The drive to Dallas ended up being a couple hours shorter than usual, and we got to the venue at around 6 am the next day. I hardly slept the night before, the usual excitement and anticipation for the first day of tour keeping me up. So by the time we pulled into the parking lot of the amphitheatre, I was going stir crazy, and I was out of my bunk the moment I felt the bus lurch to a stop.

My joints popped in protest as I stretched. I decided to go for a run to get out some of my restless energy. I dug through my suitcase and changed into a sports bra, running shorts, and sneakers. iPod in hand, I jogged off the bus and, after stretching a bit to loosen up, started a loop around the venue parking lot.

I started running in college; between school stress, the freshman 15, and all the moping around I’d been doing because of Alex, I got really out of shape. That’s not to say I was so incredibly fit before, but I knew something was wrong when I started getting out of breath going up the one flight of stairs to my dorm. So I started working out.

I knew that, for a lot of people, running was the worst part of working out. But I loved it. Anytime I was feeling stressed or overwhelmed I just turned my iPod up as loud as it would go and go for a few miles. And for that hour or so I didn’t think about anything else besides the beat of my pulse and the rhythm of my feet hitting the pavement. It helped a lot when I was trying to write a song but I was blocked; my head gets completely clear and thinking lyrically/melodically becomes so much easier.

I was halfway through my third lap of the venue when the song I was listening to at the time started fading out, and over the music I could hear a voice. It sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite place it. But then I did, and I froze.

He had lost weight and shaved his head, but aside from those minor differences, Rian Dawson looked pretty much the same as he had four years ago.

I got an unnerving, nostalgic feeling in my chest that brought tears to my eyes without my permission. I was only looking at him from across a parking lot, but it was like four years worth of missing him slapped me in the face all at once. I felt like I was back in his basement watching band practice with Matt and Vinny and Grieco, but in a way that felt like someone took my right lung in their hand and squeezed as hard as they could.

I should’ve just turned around and ran back to my bus. If I had, the next 24 hours might’ve panned out in a much different way. However as seconds passed into a minute, I found myself unable to tear my eyes away from him.

Rian must’ve been able to feel me staring, because just before he got to the sidewalk he turned around and looked directly at me. I felt panic rise in my throat as I watched recognition show on his face and he faltered to a stop. The moment we made eye contact, my stomach bottomed out.

It felt like we were stuck in some sort of proverbial stalemate. I kept waiting for him to do something, for some big reaction. After another 30 seconds or so I realized that, as he kept his gaze, shocked with a hint of nerves, directed at me, he was probably waiting for the same thing. And I wanted to. I wanted to run over to him and hug him for five minutes straight-- just relish in the fact that, for the first time in four years I was face to face with one of my best friends.

I hadn’t seen Rian in person since the night of Alex’s party. We were partners for the beer pong tournament, then in the wake of our astounding victory, gave a haunting, if not slightly intoxicated, rendition of “There Goes My Hero” by The Foo Fighters. But then Lisa showed up, and after all of that I didn’t exactly get a chance to say bye to any of the guys before I left. At that point though, I had no idea that it would be the last time I’d see him, or any of the other guys for that matter.

I hadn’t just left Alex-- I’d left Rian too, and Jack and Zack and Vinny and Danny and Grieco and Matt. The difference was, though, they hadn’t done anything to deserve it.

After I ran away to Boston, I started getting dozens of texts and calls via my brother’s cell phone (since I accidentally, not so accidentally smashed mine the night everything happened), not just from Alex, but from the rest of the guys as well. I responded to a few of the texts once they started expressing concerns about my safety, but after that I sort of dropped off the map. I changed my phone number and deactivated my email and MySpace (yes I had a MySpace).

Looking back, it might’ve been a bit of an overreaction; after all, it’s not as if I was running from the law or anything. I just felt like cutting off all possible communication with Alex or anyone close to him was the only way I could deal.

Was it fair? No. Was it good for me to cut myself off from some of the most important people in my life during one of the darkest times in my life? Absolutely not. But my whole world had just been thrown off it’s axis. I don’t think I could’ve been expected to behave rationally.

Or, at least, that’s how I justified it to myself.

I was so lost in my own head that I didn’t realize Rian had started walking over to me. By the time I did, he was already more than half way over to me and it was too late for me to bail. He walked with his eyes cast down and his hands in his pockets in Classic Rian Fashion, and I could tell he was feeling as conflicted about the whole thing as I was. I took a deep breath, bracing myself for whatever words he had planned for me. He was about ten feet away when--

She’s 18 and a beauty queen. She makes the boys feel so weak.

