The Windy City

Matt

The snow starts to fall as we make our way down the street towards Dunkin'. It was that or Starbucks and Starbucks is just so overrated to me. Thankfully we all agreed that it is indeed overrated. I would have preferred a more chill, cafe type of place, but I couldn't find anything on the gps and Maddy found the Dunkin' sign as we turned the corner from where Eddie the tour bus driver dropped us off. Madi, Trill, Nathan and Malcolm are mine and my brother's friends from back home. Me and my brothers have become well known across social media, starting out with YouTube.

Nick for being funny as fuck as well as being so open about his sexuality. Nick has actively been helping people come to terms with their sexuality. It's pretty amazing to know he has helped so many people.

Chris is just a goofy ass and a ladies man. He acts like he has no clue, but I think deep down he lives for it.

Then there's me. I am just here. I have been a little open with talking about my struggles with my mental health on social media, but my goal is to help others. I know how it feels and it sucks. I like to let our supporters know what helps me cope so maybe it can help them. I'm just scared I'm not going to be able to help someone the way they need to be helped. It would make me feel awful if someone came to me for help and I didn't help them the way they had hoped. So I haven't spoken to much on my own about it lately.

So here we are us 3 triplets on tour around the US to meet all of our supporters that made our life and dreams possible. Madi, our friend, but Nick's best friend. So she came along for the ride. She's like the little sister we never had. Trilly and Malcolm are musicians and they came with us on tour to give a live performance of their original songs. Some are even trending on TikTok. They are growing so fast on social media too. Nathan is also along for the ride. He's my best friend. It's pretty awesome how much all of our platforms have grown in such little time.

Pulled away from my thoughts because of laughter behind me. I start to turn around, but Malcolm is pushed against me and my feet slip against the ice. Luckily, Nick and Chris grab my arms before I fall face first into the icy concrete. We all break out in laughter. The real laughs hit once we see that Malcolm actually slipped and fell into a plowed pile of dirty snow thats be plowed to the side of the road.

•••

When we reach the entrance of Dunkin'  I pull the door and wave my hand in front of me, gesturing for Madi and everyone to go inside before me because of the the gentlemen I am. I start to go inside myself and a short girl, with black hair, her face in her phone walks out quickly almost shoulder checking me out of the way. She didn't even look up to say thank you.

"You're welcome?" I say under my breath.

As I walk up the the counter with everyone I hear Chris talking to about how attractive some girl was. If they are talking about the rude girl that has no manners, how did they even see her face she was straight down in her phone.

"I can help you all over here!" The blonde bubbly girl says at the counter.

"Do you need help deciding?" The blonde asks and Chris swats my arm. My eyes focus on the girl in front of me rather than the menu. I'm not sure what I want. I look over to my right and see everyone has ordered as I watch the barista give Nick his drink.

"What did you get Chris?" I ask.

"I'm not feeling coffee so I went for the refresher. Strawberry Dragonfruit." he says and then looks from the barista back to me.

"I'll take the same thing he just said. A large. Please." I say with a shy smile.

After we all got out drinks from the other bubbly blonde barista we headed towards the door and again I hold the door open for all them. At least they all said thank you to me as they passed. No one extra comes in or out of the door this time.

We all huddle in a circle outside and pull out our phone trying to figure out where we should go next. It's almost 3pm now. We have to be back at the hotel at 5pm to get ready for a dinner reservation Nick had placed for dinner.

"I've always wanted to go take a picture with The Big Bean here in Chicago! Can we go there first? It's only a 7min walk from here" Nathan says, slightly jumping up and down in excitement like a child.

"The Bean?" Nick, Chris, and I say in sync.

"The Bean? This big ass silver bean its so cool! You guys have never heard of it? It's something Chicago is known for like how we call Chicago  "The Windy City"? The Bean is just as famous." Nathan explains.

"I say let's go, sounds cool. I need a few new pictures for Instagram. I haven't posted in awhile." I add to the conversation. Everyone agrees once I say something about pictures and social media.

"We can call Eddie to pick us up from The Bean because it's supposed to start snowing in an hour or so and the temperature will drop. I'm not trying to end up like Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc when they got forced through that door and ended up in a blizzard." Nick explained and everyone laughs.

We start our 7 minute walk and my mind imagines the clip of them trying to walk through the snow, but manipulates it to all of us trying to walk through a blizzard in this busy city and I laugh a little harder.

•••

"Your destination is on your left." Thank you Siri from Nathan's phone.

I look up and to my left to see a silver bean growing in size with each step I take. Whoa that Bean is huge.

"Come on everyone let's go flick the bean!" Chris shouts and I immediately look over at him with his smirk and I start laughing once again.

Nick swats him across the chest "You're disgusting!" He says smiling and trying his hardest not to laugh with all of us.

As we reach the bean it's like a mirror. How freaking cool! Everyone starts to walk a little faster. I take my sweet time walking and acknowledging the fact there is still a decent amount of snow on the ground and I'm not trying to almost bust my ass again.

Once I reach everyone else we start passing around phones for pictures. I help Nick and Chris get some good pictures. Nick brought our expensive camera so we got some good and goofy pictures of all of us and some footage for our tour vlog videos we have been putting together for our supporters for after the tour is over. I say we, but Nick is the one who edits and puts it all together and makes it look good.

Nick hands my phone back to me after he takes some photos for me.  I pull up the photos and I see a familiar short girl behind me in a few of my pictures. The rude girl who didn't bother to say thank you earlier. I look up to see she's a few feet in front of me taking pictures of herself and the bean.

Parts of me wants to leave her alone, but the another part of me wants to me return the favor of photobombing. I should just leave her alone. There's no use of trying to start something that won't go anywhere.

It seems my mind and my body are disagreeing with each other because with every thought I'm a step closer to her, until I'm basically standing right behind her.