Assistant manager- [M.S]

37

Alyssa Wilkins

June 30.

I hate thinking.

I wish I could turn my thoughts off.

How easy would life be if I didn't have this racing feeling in my chest and a replay of conversations in my head?

I haven't stopped thinking about Matt . Normally that would be a good thing. Normally I would be thinking about the next time I would run into him, thinking about how thrilled I am to be around him again.

Except now, it's a bad thing. I'm left thinking about where we left off, where we went wrong, where we failed. The fact that we never even got a chance to try because we were too scared.

Or maybe because I was.

The feeling in my stomach isn't butterflies anymore. I feel like there is a brick sitting on my abdomen, the weight only getting heavier each time I see him.

So unfortunately, I can't turn my thoughts off.

All I am able to do is go about my life, trying to push away the thoughts of the guitarist of the Sturniolo Triplets, the band my mom is managing and I help out with.

All he is to me is a random guitarist.

To say that we were ever anything more than strangers who passed each other as we went about our days this past month would be a fabrication.

"Give me your hand."

I know someone is talking to me, but I'm too spaced out to even care. But when I don't answer, my hand is taken in someone else's, doing the work for me when they see I'm out of it.

I look up from where my eyes were etched onto the pavement, kicking my feet around to pass the time as we stand in the darkness in a line of people.

My hand now sits in Evan's, where he swipes lines of vanilla chapstick across the top of my hand.

As much as I would love to not see Matt, because seeing him just reminds me of all the fun we shared before it was ripped out from under us like a rug, I was pulled from my hotel room by Chris, who insisted that I join the four of them out to a bar tonight.

My immediate response was telling him that it would be impossible because I'm underage, then I wondered how he would get in either. That's when he told me I could still get in at my age, I just wouldn't be able to drink.

I still wasn't too interested, mostly because going out with the band would mean I would also be going out with Matt, but I thought that maybe being around all four of them would be beneficial for me - to reestablish a friendship and nothing more.

Nope. That word is impossible between me and Matt.

I followed Chris out, got in the car with them, then was informed by Evan about how he knew the best way for me to get around the age restrictions.

So that's where we are now, standing outside of a bar while Chris applies chapstick to my hand as discreetly as possible. His tongue pokes out of his mouth in focus, and I wonder why he cares to perfect his work, considering the whole point is for it to go unnoticed anyway.

I guess that's the stylist in him.

"I'm closing my eyes and turning away because I don't condone this and I want no part," Nick says for us all to hear, and when I look at him, he actually has his hand over his eyes, turned the opposite direction as he faces the busy
street.

Evan smiles at his work on my hand, only shaking his head at Nicks' reaction. "You were the one who taught me this. You should have known your tricks would be passed down to the next generation," he says to Nick over his shoulder, and Nick flips him off blindly, still with one hand covering his eyes.