The Process of Losing & Gaining

1.Just to Know You're Alive

A friend of mine used to tell me every wound needs time to heal, you just need to give hope a chance to float. That's how we chose to live our lives, with hope. So when Mike Fuentes invited me to a dinner with his band when he returned from his first tour, I hoped they would understand I don't like to let people in. Mike never did, that's why he was a part of my life. Mike texted me that he was outside so I grabbed my purse. As I shut the passenger seat door, I faced Mike.

"Hey, stranger." He smiled at me. It was genuine and I had truly missed him. He had called me whenever he could but eventually he stopped. I assumed it was because of all the poking and prodding from the other boys since none of them had actually met me in person. Whenever we would talk, you could hear them in the background saying I wasn't real and that Mike was talking to an empty phone call.

"I hate you for this, I hope you know that." I admired his tattoos that I hadn't seen for months. He laughed as he pulled away from my apartment. It felt like it had been forever since I left my place to actually live life rather than mindlessly zombie walk through the grocery or at work.

"How about I owe you one?" He joked. He may have been gone for a while but he was still the same Mike. He still wore his favorite Snap back backwards and his shades on even though it was growing darker as the sun fell from the sky, undoubtedly to rise on the poor souls who now had to wake up and face another day.

"Okay." I stuck my tongue out at him. We didn't really speak much on the ride but it was okay. We didn't need to talk, each other's presence was enough. We ended our rather comfortable silence as we entered a local restaurant that I'm sure everyone at this part of town would go to on a lazy Friday night when they were too tired from the 9 to 5 to actually cook and clean up. When we entered the building three guys accompanied by a girl, who I assumed was one of their girlfriends, came up to me.

"Okay dude she's real." The one with spiky hair, deep brown eyes, and a rather awkward nose threw his hands up in defeat.

"It's nice to finally meet you, I'm Vic." This one was short yet was still taller than me. His hair was longer than the rest. I knew he was Mike's older brother from a picture of the two Mike kept with him when he and I had met but I had still never met him in person before. I was Mike's friend but we didn't exactly meet in a family setting.

"I'm Iris, like the flower not the color of your eyes." I joked; I had a very bad sense of humor. Bad pick up lines, terrible puns, and corny jokes seemed to be the only slightly humorous things I'd ever speak. Surprisingly, the first one who spoke laughed at the rather un-humorous remark.

"I'm Jaime." He held his arms out for a hug, I didn't deny it. It had actually been quite sometime since I last let a stranger hug me but he hardly felt like one, if that wasn't a strange enough thought.

"Those two over there are Tony and Adalyn. Sorry there aren't more girls here, none of us have girlfriends." Vic gestured to the rest of them. Adalyn was rather snobby looking and it made the two seem a bit odd. She was bleach blonde (no offense to those who like that look. Mike even had bleach blonde hair when I first met him. Thank god he didn't keep it that way.) and her make up caked on as much as an actor on Broadway. Tony was tattooed on every inch of skin available to the public eye, not that this meant they didn't belong together she just looked out of place with the 'mexi-core' (Mike's words not mine.) group who I found myself accompanied by.

"It's understandable, none of you are exactly panty-droppers." I joked. They started to laugh and I turned to Mike who towered over me, biting his lip at an attempt to stop the laughter. "Don't you laugh, I'm talking about you too." They laughed even harder and even I started to crack a smile. It felt nice to actually smile. I hadn't done so in so long. It was sickly sweet though as a deep set fear kicked in. How could I let virtual strangers make me smile? Maybe laughing, true laughing, was contagious. What an epiphany.