Oh, Calamity! » a.k

eight

after everyone arrives at the bus, the manager for parx calls and they have to leave.
as soon as they close the door, Alex walks up to me.

"How do you feel?", he asks.

"It feels like I have a 70lb tv on my chest.", I explain.

"How many pills did you take?", he asks worriedly.

"2."

"Well maybe they just need some time to kick in?", he suggests.

"As much as I appreciate the positivity, seasonal depression cannot be stopped by a single dosage of medicine. I should've gotten these weeks ago but I didn't feel any different so I thought maybe not this year.", I explain.

"What can we do? Are you going to leave tour? Does awsten know? Otto? Geoff?", he starts asking so many questions at once.

"Okay you're more worried about this than I am. There is nothing to do but moving forward. I know I'm going to be fucked up soon and I accept that. I am not going to leave tour because it will keep me going. Awsten and Otto don't know, I never told Geoff but he seems to know."

"Oh thank god you're not leaving. I couldn't handle worrying about you home alone constantly. Are you going to tell them?", he asks.

"They'll figure it out. I don't need to announce everything in my life, I'm not that important.", I say.

Before Alex can say anything I speak up again, "I think I'm gonna take a nap. Wake me up when we get to the venue please and thanks."

I grab my headphones, throw on sweat pants and a t-shirt, and climb into my bunk.
Then I plug in my phone and play music through my ear buds.

'No sad music', I think to myself because my brain was automatically going there.
I put my phone on shuffle and the first 70 songs I scroll through are sad.
I sigh and settle for watching family guy instead.
After tossing and turning for about two hours, I decide to just stop trying.

When I leave my bunk, I sit on the couch next to Jack.
I lay my head on his shoulder and stare at the tv but don't hear a single thing coming out of the speakers.

How the fuck am I going to do this?
I've never been on tour while in a depressive state before and I wasn't really planning on ever having to deal with that.
There's no way I can leave though, the sound guy was sick last night and if another bug is going around they will need someone to fill in. And I don't want to leave. Hanging out with ATL and Parx is so fun and I don't want to leave them and go home to sit in my room all day and stare at the ceiling.

I decide to take a nap. Alex tells Awsten, Geoff, and Otto that I'm not feeling too well and they decide to come back over and play video games.

After what seemed like 2 seconds of sleep, I'm waken up by a pair of blue and green eyes.

"What time is it?", I ask him.

"7am.", he says.

"Awsten, why did you wake me up?"

"Because you slept a long time and I wanted to make sure you were alive.", he explains.

I shoot up from my bunk.
"I missed the show. Fuck. Alex is going to hate me and then so are the rest of them and then I'll be sent home and have no friends and be alone.", I say, not even meaning to say it.

Instead of him being weirded out he says, "Actually he said he was fine with it because of something you're going through."

"Oh okay."

"Are you okay?", Awsten asks.

"Yeah.", i say not completely believing it.

"You're lying. What's wrong?", he asks.

"Nothing."

"If I can help you have to tell me, nova.", he harps

"Awsten, leave it be. I'm fine.", I say and grab my clothes, heading to the bathroom.
I feel bad for exploding out like that but he doesn't need to know why. He'll think I'm weird.

I put on leggings and a hoodie with yellow vans, not having enough energy to care about how I look.

I leave the bathroom and plop on the couch next to Otto.

We sit in silence until the bus comes to a stop and we arrive at the venue.

I immediately leave, feeling like everyone is staring and judging.
I pull almost everything out of the ATL trailer by myself and load it backstage.

For the rest of the show, I sit in All Time Low's dressing room.
We joke back and forth and then Alex asks me, "Oh my god, Nov. If you don't tell Awsten to stop texting me about you I'm gonna stab him with a fork."

"What does he want?", I ask.

"To know what's wrong with you."

"Stab him with a fork."

"Why don't you tell him?", Rian asks.

"Because not everything is about me and it doesn't need to be. I'm gonna go set up, I think they're done playing.", i excuse myself.

As I get closer to the stage, I see the 3 boys.

"Awsten, stop texting Alex about it. It is no big deal and there's nothing you, or anyone, can do to help me.", i say and walk on to the stage with smoke machines.

The audience cheers as I come into their vision.
I smile, wave, and continue to set up the stage.
Afterwards, I go backstage and run into Awsten.

"I'm gonna find out and help you, whether you like it or not.", he says as he walks by.

I turn around.
"Give it a break. I don't want to say anything, why can't you leave it at that!"

"Because I care about you and I want to help you."

"I don't want your help. You can't do anything! No one can!"

"Why do you say that?"

"Because it's something I can't change.", i say getting quieter.
I noticed that even if I was loud, he stayed calm.

"Nova, I lo-like you, I can't say that about a lot of people. I care about you. I want to be able to help you, but I can't if you won't tell me.", he explains.

I sigh.
"Fine. I have seasonal depression. There, happy?", I walk away, with tears building because of the fear he'll think I'm weird now.

I go into All Time Low's dressing room, one part of me wanted him to follow me, and the other part didn't.

"You good?", Alex asks.

"Yeah, I just pretty much yelled it at Awsten."
My heart sinks when I hear them go on stage.

"Hey y'all. This first one is Stupid For You.", he says and they begin to play.

"You're red, I'm natural blue. Let's come together and be purple like my insides.", he changes the lyrics.

My eyes almost pop out of my head, Rian lights up the state with his smile, and the rest of the band cheers.

"He likes you!"

"He probably just feels bad or something.", I say trying not to get my hopes up.

After they finish that song, I go to side stage.

Awsten looks over at me and says into the mic, "I hope you guys aren't getting sick of the love songs because this next one is called Lucky People."

He looks over at me several times during the song.
Maybe he does like me?