Destroy Rebuild

If one year ago, someone was to tell me that on my next birthday I would be sitting in California while my boyfriend was at the studio finishing up his seventh album while our son played on the floor in front of me, I would have called them crazy. But alas, here I am.

As I’ve said before, my birthday has never really been that big of a deal to me. Sure, when I hit the milestones like sixteen and twenty-one, it was exciting. As I grew older, though, and the only other big age I had left to reach was thirty (which made me cringe every time I thought about it), my birthday was just another day to me. I’m sure it’s safe to say I would be happy if the occasion weren’t even recognized. Alex, however, insisted otherwise.

We argued a bit about whether he should get me a gift. I thought it was pointless, given that he’d already bestowed upon me the greatest gift I could have ever asked for: our son. He seemed hell bent on getting me extravagant presents or having some sort of celebration for my day. Honestly, all I wanted was to spend time with him and Will. That was celebration enough for me.

He had to go to the studio earlier that morning. We hadn’t taken Will back since the first time, since all the noise from the guitars was just too much for his sensitive ears. John tried to accommodate his needs with cotton balls to muffle his hearing, but it was no use. I was a little bummed, but nothing was more important than my baby’s comfort. So, while Alex was at work every day, Will and I played and ate and napped and even went on the occasional walk to pass the time. We had more to do at the condo anyway. We weren’t musicians. Well, yet.

After receiving phone calls from my parents and Megan and even Alex’s parents, I was already pretty beat from the attention being paid towards me. Once I hung up with Isobel and Peter, I collapsed on the floor next to Will. He was lying on his stomach, trying to use his little arms to roll over. He wasn’t quite strong enough yet, but I was happy to play the part as his cheerleader.

“Come on, baby,” I cooed, lightly tapping the floor as he smiled at me. “You can do it!”

He gurgled and cooed at me and I reached over, helping him flip onto his back.

“Yay, Will!” I cheered, kissing his forehead. “You did it, buddy.”

Just as I was giving him a baby high five, Alex walked through the front door. He looked down at us and smirked. “What are you doing?”

“Just playing,” I shrugged. As I rose to my feet, I asked, “How was the studio today?”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me in tight. “It was pretty amazing.”

“Yeah?” I asked before rising on my tiptoes to kiss him. “Well, great. Do you want some lunch?”

“Actually, I was wondering if you could come with me. I want to take you somewhere.”

My eyes narrowed towards him. “Where?”

“Just somewhere,” he shrugged, but his eyes gave off the slightest hint that he had something up his sleeve.

“So, you want me to go somewhere with you without you telling me where it is? And on my birthday?”

He shrugged, a small smile falling into place.

“Nice try, babe, but I wasn’t born yesterday,” I giggled. “Twenty-six years ago to the day, actually.”

“I know,” he nodded. “And trust me, I’m not taking you to some surprise party that I’ve been scheming for weeks to plan. I just want to take you somewhere.”

My hands perched on my hips. “Tell me where and I’ll go.”

He sighed heavily before saying, “The studio.”

“The studio?” I asked. “Why-“

I was cut off by the impatient expression on his face. “There won’t be any recording or loud noises to upset Will. It’s just going to be you, me, and him.”

I stared at him for a moment, but eventually gave in and helped him get Will in the car. We pulled up to the studio a few minutes later and he led me in to the recording booth. He was right – it was just the three of us. I sat on the love seat and he took Will out of his car seat before he pulled a gift bag from the other side of the couch. I rolled my eyes as he handed it to me, but decided to humor him anyway and open it. Inside was a portable CD player, and I won’t lie, I was kind of taken aback.

“Thanks babe,” I said slowly. “God, I haven’t seen one of these things since eighth grade.”

“Look at what’s in it, smartass,” he laughed.
I popped the top off and scribbled across the face of the CD was Future Hearts DEMO. My eyes slowly lifted towards Alex and he was chewing nervously on his bottom lip.

“What’s this?” I asked quietly.

“It’s your birthday present,” he replied almost quieter. “That’s the demo for our new album. It still has to be mixed and everything, but other than John and the guys, you’re the first person that’s going to hear it.”

Suddenly I felt like I was holding a treasure chest as I held it with my fingertips, like it was fragile and any form of handling it wrong would cause it to break. The words written on the CD flashed over and over in my head. It felt like I was winning a prestigious award that no one else had ever even heard of, and I guess to some extent, it was.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

He nodded once, then reached into the gift bag and pulled out a pair of Beats headphones. “I know you didn’t want me to get you anything, but I couldn’t just do nothing. I figured of all the things I could do for you, this would be the one you’d be less pissed about.”

