The One Who Shot Me - Sequel To Bulletproof Love

Jessica and I returned to our hotel room about 20 minutes after my reunion with the boys in Pierce the Veil. I recalled that the reason she gave for going back to the hotel with me was that she had been just as tired as I was, but I was beginning to doubt her excuse as I watched her mouth run a mile a minute the whole walk back to the hotel, then back to our room.

“I mean like I’ve mentioned before, those dudes seemed so cool, I wouldn’t mind spending some more time with them, if that’s okay with you, of course. But what was up with that guy Mike? That was his name right, Mike? He must be a real ladies’ man because…” I was trying to let Jessica’s words become background music to the thoughts in my head as we walked into our room, but it was becoming increasingly harder to do so, because it seemed as though her words were becoming increasingly louder and more excited.

Finally, as I was peeling off my black dress, I decided I’d had enough. “Jessica, would you please give it a rest? I. Am. Tired. I don’t have the brainpower to keep up with you right now! Chill! Please!”

She looked at me with a startled expression. We held eye contact for a moment after my interjection, but when I looked away to continue undressing, she walked over to my bed and sat down with an understanding sigh. “Okay, Dylan, I get it. You’re irritated. I would normally think it’s because you’re tired, but you’ve been irritated for the last six months, ever since you and Tony broke up.” I looked at her sternly as she said this, trying to tell her to have caution with this topic; she was walking on real thin ice. “And don’t look at me like that. You like to walk around here like what happened between you too didn’t affect you, and that you’re okay, but you’re not. We’re all here on the other side of the fucking world trying to bring you back to life, but it looks like you just want to stay dead.”

I sat for a moment and pondered over her words. Before I met Pierce the Veil, I was always the life of the party. I always wanted to meet new people and put myself out there. I had no shame, and I never cared what other people thought about me, because other people’s opinions never mattered to me. I sat and thought that maybe Tony Perry had been my balance. He made me finally think of others, but he never let me lose my flame. I made him more outgoing, so maybe I was his balance as well. Maybe I was the reason he was opening up more, and the reason why he didn’t turn his head as much when he smiled.

At this point, I knew a few things. Rain nourishes grass. Without grass, the rain serves no purpose. It causes rivers to flood, and disaster to occur. Without the rain, the grass will dry up, and dried grass serves no purpose; it lays limp and brown.

If I had been the rain, Tony Perry had been the grass. With each other we are balanced, we fit into the greater purpose of things in life and, in the short time that we were together, all things were harmonious. But I, being the rain, fell too loudly to hear what was around me, and I flooded out the grass, leaving none left, and myself without a purpose.

But although I had those thoughts, and although I knew they spoke the truth, I looked up at Jessica with the straightest face I could manage and said, “Maybe I’m better off this way”

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The next morning, the sun danced through the floor-to-ceiling windows of our hotel room with such vigor that it woke me out of my sleep. Immediately, my adrenaline kicked in, because jetlag is alive and well, paired with the fact that in San Diego it was four p.m, and I often came alive during this time. I let my eyes adjust to the light of the sun as it made its way to high sky, and I realized how hungry I was. I hadn’t eaten since the day before, and even then it was some quick airport fast food. I laid in bed for about thirty minutes thinking that maybe I should go back to sleep; I doubted anyone else is up, and it was only nine. I could’ve spared two hours or so for some more rest, but my mind wouldn’t stop running.

I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth and wash my face, but I soon grew tired of tiptoeing around so as to not wake my companions, so I walked to Jessica’s bed and snuck in behind. “Wake up,” I whispered in her ear. When she didn’t budge, I snuggled in even closer, wrapped my arm around her waist, and whispered once again, “Wake up, Jessie, wake up, wake up…”

She soon began to stir. “Dylan?”

I smiled and nodded as if she could see me behind her, then I took my arm from around her waist and slapped her once relatively hard on her behind. “Yes! Get up, we’re going to get breakfast.”

I heard her startled response, but I decided to ignore it as I walked into the connected room that was Drew and Ashley’s. I repeated the same process with both of them and watched in amusement as Jessica, Ashley, and Drew sat up and wiped their eyes, groaning and complaining. “Dylan! We’re so tired! Let us sleep!” Ashley whined.

“Look, okay, if y’all could drag me all the way out to Australia on an involuntary vacation for two week, then y’all can manage getting out of bed for a few hours to come have breakfast.”

At the mention of food, all three girls started to frantically and excitedly dress themselves. I had showered the night before prior to going to sleep, so all I really needed to do was put some clothes on. I threw on some light blue skinny jeans, a hoodie, and converse, and decided to go down to the lobby and see about nearby breakfast spots. The concierge (whose name was Kerry, I learned. She was real pretty and her slightly seductive appearance didn’t seem to match her job.) told me that there was a cute little restaurant about fifteen minutes called O’Riley’s. She told me she would call a taxi for us, and I texted the girls and told them to meet me in the lobby, then I decided to sit and think for a moment.

I thought back to last night, to the conversation I had with Jessica. And, as I thought back on it, a large part of me resented her. She made me think about things in a way I had never thought of them before. But, for this same reason, a small, very minuscule part of me would probably thank her. I think she prompted me to think about the situation with Tony in the bigger picture, rather than blaming myself constantly for fucking everything up. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it was my fault, because if I hadn’t cheated on Tony, he’d still be here with me, and the band would still be normal. I remembered how the previous night I had promised Jaime that we’d sit down and talk before we went back home. But did it make more sense to clear things up with Jaime first? Or Tony? At first I thought about clearing things up with Jaime first, but what would Tony say? I’ve put him second enough times when he didn’t deserve it, but does that mean Jaime doesn’t deserve closure. I was just about to curse myself for the trouble I’ve caused when -

“Dylan! Hello? Is anyone home?” Ashley’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “The cab’s here, you ready to go? Or are you just gonna sit here staring off into space until you grow roots?”