I jumped slightly when my phone went off. I slipped it out of the waistband of my shorts to find Beckett’s name flashing on the screen. I looked back up at Rian who was now standing right in front of me, and suddenly I felt not unlike how I did when I played my first show, pre stage fright recovery. There I was, face to face with one of my best friends, and I had absolutely no idea how to talk to him.

I think Rian had only gotten three words out before I turned on my heel and ran. I felt bad about it, but in my defense I don’t think I could’ve been able to form any sort of comprehensible language even if I wanted to.

“I know you’re probably running right now, like some kind of aberration,” Beckett said when I answered the phone, “but Blake is gonna be here soon and we’re thinking about grabbing some breakfast before check-in if you wanted to join.”

“Yeah, sounds good,” I said, only half there. “I’ll be back in thirty seconds.” I hung up and sprinted the rest of the way to the bus, not slowing down until the door was closed behind me.
I hopped up the steps and found Beckett and Graham waiting in the front lounge. Beckett was sitting on the couch with an acoustic guitar in his lap while Beckett sat at the mini table with his laptop open in front of him. The former’s head popped up when I came in. He frowned as soon as he saw me.

“Shay, is everything alri--”

“Shower,” I said flatly, not stopping to talk to my bandmates before speeding directly to the bathroom. I leaned against the door let my face fall briefly in my hands, letting out a muffled groan slash scream.

This wasn’t supposed to happen so soon. I wasn’t stupid; I knew that eventually I would see Alex and the others, and I knew it was gonna be… well, tense doesn’t really cover it, but let’s just say tense. And I knew that it was gonna happen sooner rather than later. The venues are only so big after all. But I was hoping to have one day, or even just one morning, to enjoy my friend’s company and be excited about the tour without whatever higher power that had it in for me adding some sadistic punchline.

But I guess that was just too much to ask for.

Despite not having a drop of coffee yet, I felt jittery as I stripped and climbed into the shower, the hot water doing little, if nothing, to relax me.

It would’ve been idiotic at best to assume that Rian wasn’t going to tell about our encounter, if you could call it that, and just straight up naive to have thought that, even if Rian didn’t tell him directly, Alex wouldn’t find out. What happens now? What if he came looking for me? If I knew one thing about Alex, it was that he was persistent. If he had his mind set on getting or doing something, he didn’t stop until he got it. Now that Alex knew I was here, it was gonna be nearly impossible to avoid him.

I shook my head as I massaged shampoo into it. I was being paranoid. I had no way of knowing that he even cared I was there. For all I knew, he had long forgotten me and everything that happened between us. I was just giving myself too much credit--overthinking like I always did. No matter how much I tried to reassure myself however, I still felt incredibly on edge as I finished my shower and dried off.

As soon as I stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around myself my ears were bombarded by a high-strung, if not slightly apprehensive voice I knew too well. I smiled as I turned to see Blake standing in the front lounge, her cell phone at her ear.

“No, the fifteenth doesn’t work, that’s a day off…. If you think you can get any band on this tour to do anything on a day off besides sleep you are severely mistaken…. You can try but you might end up getting your head cut off with a snare drum head….”

She saw me a few moments later and smiled herself, silently but affectionately waving at me. I returned the favor, running over to give my tour manager and friend a hug before going back to my bunk to change, leaving her to chew out whatever press person she was on the phone with. That girl never stopped working.

I pulled the curtain closed separating the front lounge and bunk alley so I could have a little privacy while I got dressed. I dropped my towel and tossed it into my bunk as I looked through my suitcase for something to wear, settling on a simple HGH tshirt I’d transformed into a muscle tee by cutting the sleeves off and black denim shorts.

I was just pulling my shirt over my head when I turned around, just in time to see the curtain on the bunk across from mine open. I nearly jumped out of my skin, murmuring a slew of curse words as I narrowed my eyes at my brother, who also looked caught off guard.

“Christ, Lawson, what the hell?” I said indignantly. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything? I’m changing here.”

He held his hands up defensively. “Sorry, I couldn’t hear anything,” he explained, holding up his earbuds. “My bad.”

I shook my head, rubbing my temples. “It’s alright. I’m just a bit on edge this morning.”

Lawson frowned, climbing out of his bunk and getting to his feet. “What’s wrong?”