I slowly took the headphones from him, my hands shaking slightly. To anyone else, his gesture might not have seemed like much, but I felt honored that Alex wanted me to be the first person to hear what he and the guys had been working so hard on. I felt myself draw in a deep breath and I had to swallow the sob that threatened to break through.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

He nodded again, smiling nervously and pointed to the CD player. I took his cue and hooked the headphones up and placed them comfortably over my ears. After hitting play, a bolt of electricity shot through me as the opening guitar riff rang through my ears. Alex reached into the bag again and pulled out a piece of folded up paper that had the track list scribbled in his handwriting. The first song, “Satellite”, was an odd pairing of simple and captivating. When Alex’s vocals rose an octave, I instinctively turned the volume all the way up.

“Kicking and Screaming” started with a count off from Alex, and I was immediately hyped up. It was in the typical All Time Low pop-punk fashion that caused me to fall in love with them in the first place, and I was momentarily taken back to my earlier teenage years when I first heard “Break Out! Break Out!” and it felt like my life was changed forever.

Once “Something’s Gotta Give” started and I recognized it, my face lit up as I mouthed along with what words I could remember. Alex said something to me, but I shook my head and pointed to the headphones, silently letting him know I was too busy enjoying the most special birthday present I’d ever received to talk to him. He rolled his eyes and smiled before bouncing Will on his knee and, like before, goosebumps spread over my skin as the gang vocals kicked the second chorus in. I scanned down the track list and the next song, “Kids in the Dark”, piqued my interest as I skipped to it.

The lyrics I was listening to pierced straight through my heart. Alex was singing everything I remembered feeling growing up. From the frustrations of societal peer pressure to the feeling of abandonment, every single word touched a nerve with me. It was the nostalgic feeling of relatability – and the epic pause in the final chorus – that produced the single tear that cascaded down my cheek. Alex leaned closer to me, examining me, but I offered him a reassuring smile. He still watched carefully for a breakdown.

“Runaways” was fun and light. As the second verse rolled around I smiled as I recapped our first night together in California, when he took me to Venice and we went to the beach. I then began to daydream about a time when we could come back during the summer, and bring Will along, too. But then the setting of my daydreams changed rapidly, and I took that as a sign that my heart was telling my brain that I would run away with Alex anywhere.

The soft guitar melody and gentle piano led into my breaking point, “Missing You”. Alex’s sweet voice flowed into my ears and after just one line, I was hooked. I could feel the words pulsating through my veins as I listened, a sense of sadness washing over me. Yet again, I was taken back to when I was a teenager. I held a lot of resentment in my heart growing up, from my parents splitting and my mom getting remarried, to friends that let me down, and feeling like I was easily forgotten by people I will always remember. Unfortunately, it was a dark time in my life. But, with the help of four boys from Maryland, I stopped myself on many different occasions from doing what I thought would make me happy. As Alex rounded out the first chorus, I was in tears. He reached over and squeezed my thigh and I looked up at him, my sight blurry.

“You ok?” he mouthed.

I nodded and ran a finger under my eye to wipe away the tears. Midway through the bridge, I couldn’t contain the sobs any longer. Alex reached over and paused the CD and gently removed the headphones. I tried to protest, but I couldn’t catch my breath long enough to speak.

“Hey,” he said quietly as he rubbed the back of my head. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head and fanned myself with my hand. Alex stared at me as I tried to calm myself down, and when I still hadn’t, he said, “Come on, baby, talk to me.”

After taking a deep breath through my nose and out of my mouth, I giggled a little before saying, “Whew, that was intense.”

He rose his eyebrows a little. “Are you ok?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. “That just brought back a lot of old memories and feelings. I’m ok though.”

He nodded slowly and wiped a tear off my cheek. “Do you want to take a break from listening?”

“Fuck no,” I laughed as I took the headphones back. “This is amazing.”

He smiled a little and I went back to listening. Every song held a special place in my heart, but one of my favorites was “Tidal Waves”. It was the only one that I felt was relatable to me at that moment, as an adult. Just existing could be tough sometimes. I had my fair share of lows throughout my entire life, but I believe it was those lows that made where I was so sweet. I’d been through a lot, but I’d reached my own sliver of heaven when I met Alex and he gave me our son. I trudged through the deepest parts of hell, and because I kept going I was experiencing the purest form of happiness. I earned my place.