I chuckled and shook my head at her. “Sorry, I was just thinking. Let’s go.”

While we were in the car, I marveled over the early Thursday morning Australian city sights. The people here are so beautiful, I thought to myself. When we were younger, Drew and I used to joke about Australians being exotic white people. For me to say this prediction was false would be a lie.

The cab fare came to be about 18 dollars or so, and after thanking the cab driver, the four of us walked into O’Riley’s.

The restaurant was really cute, it reminded me of some of the Irish pubs we had back in Boston, except it involved less sports and didn’t have a bar, but the feel was the same. We sat in a booth in a far corner of the restaurant and a pretty young waitress, whose name was Chrissanthi, took our drink orders. We all ordered hot chocolate, except for Jessica, who asked for some passion fruit smoothie.

“So,” Jessica starts as we all look at our menus. “How was the rest of your nights? What time did you get in?”

Ashley responded first. “Oh it was great. That club is really cool, we should go back there again before we leave.”

Drew interjected without looking up from her menu. “I’m not sure how you can possibly know that, when you and Vic spent most of the time in the back of the V.I.P section sucking each others faces off.”

Jessica and I laughed at this, and Ashley gawked. “Hey! That’s not fair!” she cried.

“It’s true though,” Drew said with a wide smile, while Jessica and I exchanged looks that said, we believe it, that sounds about right.

“Anyway,” Ashley said with a roll of her eyes to change the subject. “We didn’t really drink much more, though. We mostly talked all night. Drew and I got home around 2 or so.”

I finally decided to speak up. “What did y’all talk about?”

“A little bit of everything, mostly catching up on boring stuff, though,” Drew responded with a slight chuckle. “Mike and I decided that we needed to catch up more on our own though-” we all gave her knowing looks when she said that. “-so we’re going to try and find time to ourselves this weekend. Probably Sunday.”

“I’m so glad! I hope you guys get back together,” I commented enthusiastically. Ashley and Jessica agreed.

“Well, I’m not sure about all of that.”

“Well, how are Jaime and, um, Tony?”

At this point, Drew and Ashley exchanged looks with one another, then with Jessica, and they all looked at me like they knew a secret I didn’t know. “What?” I asked, confused.

Ashley sighed. “Listen, Dyl. I understand that things have not been very easy for you lately. I know this mainly because since we don’t see you much anymore, Jessica here, who works beside you everyday at the shop, has been kindly reporting back to us on how you’ve been doing. And it doesn’t seem like you’re doing much better.”

I looked at her with my eyebrows furrowed. How is this answering my question?

“And,” she continued. “The same way Jessica has been keeping us posted on you, Vic has been keeping us posted on Jaime and Tony. They’re not doing well, Dylan. They’re not doing well at all.”

I glanced down at my lap, where my hands were wringing each other with guilt and anxiety. You are the rain. You flooded out all the grass.

At this point Drew took over. I felt like a troubled teenager having a talking-to from her parents. “We wanna help them. But, we know that only you can directly reach Tony, at least. And we don’t want you to try and help him unless you can help yourself first.”

Chrissanthi came back with our drinks and asked for our food orders. None of us had really taken the time to look at our menus, so we all ordered simple french toast, eggs, and sausage.

After she left, Drew once again spoke. “And before you try to tell us that you’re fine, or that you don’t need help, we are going to say this now. We need to know what happened between you and Tony. We need to know what happened to end such a short but beautiful relationship so tragically, and why the cuts from the breakup still haven’t healed. Dylan, it’s been six months, please just tell us what happened.”

I let her her words sit for a while to marinate. I knew she was right. I knew I needed to face this. I knew that I couldn’t sit on this pain for any longer now. I needed to let it go.

I took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. My eyes averted to the table. I kept my gaze focused on the stain that the hot chocolate had made on the side of the white mug in front of me. It looked dried and sticky; I wanted to wipe it off.

“Tony and I broke up the day after Mike’s party...” I envied the chocolate stain; it had no secrets to tell.

“...because the day of the party…” their stares intensified, and I could feel three pairs of eyes burning holes into the sides of my head; I intensified my fixed gaze on the chocolate stain. “...I slept with Jaime.”

I closed my eyes. The words had come out before I was ready to speak them. But, at this point, it didn’t matter what I was ready to do. My heart was ready to be freed.

When I opened my eyes, I saw three different expressions staring at me.

Jessica looked amazed. I knew that she always looked up to me at least in the slightest bit. And I also knew that she thought I was this strong, amazing person. I wondered if that would be different now.

Ashley looked as if she were in pain, her face showed that she couldn’t believe I would ever do anything like that in a million years. I wondered if she was contemplating our entire friendship, her entire view of my character in general. What kind of a girl sleeps with her boyfriend’s best friend? Whores. Sluts, etc.

Drew, overall, just looked plain disappointed. I wondered if she saw this coming, if she were the smart one to put two-and-two together; there must’ve been a reason why Tony wasn’t the only member of the band negatively affected by our breakup, and the events surrounding it. I wondered if, since she knew Jaime definitely wasn’t the same and that something had taken its toll on him, the suspicion had ever once crossed her mind that maybe something had happened involving him and myself. I wondered if she had then thought about the suspicion, saying, no, Dylan would never do such a thing. She’s loyal. She loves Tony and Jaime both dearly, and she would never do anything to hurt either of them.

I wondered if they thought of me as the rain that flooded out the grass.

Notes

it's been almost a year since i've updated this smh IM SO SORRY but i miss it so i think im definitely gonna get back into it :*