“I just saw Rian.”

“Rian….” He trailed off, his face blank. It took a few seconds, but eventually it seemed to click and his eyes widened. “As in Dawson?” I nodded. “Holy shit. What happened?”

“Nothing, really. We just, sort of stared at each other for five minutes. He came up to me and I think he was gonna say something but I um,” I paused, knowing how awful I was about to sound, “kind of ran before he could.”

Lawson cringed. “Yikes.”

“I know! I’m a horrible person,” I said, digging the heels of my palms into my eyes. “I just, I had no idea how to talk to him. It’s like I temporarily turned into a mute or something.” I sighed, leaning back against my bunk. “What’s wrong with me?”

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Shay,” said Lawson. “You haven’t seen or spoken to him in years. Anyone would be nervous.”

“Yeah, honestly though I’m lucky he didn’t just yell in my face, give me the finger, then walk off,” I said, laughing bitterly. “I deserve a lot worse.”

“Shay, one of these days you’re gonna have to forgive yourself for leaving,” Lawson said. “You were just trying to get out of a bad situation; no one can blame you for that. Besides,” he paused, anger flashing over his face for a moment, “you know better than I do that Alex deserved it.”

“Yeah, I know he did, but Rian didn’t. Neither did Zack or Jack or any of my other friends that I completely abandoned.” I frowned at my hands as I wrung them nervously. “I know that there was no real way for me to have left just Alex, but I didn’t have to cut them out either. I could’ve kept in touch.”

“Even so, they had to know why you left. They were your best friends; they cared about you. I’m sure they understood.”

“Here’s hoping you’re right about that.”

Breakfast with everyone was nice. We went to this old 50’s style diner a little ways up the road from the venue, complete with vinyl booths and chrome counter tops. Since it was one of the only places within a five mile radius to get real food, we ran into a lot of other bands that were on tour as well. That was one thing I loved about tour, Warped Tour in particular. You get to spend two months on the road surrounded by so many rad people, hanging out with old friends and getting to know new ones.

After hanging out for about an hour, it was time to get to check-in, so we started heading back to the venue.

“Damn, it feels good to be back,” said Beck as he tossed an arm over my shoulders. It was just a few minutes after 9, and most of the bands had arrived by then. The bus lot was nearly full, only a couple vacant spots here and there. Band and crew members were milling around the parking lot, greeting friends, carrying or setting up gear, or making their way to check-in like us.

The air was filled with noise, from the crew building stages to fellow bands vocalizing their excitement. And, of course, it was hot. The bright, Texas sun bore down like a helicopter mom on everyone’s necks, and even though we’d been off our bus for a total of five minutes, I was already sweating.

I loved it.

HGH had to skip out on Warped Tour the year before to work on our new record. It was a nice break from touring, and obviously we had a blast writing like we always did, but I think we were all a little bummed that we couldn’t be there. Needless to say, we were all excited to be back.

“I hate to agree with Beck,” said Lawson, earning a few choice expletives from the bassist, “but I second that. It is really nice to be back.”

“I can’t wait to start playing shows again,” said Graham, drumming the air.

“God, I know,” I agreed. “It’s been ages. Tomorrow can’t come fast enough.”

“Oh please, it’s only been two months,” said Blake.

Lawson, Graham, Beck, and I all turned to look at Blake, Lawson shaking his head in disbelief. “Exactly,” he said. “It’s been two whole months. That’s like a year.”

For a band that spent as much time touring as we did, a two month break is like a year. Touring was as much a part of the job as playing instruments and writing songs. Going on tour for us was like going into the office, and staying home was our vacation. And just like any vacation, if you stay too long, you get bored. Yeah, after a five month run of back to back tours, it’s nice to have a break. But after about a week or so of rest, you start to run out of things to do with yourself. Tour was where our band belonged; it was our natural habitat.

“Yeah, well, if you ask me it seems like you and touring have a codependent relationship,” remarked Blake.

“Well it is our job, so, ya know, it is kind of important.”

I smiled, leaning against Beck a bit as we walked. This was one of the best parts of tour—hanging out with my friends, listening to Blake and Lawson bicker. It all felt so natural and familiar.

Yeah, it was definitely good to be back.

---

“Cheeeck, check one, check two,” I said into a mic, hearing my voice projected out from the speakers on either side of the stage, as well as through my in-ear monitors. “Can we turn it up a bit more?”

“No problem,” said Adam, the Main stage sound manager, into his own mic from the sound booth.

