Do it for the memories and for Baltimore

Chapter 49

Wednesday May 11 2016

Its been a month since I've left who I thought could possibly my soulmate. And what a month it's been. I can't lie and say that I wasn't sad at all. In fact, I cried for the first three days back home. It was especially hard since all of his stuff was at the house. So I threw myself into my work, kept myself out of the house whenever I could, and about a week after returning home, I was almost back to normal. But you cant help but miss the man you're used to seeing every single day.

I hadn't actually heard directly from Alex except for one day where he just texted me 'are you doing okay?', but other than that, I only heard from Jack, Zack, and Rian a few times. They obviously mentioned that Alex wasn't doing that well with the way that I left on a bad note. They had their last show of the tour in Baltimore tonight and would return to their homes right after. Although I don't know where Alex would be going. Part of me was almost expecting him to come here tonight even though I had told him not to. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if he did.

——————

Alex's POV

"Thank you Baltimore, good night!!" I yelled into my microphone once we ended our set. Jack flew past me wearing a rainbow polka-dotted bra over his eyes. Typical.

Once we threw out our picks, drum sticks, and setlists out to our amazing audience, we cleared the stage.

"Another tour in the books!" Rian shouted grabbing a beer from his drum tech.

"We get to go home tonight, boys!" Zack chimed in.

Everybody cheered together, until Zack turned to me and immediately stopped, everyone else stopping as well and going to clean things up.

I've gotta say that each night was a struggle. Playing shows to all our fans was truly my love and passion in life, but knowing that my relationship wasn't the strongest it could be, was getting hard for me to continue to be the happiest when I played. My appearance over the last month has definitely changed too. Once Rachel left, I found myself getting lazy day after day and it didn't take a long time for me to only wear sweats everywhere except for playing shows, get bigger bags under my eyes and stop shaving. Seriously, I grew an actual beard.

And now I've gotta face the problem of finding somewhere to stay off tour. The thought of just showing up at mine and Rachel's house tonight has crossed my mind a few times, but she was the one that said I shouldn't come home, so I respected her wish.

Then my skunk-haired best friend asked the question someone was bound to ask right about now, "so where are you staying tonight Alex?"

Then it happened. I broke down for the first time since Rachel's been gone. Like some emotional girl watching The Notebook, I let it all come out. Not in front of all my band and crew though. I had retreated back to our dressing room to wallow in my sadness. Fuck, this is so hard. Why the hell didn't I just tell Rachel about mine and Tay's past in the first place? What if I lost her for good?

I didn't realize how long I must have been in the dressing room because when my band mates came to get me, the crew was just about done packing things up.

"You alright, man?" Zack asked and sat beside me on the couch.

I sniffled and rubbed at my eyes, "no."

"I'm sorry dude. But maybe you should go there tonight?" Jack suggested.

"No. She said I shouldn't. I gotta respect her wish. I was the one that screwed up anyways."

"You can stay at my house for a while, until things settle down and you guys get talking again" Rian suggested.

"If it wouldn't be too much trouble, then that would be great" I said hoping that Rian would in fact let me crash at his place while this went on. I hoped it wouldn't go on for long though.

"Dont worry dude. I got your back."

"Thanks Rian."

———————

I was grateful that Rian let me stay at his place once the tour was over, but now a week into being back home in Baltimore, I was itching to talk to Rachel and patch things up. Being so close to her now, only made things that much harder. Rian's house literally was 15 minutes away from our house. And things weren't much easier forgetting about relationships and couples when I'm in the same house as Rian and Cassadee. She's visiting him for a month or so. They held back from their couple-y things when they were around me out of respect to my current state, but knowing that they were doing great in their relationship made it difficult for me.

I had sent a text to Rachel just yesterday asking if she wanted to go out for ice cream and talk things out, but to my luck, she had responded 'I'm just not ready to see you yet'. Our relationship has been on hold for over a month now and it hurt to even think that we were on a break.

I was sitting on the bed in the guest room where I called home for these past 7 days, trying to let out thoughts in my head onto paper. Somehow, I had a feeling this could turn into a song. I heard footsteps approaching so I closed my book momentarily. "Hey Alex, wanna come to Jack's tonight? We're going to watch a couple of movies and have some beers. They'd love to see you" Rian said as him and Cassadee entered the room.

"I think I'll pass on that tonight, guys"

"Oh come on Alex, come have a few drinks with everyone, it'll get your mind off things" Cassadee tried to persuade me.

"Nah, not tonight Cass. It's fine though, go on, I'll be fine here." I insisted.

"Okay, well you know where we're be. See you later dude" Rian said waving goodbye with Cassadee following behind.

I spent that night doing nothing exciting. I found a Spiderman movie marathon on tv so I at least had something to watch. But once again I was feeling like an emotional girl when there were scenes with Peter Parker and Gwen Stacey together. It was as if once Rachel and I were on a break, I was bombarded with couples everywhere.

I made a call to a familiar place, and although it was late at night, I left a message. I placed an order for someone on my mind. I was hoping that this small show of affection would help me in my troubles.