Find Me (4 page)
Layla
I should have thought about how Liam would take this and that as Natalie was calling me
, Ryan was probably doing the same with Liam. Asking him to be the best man, to stand with him as well.
Two undeserving best friends
, standing up before all others, while life changing vows are made. Vows that are usually, in my experience, kept for life. Not mattering what happens within the relationship. When you say I do, it’s forever.
There isn’t a fall back, no escape plan. You can’t walk away when shit gets tough, or when you discover the person you decided to share your life with was nothing but layers upon layers of lies. Down to the very core.
I found out at fifteen that life wasn’t fairytales and rainbows of happiness. That love wasn’t the be all end all everyone made it out to be. Love was shit.
It was an emotion I would wish every day
, to this very day, not to ever experience. It made people selfish, uncaring about how their actions may affect others involved.
Love made people blind, stupidly, ignorantly
, blind. Like my mother.
My father could never, still
can’t do anything wrong in her eyes. She was and probably still is an unthinking stepford wife. The perfect of everything. Ignoring the truth of it all and much more. She would rather hide behind her lavish curtains in her mansion of faked happiness, than ever giving any salt to the truth of words that surround my name. Her name. My father’s name.
Liam isn’t aware of it yet, but he will realize. He got away unscathed from the misfortune’s love produces. Not that I wouldn’t ever want Natalie happy, but Ryan is obviously the guy for her. The one that she wants.
I can sense that Liam and I carry the same opinion on love, normally. Natalie being his exception.
For years before, I’m sure, my mother hid away her own feelings about her marriage to my father. She pretended to be the ever devoted wife, loving and faithful. Blissfully wrapped up in love, content.
For one day, one day only, that veil was lifted. I saw the truth, the hurtfully naked truth. Everything came barreling out in rolling waves, crashing upon me as I were the shore.
Unfortunately for my mother, I w
as as susceptible to a tsunami, as any other shore is. I couldn’t handle it and I broke. I lost it, on both of my parents. Truths came raining out of their mouths in tidal waves, torrential and horrendous.
I hated them for what I learned. But there was nothing I could have done about it
, other than to act as if it never happened and protect Natalie from the harshness of the situation.
Protecting her is all I have done since. And I will do whatever I have to, to make sure that my family doesn’t ruin her long trail she has paved to reach the point she has now found herself in.
I find myself crouched into the sofa, when the guys walk in. I can only surmise as to how their shopping trip went.
“Layla
!” Gage yells.
Apparently not seeing me sitting on the couch.
“Right here,” I say as I stand up and make my way to the island bar in the kitchen.
Gage sets several bags onto the counter
. Jason and Zepp do the same.
“We have a few more trips left
. If you want to start putting the food away, that will help.” Zepp advises.
“Did you guys buy
Walmart
out?” I ask jokingly.
If they have even one more trip left up with bags, I doubt that all of the food will even fit.
I grab an empty plastic bag out from under the sink and start emptying bags of food, placing the now empty bags inside of the one I’m holding.
A huge pet peeve of mine. People emptying groceries and just letting the empty bags fly around the floor.
As I continue emptying bags, I notice that the guys packed every single one in themes: canned goods, pasta, deli meat, yogurts, and cheeses. Bags upon bags.
Gage enters first and loads the counter up
, yet again. They do this two more times after that.
“You guys bought way too much
. There is no way this will all fit. You’re going to have to bring some of this to Natalie’s.” I suggest.
“We didn’t know what you liked to
eat, other than what we ate of yours already. So, we made sure to get a bit of everything. Anything you don’t like, we’ll take to Ryan and Nat.” Zepp tells me.
“So you guys had no plan going in? That’s a waste of money.” I say
, while laughing.
“We just wanted to fill your stomach
, so your mouth was shut,” Jason interjects.
Dick.
“Oh yeah? And you wanted me to cook for that mouth?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it that way at all. Just that we always eat your food, and well
, you were abnormally upset about it. I mean it’s just food.” Jason pleads, although in an unusual way.
Normally, when you apologize
, you don’t say sorry, then insult the person right after. The apology might as well not even be there.
“Very sincere. I won’t hold your mouth against Gage or Zepp
, though. I’ll still make them dinner.” Jason keeps on going, as if threatening to take away his dinner is of no consequence.
“So Gage, Zepp, what did you guys want me to make tonight?”