“This doesn’t feel real, does it? Being up here,” said Lawson, seated on the amp next to his own mic.

I nodded in agreement, adjusting my guitar strap on my shoulder. “It really does. I mean, there isn’t even a crowd yet but it just feels… I don’t even know how it feels.”

“Like a dream,” observed Graham from his spot behind his drumset.

“Like the last three and a half years of killing ourselves are finally paying off,” added Beck.

I just nodded again. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

This was Hand Grenade Heart’s first year playing Main stage. The last time we were on the tour we had been on the Journey’s stage, and while we were always able to draw a pretty decent crowd there, we knew that this was a gonna be a whole new level. I mean, we were sharing the stage with bands like Yellowcard or Bayside, some of the biggest names in the alternative music scene. The first summer I spent in Boston, Beck, Lawson, and I went to Warped Tour to see Paramore, and now we were playing the same stage as them. It was definitely a major milestone for us, one that I don’t think any of us thought we would reach. It was surreal, to say the least.

A few hours had passed since check-in, and everyone was busy with preparation for the next day. Crew members were finishing up building the stages while the stages that were done had started soundcheck. We were in the middle of ours.

“Alright Shay, try that,” Adam said.

“Check check check, check one two one two.” Satisfied with the volume I gave the thumbs up to Adam.

“Alright guys, just go ahead and run through the first few songs of your set so we can level everything out.”

“Got it,” I said, pulling my guitar around from my back. “Graham, go ahead and start us off for Underdog when you’re ready.”

He nodded, taking a few moments before playing the opening beat. Lawson joined in after four bars, then I started singing after eight.

“I know something you don’t. It comes and goes like the strength in your bones, woah. So keep your mind at rest. I’ll never let the two of us be friends. Does that hurt?” Beck and I started playing when the chorus came in. “Underdog, just look at the mess you made. It’s such a shame, a shame, we had to find out this way.”

I was operating at about 75%, partly because it was only soundcheck, and partly because my brain was somewhere else entirely—my old room in Boston, to be exact. Underdog was a song off of our first full length album. I’d played it more times than I could count, and in all those times, I hardly ever thought about the time in my life in which I wrote it. I don’t know if it was because of what happened that morning, of just because I was feeling sentimental, but I couldn’t help but think about it then.

I wrote it before the band was even thought of, during the summer I spent with Lawson in Boston. The physical distance from Alex that I was convinced would help me move on quicker wasn’t nearly as effective as I’d been hoping. Because the distance was just that: physical. Emotionally and mentally, I couldn’t have been any closer.

There was one particularly bad day about a month into the trip when Lawson had forced me to go out with him. It was just to a cafe a couple blocks from the apartment, but it was the most activity I’d had since I got there. And while we were there, he told me something that helped me more than a thousand miles of distance could ever do.

“You have to get angry, Shay. All this time you’ve been… mourning, grieving the loss of this person.” At that point, I couldn’t even hear his name without breaking down. “I know he’s important to you, but if you ask me, after what he did, he doesn’t deserve it. If you never get angry, you’re never gonna be able to see just how shitty he is, and if you can’t do that you’ll never be able to move on.”

He told me to get mad. So, I got mad.

It started out slowly; Lawson said I had been focusing too much on the good bits of our friendship/relationship, so he got me to talk about the bad ones. I was timid about it at first, but eventually Lawson had to take me outside before I started causing a scene. And when we got back to our apartment, he told me to write it down, because if I didn’t do something productive with my anger then it wouldn’t do any good.

I didn’t sit down to write a song. It was just words at first, a stream of consciousness rant of sorts. But somewhere along the way it sort of morphed into one.

After Underdog, we ran through a few more songs from our set before Adam had everything set the right way and let us go. We thanked him and the other sound guys for the help and walked off stage, handing our guitars off to members of our crew who put them away. We lingered for a few minutes to enjoy the fans that were keeping backstage cool.

“If it’s possible, I’m even more stoked for tomorrow after that,” said Graham, bouncing on the balls of his feet as if to prove his point.

“You good, kid?” asked Beck quietly, so only I could hear as Lawson and Graham continued on to their own conversation.

“Hmm? Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You sure? You seemed a bit spaced during soundcheck.”

“I’m great.” I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Cause you’re messing with your necklace, which you only do when you’re nervous,” he said. I frowned, dropping the charm I hadn’t even realized I was playing with. “Is it about tomorrow? You know, since we’re gonna be playing to a lot more people than we do normally, and with your stagefright and all are you—”

I shook my head. “Nah, I’m psyched for tomorrow. It’s not that at all.”

