My Boy

caterpillar

Matt's POV:
I couldn't bring myself to have the inevitable conversation with her. I was a bag of nerves every time we were in a room together, all our friends knew I had been madly in love with Bea from the moment Alahna had introduced her to us. All of them. Nate was like another brother to me, Chris and Nick, so talking to him always felt like an option, the same with Elmer. But since we'd moved to LA, I could tell she'd began confiding in them both about how much we'd hurt her and Alahna when we'd all distanced. It felt wrong to try and insert my opinion and cause more of a divide.

Honestly I didn't really care about anything else right now, me and my brothers were pursuing our dream, it was the right thing to do. But it was as if there was a little caterpillar swimming at the lowest part of my stomach, the epitome of anxiety, telling me I was an awful person for doing what I did. The truth was, I'd kissed her because I couldn't stand the thought of leaving her in Boston thinking we were just friends when everyone knew we weren't. She'd kissed me back and for that split second everything was okay. All my problems disappeared because I had her. Until I didn't.

After we'd moved to LA, our vision boards quickly became reality. Me and Nick started getting tattoos, Chris created his own brand, we started a podcast, it was almost as if it was all a dream. We got caught up in the shows, the fans, the collabs and LA became home. I knew the second my mom called us that she wasn't happy with us leaving them behind. Nick hated talking about it, he was defensive all the time, because in his mind we'd done nothing wrong. Chris felt guilty. We spoke about it sometimes, I could see it in his eyes. But he'd always say "it is what it is Matt." and that would be the end of that.

And me. I felt awful. I'd spoken to my dad the night after our second show during our tour, I'd broken down and explained how bad I felt about everything. The guilt was eating me alive. I missed our friends, since Elmer's music career had began taking off we hadn't really spoken much. I knew he was still close with Bean and Lahna when I'd seen their tik toks together. It stung. But I had no right to feel any type of way when we'd been posting with all our new friends in LA.

It felt so childish to admit but I just wanted everything to be the way it was. Bean used to confide in me, talk to me, trust me and now it was a miracle if she spoke more than one sentence to me. Our fans speculated about how we'd all fallen out and the reality of it was, no one thing defined the ending of our friendships. We'd just drifted away from each other.

I sat down on the couch beside Chris, breaking myself away from my thoughts. Chris being Chris, placed his hand on my thigh and asked me how I was doing. We hung out and played pokémon while everyone else got ready for the day. Elmer was coming and we'd decided to hang out like old times. Nick had invited Madi and while everyone had met her before it was slightly awkward seeing the discomfort between the girls when they spoke.

Nick was in the kitchen with Nate deciding on how many pepsi cans was enough to suffice before Chris finished them and our friends were thirsty again, Bean and Alahna were upstairs getting ready and Kali was riding with Elmer. I sighed as I leaned my head back on the couch and looked at the ceiling. Tonight was either going to be a complete disaster or one of the best nights we'd had in LA.

When Madi arrived Nick ran to greet her, me and Chris followed suit and hugged her as she timidly walked inside. It was hard on her too considering she didn't know these guys all that well but somehow she always showed up. The girls came down and both hugged Madi and said their hello's, before we knew it there was that tension in the air again, the Boston group and the LA group. I couldn't understand why it was there but I could feel it and by looking at Bean she could too.

"Well I'm going to make some tik toks! Wanna come?" Alahna said smiling, she gestured Madi to go ahead so she did. Chris had a happy grin on his face and Nick looked satisfied too, so far so good.