Mickey’s POV:

I rushed to the hotel room after I heard Alex slam the door shut behind him. Just knowing that I was going to get sympathetic looks as soon as the moms saw me was both making my skin crawl and my blood boil. If there was one thing I absolutely couldn’t deal with, it was people feeling sorry for me. There was no reason to be sorry, I was doing just fine. I was living my life the way I wanted, not the way other people wanted. No stupid sympathy was needed.

I put my backpack on the bed, feeling their stares on me, and pulled out all my essentials, which was basically just my wallet, stuffing it in the pocket of my jacket instead. After zipping up the bag, I finally looked up to see those sad ‘understanding’ eyes.

“I’ll be right back,” I told them, grabbing my keycard along, and walking out of that room as well.

Alex thought I was with the parents, and the parents thought I was with the guys. I just felt stupid for never thinking of this before. I could have easily pulled it off. But then again, I did have their trust now, they were constantly paranoid before. Nobody was actually going to check where they believed I was.

And so I rushed down the hallway again, hearing loud voices coming from the guys’ hotel room, too muffled to be understood, and down the stairs to the lobby. Since I wasn’t the one left with the car keys today, I had to walk wherever I wanted to go now. I was just fortunate enough to have been here often enough to know my way around, or at least well enough that I could recognize specific landmarks. I had continued to visit my uncle out here up until I was thirteen, it was all about orientation.

It only took me twenty minutes to reach my destination. Once again, I was stood underneath the sign with a barrel on it, the tinted windows in front of me. There was nowhere for me to go except to my uncle. It hadn’t been long since we left, so he was bound to still be there, especially since he owned the place.

I entered the bar without thinking twice, the place now much emptier than when the guys were playing. There were still a few stragglers left behind who were staying for more drinks, but now there was also a slightly older demographic who came here for the ‘normal’ bar experience. Some even looked like regulars.

I spotted an empty seat at the bar and b-lined to it, throwing myself on it before somebody else could take it. Not that anybody else was going for it, but my mood just made me do it. I was fed up and knew I would lose my temper if anybody came in the way.

A bartender who wasn’t my uncle and who was way younger than him came up to me, a little hesitant. “What can I get for you?”

“Just give me straight up tequila,” I grumbled, taking my chances.

“Umm…” He gave me a long unsure look before his eyes shot around the room as he tried to find something to say. This was the first time in ages a bartender could just straight up tell immediately that I was underage and not just at the age that required ID checking.

“Mickey, what are you doing here?” my uncle interrupted, and took over from the other bartender, informing him, “she’s underage. I’ll take it from here.”

“Hi.” I smiled sweetly like I hadn’t just tried to get a drink.

“I thought you guys left a while ago?” He frowned and removed the towel from his shoulder, throwing it on the counter instead.

“We did… but I felt like hanging out with you… so I came back.” I batted my eyelashes along as well now, hoping he wouldn’t kick me out.

“You’re not going to get any drinks from me,” he refused with a shake of his head.

“That’s not why I’m here!” I gasped, actually happy to have somebody who wasn’t giving in just because they felt bad for me. “I’m actually here to spend time with you! We haven’t seen each other in years, who knows how long it will be again. It didn’t feel right being in the hotel and not spending as much time together as we could have.”

He stared into my eyes for a couple of seconds before taking a look at our old Disney World picture. “Okay, fine, just let me--” he turned to the bartender from before and called out, “hey, Jeremy, are you fine with taking over and locking up tonight? I’m going to spend some time with my niece.”

Jeremy nodded as my uncle pulled out the key and tossed it to him. A genuine smile spread across my face, excited to do whatever we were going to do. Maybe young me wasn’t used to having much fun, but time with Uncle Danny was always the best. Even now I could still feel the excitement I always felt when I was four.

“So, what do you feel like doing?” He asked me, leaning over the bar.

“Hmm…” My eyes fell on the drawing pinned up on the wall. I took the pin out and held the paper. “Do you know any good tattoo parlors around here?”

“Tattoo parlor?” he asked.

