Alex.

I watch as Fallon throws her head back laughing, her shoulders shaking as she clutches her stomach. She’s talking to Zack and I’m not sure what he told her but she keeps glancing over at Rian while trying to hide her giggles. She’s been here for a few days now and I still don’t know why she’s even here. I’ve barely seen her in the time she’s been touring with us, but I’ve heard from fans and other bands on the bus that she’s been raving about our relationship. I haven’t even had an actual chance to talk to her, until now. “Hey,” I turn and there she is looking slightly uncomfortable, shifting from one foot to the other. “We need to talk.”

I raise my eyebrows questioningly, wondering what exactly we need to talk about. We haven’t spoken since our argument except for our conversations on the phone and I didn’t see anything wrong with the way things are except for the fact that not talking to Fallon is killing me.

I don’t argue with her, nor do I question her about what she’s talking about. Instead, I lead her to the back lounge and shut the door behind us. “What about?” I finally ask, once she’s comfortably settled into the loveseat.

“This isn’t working.” She states and I’m confused, unsure of what she’s talking about.

“What isn’t working?”

“Everything. This, us, our relationship. I can’t do it anymore.” She sucks in a breath and looks up at me and I can see the hurt in her eyes. I immediately remember seeing it over and over again in the past years and I know that this time is no different. I’ve let Fallon down again.

“What do you mean? Everything’s going great.” I protest, still not seeing the problem, but recognizing that this is usually how things went in the past too. I would do or say the wrong thing, never actually knowing that it was wrong.

Fallon belts out a harsh laugh. It sounds so different from the happy, light laugh she had just moments ago when she was with Zack. “This isn’t great. For you, maybe, but not me. I’m really trying to make it work. I really am, but I can’t do it if you don’t even care about anything but making yourself look good.”

I run my fingers through my hair, still confused. “I don’t get it. What are you talking about?”

She groans. “We don’t communicate, at all. And I understand that this whole relationship is for show, but I would like it if every once in a while we talked.”

Talked? Don’t I call her everyday? I mean sure, we don’t have the greatest or most entertaining conversations, but we talk. “I call you everyday.”

“Okay, but calling me and talking to me are two completely different things. When you call me, I don’t think you know a single thing I’ve said by the time we hang up.” Her blue eyes narrow, daring me to try. I know that I can’t though. I thought that Fallon just wanted a show, I didn’t know that she actually cared about talking to me.

“I didn’t know that was what you wanted. I didn’t know that you wanted to talk.” I reply miserably. Again, for some reason I can’t seem to do anything right when I’m around Fallon and because of it I can’t stop disappointing her.

“I didn’t either.” She says slowly. “But I don’t know, I’ve realized that sometimes I like talking to you and when you weren’t talking to me, I might have missed you a little.” I watch as she bites her lip, in amazement.

“You miss me?” I ask smiling a little. I can’t keep the happiness from my voice.

Fallon rolls her eyes, but she smiles anyway, standing up. “I missed you. Past tense.”

I stand too and hug her, crushing her to me. “I’m sorry.” I say into her shirt. “I don’t mean to not try as hard. I promise I will. I’ll be better.”

She hugs me back, obviously surprised, and nods into my chest. And at that moment, I don’t remember ever being so happy, knowing that she misses me when we don’t talk and that she actually cared about carrying a conversation with me.

...

“Hey man,” Evan says, joining me in the lounge. “Couldn’t sleep either?”

I shake my head and silently hand him a beer. Ever since Fallon had moved into my bunk I’d been sleeping or at least trying to sleep on the couch in the lounge. I was so excited when I realized that Coloussy put her stuff in my bunk because of course he didn’t know that we were faking. But then I watched her face fall in disappointment and on that first night when we awkwardly tried to sleep together but she kept trying, unsuccessfully to put as much space between us as she slept, I realized that I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t share the bunk with her, knowing that she was so miserable.

“How’s Fallon?”

I sigh and look at him, miserably, words failing me.

“That bad?” He asks surprised. “You guys look like everything’s going great.”

“Everything is great. It’s just.” I sigh again, leaning back on the sofa. “It’s just that I care about her so much. She’s probably one of the greatest girls I’ve ever known and I don’t know how to not fuck everything up.”

Evan’s eyes widen as I say this and he put down his beer. “Dude, if you care about her that much. Why don’t you tell her?”

“I can’t.” These two words come out of my mouth like a sad moan and I put my face in my hands. “She doesn’t feel the same way about me. I know she doesn’t. But I want her to so bad, you know? I feel so selfish. Like I want her to feel a certain way because I do and not because she feels it too.”

Evan puts a hand on my shoulder. “Then show her why it would be a terrible idea to not feel the same way. Show her how great you are and show her how much you care about her. If she doesn’t feel the same way,” Evan scratches his neck. “Then I think you’ve gotta rethink some things man.”

He leaves, taking his beer with him and soon, Alex hears the creaking of a bunk, probably Evan getting into it.

I replay Evan’s words in my head and realize that I just need to remind Fallon of everything she felt before our lives got completely fucked up by Kelsey and her lies and her fucked up feelings. There was a time when Fallon loved me just as much as I love her and I know for sure that love like ours doesn’t just fade away. I just need to be there to remind Fallon of how much we loved each other and then maybe soon everything will be just like it used to be.