"Ri, are you sure you can do this? I know this is all of our dream, but if you just can't do it right now, it's okay. Just say so."

"No," Rian shook his head, staring through the glass at the strangers on the other side. "You wrote that song for me, Alex. We worked out asses off for two nights trying to get it perfect. Even she's here to support us.. I won't back out now. I got this, it's okay."

Alex nodded his head and stared at his three best friends, and one new friend. The day was August Forth, and soon the Summer of dreams would come to a bitter sweet end. They had been contacted and told that their audition would be held at a local independent recording studio. Behind that glass stood at least ten people, waiting to hear if All Time Low was worth being signed. It was a lot of pressure, but they had come so far as a band, and as friends, that they were confident in themselves and in their music.

"Let's do this."

Nervously standing behind the microphone all alone, Alex looked straight through the glass to the eyes of those who would be judging him. He knew the only way to do this song, or Rian, any justice was to get lost in it. So he smiled the best he could, and lightly began to play before he closed his eyes and drifted off to another reality.

"He woke up from dreaming, and put on his shoes. Started making his way past two in the morning, he hasn't been sober in days..."

Deep in his mind, Alex remembered the night he requested to be alone with Lisa. He remembered Jack and Zack stumbling in, the conversation of love and lack there of. He remembered the smell of alcohol, the pain, and the way his heart sank when Rian slipped through the door and confessed that Kara might be pregnant.

"Leaning now, into the breeze, remembering Sunday, he falls to his knees. They had breakfast together, but two eggs dont' last like the feeling of what he needs..."

The day on the back lawn, when Rian first saw the sonogram picture. The hopeless look in his eyes, that he and Kara would never be who they were before, that they would never be the happy couple they were just a month ago.

"Now this place seems familiar to him. She pulled on his hand with a devilish grin. She led him upstairs, she led him upstairs, left him dying to get in..."

But in every move he makes, Alexander Gaskarth is always selfish. Though he should be thinking of Rian and Kara, he was now remembering his own pain. With his eyes shut tightly, he imagined Lisa. The first night of this crazy Summer vacation, the way she didn't mind that every other girl admitted to being with Alex, because she was the only one who had him.

"Forgive me, I'm trying to find my calling, I'm calling at night. I don't mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? She's been running through my dreams, and it's driving me crazy, it seems. I'm gonna ask her to marry me..."

Alex thought about how hopeless and confused he'd been. How could so many emotions consume one heart? Which direction would be the right path to take? Lisa, and her flawless personality, the way she had so much love to offer and she just wanted to be in his life, even if he didn't love her the same way. How broken she must be.

"Even though she doesn't believe in love, he's determined to call her bluff. Who could deny these butterflies? They're filling his gut..."

Now Jack was the one dancing through his mind. Tall, goofy Jack, who never seemed deep enough to hold so many secrets. The way he tried so hard to make Alex see what was right in front of his face, but it had taken him so long. He now realized that it was fear. He was with Lisa because she knew he couldn't love her in return, but Jack knew that Alex was capable of love. It just seems so tragic, to be able to fall in love with someone else, when you can't even love yourself.

"Waking the neighbors, unfamiliar faces. He pleads, though he tries, he's only denied. Now he's dying to get inside..."

Sitting in the rain, singing to the top of his lungs, hoping that Jack might hear. And he does. Sometimes the smallest actions mean the most. The love that they now share, and the love Rian and Kara used to share, how they all run together like a deep, rough river.

"Forgive me, I'm trying to find my calling, I'm calling at night. I don't mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? She's been running through my dreams, and it's driving me crazy, it seems. I'm gonna ask her to marry me..."

Rian, and the way he loved her so deeply. From the moment those two met, it was like the stars collided and the universe had worked against all odds to bring them together. They were the perfect couple. There was never any doubt between them, not until recently, that they wanted to be together until the day they both died, perhaps even after. They had the kind of love you only hear about in movies, the kind people sing about hoping to discover one day. From the moment they first locked eyes, Rian told his friends about how this strange feeling started in the tips of his fingers, and forced his legs to walk in her direction. Now look where it had gotten him.

"The neighbors said she moved away. Funny how it rained all day. I didn't think much of it then, but it's starting to all make sense. Oh I can see now, that all of these clouds are following me in my desperate endeavor, to find my whoever, wherever she may be..."

As the band joined him, the music fell together like the pieces of this story. The time just wasn't right for Rian to have a child. There was too much in store for his future. As for Kara, though he loved her, they were no longer perfect. They had grown and changed entirely too much to make the love they once shared, last. The baby would always be remembered, loved and missed, but it was time to say goodbye to that part of his life and move forward. The darker the walls, the brighter the sky outside.

"I'm not coming back, I've done something so terrible, I'm terrified to speak, but you'd expect that from me. I'm mixed up, I'll be blunt, now the rain is just washing you out of my hair, and out of my mind. Keeping an eye on the world, from so many thousands of feet off the ground. I'm over you now, I'm at home in the clouds, and towering over your head..."

Alex was allowed to take a step back and remember who this part of the song was really for. Zack's new girlfriend, Juliett, had been more than happy to accept the task of singing from Kara's point of view. She was incredible, really, and she didn't even know she held so much talent. It had been an accident how it happened. She had joined Zack for band practice, and when reading the lyrics Alex had just written, she began to sing along to the beat. He knew from that moment she was the spark missing from the song.

The words fell from her mouth with so much emotion. When they had told her the story, she cried, saying she'd do her best to tell the story the way he wanted her to. She sang of how hard it was for Kara to go into the clinic alone and say goodbye to her child before she even got to say hello. She sang of the confusion Kara felt as she thought about her present, and her future. How scared she really was, despite the cruelty of her actions. The way she knew by letting go of the baby, she'd be letting go of Rian as well. No one else would ever understand how Kara felt, but now they didn't need to. She would sleep int he bed she made, all alone.

But the last part was the hardest of all. It was written for the baby. The baby, who never had chance, who Alex deeply hoped was in the clouds in some kind of paradise, watching over its broken-hearted father, not understanding, but always loving.

"Well, I guess I'll go home now, I guess I'll go home now, I guess I'll go home now. I guess I'll go home..."

　

Notes

I remember the night this album was released. I drove two hours away just looking for a store that carried it, and I got the last copy. When I was scanning the album, I stopped on this song, because I knew there was something amazing about it. I remember on that very night, as soon as the song ended, my best friend looked at me and said: "Well, what do you think that one was about?"
And I said: "Abortion. I'm probably wrong, but that's how it feels."
So I had plans to add that in as their audition from the beginning of this story, because despite what the band says, I've always felt that's what it was about. Sorry if you didn't like this chapter, but I found it necessary. Mucho love. <3.