I woke up in Vic’s arms. It felt nice; I’m not going to lie. What made it feel nice was the warmth, the worth you feel when you’re in someone’s arms. My head was pounding but I could deal with it. I felt content for once, I knew that the moment I got out of this bunk, I’d have to deal with the real world and I didn’t want to do that just yet. Cuddling back into Vic’s arms, I fell back asleep. A few hours later, I woke up again to Vic poking me in the cheek. He was smiling and said, “good morning sunshine. It’s almost noon and you play at three today.” I yawned and said, “alrighty thanks.” he then walked away after saying, “Jaime made some breakfast, well at this point its lunch but yeah.” crawling out of Vic’s super comfy bed, I found my bag of clothes and went to the bathroom to change.

Pulling my shirt off, I saw how my ribs looked. How they didn’t notice that was beyond me, but hey I’m totally not complaining. I was still to fat for my liking. I wanted to be at least 110 pounds and I’m at 117 pounds. That meant no more food, more exercising and no more alcohol. Bones are beautiful. Once I’m 110 pounds, maybe Alex will love me. Who am I kidding? He hates me. Look at your face you moron. It’s bruised because he hit you. My too large nose was bent slightly at an odd angle and defiantly blue. My eye wasn’t as swollen this morning as it was last night but it was a little puffy, nothing a little foundation wouldn’t fix. My eyes trailed down my chest, towards my hips. If you look closely, you can see scars all across my stomach and then a lot more on my hips. I really don’t know how’ve I hid the scars so well but I have. Then again, I guess the power of make up is all mighty.

Putting on a clean shirt, I put on a tank top and covered my forearms in foundation until it all looked even.The wonderful thing about my foundation, I found one that doesn’t run too much when you get sweaty, it’s a blessing in a bottle.Now that my arms looked better, I covered all of my face as well as I could to hide the bruises. Now that I looked like I had not gotten in a fight, I slid my jean cut off shorts off and put on fresh boxer. They looked clean so I might as well re-wear them. Putting on fresh socks, I pulled my vans on and then exited the bathroom with all of my stuff. Putting all of my stuff in the extra bunk (where everyone else had their things) I then joined everyone in the kitchen area.

Tony was watching star wars on the TV with Mike while, Vic and Jaime sat at the table. It looks like Rian left this morning or late last night. Grabbing a water bottle, I opened the drawer of random stuff and pulled out a bottle of Advil and took two pills for my mega headache. “Hey Jack. Go ahead and help your self to whatever’s in the fridge.” Jaime said. I nodded and then took a look. Debating on a few things, I decided on an apple and a can of monster because why not. Surely an Apple couldn’t hurt, right? Opening the monster up, I took a sip and fell in love all over again. If you haven’t had a monster, you’re missing out. If you don’t like them, what’s wrong with you?

I will admit, yes Rock star does have us use their product placement, but not once have you seen me drink an actual rock star. You see, this entire time, I’ve been pouring them out (into a pitcher so Zack could have it whenever) and putting water in the can. So I’ve been drinking water the entire time. Monster however, I love and adore. I’m like a crack addict with these. Then again, it makes me feel good and kills my depression a little bit for a little while. What can I say; I’ll do whatever to take the pain away.

Checking my phone, I had 0 messages. So Alex was REALLY mad at me. Even when he’s mad, he’ll text me and say he’s sorry we fought and wants to talk it out and get some coffee. It broke my heart a little bit when there was nothing from him. I guess Lisa has him around her finger more than I had thought. Checking twitter I saw that he tweeted, “I guess when you thought you knew someone, they can always prove you wrong.” Wow. He totally took her side. The apple I just ate didn’t even want to stay down for five minutes. Oh and if you look below his tweet, you’ll see me tagged in all of it and to top it off, its all hate. Yay for my self esteem. Locking my phone, I put it on the table. “We saw what Alex said and everything below it. I’m sorry man. Some people are ignorant and dumb. You’re worth so much more than they could ever think. They don’t know the person we know.” I smiled a little bit. Vic always had a way with words.

