Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

I didn’t linger long after John left, running to have a quick (disgustingly cold) shower on the bus and putting clean clothes on before rushing off the bus with calls of being too busy to chat. I was too busy to chat most days, but that didn’t usually stop me. I was beginning to long for the next five days to end so I could sleep in my own bed alone and not have to worry about fucking anything up just by breathing. A handful of days ago I just wanted to wake up next to John, but I doubted he really wanted that now.
I began lugging my boxes out from the van into the venue, doing my best to keep my head down. My earphones were, of course, plugged in once again so I couldn’t tell what was going on around me. It made it much easier to concentrate that way. I didn’t want to have to answer questions from anyone or make inane chitchat, none of it. Today, I wanted to do my job and maybe go explore the city for an hour or two to get out of my own head.
I could see tech’s setting up ready for the first sound check and prayed that nobody would bother me. John had, clearly, rubbed me up the wrong way and Alex was also mad at me, so I was pretty sure I was going to end up watching either one of them have their sound check and trying not to die or run away or any of my usual bullshit.
It didn’t take long for me to bring the boxes inside and begin laying out merch in its place on the table. I remembered how Alex had so diligently helped me the other day, no expectations of wanting anything from me, just happy to be around as my friend, to help me out whether I needed him or not. I wanted to go back to the first couple of days of tour and explain to John how that had been the boy I’d fallen for way back when and how much they had in common when you stripped them down to their basic qualities. They were totally different people, whose tempers flared in different ways and at different things, but they both knew how to look after those they loved without batting an eyelid, no expectations of reciprocation, nothing.
I could hear the sound of guitars over my earphones as I folded, turning up my iPod every time I heard something from reality in my ears, so as not to figure out who was playing, if John seemed fine or miserable, or if Alex was up there crooning about our past again. I couldn’t take it. I wanted out. I wanted to god damn go home and pretend none of this had ever happened. I wanted it more and more every day and yet I could never get what I wanted. I had to ride this out. I had to grow a pair of balls, man up and get the next nine days over and done with. Frankly, I only had to ride out eight of those before we were on home turf and I could take shelter in my own apartment for the night. Admittedly, I probably shouldn’t, given I would have to go see John’s mother to loan his car to get me to Vegas the next day if I didn’t get on the bus the night before. And that was definitely worse than sitting on the bus with the guys for twelve hours.
I leaned back, stretching as I finished up, beginning to debate what I wanted to do for the day. John’s laughter caught my ear as one of my earphones fell out, knocking most of the wind from me. I looked up, seeing him joking with the guys as if nothing was amiss, as if he hadn’t acted like he didn’t know me an hour ago, as if I hadn’t been a bitch right back at him so accidentally. He looked over at me, his smile dropping for half a second as he caught me looking, before turning quickly back to Jared.
I all but ran out of the main room, trying to find somewhere quiet out back where I could calm my breathing, giving that it was coming shorter and faster with each given second as I tried not to cry for the second time today. As I rounded the corner to the dressing rooms (a corridor usually empty until around 5pm), still looking for a dark, quiet corner, I spotted Alex walking into All Time Low’s dressing room. I ducked into a small alcove, praying he hadn’t seen me as I burst into tears once more.
It was too much. It was god damn too much. I know I was a fucking shitty person, but surely I didn’t deserve this? I couldn’t cope with this much longer. I know I said I needed to man up and ride out the next week, but it suddenly felt like I was asking too much of myself. Even taking it a day at a time felt too much right now. And so I took 30 seconds to let loose. And I cried, hard. I cried for my stupid fight with John, for my stupid fight with Alex, for missing my best friend and for the last two years of phone calls and teary voicemails and not knowing what to do with myself. And then I bottled it all right back up, putting shaky lid on my emotions and hoping it would suffice for now.
“Are you okay?” Alex asked softly as I regained control, his shadow coming over me suddenly. I guess I hadn’t been as quick at hiding as I thought I had been. I shrugged, not knowing what to say. Sure, we’d work this out, but right now, with the lid back on my emotions, I was somewhere between pissed off and upset and I didn’t know which one I felt more keenly. “I can tell you one thing, you look like you’ve been crying.”
“I have,” I replied, sniffling ever so lightly. I cursed myself for letting it out, the shaky lid unable to contain the physical symptoms of my meltdown. He knelt down in front of me, trying not to tower over me in my frustratingly weakened state.
“What happened?”
“What happened is I’m a fucking slut, but we can’t go back and change that now, can we?” Alex frowned at me but I ignored it, trying not to make this look like a self-deprecating remark, like I was looking for sympathy. I wasn’t, I just seemed to spill everything to Alex these days. Nothing worked to keep that in, apparently.
“You’re not—”
“Oh, fuck off,” I snapped. “I was the world’s biggest slut in high school and you know it.”
“This is about high school?” He asked, dumbfounded. “What’s brought this on?”
“John, uh—John might not have known until this morning. I think he thought I was some sweet, innocent little girl until now.”
“And, what? He’s suddenly stopped caring?” He scowled.
“Alex, no—”
“Where is he?” he seethed. I grabbed at his arm, not sure what to say to explain. Alex had been angry at me himself until five minutes ago, so this turn seemed a little drastic to me. I had expected to talk this out rationally with him before I returned to John, armed with logic and a clear head. Instead, I seemed to have triggered his underlying need to defend me from anyone and anything. I’d thought he’d buried that years ago.
