Golden

Anaheim, California

    I could feel it in the air. A certain crispness; possibly in the way the morning sunlight felt against my face, the way the wind rummaged through my hair. Whatever it was, it marked the end of an era. Things were going to change. Big time. How, I had no idea. Oh God, I had no idea. But I knew that I felt something in the California sunlight on that July morning. And I think he did too.

I turned off the old van and waited for it to quit humming before stepping outside. It was far too early for anyone to function, yet here I was, draining a Starbucks latte and rubbing the excess sleep from my eyes. I made my way into "La Grande something or other Hotel" and took a loud, creaking elevator to the floor that Brendon's room was on. Though I was the only person in the elevator, I was accompanied by a mirror reflecting my bony, disheveled figure through the boxy enclosure. I gazed into it, and a pair of sad auburn eyes stared back. I looked tired, of course. And shitty. Awkward. Scrawny. Weak. God, I need a drink, I thought, soon. The sudden opening of the elevator doors momentarily parted me from my thoughts, and I stepped out into the sweet smelling, wallpapered hallway. The place was fancy as hell. Large portions of the hall were consumed by decor plated with gold or silver Beneath it all, a criss-cross pattern of glittering white marble tiling stretched to where it met a clean white trim and soft hazel wood walls. I felt gross.

I made my way down the hall and found Brendon's room. A knock on the room door and a few short greetings later, and I was carrying his suitcase down to the "hippie van." Brendon had named it that when I bought it back in Las Vegas, and somehow it had stuck.

"I can't wait to get out of here. Go somewhere....more," I announced, not bothering to glance back at Brendon as I said it.

"More...more what exactly?" he responded, pausing between words to yawn.

I looked back at him this time, choosing my words carefully as I gazed into his tired brown eyes. "More...everything. The tour is over and we don't have an image to keep. More real, you know? More- more us."

"More us," he agreed, humoring me as he swept his unkempt hair out of his face.

We stepped out the hotel doors and into a wall of humidity as we made our way to the van. Its orange-creamsicle paint job mirrored the lazy beach landscape that our tour had somehow brought us to, but I didn't feel right there regardless.

As soon as I turned the rusty ignition, Brendon was spread across my back seat with his eyes shut tight. "To New Mexico we go, I guess," I called back to him, trying to maintain an enthusiastic demeanor.

"Ryan, I don't mean to be rude, but I need you to shut the fuck up for the next six hours. Minimum," he grunted back, his voice muffled by the seat pressed to his smirking face. I rolled my eyes back at him despite his unbudging eyelids.

The van rolled out of the parking lot, and we began our trip to the middle of nowhere. My gaze kept drifting to the rear view mirror. Brendon was always so peaceful when he slept. His face would relax and the harsh edges of his rigid frame would become gentler; it was the only time when his guard wasn't built up around him. It was also the only time when he wasn't running his mouth.

About four hours into the trip, I edged off the road and into a rest area. Everything around us was dry, either a sandy brown or an eerie green that wasn't ugly, but wasn't quite beautiful either.

"Where are we?" Brendon asked from the back seat, his voice groggy and quiet.

"The...Bouse Wash Rest Area," I replied, reading off of a sign planted in front of our vehicle.

"Well, no shit. Where are we really?" His voice was riddled with a lack of sleep and irritation.

"Don't be a dick. We're in Arizona, about two hours out from Phoenix." I paused to watch a lonely tumbleweed dance across the road. "I'm gonna go stretch my legs for a few minutes." With that, I stepped out of the van and into the desert air. I was almost sure I heard a little "sorry" from Brendon before I closed the door, but I wasn't overly concerned. I loved him for the person he was, and he tolerated me for the shit show I was. It was how we worked. Fragile, sure, but functional all the same.

I let my body relax against the frame of the van as I stared out at the horizon. There wasn't much to look at. The whole place reminded me of a discarded sandbox littered with the unwanted. It would be so easy to slip away into that endless desert and never have to worry about anything. Stop sulking so much all the time. Stop thinking too much. Stop existing altogether.

The fluidity of my thoughts slowed for a moment and I let my mind drift back to the night before. We had finished our set later than usual. The lights of the stage drowned out any 1am stars we had hoped to see, yet I kept glancing up mindlessly, ignoring the aching muscles in my neck.

"So, that's it," a winded Jon declared, jogging through the maze of backstage hallways to catch up to me. "It's over."

"Tours have to end eventually, you know," I responded, my aching throat catching on the words. A quick glance to my side told me that my short explanation hadn't come close to satisfying the weary squint in Jon's eyes.

"That's not what I mean and you know it," he had said, stopping me. "Did you see the way Brendon looked at you when he got off the stage? The way he just walked away with Spencer without saying anything to us? Like we were nobodies?"

"He's just tired-"

"Cut the bullshit, Ryan." Jon stepped in front of me as he spoke. "We have to get out of this band. He doesn't give a shit anymore. Not about you, not about me, not about anything. We have to get out while we can." His hands were now planted on my shoulders, his eyes staring at me with such intensity I half expected my head to explode, plastering the walls with gray matter and random song lyrics.

"Are you sure? I mean, this band is all we have, all I have. How..how could we just leave it?" I stammered.

"The future is already set in stone," he explained with fire in his gaze. "We're not part of this band's future, no matter how we go. It took all the willpower I had to wait to the end of the tour to talk to you about leaving. At least listen to what I'm saying to you, Ross."

I shrugged out of his grip. "Let me talk to Brendon before you make this decision-" Jon raised his eyebrows at me, "-I mean, before we make this decision."

"Good luck," he hissed, spitting the words out like they were on fire.

We parted ways at that point, but I couldn't stop thinking about what he had said. I guess things had felt different, as if something had changed. As if someone had changed. But in all honesty, I couldn't bare the thought. It broke my heart to even think about leaving. I loved this band, I loved the music, I loved-

My thoughts were broken and I was brought back to the present by the sound of a lighter coming to life next to me. I turned my head to see Brendon light a cigarette, the bags under his eyes glowing with the red light of the flame. He breathed out the smoke gently, the cigarette dangling lifelessly from his fingers.

"I didn't hear you get out of the van," I said, silently swimming in guilt for thinking again about leaving.

"Yeah, you seemed pretty out of it," Brendon acknowledged, his eyes following the smoke as it drifted into the clouds above us. We sat in silence for a few minutes, both of us taking in the arid scenery around us.

"Brendon, you know those things'll kill you, right?" I gestured to the cigarette, my eyes following it's path to his lips and back again.

"Because you're one to reprimand others about addiction?" he joked. I tried to keep the hurt out of my eyes, but it didn't matter anyway for his stare was still fixed off in the distance.

"Well, I mean, you've seen me at my worst," I replied. He wouldn't meet my eyes in the seconds of silence following. "And you know what? You're still here. That has to mean something."

"What can I say," he chuckled, "my favorite place is the warm embrace of holding your hair back in a bathroom stall...Hey, write that down that's pretty catchy." I laughed.

"Let's go," I sighed after a moment. "And stomp out that cigarette before you get back in the van."