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The studio had become something strikingly opposite to what it had been. Their bright instruments now abandoned in the loft, the antithesis to what was Sunset Curve.
The garage was cold and quiet. Luke wasn't burning his cup noodles because he forgot to put the water in. Reggie wasn't rewinding his Star Wars tape as he hummed the Imperial March. Alex wasn't scolding Luke for his idiocy or arguing with Bobby about something unimportant.
No one was there at all.
And yet Bobby still found himself coming into the garage (no longer their studio) and would just sit.
On the floor or the table. He couldn't bring himself to sit on the couch where Luke had slept for the last four months. He feared it still smelt like him.
Mostly he sat in silence, his attention wavering in an out, not really thinking, but not really not. Sometimes, when things got too much... he spoke. As if they could still hear him.
"I went to your funeral today." He announced to the empty space as he sat down on the floor, not caring how dirty he'd get his black slacks.
If Alex were watching, he'd have complained about Bobby ruining his good clothes. The stillness in the room proved only that maybe Alex wasn't watching.
Yet Bobby continued, fiddling with the elastic of his pink socks. "It was held in a church and," He swallowed. "They burried you under a looming cross."
If Alex could hear, he hoped he could sense the distaste in Bobby's words. He grimaced, remembering the passages read and the hymns sung.
"Your sister hugged me when they lowered your body in the ground. Not your mum. Not your dad. She hugged me."
Alex's sister had never hugged Bobby before. She'd hugged Reggie and occasionally she'd hug Luke although a bit tentatively as they all thought she had the hint of a crush on Luke and his stupid cut off sleeves.
"All I could do was kneel down and hug her back." Bobby wouldn't cry. But his throat grew tight and his words were thick and fast. "So, so tightly. What am I gonna say to her? That everything's gonna be okay? I can't lie to her."
He had to stop to breathe after that. Nothing had been okay since that night. Nothing in the studio, nothing at school, nothing in his own head. Nothing was okay and he sure didn't have the mental stability to tell a seven-year-old that it was.
"She wore a pink dress today." He had to laugh, a breathy pathetic excuse of a laugh. "You know how she hates pink... I think she did it for you. They wouldn't bury you in anything pink." He bit back the venom at Alex's parent's that slid beneath his tongue. "So she wore it for you. She was a splash of pink in a sea of black."
From where bobby sat on the floor, he could see a slight tinge of gold reflecting from the loft. Alex's hi-hat. A splash of colour amidst a world of grey.
"Like you."
The garage remained quiet and the silence followed Bobby as he went inside. His life had been nothing but quiet since they left him.
...
"I went shopping with my mom today." Bobby announced to the empty room. He'd been out to the garage more times lately than he cared to admit. He hadn't had much to say. He just sat, hoping to feel some semblance of comfort, of familiarity.
"She insisted I go with her." He hummed to disguise the darkness in his breathing. "I think she's scared to leave me by myself for too long." The light peeking through the windows dimmed as the clouds outside suffocated the sun. "I've seen her more since you guys left than I have in the past five years."
The silence responded with a predictable nothingness.
"We needed bread. Mom wanted the fancy kind. You know, that expensive floury stuff from the corner? That's where we ran into your parents, Luke."
Bobby picked at a loose thread on the sleeve of his sweater and watched as the red line began to unravel beneath his fingers. He kept pulling.
"Our moms are still friends, you know."
Luke wouldn't know. He barely saw Bobby's parents and he made certain he wouldn't see his own. He also wasn't actually there and Bobby was talking to the dust on the couch he'd once called home.
"I know we've been friends almost our whole life but I figured there would be some tension after you ran away."
Bobby expected secrets. He expected his parents to talk or to gossip or even to shut out the Pattersons entirely as to not get involved at all.
"Apparently not. There probably would have been if my mom knew you ran away to stay with me but... no. They still catch up. Go out for coffee."
The wind rustled some trees outside and they whistled a low tune that Bobby could almost hear Luke trying to pin to a chord progression.