I shrugged and glanced at the many other tattoos littered on my arms. If he thought this was a strange question, then this was going to be quite an adventure for him.

But he did actually know a tattoo parlor that we could just pop into. Apparently one of his friends owned it, so it shouldn’t be much of a problem as long as the design didn’t take too much time. It wasn’t all too large, so I was willing to try. There was nothing to lose. Really nothing...

I was lucky because one of the clients had to cancel their appointment. The only challenging part was finding where I wanted to have my dragon. It didn’t feel right to fit in with everything else on my arms, my shoulder blades were also no longer an option, and it wouldn’t look good on my ribs due to the mermaid. In the end, I decided to get it on my left hip bone, just a small distance away from my belly button.

My uncle watched as the tattoo artist started going over the outline already transferred to my skin. “And this doesn’t hurt you at all?”

I shrugged softly, trying to take a look at the process myself. “No, not really. It stings a little, but it’s not really painful. A while back I broke my wrist falling from the roof, now that was painful.”

“You fell off the roof?” His eyes went wide with shock.

“Yeah,” I mumbled, wondering why I had decided to bring this up. This wasn’t something he needed to know. “Michael was drunk and in our house, so I had to escape.”

“Michael?” He both wondered why his younger brother would do such a thing and why I was even calling him by his first name.

“Yeah, he always says he has stopped, but I know better than that. He only really gets ‘mad’ when something goes wrong. Oh, and I stopped calling him dad ages ago, he’s last on the list of father figures.”

“Hmm…” he nodded, seeming affected by what I was telling him.

I could have stopped there, but for some reason more came out, things I hadn’t even ever told Alex. “Although, I probably would have graduated by now and would have had great grades. I mean, I do get good grades now, but I ruined any opportunity to get into any good universities with my GPA.”

“I’m sure you’ll be okay,” he tried to comfort me, “if you do your best now, they’ll see you really did try to improve.”

“Yeah, but I feel like I would have done better. I only started doing dumb shit when I moved in with mom. It doesn’t really make much sense,” I thought out loud, “I only started doing dumb shit when I had loving parents.”

“Every kid rebels against their parents, especially if parents have good intentions that can only be executed in one way,” he explained despite never having had kids himself. It made me wonder what he would have been like as a father. Much better than Michael was for sure.

“But I did some dumb shit, like really dumb shit,” I made clear, thinking of times I could have easily lost my life. The worst part was that it happened on more than one occasion.

He sighed, watching his friend continue working on the tattoo. “At least you know that now, and that’s what matters. Your father doesn’t have that same awareness.”

“I guess so…” I breathed out, the stinging from the needle stopping me from overthinking, and turned my head to look at my uncle again. “Hey, can you give me your phone number so I can call you when I’m back home?”

“Yeah, of course.” He smiled softly and got out a card from his wallet, handing it to me.

Later, when I went to pay for the beautiful artwork now permanently on me, he stepped in and handed his credit card instead. I didn’t want him to, seeing as tattoos were quite an expensive accessory, but he insisted. He told me it was to make up for all the years we didn’t get to do something, that everything he saved by not taking me out could now be spent. Eventually I gave in, knowing that my bank account would have been dried up if I had paid all by myself, but I had totally been willing to do so.

He even paid for the late night dinner we had at a fast food place. While I wanted to order moderately sized things, since I knew he’d be paying, he ordered things for me. As much as I loved food and the gigantic milkshake in my hands, I wasn't comfortable with it. It was just like Alex paying for my food when I had run away. Only, I definitely did prefer my uncle over Alex.

With it being just past midnight and with our bellies full, we eventually did have to say goodbye, as much as I didn’t want to. If I had it my way, I would have stayed with him forever and never returned home, especially not in a van with Alex. But I had to go back, I couldn’t run away again. I had to finish high school and then I could go wherever I wanted.

We decided to part ways at an intersection. His place was in one direction while the hotel was in the other. At first, he wanted to walk me back, especially at this hour, but I told him I was going to be just fine. I was used to walking around at late hours by myself, I knew how to defend myself, and I even had my knife. Nothing would happen. It was the least I could do after he paid for everything.

