I spent the next few days avoiding Alex at all costs and spending most of my time with Tay or Jack. I was embarrassed that he had seen me completely lose it, and I really didn’t want him to ask about what that nightmare was about.

It had now been three days and I hadn’t spoken to Alex at all. What I hadn’t realized when I came up with this plan was how it would affect me.

I missed him. It took a lot to admit that to myself, but I really did. I missed the way he would just be there when I was hiding from the rest of the world and I missed the random conversations he would start just to try to get my mind off things.

But it wasn’t like he wasn’t trying; he would try to talk to me, but I would just make excuses and insist that I wasn’t avoiding him. I just really didn’t want to talk about the nightmare or have to lie to him about it.

Just the fact that I missed him so much when he literally slept less than ten feet away from me was absurd and just confused and scared me even more.

-----

I was currently out to lunch with Tay at some sandwich shop near the venue, talking about random things.

“So, what’s going on with you and Alex?” Tay asked out of nowhere. I practically choked on my Coke I was drinking, but tried to cover it.

“What do you mean?” I asked as naïvely as I could manage, taking a bite of my bread bowl.

“What do I mean?” She asked incredulously, her mouth dropping open.

Slowing my chewing and furrowing my eyebrows together, I simply nodded.

“I mean, what happened?”

“What do you mean what happened?” I asked, more confused than ever.

Sighing, Tay adjusted the beanie on her head before leaning her arms on the table and rolling her eyes in an amused way.

“I mean, why have you been avoiding him?” She asked, but before I could answer she shook her finger in my face, “and don’t you dare try and say you aren’t. These past few days you’ve been spending as much as your time as possible off of the bus and away from him when normally you two are practically inseparable. Not to mention the fact that the two of you are completely distracted all the time recently. Did something happen a few nights ago?”

Speechless I just stared at her.

“Don’t try to stall, Braedynne. I consider both of you pretty good friends of mine and I don’t know what you two do when you’re always together and no one can ever find you, and I really don’t want to know. But the past few days I haven’t seen you two so much as have a conversation and I just want to know what’s going on.”

“We don’t do anything when we’re together, we just talk,” I blurted out, appalled at the realization that that was what it seemed like to other people.

“That’s the question you answer?” She asked, getting impatient.

“Nothing happened,” I answered still stunned that she had even taken notice to any of this.

“Well then why are you avoiding him?” she pressed on.

“I-I’m not,” I answered, feeling more and more cornered by the petite girl.

“Don’t lie to me, I just want to help,” Tay stated, her voice taking a much softer tone.

When I didn’t respond, she continued.

“Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But I think you should talk to him. It’s killing him and he doesn’t know what’s going on,” She said, her gaze dropping to the food in front of her.

“How do you know?” I asked, her statement piquing my interest.

“He asked me if I knew what you were pissed about, I guess he figured I would know,” she replied with a shrug.

“I’m not pissed about anything,” I said honestly.

“Then why are you avoiding him? Do you not see the way this is affecting him? I see the way he looks at you, Braedynne, he cares about you, and right now he doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s not sleeping, his performances have honestly been pretty sucky lately, and he said he’s tried everything to get you to talk to him. So, if you’re not pissed about anything, why are you making him think he’s done something to upset you? He’s beating himself up over nothing.”

“I-I have to go,” I said, standing up and quickly walking to the door and out onto the street. I had no idea what city we were in, but I just needed to walk to wrap my mind around things.

I didn’t realize how it would seem from his point of view. I honestly didn’t even think about the fact that he would see this as me being pissed at him when he had done absolutely nothing wrong. I could blame this on me not used to having people who actually cared about me all I wanted, but I really knew that it came down to me just simply being a selfish bitch. I felt absolutely terrible that he was beating himself up about it so much when everything was completely my fault.

I broke into a run, know that it was the only thing that would clear my head.

I used to run all the time back in high school, and it was always such a great stress reliever. What I didn’t account for today was the fact that I was in jeans and combat boots, not running shorts and tennis shoes.

Yet, when I slowed to a jog and then into a walk after finding myself back at the venue, I had nothing resolved.

I still felt terrible, I was still a selfish bitch, I still didn’t know how to fix it, I still missed Alex absurdly and didn’t know why. The only thing that had changed was now I had gone for a run on a full stomach and had an upset stomach as a result.

I went through the rest of the day in a daze. I had gotten back to the venue moments before sound check, and All Time Low was last for sound check today so it was less than thirty minutes before We Are the In Crowd came on stage, and then I was asked to help Vinny with merch until All Time Low hit the stage. After the concert was over, I helped break down everything, and then headed straight to the showers and then straight to bed because I was completely exhausted. I decided that I would find a way to fix things with Alex tomorrow.

