. I opened my eyes more, seeing something unfamiliar in the aisle between the bunks.


I parted my curtain a little bit, and a choking gasp escaped my lips. I saw the ground… then I saw about six inches of air until I saw somebody’s feet… my eyes slowly made up to the floating body’s neck. A tight rope burned into his skin. His brown, shaggy hair hung wildly and lowly, almost covering his face. His head was drooped down unnaturally.



I opened my eyes in an extreme sweat, breathing heavily. I peeked open my bunk curtain, and I could slightly see Vic, still alive, resting in his own bunk across the aisle.


God damn fucking nightmares. It took me a few minutes to recover from the image of Vic hanging there, dead. Once I felt more relaxed, I cursed at myself in my head. Don’t you fucking kill your best friend, I yelled at my brain.


I rolled back over to the right, afraid of what I would see if I stayed looking at the left. My mind drifted back to Spencer. I never went a day without thinking about her, but I have also never thought about her this much. Her situation, our situation, was eating me alive. I still couldn’t figure her out. I wanted to believe in the best in her, but she was so serious when she told me what she thought was the “truth”. Who was she, really? Was she a killer? Or was she truly insane? Was she both?


She stared at me seriously when she spoke, but also giving me a wink as she recited words that she had said to me once before. “You’re going to have to do a little more work to figure me out, Preciado.”


The way she randomly popped up didn’t scare me anymore. Well, maybe I was scared for my sanity, but not frightened of her. I tilted my head to the side, staring at the awkward stranger to my right, wondering what it was about me that made me so oblivious to who she really was.

Notes

Things are a little slow and heavy in this chapter, but I hope to pick things back up soon.

But I need suggestions if you guys want this to be a long one! If you have any, message me on here so not to spoil any other readers!

Thank so much to EVERYONE who has commented so far! I haven't gotten back to y'all individually, but I see you guys and I really appreciate it so much. It makes me so happy seeing that people like my writing, considering the fact that I have always loved it and want to someday publish a book or two.

OKAY ENOUGH ABOUT MY SELF sorry about the long note. it's late and I am rambly

xoxo