Page 38 of Goodbye Note

The next six hours felt like six years.

Varian: We’re here.

Arik: Where are you?

I stepped outside our bus, glancing at the rows of buses like I could pick out his from the crowd. Warped wasn’t a little thing; it was monumental, with something like eighty-four bands and then support crews for lighting, stage design, merch, and everything else a festival of this size would need.

I didn’t have any hope of finding him unless he gave me a damn landmark.

“Want to grab a beer and check out the setup?” Val said, stepping off the bus behind me.

“What the fuck did we sign up for?” I’d been to Warped before when our mom had played it like a decade ago, but this was even bigger than my memory of it.It dwarfed the last tour we’d been on beyond belief.

“This is—” Fox shook his head.

“In-fucking-tense,” Bronx finished for him.

“No shit,” I muttered, lacing my fingers behind my head to spin a slow circle.

“So a drink? We can walk around and get the lay of the land?” Val asked again.

Fox checked his watch. “Little early, man.”

“Never too early,” Bronx put his hand on Val’s shoulder. “I’m with him on this one. I want to get wasted before we report to sound check.”

Val nodded. “Coming?”

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I didn’t have to check it to know who it would be. “I’ll catch up with you guys a bit later.”

Val lifted a brow. “Alright.”

I scanned the area as I fished my phone out of my pocket, not bothering to check the message when I laid eyes on Arik, standing across the parking lot, hair a mess but wearing a big fucking smile.

I took off. I don’t know what came over me, but I ran at him. It only took him a second before he did the same.

We collided in the middle of a parking lot in southern California, and I knew I’d remember the moment for the rest of my life.

Instead of pulling back like the bro code would call for, he pressed in, giving me a two-armed hug. I leaned into the embrace.

“Hey,” I whispered.

“Hey, you.” He pulled back, and I immediately missed the contact. “How was the drive? That’s a long one. Coast to coast.”

“It dragged.”

“You didn’t have that much time off.” His gaze dropped down my body, taking in probably a heavily wrinkled shirt and baggy, grungy jeans that went out of style when the emo skinnies took over everything, but I’d die on my wide-legged hill.

“You look good.”

I warmed under the compliment. “I feel good. You don’t look so bad yourself.”

“I feel a lot better than I did when I left Chicago.”

“How did the last few days go?”

He lifted his shoulders, toeing the ground. “I ditched. I took my finals and bounced. My participation grades will suffer, but I would have slit my wrists if I went to another class.”

I stiffened. I’d never met anyone who talked as openly and flippantly about his mental illness as Arik. “You gonna get in trouble for that?”

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