“I’ll make sure to call you once I get home,” I told him just before our final goodbyes and taking a sip from the milkshake I still hadn’t finished.

“That would be nice,” he agreed, “I miss spending days with you. Make sure you call me before your birthday, that way I can save the number and say happy birthday on the day.”

I was about to say another kind thing back when I felt somebody approach me. They weren’t exactly quiet about it, and they were running at me. Even if I hadn’t heard the loud footsteps, I would have sensed the human body close to mine.

My instincts kicking in, I spun around and managed to slam the person to the floor before they could touch me. To make sure they could move and try to attack me, I held their arms to the small of their back while pressing down on their upper back as well. A loud groan escaped the person's lips and they limply tried to squirm free.

“Zack!” I exclaimed, surprised to see the bassist, who I still wasn’t very close to, in my death grip. “The fuck are you doing?!”

He just groaned again and I looked up at my uncle. He was more shocked than he had been the entire night while finding out about the person I had become. Here I was, holding down a seventeen-year-old boy who hadn’t done anything wrong. It was quite a distressing sight, but at least he now knew I would have been fine walking back to the hotel myself.

“You know you shouldn’t sneak up on me!” I exhaled loudly, harshly letting go of my grip.

“M’sorry,” he mumbled, turning around on his back.

“And you made me spill my milkshake!” I pouted, looking at the plastic cup that had fallen to the ground, the leftovers splattered on the sidewalk.

My uncle was speechless, and I could only understand. I reached down and helped Zack back up to his feet. He limped a little, checking if all his limbs were still intact.

“We’ve been looking all over for you!” Zack exclaimed as he had planned to do when he first approached me.

This caused my uncle to scold, “you didn’t tell them you were going to see me?”

“I did, but they must have obviously forgotten.” I rolled my eyes as Zack brushed himself off. “But I think this is a sign that I need to head back now.”

“I think it is,” he nodded in agreement. “So, it’s now time to definitely say goodbye.”

And we did, ending it with a hug.

I helped Zack get back to the hotel while he continued to limp, claiming his right knee was hurting. While he called the others to say he found me, I let him lean on me so his body weight was spread out just a little more. It could have been a bonding moment for us, but I was too pissed that they had sent out a search party for me. I knew what I was doing, I didn’t need saving.

My fury only increased when I saw everybody waiting in the lobby of the hotel. They were so ‘worried’ that they couldn’t just be fine with Zack calling them. They had to see me and be a welcoming committee. I was actually hoping they’d be mad at me, to show they knew it was all my choice and my choice only, giving me the consequences.

Alex immediately ran up to me and hugged me tightly. But I pushed him off. Not only didn’t I want him touching me, but it made a pain soar through my entire side.

“Ow, fuck, don’t do that!” I took a sharp breath in and pulled up my shirt to check if the cling film was still in place on the fresh tattoo. Everybody saw it, but nobody said a word.

Jack’s mom only asked me a question very softly and calmly. “You didn’t tell anybody you were leaving.”

“I told Alex,” I shrugged, and pointed at him, “told him I was going back.”

“Back?!” Alex burst out, his voice an octave higher. “I thought you meant back to the hotel room! Don’t you dare put this on me!”

He was the only one that got mad at me, the only one who wasn’t excusing my behavior anymore. Zack’s and Jack’s moms actually gave him a look that told him to calm down, that he shouldn’t be mad at me. And then I knew for sure that everybody here was judging me based on my past, and not based on what I was doing now. All I ever wanted was for people to cut me some slack, but now that they were, it was horrible.

“Look, I don’t know what Alex told you, but I’m not some fucking broken child,” I seethed, glaring at everybody individually. “You guys don’t know shit about me. Not even you!” I pointed angrily at Alex and stormed upstairs.

This was worse than people yelling at me.

Notes

Gotta have that play on an All Time Low song (and popular saying) in the title. It fits with the situation quite well though. On one hand, Mickey feels like she shouldn't have ever said something and Alex should have kept his mouth shut too, but on the other, spilling everything to her uncle brought them closer again.

But what does this mean for Alex and Mickey???