V - Lasting Impression

I shoved my hands into my pockets and she walked beside me. I start where we always could. "What do you think of the Connor Thompson record from last year?" I say. It's awkward and I'm kicking myself for going on this walk with her. I want to start screaming at her for everything all while simultaneously apologizing for making the dumbest choice of my life. I'd rather write happy love songs than nothing and I wish I never made that hate record I did. I just start with Connor Thompson. And wait.

"Amazing," She says. "I love his solo stuff. I mean, he wrote all of the Sunday Drive so at least we know that all these records were going to be Sunday Drive anyways."

I nod. "I know," I say. "I have to show you these demos he sent me of older Sunday Drive-"
"You guys swap demos now?" She asks. She's excited by this. Here is where I can start bragging. I can smile and say they I've been out with him and his wife. Brianna was unimpressed by him. She doesn't know who Sunday Drive is and she checked her phone every five minutes. I could go on and on about everything I know about Connor Thompson.

"Yeah," I said. "We hang out a lot actually. He took us out on a tour once and we got to hang out every night and talk. He's really cool, and he remembers you." I freeze preparing to shoot myself in the foot.

She stared at me. "What?" She says her eyes widening.

"He was asking about you when I told him about when we got to meet him at that show in high school," I said. We get a little quiet knowing we broke up. She tries to react without dogging me abut what I said knowing I would have said something along the lines of how my heart was broken and I can't write music anymore if I was drunk and if I was sober just said we broke up.

"My roommate at college hated me," She said. "I roomed with her until this year and she was so happy to get rid of me because all I listened to was Sunday Drive when I studied. She hated them. I could just tell, but she wasn't rude about it, she just cringed a lot."

I laughed a little. She was so different. I knew her. Her personality was just... vastly different. She was smiling a lot more. She wasn't scared. If she hated me she wasn't showing it. If she was going to walk my down and ally and murder me, well she'd catch me completely off-guard. I didn't know what it was but she made me feel like I was her friend. But she was the ex-girlfriend.

We walked down the sidewalk together. "How is college?" I asked. I began to feel sick inside like I knew I would eventually. But she just shrugged a shoulder.

"I am doing pretty good," She said. "I switched my major completely to English and minoring in human development."

I nodded. "Those are pretty cool subjects," I said. "Are you going to be a teacher?"

She nodded. "I'm pretty sure," She said. "My father is paying for classes but my mother just stopped paying for my dorm room and stuff so I have to figure everything out."

I looked at her. "What?" I didn't get why she was telling me this stuff. She was so different. Here she was coming out with this without even thinking and I was just her ex-boyfriend. We haven't talked in years. I felt ready to throw up. I was broken in half. I felt drunk. She was normal. She made me feel like we were friends. What is happening?

She looked down. "I'm sort of homeless," She said. "Which is why I'm on tour for now. It keeps me off of couches but when school starts I'm stuck."

I stared at her. "Are you serious?" I asked.

She nodded looking back at me evenly. "When November comes we'll be back and I'll break up with Owen and either live off of couches or agree with my mother and go into business again." She said. "Then I get a dorm and everything related to living taken care of."

"Your mother's crazy." I said.

She nodded. "I'm stuck," She said laughing a little. She looked forward. "My life's turned into a Soap Opera again."

I watched her and then looked forward. We came by drugstores and Thai food chains. The neon lights dusted the streets but we walked like to lost characters from two different stories. We turned around a little early because I felt ready to blow up.

She looked at me. "What about you," She said. "How's life?"

I shrugged. "The band is good," I said. "We're touring, and we make a living. Rainie and Paul are still together and I live in a little house near the city with them-"

"I know," Elisa said. "Rain and I talk a lot. We used to have lunch together a lot. We go to the same college." There was so much that could have slipped by like that. Things like what college she went to. I didn't know what college Elisa goes to. She went to the same as Rainie? That was so foreign. You never know what it's like to feel like you don't know someone you know so well at the same time. She scuffed her shoes on the ground. "What about a new record?" She asked. "Rain said you were writing one."

I shrugged. "Barely,"

"What does that mean?"

"I can't write. I'm blocked."

She stopped asking questions. Nobody asked about my block except for Paul. He always sat down and asked me what I felt. Asked if I could just write a simple C-Am-G-D progression with some old lyrics. Anything just to push me over this mountain a little. He's even tried helping me. I just can't get out full songs without them being too forced. But he works on me everyday. I could have said all of that to Elisa but I didn't. I walked silently. I tried not to throw up and I tried to keep myself in one piece.

She could have asked about Brianna. I mean, she could have asked me anything but she knew I was feeling shitty so when we turned we just went straight back to the buses and broke off saying it was nice to see one another again. That we'd talk later. I felt my heart settle back into a sleep. I felt nauseous and when I got back to the bus I threw up in the "toilet" tucked in a two by two closet.

The guys thought I was drunk, but I haven't felt so disgusting in my life. Everything was catching up. I could feel it. This was the beginning of the block and the end of everything. The band was going to fall apart. We'd get dropped. We're going to end up going to college. We're going to let down all of out fans.

That was when my seventeenth panic attack hit. I sat there in the bathroom and tried to breathe but it didn't work. Nothing was working.