38

After our dinner, neither one of us wanted to end the night so we decided to walk along the beach together.

"Matt?" I asked as I linked my hand with his.

"Yeah?"

"Why uhm, why did things end between us? I mean it's all fuzzy, like I mentioned at the restaurant, I remember us trying a relationship. I just don't remember why it ended." I could tell he was hesitant so I shook my head, "Nevermind forget I asked."

"No, it's okay to ask. I was stressed and said some asshole things that you didn't deserve."

"And the night of my accident? Why were we arguing?"

"Well." He cleared his throat, "We hadn't really been together or really spoken to each other. Jimmy convinced well more like forced you to come to a get together that was happening at Matt Berry's house for Zack's birthday. Well it was a mixture of that and the fact he was marrying Tiffany at the end of December. He, Jimmy, kept trying to convince you that I wasn't over you, and that I felt horrible about being an ass to you. Well I guess when you walked in, you seen me and Val hugging, you thought we kissed on the lips but it was only on the cheek that I kissed her. She had just got done telling me that she found someone, and they were in a relationship. And I was congratulating her."

I nodded a little, I wanted to ask what happened between us that caused him to be an ass to me since I couldn't remember but thought maybe there was a reason that my memory blocked that part out.

"But what about the lunch part? I remember taking a walk and seeing you two together in a diner, her holding your hand and smiling at each other." I stated when that popped into my head.

"Oh, that was probably after we, me and you, had the fight that initially ended us. We didn't actually meet up for dinner, we just both happen to be there at the same time and started talking because she could tell I was upset. Maybe when you saw her holding my hand, that could have been right after I told her everything that happened between you and me. And she was just being a friend."

"Oh... I'm sorry, for jumping to conclusions."

He gave my hand a comfort squeeze, "Hey, don't be." He then kissed the back of my hand, "If the roles were reversed and I was the one who saw all of that. I would have thought the same thing you know?"

"Maybe." I sighed then decided to change the subject and talk about his hand. I lifted our hands and rubbed my fingers over the tattoo on the back of his hand, "So is this supposed to represent Jimmy?" It definitely was a badass tattoo.

He nods, "It is. We all got something to represent him tattooed in our bodies. I got this, Brian got Forever with R.E.V bigger than the rest of the letters, on his chest, Zack got forever tattooed on the side of his neck and then Johnny decided to outdo us with the biggest one, he got this huge Rev deathbat across his chest." He chuckled as he ran his fingers of his free hand across his chest.

"Well I mean, probably doesn't take much to fill his chest since he's so small." I couldn't help but giggle.

"Yeah." He laughed, "Poor Johnny, we're always picking on him for his size."

"Even though he can't help that he's fun sized." I snickered. "Speaking of, why do they call those little candy bars fun size? What's fun about eating something so small, to me that's just a tease."

"I honestly don't know." He chuckled.

"I like them big."

"That's what she said." He snickered.

"Oh my God." I laughed and playfully smacked his chest, "That's not what I meant, get your mind out of the gutter." Although if someone said that to me, I probably would have said the same thing he just did.

"I can't help it, I'm a guy. Plus it's hard not to think a certain way when I have a beautiful girl beside me." He smiled at me.

"You still think I'm beautiful?" I ran my hand down the side of my head.

My once longer hair that went past my shoulders was now cut short and hung just past my ears, with the back and sides shaven and hanging to one side. They had to do that because of the gash I had gotten that started on the side and stopped on the back of my head. But I have my hair laying over the scar that's now on my scalp. I didn't want that the first thing people notice about me, even though I'm not ashamed or embarrassed about the scar.

"I do, and this new hairstyle is badass." He ran his fingers through my  hair.

"Thanks." I couldn't help but blush, "I was self conscious at first thinking I was going to look horrible with this new style. It actually did look horrible right after they had to cut that hair away, it was all uneven and crap. My mom had a personal hairdresser come in and fix it. Thank God for that."

"I did come see you, when you were still in the hospital and out of it. I barely left there actually. And when you woke up, I had came in after your parents did. You looked over asking who I was. Your dad explained what was going on about the memory loss. I hated it, but I agreed that with the memory loss it might overwhelm you and make you upset, and might mess with your recovery process because you didn't remember us."

"My dad made that decision? So he forced you to stay away? So that's why you didn't come see me? Because of him?" I knew my father was only thinking of my best interest but it still upset me to hear that, that's why they didn't come around.

"Babe." He made us stop walking and gently cupped my face, "Don't be upset. I shouldn't have mentioned it. He didn't mean any harm. He just wanted his daughter to get better. And so did I."

"No, you had every right to mention it. You had every right to come see me just like our friends did. And when I got my memory back, I was thinking that you guys didn't give a shit about me because I never got a call nor a visit from you guys." I had to blink back some tears over thinking about all that.

"I'm sorry, I did call, to check up on you and then with everything happening with Jimmy. No one wanted to do anything, for a while, hell we were in talks of not even continuing the band, because we didn't know how to go on without him. He helped start this band, he's the main reason this band was together." I think he probably sensed I was about to cry, which I was, so that's why he probably changed the subject. "But we were talked into continuing, to carry on his memory, to keep his memory and do the work he's done, what we've done with him, alive."

"So you guys are still a band? But what about the drumming parts? Like are you going to have someone else be the drummer? To replace Jimmy? I mean no one can replace Jimmy as a person but what about for the band success?"

He nodded as we started walking back towards the parking lot, "Yeah, I mean we had one of Jimmy's idols, Mike Portnoy, come into the studio and do the drumming for the album we were working on before everything happened with Jimmy. He's really amazing. But we haven't chosen an official person to join us yet, it's a hard decision to make."

"Oh most definitely." I nodded.

I know for a fact that they can't chose just just anybody to be on the drums because of Jimmy being a beast behind them. I also hope that whoever they chose, had their own drumset to use because I know for a fact Jimmy hates when other people mess with his set unless they're setting them up.

Thinking back, a memory of the time at the studio, I was joking around and started playing on his drums while we were waiting for him. When he caught me, he about freaked out on me for messing with his baby.