Star Shines In Her Eye

Panic! At the Tavernas

It had been several days since Josh made a post about us, well, that I posted for Josh. It was a simple photo of us looking at one another with a caption that read "Let love bloom like a wildflower in the sunshine." It was simple but sweet and most of the fans finally understood that I was important to Josh. I was feeling a lot better and more in tune with life on the road. I spent a lot of time taking photographs of the band, posting updates and doing some side photography for myself. Somedays felt very special and exciting and others we were too tired to get out of whatever hotel we were staying in. We were traveling from Spain to Italy and then to Greece within two weeks and then we were heading back up to the UK where they had several shows. I could feel Josh and I growing stronger as a couple and everyone seemed ok with it. I tried to keep things PG in front of Sam, I still felt really weird with how things ended with us and I knew he said he was ok, I just didn't know how ok he was.
Sammy clearly moved on because he started talking to a girl that lived in LA and was texting her and video chatting with her a lot. I felt a twinge of unfair jealousy when he told me about her on the plane to Greece. It was someone he met last year at Coachella and she was very pretty, her name was Brooklyn which made me roll my eyes. I have felt jealousy before when Sammy started dating girls but this was different. I knew it was insane to feel that way since I was with his brother. I loved Josh but Sammy always felt like mine, even before we had sex. I smiled and told Sam that she was beautiful and promptly closed my eyes and fell asleep on Danny's shoulder.
Greece was amazing, I'd never experienced anything like it and this was the first time the boys had performed there. I started getting more openly affectionate with Josh at this point, I wasn't sure if it was to make Sammy jealous but it definitely worked. Sammy pulled me aside after I heavily made out with Josh at a Pub in Athens. "So... a little uncomfortable..." Sammy said rubbing his bicep. "Oh... well... I just thought now that you had Brooklyn I could kinda do whatever I wanted." I rolled my eyes when I said her name. "Wow, Kaz, I saw that, you've been weird towards me ever since I told you about her. You don't even know her, you can't act like a jealous bitch, you chose Josh. Or wait, was it that Josh felt bad about getting you pregnant?" Sammy spat back at me, his words slicing through me. I glanced at Josh who winked at me, he couldn't hear what Sammy was saying. "Fuck you, Samuel Francis Kiszka." I tried to keep my voice down, I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and my throat getting tight. I pushed passed him and stormed out into the warm air. 'Just Like a Woman' by Bob Dylan was playing out of nearby speakers, I pushed the memory of Sam's spot-on impression of Dylan out of my mind. Someone catcalled from across the road and I flipped them off, my face twisting into an ugly cry. Sammy and I have argued before but nothing like this. He clearly felt very defensive and angry that I was taking things further with Josh but he came at with me with such venom that I couldn't just get over it. I hunched over and felt a panic attack coming on. My breathing became erratic and I felt my face go numb, it had been so long since my last anxiety attack that I forgot the helplessness that I felt during them. I saw Josh run up to me but I couldn't hear him, my ears were ringing and I could only hear the sound of my rapid heartbeat.
Josh pulled me into a cab and tried to calm me down. I started to come back to reality as he stroked my hair. "What happened, baby?" "Your brother... he called me a bitch... he said you felt bad for me..." I said between gasps. "I'm going to kill him." "NO! Josh!" I felt myself panicking again. The relationship between the boys was so important to me but lately I found myself fucking it up over and over again. I put my head between my knees as the cab driver drove around the winding Grecian roads. I finally caught my breath and sat up, my face still tingling. "Joshy, he was just mad... I'll be ok. Don't kill him, please." Josh nodded and laid his head back, his hand on my knee. "Maybe you should go home. You can join us again in LA." Josh wasn't suggesting , he was telling me to go home. He sounded angry, maybe even angry with me. I felt a loss for words and my mind raced. I didn't talk to Josh the rest of drive or the walk up to the hotel. We'd been staying in his suite but I decided to take the stairs to my smaller room, I hadn't even stayed in it yet. The room was dark and lonely, there was no Josh, no happiness. He tried to get me to go with him to talk but I felt betrayed and I needed to be away from him.
     I woke up early the next morning and called the Greta team to help me book a flight home. I packed up and got a car to the airport without a word to the boys. I looked at the post I did for Josh, sitting on the plane waiting to take off. Things went downhill so fast last night, I didn't think we were over but they needed their space and I understood. I slept for most of the flight, in and out of dreams, the same one I'd had many times before, me chasing two boys who would never turn around. When I turned my phone back on there was a text from Danny, always the peace maker, asking my side of the story but I ignored it. The team would have filled them in on me going home and I didn't really want to explain myself. My mom picked me up and I told her what happened, she took me to get ice cream and then we headed back to Frankenmuth.
     I talked to Josh on FaceTime the next day but it was a little awkward. We apologized and said he missed me already. I asked him if we were ok and he said that we would be but he needed to focus on the UK leg of the tour. We promised each other that we would try to speak when possible and he had me promise I would meet them in California. I smiled and nodded, masking the immense pain I felt about missing out on the rest of Europe. Sammy texted me with a vague apology for his harsh words but I wasn't ready to forgive him yet. I sent him a thumbs up emoji and that was the end of that conversation. It was petty but that's how things got between us lately. I filled the next couple of weeks with working on my portfolio and seeing old friends, old female friends, that I hadn't seen in a long time. It was good to talk to people who were not Josh, Jake Danny or Sammy.