Addicted (Andy Biersack)

Chapter Twenty-four

"Can't you at least give us an address? Or the name of the city you're going to?" Mom pleaded with me for the umpteenth time that day.

"I already told you a million times, mom. I want to experience being unable to rely on my parents. I'm 22, for Christ's sake. I can't keep living like this. When you were my age, you two were married and had a child. I need to learn how to be an adult," I told her, honestly exasperated at this point.

"You don't have to move to a whole other continent to be able to learn that!" She yelled, her voice cracking because of the un-shed tears.

"Mom, I thought you were okay with it when we were in New York?"

"Because I still had two days with my baby girl. And now we only have an hour left," she said.

"Mom, I'll call you every day, okay? It's not like we've never been long distance before. I've attended a Uni at the other end of the country these past four years," I tried comforting her.

"Yeah, but at least I knew you were on the same continent. This is different. What if something happens to you?"

"Jesus, mom, I am an adult. And I'll be back in the States someday. It's not like I'm going away forever."

"But what if you meet someone there and decide to spend the rest of your life in England?"

"I really doubt that. I'm never dating again."

"Sure," dad muttered under his breath. This was the first time he's spoken to me in two days. He was taking the news a lot harder than mom. It broke my heart to see him so pissed off that he would refuse to talk to me. I've never been on non-speaking terms with him before.

"Look, you're definitely gonna be on tour over there at least once. Mom, you and Dorian could always fly out with him. I can still meet up with you then. We live in the 21st century. It's not impossible to remain in contact. Just stop it, both of you. I don't want to spend the last hour here fighting with you."

"You should have thought about that before giving us only a two days' notice before leaving," dad said angrily. I just sighed in frustration, not knowing what else to say. And so, we spent the time we had left exchanging angry looks, with the occasional sob escaping mom's lips.

After our farewells, I boarded the plane. When we took off, I put in my earphones and had my phone play the music on shuffle. This was the first time I was alone since the whole graduation fiasco. I did a good job holding my emotions in for a good 15 minutes before one of Andy's songs started playing. And slowly, all of my walls crumbled, one by one. The other passengers kept sending me weird looks as I cried.

The sound of his voice transported me to New York and our very last interaction. He came to my room that same night when I found out about him and mom.

There was a knock on my door. Molly had just left, so there was almost no chance that it was her. That left my other three friends or Adam. I prayed to every god there was that it wasn't Adam. I slowly opened the door to see who it was. It didn't even cross my mind that it could be him. He caught me by surprise. Before I regained my composure and could slam the door in his face, he was already inside the room, holding my hands and asking me to look at him.

I tore my hands away from him and crossed my arms. "What do you want?" I asked through gritted teeth. A look of remorse painted itself on his face. "I want to talk," he said. I shook my head at him and told him there was nothing to talk about.

"Josie, please. Let me explain," he pleaded.

"Andy, there is nothing you can say that's going to change the fact that you used to have sex with my mother! How am I supposed to be okay with that?" I yelled.