Alex sat up a little straighter as the next song started and he studied me more carefully. I immediately recognized the melody of the verse and I thought back to the night when I heard him sing it to Will through the baby monitor when he thought I was sleeping. I looked down at the track list and saw it was titled “Edge of Tonight” and as soon as my eyes scrolled across the letters, Alex was singing it in my ear. It was so much more powerful than I thought it would be with the musical elements behind it, and my heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. By the end of the song I was staring at Alex, tears threatening to spill out of my eyes.

“That was so beautiful,” I whispered between songs.

He smiled sweetly. “I love you.”

Before I could tell him I loved him too, the final song began. “Old Scars/Future Hearts”, from the very second it started, was powerful. There was a sense of angst buried in Alex’s tone as he belted the chorus, like he knew he was speaking directly for all their fans. It amazed me how they did it, but I always felt like they reached into my soul and took the words I was too afraid to stutter out and say them loud and clear for me. This song was no exception.

“We’ve got scars on our future hearts but we never look back, no we never look back!” Alex yelled with the help of gang vocals, and as the silence filled my ears, I felt stunned. Never had one of their albums had that kind of effect on me. I’d never been left a blubbering mess from just one song. That was, hands down, one of the best albums I’d ever listened to. I was so spaced out and dazed by the epicness I’d just witnessed that I didn’t even notice Jack, Rian, Zack, and John had joined us. When I finally snapped out of it, my whole body turned red with embarrassment.

“So…?” Jack asked from where he sat leaning against the wall on the floor.

I knew if I tried to tell them what I thought of the album, I would probably freak one of them out by how excited I was. Instead I quickly took a deep breath and tried to pull in the grin that was spreading across my face.

“Dude. This is the best album All Time Low has done yet.”

A chorus of sighs of relief filled the room, and it completely baffled me that they had even the slightest doubt that it would be anything less. Before I could stop myself, I was emphasizing.

“I mean, I’m so serious. This is the best thing I’ve heard in my life. It was so awesome. Every single song. God. I would have killed for this album growing up.”

They were all smiles, and Jack reached over and gave Zack a low five. I shook my head in bewilderment.

“Did you guys doubt this or something?”

Alex shrugged and glanced around the room. “We kind of always do.”

“We just want to make sure we keep putting out something better than the last,” Rian added.

I nodded. “Well trust me. I love Don’t Panic more than anything, but it doesn’t even come close to this.”

“Wow,” I heard Zack mumble. “She is a fan.”

I blushed a little, but tried to brush it off by laughing with the rest of the guys. I’m not quite sure how well I did, since Alex squeezed my thigh again and winked at me.

“Well, now that I know that we didn’t fuck up,” Jack grunted as he stood from the floor. “I’m gonna go rest up for tonight. What time should we be over?”

My face scrunched in confusion. I didn’t know anyone was planning to come over. “For what?” I asked. I glanced over at Alex and he was trying to hide his mischievous smile.

“Duh, it’s your birthday!” Jack said.

“Yeah,” Zack nodded. “You didn’t think we just weren’t going to celebrate, did you?”

I looked towards Alex and he shrugged, giving up on hiding his smile.

“I can’t,” I pouted, looking down at Will, but secretly I was relieved to have a reason to stay at the condo.

“Cass and I are going to babysit,” Rian smiled.

“But,” I pouted. “If we all go I would want you guys to be there, too.”

“We’d love to,” he nodded. “But she has a TV appearance tomorrow morning and she doesn’t want to be all hungover. And she wants me to stay with her because she thinks if we spend time with a baby it’ll change my mind about having one right now,” he added, followed closely by a firm shake of his head.

“I don’t know dude,” Alex shrugged as he pointed at Will. “He’s pretty awesome. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

“I’ll find out someday,” Rian said with a roll of his eyes.

“So, that settles it,” Jack nodded with a smile. “You have no excuse not to go. Now what time should we be there?”

I stared at him for a moment, and before long I couldn’t help but smile. “Nine.”

He nodded and waved before leaving, soon followed by the rest of the guys. I turned my attention back to Alex and rose my eyebrow at him. He smiled innocently and slowly lifted Will so he was between us.

"Surprise?"

Notes