“I was the one who got angry, alright?” The lie seemed to appease him and he stopped looking around in search of John, like he might suddenly jump out of the shadows, ready to be confronted. “We were just talking about stuff this morning in bed,” he tensed lightly under my grip, “and we got to talking about old times and me and you. I explained what we – I – used to be like. He didn’t seem exactly thrilled with the kind of girl I used to be and, I don’t know, I got a little defensive.” His scowl eased into a faint frown and I pulled my hand back, his anger having faded enough to look at this calmly. If it hadn’t been that his anger was directed at John, I would have found his reaction cute. I appreciated that Alex still had my back, no matter what.
“You’ve got nothing to be defensive about.”
“I just think I threw him off balance,” I replied, picking my words carefully so as not to reignite Alex’s anger. “John’s been by my side constantly for over two years now and, uh, aside from that one… incident, there hasn’t been anyone at all since you, Alex. No one.” He frowned at me, this seemingly knocking Alex off balance too. It seemed like there were two sides to me, and each of these guys knew a different half, so learning about the side I’d hidden was a shock to them both. “I think that sort of skewed his perception. Like, maybe he expected there to have been you and no one else.” I felt myself frowning now, remembering his words from the previous night, his surprise that there had been no one else in all that time. My own explanation for John’s reaction was already a difficult fit. He hesitated, remaining quiet as he sat himself down on the floor next to me.
“You were really fucked up, weren’t you?” He sighed. I glanced over at him, not sure how to say he was right. I had been incredibly fucked up for such a long time and I didn’t seem to have told him that. I didn’t know if I wanted to tell him, to remind him of the effect he had always had on me. But then the concern on his face told me I had nothing to worry about, that he wouldn’t turn this around on me like he would have done only two weeks ago.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been more fucked up,” I admitted. “I ran away and I still couldn’t get away from you. From your voice, from your smile, from casual mentions by people who had never met you. Any normal girl gets away from all those things when relationships ended.”
“I’m sorry about the other day,” he told me softly. “You’ve kept it so together these past few weeks and I just feel like I’m being buried by it all. I had to think you were playing a game, because I couldn’t see any signs of this being difficult for you.” I shook my head, holding back the urge to scoff. I know Alex had been struggling, he’d made that abundantly clear, but I hadn’t thought I’d been so well kept together either. I’d say that he could have asked anyone else I knew how I’d been coping early on, but I knew that everyone who had seen me struggling would lie through their teeth to protect me from him knowing the truth.
“You were half right,” I told him. “The only reason I’d ever hooked up with John before now was…” I sighed, not sure how to get the words out. “It was a year since Vegas. I was upset, I was wasted and he told me he loved me. You know me, Lex, I jumped at it and didn’t think about the consequences. I lost him for a while after that and it hurt. So, even though I’m pretty sure these feelings have been building for a while, I ignored them, because I was only going to end up hurting him again.”
“Come here,” he said, putting his arms around my shoulders and pulling me into him. “You’re a good person, Holly. We all do shitty things, me and you more than anyone, but you care more than you let on and people don’t see that.”
“I’m a fucking train wreck, he’s better off without me,” I muttered into his chest.
“You might be a train wreck, but he’s good for you. He’s going to fix you up and the two of you are going to be happy.” He sighed, pushing a kiss to the top of my head before releasing me and standing up. “Come on, we gotta go fix this.” I hesitated as he held out his hand to me, not because it felt weird to take it, but because I had never managed to safely confront anything in my life, least of all someone I cared about who was angry with me. Alex sighed, dropping his hand as I stared at it, turning on his heel and leaving me where I sat. I tried not to take it to heart, doing my best not to let my feelings out again. Was I really so pathetic he’d give up that easily?
“Holly?”
My heart skipped a beat at the sound of John’s voice. I looked up, noticing Alex slinking away behind John, who had taken Alex’s original position crouched in front of me. I burst into tears for the third time today as I realised how little I wanted to fight with him, ever, and he drew me in close, in much the same way as Alex had, shushing me as he did so.
“Shh, come on, it’s not that bad,” he half chuckled, trying to ease me. I shook my head as a fresh wave of tears hit at his words, not sure how to take them. Of course I knew it wasn’t that bad, but it also felt like John wasn’t taking this seriously, that he didn’t understand how deep my feelings for him were beginning to run. I felt the eighteen year old inside me tensing up, ready to deny them, but I couldn’t. I wouldn’t do that again.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered, as I finally calmed down. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong. I should have been more understanding.”
“You do normally excel at that,” I joked, laughing a little as I sniffled, trying to dry up the last of my tears and the gross amount of snot I produced when crying.
“You were right, we should talk about this.” I tensed at his words, expecting him to want to know more in order to have the perfect excuse to leave me. “No, no,” he added quickly as he felt my entire body tense, “not like that. Let’s go out, do some exploring, and you can tell me all about the past you wanted to tell me. I want to know you better than anyone, alright?”
“Okay,” I uttered softly.
“Hey,” he whispered, pulling my face round to look at him, “I still love you. Nothing stupid like a four-year-old one-night-stand is going to change that, alright? Nothing you can say will change that.”

Notes

I'm trying my best to finish this quickly so I can move on to the sequel (ish, based after this but not on Holly) and finally finish A Story to Tell Your Friends.
As usual, let me know if you spot any formatting or spelling errors because my tablet sucks.