The band’s show had left Rob both physically and emotionally drained. The crowd never ceased to show loud enough to fuel him through the setlist, but once the final note had finished, Rob felt like he had had enough. Sam and Austin had agreed to go out on the town that night, while the other two members seemed more interesting in staying in. Once him and Jane had returned to their shared room, Rob moved into the kitchen and saw Jane walk right past, closing herself within the bathroom shared between them. He figured that she must have felt the same way about the shows. Night after night, the songs melded into each other. It first became tiring, then grueling, then absolutely crushing. He was glad that there were no plans tomorrow, and seeing as how the kitchen was completely empty, he decided to head down to the hotel’s convenience store and pick up a few things. 

Thirteen floors later, Rob had arrived at the lobby of their hotel. He found a bitter irony in the fact that their floor, the thirteenth by technicality, was labeled “14” out of old superstition. As if changing the name would alter the fact that the floor was still “unlucky.”

After arriving at the hotel’s rather large convenience store, Rob shot a text to Harold:

[i]11:39, Rob:[/i] [b]Buying groceries, not hookers. I’d watch out for Sam and Austin though.[/b]

With each dollar the band pulled in, the greater strain Harold felt to monitor the spendings. He had set up a joint account between the four of them for shared band money back at the start of the tour. Then, there was little more than a few hundred in that account. Now, Harold never gave Rob a straight answer when he asked [i]exactly[/i] how much he had. 

Rob picked up a few things he felt like cooking, a decent amount of booze, several cartons of cigarettes, and some snack food he knew Jane would like. He hauled the load back over into the elevator, up to the thirteenth/fourteenth floor, and loaded it into the kitchen, just in time to see Jane’s toweled body cross the floor and close herself into her room. Soon after, the smell of her joint faded through the room, and for the first time on the tour, Rob actually worried about the hotel figuring it out. The nicer the rooms they stayed it, the less independent Rob felt. Each show came with more rules. Each dollar made had terms and conditions. It made Rob feel as if their little group had begun to loose it’s control. That the waves that had carried them thus far would continue to push them until there wasn’t much left to push. 

To keep himself occupied, Rob browned some beef he had bought downstairs and hastily made some Hamburger Helper. In the living room, Rob set down his plate, opened a bottle of apple ale, and opened Netflix. [i]Shit, this hotel had everything…[/i]

The later in the evening it became, the lower he turned the volume, as not to upset Jane. Then, as night faded into early morning, Rob continued to deny the fact that he just could not sleep. 

He had tried to lay down somewhere between three and four in the morning. The massive bed felt cold to him. Each time he’d roll over he’d want Jane to be there; to enjoy her warmth, her scent…her taste…

Rob sat up in the bed before he could let his mind travel any further. [i]How did he manage to be so close to her for so many years?[/i] He marveled at his own resolve in those days, but in actuality, it was just oblivion.

Rob had never once thought a romantic thought of Jane in high school. At the time, he had little concern for relationships; managing a few casual flings and the occasional friends-with-benefits with other women within the rock scene, when he felt the need. He looked at his own sexuality in those days as something to be maintained and controlled, to keep it from distracting him from what was really important. 

Well, it certainly was distracting him now.

By nine in the morning Rob had long since given up, and sat on the balcony of their hotel, smoking cigarettes and not moving since the sun had risen earlier that day. New York was intricate and impressive, sure, but it almost felt wrong. Men and women marched like ants below him, surely traveling to their jobs, fighting for their paychecks. Some may had been analysts or brokers, agents and entrepreneurs, all lobbying for the same goal; money. In that goal the world around them turned to concrete and rebar; aside from Central Park, the green seemed to be sucked out from their world. Even back in Long Beach, Rob enjoyed what little untouched nature there was. Out here, it seemed so loud and desperate. 

Rob had no interest in living that kind of lifestyle; however odd that may have seemed to his classmates. He didn’t need or want the security of the sanctity of the city. At most, he enjoyed the view and the concept of it, but it was just another Long Beach to him. A world with borders and limits that one day Rob would outgrow like Long Beach before it.

He guessed that he liked the [i]idea[/i] of stability rather than the implementation. Such it was with Jane.

Convention warned him away from Jane. But everything about her just drew him closer. The way she hated convention. The spirit. The small things like the smiling face that stared back at him in the mirror in the bathroom. The more he thought of what seemed wrong, the more he wanted it. He didn’t want her to change a thing about herself. 

He thought about all these things and more as he watched the night end and the day continue on without him, and it made him feel very, very small.

By eleven Rob had smoked the last of a carton of cigarettes and fried a half-dozen eggs, getting the amount he wanted and leaving the rest on the stovetop for Jane if she wanted it. His initial plan would simply not work. It was a waste to have even considered logic with the way he felt. 

As he looked out into the city, at the millions of people below him, all Rob wanted was Jane.

He remembered a song from long ago: 

[i]As a preteen, his musical taste wasn’t yet developed. Songs he enjoyed remained on infinite repeat as other tracks remained difficult to find. His parents had never been musical people, and anything in the CD store labeled PARENTAL ADVISORY was off-limits to him. 

He had gone to summer camp and met a girl. One night, they had snuck away, and she played CD’s she had burned earlier—tracks her elder sisters had shown her. One of those was a live cover: a song originally by Nine Inch Nails, altered into harder rock by Flyleaf. As they had made out under the stars, Rob could remember the lyrics to [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsXgqqWcpMQ]that song,[/url] as clear as day.[/i]

“I just want something I can never have,” Rob whispered under his breath as he looked down from the balcony. To have said it out loud made him feel so much better.