Just Another Reason I Could Never Forget You

The hours had ticked by and we were all but ready to open the doors for the boys’ second show of the tour. I was just as excited for them tonight as I had been the night before. More so, even, since I had no lingering anxiety about seeing Alex again. I’d seen him enough in the last day and a half to be sick of the sight of him already. He seemed to be around every time I turned around and it made me realise just how small this tour actually was. It wasn’t like he was following me around, since the same thing happened with just about everybody, it just seemed like he and I always seemed to be in the same place at the same time. My heart hadn’t stopped racing with the shock of seeing him, but I was much more composed otherwise.
“Don’t be such a… butthole, Ken!” I screeched, flinging a balled-up hand towel at him. He laughed, ducking as the other four boys all laughed in time with him. “Just because you haven’t gotten laid in, well, ever, doesn’t mean I’m telling you all my dirty details!”
“Hey! I just said that Jack seems to know an awful lot about your sex life!” I scowled, picking up yet another ball of fabric and aiming it in his direction, missing by a long shot and causing John to have to duck instead.
“Oh! Right! And I guess the ‘hurhur, Holly, how does he know that? Hurhur’ wasn’t any sort insinuation?”
“Well, if you’re going to get defensive about it…” He smirked at me and I scowled again, throwing the last of the towels at him, finally hitting my mark.
“You suck, Brock.” He let out a moan of pain and I smirked triumphantly as John made his way over to me, laughing.
“Good to see you’re in a good mood,” he chuckled, wrapping his arm deftly around my waist, so smoothly I hardly noticed he was doing it until goose bumps rose in the wake of his touch.
“I’m always in a good mood, thank you,” I pretended to huff, leaning into him nonetheless. He smiled down at me, pulling me closer to him. I felt… content. The feel of John’s touch was comforting, making me feel safer than I had done in a long while. I didn’t know if it was playing pretend at being boyfriend and girlfriend or if seeing Alex was actually giving me some sort of closure to all my emotional woes, but I couldn’t help but begin to see John – my best friend, John – as something more. He was no longer my replacement Jack. If I lacked tact, I would probably call him my replacement Alex, but even I knew John was nothing like Alex.
“You sure?” He murmured, his eyes glancing to my right. I looked over briefly, noting Alex and Jack stood just outside All Time Low’s dressing room, having a rather… intense discussion about something or other. Honestly, I’d known Alex had been there from the moment John’s arm had snaked its way around my waist. Cuddles, flirting, kisses on the cheek, these were our norm, but arms around waists were a step over a line. That wasn’t very ‘us’. “I was under the impression being within 50 feet of a certain singer set you on edge.”
“I mean, there’s one singer that sets me on edge, but it isn’t Alex Gaskarth and it certainly isn’t a bad thing.” I grinned up at him and he rolled his eyes, the boys hearing only my half of the conversation and groaning.
“Jesus fucking Christ, woman, will you go fuck and get it over with?!”
“You are so lucky I can’t aim, Kennedy, or you’d be getting something thrown at you again,” I snapped, returning to scowling at the brown-haired guitarist. “I’m leaving now,” I informed John, abruptly stopping my glaring at Kennedy to smile sweetly up at him.
“I’ll walk you out,” he told me, smiling softly at me. I couldn’t help my stomach dropping slightly at his ridiculously genuine smile. I missed this. I missed being happy. Jack’s insistence that I didn’t seem happy was clearly a product of bias and he had no idea how (secretly) miserable I’d been for the last two years. He didn’t see what expressing my hatred of Alex to Alex had done for my pointless emotional vulnerabilities. John knew me. He knew my flaws, my insecurities and my quirks and, honestly, he still seemed to love me, in spite of it all. How could I have never seen this before? How had Alex blinded me to this person who was so perfect? I had no idea. But something had switched in me since last night and I knew, deep down, that I was ready to take another leap of faith. I knew that I was still vulnerable and I knew that John would set me straight like he always did.
I followed John’s movements as he led me to the booth. His arm had left my waist as we walked and I was beginning to feel the emptiness. I craved his touch as he ran his hands through his hair, the way he had done since before I knew him. I’d never thought about it before, but now I just wanted to sit and play with the messy strands all day long. I wanted so badly to confide in someone about this strange turn of events, and yet he was the only person I confided in, but he was the last person I wanted to tell. I’d thought I felt this way once before and I’d told him so and that had all but ruined our friendship for a while. I wasn’t ready to be wrong again.
“I get what you mean now. He’s infuriating,” he told me, snapping me out of my reverie. As far as I could remember, we had been walking in silence, not talking about anyone since we had bid farewell to the other boys. My confused look appeared to spur him on, as he continued to talk. “Alex. He’s infuriating. I hadn’t noticed it, but after last night, I know what you mean. Before he was your asshole ex I’d never met, now he’s your asshole ex who is actually part of our lives, actively upsetting you for his own ends.”
I shrugged, my mind doing exactly what I had trained it to do for two years and forcefully ignoring his existence. “He’s been an asshole since before we met, it’s old news to me now.”