Unfortunately for me, it was one of those nights where I was completely exhausted, but I had so much on my mind that it was impossible for me to fall asleep. I kept tossing and turning so much that

I actually was awake to hear Jack clamber into his buck at three thirty in the morning before I fell into a restless sleep.

I felt as if I had been asleep for five minutes when I felt someone shake me awake.

“Brae, wake up,” I could automatically tell it was Alex not only because he was the only one to ever call me Brae, but his melodic voice that I had missed so much over the past few days as well.

Rolling over to face him, I mumbled into my pillow, “What time is it?”

“It’s four fifteen,” He answered.

“Why the hell are you awake then?” I asked, now aware why it felt like I had only been asleep for a few minutes.

“I couldn’t sleep,” He stated before continuing, “Can we talk?”

“Now?” I asked incredulously.

“Well, yeah. The busses are stopped and filling up on gas. The drivers are getting something to eat, so we have like an hour.”

“Okay,” I said, feeling the butterflies in my stomach at the realization of talking with Alex was apparently coming a lot sooner than I had planned.

I rolled out of bed and slipped my slippers on before grabbing a hair tie and following Alex out of the bus.

I followed his silently as he walked towards the truck station before realizing that it was too crowded and turned to me.

“It’s really crowded in there, let’s just go over there,” He said with a shrug, motioning to the random rusty picnic table by the side wall of the building.

He walked up to the table and sat down. Not in the mood for sitting, I just kind of stood in front of him; awkwardly waiting for him to say something.

His head was in his hands as he stared at the ground before looking up at me.

“What did I do?” He asked so quietly and sadly that it broke my heart to be the cause of it.

“You didn’t do anything,” I answered honestly, not sure of how to make him understand.

“Then why have you been avoiding me?” he asked, his voice holding sadness with a hint of anger this time.

“I-I don’t know,” I answered nervously, my brain trying to figure out how to tell him.

“You’ve got to know, Braedynne, if I didn’t do anything, why are you avoiding me? It’s really a simple question.” Alex stated, getting more irritated.

I stayed silent, trying to figure out how to tell him why I was avoiding him and that I was sorry; but he was impatient.

“God, Braedynne; talk to me! I know you don’t like to talk about your feeling or really anything about yourself, but you’ve got to let me in. I’m not going to lose you over this,” He said before he let out a bitter laugh to himself. “Whatever the hell ‘this’ is. I don’t even know why you’re avoiding me, but it’s killing me. Just talk to me Brae, please. Is it about the other night? Your nightmare?” He asked, desperately trying to come up with a solution.

“Yes, well, I don’t know,” I started, confused on where to start. “I just didn’t want you to ask me about it, I was scared you would and I didn’t want to lie to you so I guess I thought the best way to avoid that was to avoid you,” I started, my words just pouring out without me even thinking about it.

“Well, yes I would want to talk about it, but I understand if you wouldn’t want to talk about it; it was obviously terrifying. That was no reason to avoid me with no explanation,” He said, his face just showing hurt now.

“I know, I’m just scared,” I stated, the word vomit beginning again.

“Scared of what?” Alex asked, beyond confused.

Shifting my weight to the other foot, I began to speak again.

“You. Well, not of you. I’m not used to having someone there for me like you have been. It terrifies me that I’ve known you for less than a month and I’m already as close to you as I am. I’m not used to it either; I haven’t been for a while. It’s literally me and only me in the city, and I’m not used to having someone who actually cares and wants to know what’s going on in my head. I’m not used to having someone to trust and I don’t know how to handle it. I’m just really overwhelmed and it scares me because even though I keep shutting you out, you keep coming back, and you just sit there with me when I want to be alone, and it scares me because bad things happen to me all the time, and I don’t want anything to happen.” Alex stood up from his spot on the picnic table and began to walk towards me, a soft smile on his lips, but the word vomit had already begun and I couldn’t stop it now. “I can’t understand why I care about you so much when I haven’t known you for long at all, but I can’t help but push you away and it scares me how I missed you when I was avoiding you, but I’m too fucking stubborn and couldn’t bring myself to fix it and-“

“Shut up, Brae,” Alex just shook his head.

“Wha-“ I began to ask, confused, but my question was cut off as Alex’s hands grabbed a hold of my waist and he bent down until his lips covered mine.

My eyes about popped out of my head, and I just stood there frozen by shock as butterflies erupted in my stomach at the feel of his lips on mine.

Alex, of course, took my unresponsiveness as a bad sign, and pulled away with a regretful look on his face.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that, I just thought-“

“Now you shut up. I was just shocked,” I replied with a soft laugh.

Before I even realized what I was doing, I had wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled his lips back to mine.

Notes

Here's the next chapter! I hope you like it, I definitely enjoyed writing it!

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Lilly