“You broke up with me! On the phone! Out of the blue! All you said was that you didn’t want to do this anymore and some shit about me not knowing what I want to do with my life and how it affected your artistic vibe, you prick. I spent two years with you—two years! And in five minutes you kick me out of the placeyouhad askedmeto move into with you six months before. I’d told you I didn’t want to live with you and you told me how much fun it would be, how much you loved me, how it was inevitable. Six months, Bran! What the fuck?”
Under normal circumstances, I wasn’t one to go on a rant or a tirade of any sort. Well, unless it was around my family members or Laila. But the words had been bottled up deep in my chest for months now. All the questions and the frustration over what had happened to my doomed relationship just exploded out of me in this hateful, screaming demand.
To give him credit, Brandon put his hands on his forehead and sighed, his gaze going down to the ground. “I did love you. I’ll probably always love you, in a way. You’re great—”
I put my hand up to stop him from continuing on with a list of traits he admired because, frankly, I didn’t give a shit what he liked about me. “We hardly ever fought, and we’d talked on the phone the night before like everything was normal. You just cut me perfectly out of your life after so long, and I never heard from you again. Then a week or two later, I find out you have another girlfriend already? It just caught me out of the blue, do you understand why that pisses me off?”
“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry, babe.” He slid his hands down his face with a shaky exhale. “I didn’t mean for things to go the way they did. I swear I didn’t have sex with her while we were still—”
I had to rewind the words that came out of his mouth and go through them again.
When I did, my ears went hot and my brain just kind of short-circuited for a split second. Not once had I even thought that he’d cheated on me. I really hadn’t. Brandon thought he was a catch but not once had he ever been the type of guy that I imagined texting eight other girls while he had a girlfriend. That wasn’t like him. We’d gone on a date the day after we’d met. I guess I had just thought he’d done the same thing again.
But this…
“You didn’t have sex with her while we were still together…? But you started talking to her while we were…?”
Anxiety crossed his features so quick it was amazing. He might have even stopped breathing before he began stuttering. “Well…”
I wasn’t even mad, per se. I wasn’t. What was done was done and whatever. I cleared my throat and got the knot out of it. “It doesn’t matter.” The words came out of my mouth a little rough, a little weird.He’d started talking to other people before we’d even split up.
But my pride, my pride couldn’t handle it.
I picked up the imaginary pieces and balled them up.
"It really doesn’t matter anymore, but I will cut your balls off with my eyebrow trimmers if you ever talk to Eli like that again. You walked out of my life, and I don't care if I ever see you again. My brother doesn't want you around, and you better believe that the only reason your face is still intact is because you came out here with me."
"I'm sorry, baby," he said quietly, using that same damn nickname that was stabbing a spike into the back of my neck. "I didn't mean to hurt you like that."
I shrugged because how else could I respond that didn’t include me punching him right in the eye for being a piece of shit? "I don't care anymore, Brandon. But I want you and your girlfriend to get off the fucking bus. Go watch the show from wherever you want but stay away from me."
He opened his mouth to say something else but he must have understood how serious I was because he closed it. Nodding, Brandon looked away. I took a second just to look at the guy I'd been with for two years.
Brandon was good-looking and tall and lean, but now, I didn't look at him the same way that I used to. None of the physical crap really mattered in the long run. A part of me wanted to focus on everything that he wasn't, but there wasn't a point.
He’d made me look like an idiot. More than anything else, that was something I couldn’t ignore.
I sucked in a breath and smiled in his direction, letting the anger bubble inside of me. It was in that moment that I asked myself what I would regret more later on sitting in my bunk: being an adult or making myself feel better.
And I knew. I knew deep in my heart what exactly I would regret more. A smile easily crawled across my face as I said, “Thank you for seeing things my way.”
He eyed me suspiciously for a second before nodding, his own little smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I’m sorry for everything.”
I nodded.
Then I took two steps forward, holding my arms out at my sides as if I was going to give him a hug… and when he started to lean in, I went onto the tips of my toes and punched him almost as hard as I could right in the throat.
He made this choking, puttering noise as he bent over at the hips, but I wasn’t looking at him any more.
When I pivoted around to head back toward the venue with vindication in my veins, I happened to look up at the windows of the bus to see my brother and Sacha with their faces pressed up against the glass, looks of amazement on their faces. I waved.
There. Now I could go to sleep tonight. Otherwise I would have lay in my bunk with my hand fisted and called myself a coward for not going for it.
The rest of the night went by pretty uneventfully. Laila had apparently made friends with Carter, from the way I found him behind the Ghost Orchid merch table, sitting right next to her. During a break between songs, she asked me loud enough for Carter to hear, “What happened?” All I said in response was, “I punched him in the throat,” which made her burst out laughing and led to Carter asking if it was Mason I punched.
Once she got herself under control right around the time Ghost Orchid went onstage, she kept slapping my shoulder when she got excited. It was a slower night than usual so I had a lot of time to watch their set and The Cloud Collision’s. Sacha moved across the stage so effortlessly and with so much energy it was electric. Even if he wouldn't have one of the most striking faces I'd ever seen, it would have been impossible to keep my eyes away from him. He was a performer in his blood.
Most importantly, he was my friend. When Gordo had stayed inside after he found out Brandon was around, Sacha had been the one to go find him with me because he was worried I would do something bad. If that wasn’t friendship, I didn’t know what was.