“You’ll make whatever we want, right?” Gage asks.
“Sure, as long as you got everything that I need to make it.” I say suspiciously.
They’ve got something up their sleeves.
“Spit it out.”
“We would love it if you would make us Lasagna.” Gage says, eyeing me steadily.
I let out a whoosh of air I didn’t realize I was holding. With them
, you never know what they have planned. They’ve had some pretty outlandish ideas.
“There is a catch
, though,” Zepp interjects.
Of course, there it is. Always a catch.
“Yes?”
“We want you to make it like Gages’ grandmother made it, and with a salad and bread sticks. The whole dinner.” Zepp tells me.
“Salad and Breadsticks are easy. I’m sure her recipe isn’t that much different than anyone else’s.”
“Awesome! Then let’s get this food put away before it goes bad, wouldn’t want Lals having a stroke or anything,” Gage says.
I ignore his tactics in edging me on and start filling the cupboards with food, the food that I, or Liam would actually consume.
Sardines in oil. I toss the tin can back into the bag.
Disgusting
.
With all of us putting groceries away
, it takes less than an hour, much less time than if I was doing this alone. All in all, they did pretty well. There are about five bags of unperishable food sitting in the trunk of their car that can go on over to Ryan’s mansion of a house.
Liam still isn’t back and the longer he’s away
, the more I start worrying about him. I suspected that he had feelings for her when he started sleeping in the same bed as her, but he constantly redirected our conversations, so I started questioning less and less.
He fought with me pulling the friend card out constantly. How could I have not believed him?
It wasn’t until he told me that she was pregnant that I realized how he truly felt for her, the pain etched on his face was a mirror copy of Natalie’s. Only, his was for her and Nat’s was because of Ryan.
At first
, I felt horrible for him, to love someone and not be able to tell them. He couldn’t have her, for she was already taken. Irrevocably taken.
Then when Natalie and Ryan decided to work their shit out, their relationship was all up in his face
. I pitied him. He wouldn’t move on, couldn’t move on. He’s had quite a few months to move past those feelings, to lose them, to drown them and he hasn’t.
Today was a train wreck, one that I saw coming miles, months if you will, away. Every time I said something
, he would instantly shut me down, locking himself like a friggen teenager in his room blaring music. Or he would just leave.
Sometimes
, he wouldn’t come back for hours, other times, days. I didn’t learn until about a month ago where he was going when he left.
For some reason
, knowing where he went made me insanely jealous. A jealous I have never had the unfortunate opportunity to experience, until I discovered that whenever he was pissed off at me, he was going to Ryan and Natalie’s house and crashing there. This was often.
I have no clue why it bugged me
. But the thought of him running there because of an argument that we had, churns my gut. I hate runners. Yet, I am one.
Liam
When parking the car
, I notice that the guys must have come back while I was out. A good thing, because then I will have a shield to take away an awkwardness about earlier and I won’t allow myself to be trapped with her alone, so she can confront me. Layla is the queen on confrontations. She never backs down from any disagreement.
Which is why I always leave when she gets on her
high horse of arguing. She’s never wrong and always assumes she knows how I am feeling, and Layla, ever the therapist, knows how to fix me.
I am a long way off the course of going back to be
ing fixed. There is no repairing the damage I’ve done to myself, let alone the damage I have done to others. Of the people that I have hurt in my short life, they don’t, nor will they ever deserve any retribution from me.
The tracks of forgiveness have long since kicked my ass off and there is no going back.
I enter the apartment and survey the scene before me. If I thought that retreating through the door and reentering would change what my eyes are seeing, I would do it one hundred times. But I have strong faith in my senses, one being my sight and what I am seeing is definitely happening.
Good Lord.
“What
in the fuck are you guys doing?” I ask, barely holding my laughter in.
Gage and Jason are sitting on the sofa and Zepp is sitting cross-legged on the floor below them. Gage has his hair tied back
in a pink scrunchie, Zepp and Gage both have headbands on, keeping their hair out of their eyes, I suppose.
Their faces are caked with a mud
-like substance and all three of their pant legs are rolled up and their shoes are off.
“Layla asked us if we wanted to do a spa day.” Jason answers me.
“A girl spa day, by the looks of it. Why are you all barefoot?”
