Dylan
<>Journey<>
I shut my diary and leaned my head against the window of the tour bus. For the last few days since I’d been with Life of Debauchery, we’d been traveling to their next concert.
As Cash promised, he slept on the couch in his room. At least, I thought he did. I was never much of a sound sleeper. Even as a child, any little noise could wake me up from a deep slumber. Last night, I’d once again woken up to an empty room where he was nowhere to be found. The couch untouched, his pillow and blanket still folded neatly on top.
I couldn’t help myself, I never could. It was four in the morning by the time I’d decided to figure out where he was. Quietly, I’d opened his door and made my way into the living room. Trying to go unnoticed.
His reflection was the first thing I’d seen through the tinted windows. He was sitting on the far end of the bus, furthest away from his bedroom. His guitar was in his arms, there was a pencil behind his ear, and a notepad sat beside him.
He looked like a song come to life.
Lost in the world of his music. Simply reminding me of how many times I’d woken up when he was babysitting me, finding him in this exact state of mind. Composing, creating, bleeding words onto paper.
The same way I did with my diary.
For a split second, I’d contemplated if he was still the same guy beneath all of the rock and roll lifestyle I’d read about in the press. However beautiful the moment was seeing him in his natural element, my wishful thinking had been cut short the minute he lifted the bottle of Jack I hadn’t seen and downed it as if it were water.
Is this what he did every night? Drink and write songs?
The rumors.
The hearsay about the drug use.
The booze.
The women.
It all tore through me like a speeding freight train.
Instantly catapulting me back to the memory of watching his parents fight over everything I was unexpectedly witnessing.
“You want to drink and do drugs? I am powerless to stop you. I’ve turned a blind eye too many times that you’ve come home smelling exactly like you do now. Look what good that’s done. I cannot enable you anymore.”
His mom’s words had replayed in my mind for the rest of the night. There was no sleeping after that. It didn’t help he’d stumbled into his room in the wee hours of the morning. Passing out before his head hit the pillow on the couch.
I wanted to talk to him about what I saw. There was so much I wanted to know. His personal life wasn’t my business, though it still felt like it was. Regardless of the years that had passed us by, Cash was family.
He’d always be my family.
I didn’t know how to bring it up. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel like I was attacking him. It’d be a touchy subject, especially with his past and what I already knew.
As soon as I felt his hand start playing with my hair from the seat behind me, I shook off the thoughts.
He’d been doing this a lot. Needing to touch me in one way or another. Sometimes it was my hair, other times it was the pulse on my neck. If he was near me, then his hands were on me. I didn’t even think he realized it.
It was instinctual for him. The desire to feel my skin against his calloused fingers. Always triggering my heart to flutter and my breathing to hitch. It didn’t matter how many times he’d do it throughout the day, the effect he had on me was the same.
“Chill, Junie. It’s just me.”
Before I lost the courage, I spun to look at him. Almost breathless at the sight of the ruggedly handsome man sitting there. His long dirty blond hair was in his face, a crooked smirk on his lips, wearing his signature hoodie. His fans called him a pretty boy for a reason.
Johnny Cash McGraw was beautiful and jagged all at once, but nonetheless, he had a baby face no woman could resist. Endlessly stirring a stream of emotions inside of me I’d never forget.
“Did you get some sleep?” I questioned, biting my tongue for what I really wanted to ask.
He nodded, narrowing his intense, beady gaze at me. Only heightening his dilated pupils. Which was yet another thing I always noticed about him.