Page 67 of Crash & Burn

Right there on his face.

Every time he looks in the mirror.

The next song plays and it’s, “The Tide” by Niall Horan, and the atmosphere in the car changes. The beat of the music is a little slower, the lyrics having more truth behind them than I’d like to admit.

With the lull in the music, Eddie uses it as an excuse to ask, “How does it feel?”

I don’t need to clarify theithe is asking about.

“Amazing,” I breathe. I look down, and our hands are still interlocked on my lap and then back at him. “You know that feeling of finding a song that perfectly matches your mood. The lyrics somehow say exactly what you are feeling, and you don’t have to think about it.”

Eddie turns to me, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Nevermind.” I shake my head. I didn’t realize how stupid that sounded until I said it. “That probably doesn’t make any sense.”

Eddie smiles before looking back at the road.

“I know exactly what you mean. Like you can just listen to the music andfeel.” He lets out a laugh.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing, it’s just—” he starts but shakes his head, laughing to himself again. “That’s actually the exact reason I wanted to write songs. To write lyrics people could connect with, so they could be happy or sad, in love or lonely, angry at the world or just one person, and feel like they aren’t alone.”

There is so much I want to say, but I don’t know how to say it.

So instead, I just squeeze Eddie’s hand, and he squeezes my back. We listen to music for the rest of the ride, and, for the first time in three years, that is all I do.

I settle in bed after an afternoon of cleaning up my apartment, unpacking from the weekend, and an evening of reality TV show reruns, white wine, and laundry.

Eddie dropped me off at home around one in the afternoon, and I felt like a new person walking into my place.

Not a new person as inbrandnew, different than I was before.

But new as in the old me. The version of myself I’ve been missing and fighting like hell to get back.

I feel light on my feet, like the weight I have been carrying isn’t as heavy now that I was able to share some of the load.

Talking with Eddie about Nico was the start of something I don’t really know if I completely understand. We established that we were friends, and that the kiss was a mistake, but I can’t ignore the sliver of disappointment at the thought.

My bed feels small after spending the night in a king-size hotel bed last night, but it also feels a little lonely.

I have been alone for years, missing someone who is never going to come back, but this loneliness is different, like it doesn’thaveto be this way.

This weekend was a whirlwind of emotions, between Cross My Heart’s first show, what happened afterward, the kiss, Eddie sneaking into my hotel room, and our road trip back to Milwaukee, I’m left with the aftermath of these feelings, knowing that I won’t see Eddie until the next show in three weeks.

Not wanting to dwell on the feelings that come with that thought, I grab my laptop from the foot of my bed and decide that I should go back to figuring out what I’m going to do for the next three months.

One show down, five to go.

The last show isn’t until the very end of summer and then things will really die down, so that means I need to figure out how to fill my time between now and then.

I revisit my thoughts about pursuing photography full-time and confirm with myself thatthatis what I want to do.

I send a text to Mateo, first asking how the meeting with Xander Drake—the tour manager for next year’s tour—went and if he had time to meet up this week to help me with setting up a website for a freelance photography business.

He responds a few minutes later saying the meeting went well, but there’s nothing to report just yet. We plan to meet up and talk about the website later this week, and then he asks how the ride home with Eddie went.

I tell myself that I’m not lying to my brother. I’m just keeping what happened between Eddie and me to myself, like I would with any other friendship. I write off the pit in my stomach, convincing myself it isn’t guilt, and I send off a text saying it went fine.

---