“Oh, Layla gave us all pedicures. Liam
, dude, you should try it. It’s very relaxing.” Gage adds in.
“No
thanks.” I say shortly.
I couldn’t have been gone for more than a few hours.
What has this woman done?
I have been with these guys for years and not once have they applied mud masks or painted their nails. Not even when they’re offered the luxury from a high-end upscale spa.
I turn around to head into the hallway to enter my room
and I collide with Lals.
“How did you make that happen?” I say
, while nodding my head to the living room. Thinking a pleasant conversation will help keep this away from our earlier fiasco.
She starts laughing
. “It was actually really easy. They have no idea that I plan on taking pictures of them and posting it on every single social media website that I can think of. They ate all of our food, went shopping, and conned me into agreeing that I would make dinner for them.” She pauses to take a breath. “Little did I know that the recipe they wanted me to make was unreal. I mean, who adds fucking fish to lasagna?”
I shake my head, I’ve heard of this one before.
She continues. “They even bought the fish. Tilapia, actually. They really thought I would make it! It’s not like they would have eaten it anyway. I mean, who wastes money on food that they don’t even plan on eating?”
“Lals, they’ve done this countless times to people. They really do eat it, and that’s after begging someone to make it. If I didn’t know them better and know of their habits, I would think that they had planned to eat all of our food just to have you make it for them.” I start laughing.
It never fails. One of the reasons, if given a choice to change band members, or fuck to trade friends, I would say hell no. They keep shit fun. When life has your back against the wall and you don’t think you can go on any longer, they are there holding their hands out.
I can’t count on all of my fingers and toes the times I have fallen into the deepest depth of despair, unwilling and unable to crawl out
, and they’ve forced me to. I don’t think I can say it enough, these guys’ aren’t just friends or fucking bandmates, they are family.
That being said, I am being one of the biggest dicks to Ryan and he has no idea. I have to suck my shitty ass emotions up and move the fuck on.
Layla is still laughing about the scene that is still ongoing in the living room.
“Lals, I was thinking of going out tonight with the guys, are ya down?” It wouldn’t be fair of me to exclude her, seeing as how she spends almost all of her free time with us anyway.
“Sure, I think I’d like that. Also, there was something I wanted to mention. Nat called me earlier. She wants us to stop over for dinner within the next couple of days. I know the last few days haven’t been that great for you and I wanted to run it by you before I RSVP’d your invitation.” She states, with her eyebrows drawn in a concerned fashion.
“Sure,” I say
, brushing off her pity. “I’m going to ask the guys if they want to go. I’m positive they’ll say yes to anything.”
“Alright, well I’ll make something that isn’t fish lasagna and then get ready. Make sure they’ll still want to stay for dinner.”
“Alright.”
I turn around and head back into the living room
. The guys are seated right where I left them.
“Hey, I was thinking we could all go out tonight. We’ll have Layla
, so you all better behave, somewhat.”
“Fuck Yeah!” Gage jumps on board.
“Does this mean I can’t get laid tonight?” Jason asks.
“I just said behave
. You know, not getting raving drunk to the point of needing someone else to take care of you. What the hell kind of question is that?” I ask.
“I just wanted to make sure I didn’t have to abstain just because a girl i
s going out with us. Might I add that it’s also a first.”
“I’m in.” Zepp adds quietly.
“Just so you know, though, you are all going back to your own beds. No one is crashing here.”
“Do
n’t worry.” They say in unison.
“Also, Lals is refusing to make that nasty ass food. So if you want to eat here before we head out
, you have to deal.”
They moan in sadness and disappointment.
“Well, then it’s settled. Why don’t you all get your asses cleaned up and home. Get dressed, as men, not females and be back here around eight. We can do a late dinner, then head out. Sound good?”
“Yeah, we
’ll take a cab here, so my car isn’t parked here, then cab it out.”
“Alright, now pull your fucking pant legs down like normal pe
ople.”
They all stand up and make their way into the kitchen to the sink. To wash their mud mask away I presume.
“Since I was awoken at the fucking crack of dawn, I’m going to lay down for a mid-day nap. You guys should catch some rest too, if you want to be out late.” They nod.
Listen to me, I sound like an eighty year old
, who cannot function on a few hours of sleep. Some days, I truly feel like one, though. This shit I have put my body through-things no one should do to themselves-has only made my aging process faster, or so I feel.