Maybe that’s why all the girls loved him. He could make you feel good with just his words alone. My phone rang. Answering it, it was Rian. “Hey man. So we play at three and have an interview at five. It’s mandatory that we all go. We don’t have a choice. So go ahead and head over here around 2 so we can warm up and then head out and be back stage before our set. Alex isn’t talking to anyone right now so you don’t have to worry about him right now. Just be Jack. Be you man. Don’t let him bring you down. I gotta go. Cass is calling me. See you in a bit.” he said.

Great, an interview, just where I wanted to go. I’d have to sit with Alex and pretend everything was all great and that he hadn’t hit me and I hadn’t pissed in his bed. Rian and Zack would have to pretend they never saw me standing on top of the bus about to jump off. It’s all a lie. Then again, I’m the king of lies right now. No, I’m not hungry, thanks for asking. No I’m fine, I already ate. Oh, I’m cold. I don’t feel like swimming today. I’m fine. It doesn’t bother me. It’s all a lie. And I think the biggest one of them all is that I’m fine. That I’m doing well. Because honestly, if you looked at how I felt at the deepest center of me, you would see someone who desperately needed help. Someone who needed to talk to someone. Someone who was sick of living this way. Someone who just wanted to be okay, no matter the price. I’m a walking travesty, but I’m smiling at everything. That’s why everyone thinks I’m fine.

But if you looked past my ‘silly’ playful attitude and the ‘I don’t want to grow up’ attitude, you would see the teenager in me that never got to grow up. The one that had depression and anxiety and eating disorders. I wanted to out grow all of these things and be all right again. I wanted to be happy. But when your source of happiness is making out with its bitch of a girl friend, you lose it a little bit. Then, time and time again, it becomes numbing. It hurts so much that you can’t even feel it anymore. But now, now my source of happiness hates me. What are you supposed to do when the person you love, hates you. Vic wasn’t kidding when he wrote, “the thing I think I love will surely bring me pain. Intoxication, paranoia and a lot of pain.” He wasn’t kidding at all. Looking at Vic, I could see how all the teenage girls adored him. He was very good looking but he wasn’t my Alex. Vic had stronger arms but Alex had those arms that just felt like home to me. Alex had short hair while Vic had long hair. Vic had a nose piercing will Alex had none. Alex had tattoos whereas Vic did not. Vic self harmed and has been where I’ve been; Alex has too.

So if Alex has been where I’ve been, why doesn’t he understand? His life wasn’t easy. He lost Tom and things were hard for him after that. To him, I think he thinks I have it easier. I have all my siblings while he’s now an only child. To him, I didn’t have Anxiety like him. I didn’t have depression. But he out of everyone should know what it’s like to hide it all behind a façade. Maybe, just maybe I’ve had my façade up for so long that Alex doesn’t remember it ever being down. He doesn’t remember seeing me about to commit. He doesn’t remember my scars because I hid them so well. He doesn’t remember the one time I had a breakdown. I was so stressed out and going crazy that I cried. It was one of the rare times anyone’s ever seen me cried. PTV has already seen me cry more times than Alex ever has in the long time we’ve been friends.

I can see that Vic sees into my Façade and knows there’s more to me then what it seems. Coming out of my thoughts, I noticed Vic waving his hand in front of me. I laughed and said, “hello there.” he shook his head and said, “We’ve been trying to get your attention for like the last ten minutes.” “Oh.” I said softly. He nodded. So apparently it was almost time for me to go back to my bus for a short while. Tony said that he wanted to walk with me there since he hadn’t left the bus this morning yet and wanted to stretch his legs. Getting up from the table, I sat down with Tony and watched the rest of the star wars movie before he and I made the walk back to my bus. We talked about how everything from his clothing line to a song he was working on with Vic. It was nice to just talk and feel appreciated. Once we got to my bus, he came inside for a moment and waved to Rian before going back to his bus.