"It's... weird." He frowned picturing his parents talking with the Pattersons about cob loaf as if there was no lingering elephant standing directly on top of him. As if Bobby wasn't fighting tears and an anxiety attack that would leave him frightened and cold. As if he still had friends to share his mom's famous cob loaf with. "It's not the same."
Luke's guitar sat lonely in the corner, so many chords unplayed, so many words unsaid.
"It never will be."
Bobby didn't stay in there much longer. The guitar taunted him with songs unheard and the silence banished him. Similar to how Luke would taunt him or Alex would banish him on stupid grounds. Similar but not the same.
Nothing would ever be the same.
...
"It was your birthday yesterday."
Today the garage was hot. It wasn't cold and eerie like it usually was. Today it was muggy and tight and Bobby didn't actually know if that were because of the room or because of him. But it was hot and he felt very small.
"I left your present on your grave." He admitted to the silence surrounding him. His eyes were clenched tight. Hot. If he tried hard enough, he could picture Reggie sitting in front of him with his legs folded up in a way that should not have been possible. If Bobby sat still enough he swore he could smell the familiar musk of Reggie's flannel.
"Your gift was the only thing on there." Bobby swallowed, his throat tight. "No flowers, or cards, or a sign that anyone had been there... ever." Bobby paused, letting the quiet (hot) air rush over him. He had to swipe at his hair to get it away from his face. Everything was so warm. "I want to kill your parents... But I wouldn't want to risk them ending up with you again." He sighed, deep but so very hot. "You deserve so much more than that."
Bobby opened his eyes and looked around. The garage was getting dustier. Every time he went down there it felt like their space was getting duller each time he opened that door.
Nothing had changed. Everything still stood exactly where they left it like the boys were going to walk back in and pick up where they left off.
Everything had changed.
"People stuck birthday cards all over your locker and I got a detention for ripping them all down." It hadn't been his finest moment and the principal had prepared to let him off with a warning because he was "still in the grieving process" until Bobby had snapped at him and threw a stapler across the room.
Bobby scoffed, still gesturing to imaginary scent of his friend before him. "They didn't care enough to love you when you were alive. Why do they get to love you now?"
As if Reggie's invisible manifestation had argued back, Bobby grew warm and something hot pricked at his eyes. "That's selfish I know." The room was burning. "You deserve to be loved." Maybe they'd come back like a phoenix. "All of you do."
Maybe Bobby had spent too much time in the fire.
...
Bobby didn't have a good conversation starter when he stormed into the garage that day. He didn't have good reason to be conversing with the dead air in the garage. He went in there with tears already rushing hot down his cheeks and his heart was aching in the worst possible way.
He wondered if this was the same feeling the boys felt when they died. He wouldn't be surprised. This felt like death.
"I should have gone with you guys."
Bobby didn't take up his normal place on the floor this time. He threw his arms up in a quiet anguish as he pranced around the room. Alex's symbols clanged when he stompped too close to them.
"I should have swallowed my pride and got street dogs with my best friends."
The room seemed to spin. Bobby almost swore he could see Luke spinning around and tangling himself up in his guitar chord in the reflection of Reggie's bass.
"I should have been the one to go." The silence laughed back at him. "No one needs a rhythm guitarist. A band needs you guys."
Bobby stilled. His feet stopping abruptly and causing him to sway unsteadily.
"I need you." He pleaded with the atmosphere.
The atmosphere that used to feel like home like none of them had ever really known. A place that used to sing with laughter and glow with joy. A place where they could make mistakes and know they would work through them together.
Now the air smelt like the absence of anything and Bobby thought he'd be sick.
"I need you." He murmured a final time before succumbing to the illness in his chest and collapsing on the floor.
Alex's symbols rattled, Luke's guitar reflected the sun and shone directly into Bobby's eyes, a moth circled Reggie's bass before landing softly on the tuning dials.
Three familiar somethings surrounded Bobby on the floor.
But there was nothing there.
No one was there at all.