“But it’s not for me. He hurt you worse than I can imagine, you think I don’t know that, but I always knew that. And now he’s back in your life and he just won’t stop staring at you.” I choked briefly on my own saliva, not knowing how to take that. Why would he be staring at me? As far as I could see, he was getting off on upsetting me, but you didn’t secretly stare at someone to upset them. You stared at someone you had a vested interest in. We weren’t even friends, so what did he care what I was up to? “I mean, I literally keep my hands on you at all times to see if it pushes his buttons. I wasn’t even going to play along with this, but fuck does he piss me off.”
“Like that’s the only reason you put your hands on me,” I tried to joke, nudging him with my hip. I honestly didn’t want to talk about this. It wasn’t hard to see that John hated Alex, I didn’t need a blow by blow on it.
“Holly, I’m serious.” I groaned at the look on his face, knowing now was not the time to continue to attempt to make jokes at him. “What the fuck did you see in this guy?”
“This isn’t the person I knew,” I told him quietly, somewhat unsure as to how I was supposed to explain something I’d felt two years ago. “He was sweet and he looked after his friends and me and I just… I don’t know what I used to see in him.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Look, I’ve gotta go. They’re opening the doors in a couple of minutes and you will be swarmed if you stay out here. Don’t let him get to you, alright?”
“Fine, but if he makes you cry again, I’m going to have to kick his ass.” I snorted, letting him have his moment. John couldn’t kick my ass, never mind another male who was his own size, but I’d let him have it for now.
The show was in full swing now and the boys had already been on and played a couple of songs while I took my chance to relax, all their fans having meandered off to watch them. John seemed less angry than he had when I’d left him, which I took as a good sign.
“So, have you guys ever been in a relationship where they piss you off like no other, but you can’t seem to let them go? Because they’re perfect?” John chuckled to himself at his words and I rolled my eyes. This was his intro to Everything I Ask For, and god damn, did I hate the ex he was referring to. Stuck up? Check. Hated me? Double-check. Miserable, despite what the song said? Triple-check. “This is about that girl. Hell, if they don’t piss you off, they aren’t worth it.”
I let out a small snort at his words, the last half being new compared to the introduction I’d heard previously. The boys kicked into the song and I returned my attention to my phone and my second day of ridiculous text message bombardment from Marissa. I loved her, I missed her, she was irritating as shit.
“She loves music, but she hates my band. Loves Blink, she’s their biggest fan. She’s not big on holding hands, but that’s alright, ‘cause I still got her.” I heard John switching up the lyrics and returned to listening to him, trying not to laugh. He was goading Alex with his words, and after last night’s shit show, I wasn’t going to stop him. If Alex thought I was pissed yesterday afternoon, then I don’t know what he would call the anger I felt today. I would have loved to have gone up there and told him to stop but, honestly, even if I could, I knew I wouldn’t. Pushing Alex’s buttons was becoming my favourite pastime. I watched him as he glanced away from the crowd to the side stage occasionally and I knew he had an audience. A potentially pissed off audience, but still.
I fired off a text to John half scolding him and half praising him for the antics he was currently getting up to, before settling back into my seat.
The next few hours went much the same as the previous night. Every Avenue and Mayday Parade were just as fantastic the second night in a row, if not more so because of the lack of tension I was feeling. I was fully prepared to enjoy the guys’ music tonight, whereas last night I’d been determined to ignore them by focussing on Marissa and her consistent text messages. Of course, life wasn’t going to make it that easy. I think for the first half an hour of their set, I heard The Party Scene and a couple of intros. Marissa and John were making life difficult by being wonderful best friends and texting me constantly about nothing at all. Almost literally nothing at all. I think my last text from John was about the nachos he was eating backstage, and my last text from Marissa literally said ‘omg. but what if we became a rugaru and sam and dean showed up?’ To which I had to respond with a loud ‘LALALALALA’, reminding her I hadn’t seen the previous night’s episode yet because, you know, drama.
“We know you guys like a good story,” Alex spoke up, somehow seeming louder than he had done only a few minutes ago. I didn’t know if I was imagining it, or if putting my phone down for longer than 20 seconds was somewhat of a help in actually hearing what was going on around me. “So, this next song is about a girl. It was a long ass time ago and, basically, when we got signed, Jack and I decided to take a road trip. Maria tagged along and so did her best friend, who, I guess, happened to be my girlfriend.”
“’Happened to be’, huh?” Jack chimed in. I could picture him rolling his eyes and smirking at Alex, though didn’t know if it would be in annoyance or amusement. Either way, I didn’t care. I was already beginning to scowl at Alex and wishing I was back to ten minutes ago when I’d had no expectations regarding Alex and his stupid reminders as to our history. It was exhausting.
“Yes, my girlfriend happened to be your girlfriend’s best friend. Bite me.” He was huffing into his microphone and I tried my best not to laugh once more. I told you, pushing Alex’s buttons was my favourite pastime, it didn’t matter if I wasn’t the one doing the pressing. “Anyway. We took a road trip and spent 36 hours sharing the driving and drinking way too much coffee and almost hating each other by the time we were done, but it was definitely one of the best weekends we’ve ever had. This is Vegas.”

Notes

This is literally half of what I wanted it to be. Two thirds of this was supposed to be a little introduction to the next chapter, and now you've somehow ended up with 2000 words of introduction and a small cliffhanger. I'm not even sorry.
Enjoy! <3