Vic’s POV


I woke up this morning to arms wrapped around me and a head on my shoulder. Slowly opening my eyes, I saw that it was Jack. When I tried to get up slowly, he hugged onto me even tighter. It was really adorable. He looked so peaceful as well. Giving up trying to get out of bed, I hugged Jack back. When I did that, he looked even more at peace then before. When he came to our bus crying yesterday, it really shocked me. Out of the entire time I’ve known Jack, I’ve never seen him cry until last night. When someone loves someone, you can see it in their eyes. Jack has that look about Alex. His eyes light up and he looks happier but I haven’t seen that in a long time. I can see past his fake smiles. He’s hurting and he’s hurting bad. I know I don’t usually like it when Mike smokes on the bus, but last night, it seemed that it helped Jack a lot. It calmed him and set him free from whatever was bugging him, at least for a little bit. Then, when Mike made food since he had the munchies, I watched how much Jack ate as discretely as I could. He barely at a thing. Then the beer came out. Oh gosh. Once that happened, everything got crazy. Jack and Tony ended up on the roof. Tony for some reason just likes climbing the bus while he’s drunk because, when he’s sober he doesn’t really want to do it. But when Tony screamed down to us saying for one of us to get up there now, Jaime, Mike and I panicked.

Jaime grabbed Jack while Mike went and got Rian. I stood and watched it all unfold and as I looked away, I saw Alex and Lisa kissing in the moonlight. Instantly, I just knew that had to do something with whatever Jack was about to do. Once he and Tony were down, I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding. We all sat around the table and talked. Jack started to cry again before he ultimately went to throw up all the alcohol and food he had ingested. Rian cleaned him up and helped him out. That was until Jack refused to change his barf-covered clothes, which was mostly his shirt. Jack bit Rian, which led to Jaime and Tony having to hold him down. Once his shirt was off, he quickly put a new one on without any hesitation. He was fast but not as fast as he would’ve liked to been. I saw what he was trying to hide. His ribs stuck out so much more than they probably should have. When they wanted to change his pants, he ran and hid in my bunk after crawling over me.


Within minutes he was asleep. Rian sighed, shook his head and then ran a hand through his hair before saying, “oh well. It’s late. I’m going to get on my bus before I lose the chance. Sleep well guys and if Jack gives you any problems, call or text Cass, Zack or me and we’ll help you out.” we all agreed and then went to bed, well Jaime, Mike and Tony did. I was already in my bed and Jack was attached to me. It wasn’t bad. It felt nice to share my usually lonely bunk with someone. I mean sometimes I share with Mike, Tony or Jaime but it was different with Jack. He wasn’t someone I saw as a brother. He was a friend that was pretty much a brother.Who am I even kidding? He’s family even if he doesn’t realize it.

It’s so obvious. You can tell from all that happened last night to what’s going on now. When Jack saw Alex kissing Lisa and was in each other’s arms, he tried to jump off the bus. When Alex hit him, he didn’t hit back. When you saw them together in the past, it always looked like they were dating because of how they acted with each other. If you think about it, when was the last time you saw them act that way? Jack loves Alex. “Jaime, what do you think of all that has happened in the last 24 hours?” I asked Jaime.

“Well first off, I can’t believe Alex punched Jack. That’s unbelievable. Second, we saw him sob and cry him self to sleep practically and I’m pretty sure Alex hasn’t even seen him cry. Third, you let Mike smoke on the bus; I’m assuming you did that because you didn’t want anyone to see Jack in the way he was. Fourth, seeing Jack on the roof with Tony was terrifying, I thought he was going to jump before we could get to him. Fifth, I can’t imagine why it took almost four of us to get his shirt off and we never even got his pants off. And he didn’t each that much this morning. Then, when I checked twitter and instagram, I saw all that was being said. Vic, I’m worried about him. I don’t want him to do something permanent.” I nodded.

Jaime was thinking the same as me for the most part. “What do we do?” Mike asked. Sighing I said, “we support him and help him through this. It’s all we can do. We can’t fight his battles for him but we can stand by him.” It’s all we really can do. He doesn’t deserve all of this drama and bullshit.

Notes

so I'm sorry it took longer than planned for this chapter to be up. its been a crazy few days. anyways, thanks for reviewing, subscribing and voting/ rating. it means a lot! tell me what you like! what you don't like! what you think should happen or what needs to happen! lol thanks haha. (: love you! have a good day
-Ash