Beck raised his eyebrows. “So there is something!”

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“But you just said—”

“No, I know what I said but I didn’t mean to say it,” I said, backpedalling furiously. “I just meant that I’m not nervous about tomorrow. There’s nothing wrong with me. Everything’s fine. I’m fine. It’s fine.”

Beckett’s eyes narrowed. “Three ‘fines’? I’m calling bull,” he said definitively, crossing his arms.

I let out a huff, my shoulders slumping as I conceded. This was Beck, the King of Nagging. He clearly knew me well enough to see through my facade, which meant I wouldn’t get a moment’s peace until I told him. “Okay, fine, there is something but it’s not—”

“I knew it!” he interjected, clearly a little proud of himself. “So talk to me. What is it?”

“Nothing I can’t handle, Beck,” I said, hoping that would be enough for him

“I don’t doubt it,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean you can’t talk about it.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not really sure I want to.”
“Well maybe that means you should,” he remarked.

I hesitated, giving Beckett a look. “In what world does that make sense?”

“I don’t know, I heard it on an episode of Dr. Phil,” he said. “But what I mean is—”

“Woah woah woah, hold on a sec,” I said, holding up a hand. “You watch Dr. Phil?”

Beck rolled his eyes. “So not the point here, Shay.”

“Then what is your point, Beck?” I asked, growing weary of the conversation.

“My point is,” he began, grabbing me by the shoulders, “that I am your best friend. And I know that the fact that you won’t talk about whatever this is means that it’s probably a much bigger deal than you’re making it out to be.” He paused, his eyes turning soft. “I care about you Shay, so if I can tell that there’s something wrong, I can’t not try to help—”

“Stop.”

“What? Shay, no. I’m not gonna stop try—”

“No, Beck, seriously, stop talking,” I said, taking his hands off my shoulders and turning in the opposite direction.

I had heard someone, multiple someones, singing. I couldn’t tell who it was but I recognized what it was, although I couldn’t quite place it. I closed my eyes and took a few steps towards the ramp that led away from the backstage area.

“... fuckin Jones. Indiana MOTHERFUCKING JONES.”

My eyes shot open. “Oh no.”

“What? What’s wrong?” I heard Beck say.

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” I murmured, my heartbeat going from zero to a hundred in half of a blink of an eye.

“What? Shay, what’s going on?” he said, worry building in his voice. But I couldn’t respond. I folded my hands behind my head, threading my fingers through my hair.

“What’s up?” Lawson asked as he and Graham walked over to us. “Woah, Shay, what’s wrong.”

“I wanna go,” I said shortly as I looked at my brother with pleading eyes, praying that he would understand. “Can we go?”

“No, we can’t go yet. I want to meet the band that’s soundchecking next.”

Lawson’s eyes widened as the singing got louder and he looked at me, murmuring under his breath, “Oh shit.”

“What band?”

“INDIANA MOTHERFUCKING JONES!”

Graham laughed. “That must be them.”

Beck turned around to see who was coming up the ramp, but I didn’t. I didn’t have to.

“Oh, hey, what’s up guys?”

Beck and Graham started talking to them, introducing themselves and striking up a conversation. I heard all of them speak, except one. His voice was missing. I thought, hoped, for a moment that I had gotten lucky and he wasn’t there yet. Until he said something to my brother.

“Wait, oh my god, Lawson?”

My heart stopped. I was gone.

Lawson smiled and took a step forward. “Yeah, hey man.”

I held my breath. It was coming. I wished it wasn’t coming.

“Oh, you guys are Hand Grenade Heart, right?” Jack. I wanted to cry.

“Oh my god."

“Yeah, that’s us,” said Graham, grinning from ear to ear. “I can’t believe you guys’ve heard of us.”

“Hold on,” Beck said to Lawson, “do you and Shay know them?”

I winced. That was it. I opened my eyes and let out a deep breath, making my hands into fists so they would stop shaking, as I turned around. Although I told them not to, my eyes went straight to him.

“Alex.”

Notes

*emerges, limping, from the shadows* I am alive

this chapter has been a LONG time coming and I apologize for that. hopefully the next one won't take six months to publish.

NOTE: any songs by "Hand Grenade Heart" in this story are gonna be You Me at Six songs, unless stated otherwise