Lily Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts

Therapy

Dedication is to XXDREAMLARGEXX for inspiring me to update once again, and for being the first person to comment on this story. Once again, for me to update again, I'm going to need one vote or one comment. Sorry, guys, but I'm not going to update if nobody is reading. Anyways, here's the new chapter. I hope you like it.

As it turned out, I didn’t get to talk to Jack after the show. By the time I had left the stage after Remembering Sunday and the rest of the band and rejoined their singer, I was exhausted, sweaty, and ready sleep. However, I still had a Meet & Greet to do.

I mean, not that I was complaining or anything, but I was really, really sleepy. So a shower and Monster would have to suffice until I could collapse in my surprisingly comfortable bunk on the bus. The shower the bus had didn’t have any hot water, and also had really crappy water pressure, but I was assured by the nice people that worked with the venue that were helping us out for this show until our own crew met us in San Francisco that the shower there was excellent.

And it so was. Soon, I was feeling refreshed and a lot more awake than I was before my shower, and I also managed to sneak into the bus and grab a Monster I had stored in the fridge before All Time Low’s set was over. Score.

“There’s a story at the bottom of this bottle…” I heard Alex’s voice ring out right when I reached my previous position side stage. I frowned, upset that I had missed Dear Maria, but quickly got over it when I realized that I would have 6 months worth of chances to hear the boys play.

One by one, the boys left the stage, each playing a short little riff, or in Rian’s case, banging on the drums really loudly, and then dropping their picks/drumsticks/shirts/unopened water bottles into the crowd. The band quickly made their way off stage, each gave me a quick hug (Jack’s was a little bit longer than the rest) and hit the showers, saying that they would meet me backstage.

I rolled my eyes at their forgetfulness, but I really didn’t care honestly. How could I meet them backstage when my M&G was right after they got off stage?

After finding some helpful signs leading to another room that Flyzik told me the M&G would take place, I stopped outside the door. I could already hear a bunch of people. Maybe they didn’t know that All Time Low’s M&G wasn’t for another hour? I braced myself to give them the bad news as I stepped into the door.

Almost immediately cheers and screams assaulted my ears. Once they died down a little bit I smiled at the line of people leading up to a table with four seats on it. These people really were dedicated.

“Uh, you all know that All Time Low’s M&G is in an hour, right?” I asked, raising my voice only a little to be heard through the crowd.

“Well, duh!” A girl exclaimed, looking to be about sixteen, wearing what appeared to be a homemade shirt with some of my lyrics on them in colorful letters. “We’re here for you, though!”

I almost choked on my own spit as more people cheered in agreement. There was no way they were all here for me. “Wow. That’s a lot of people,” I laughed, making my way towards the table and taking a seat. “Well, let’s get this started then.”

A security guard stoically ushered the first person in line out of the red velvet rope holding the rest of the people back, and the boy, easily no more than 19 years old, walked over to me eagerly, with tears in his eyes.

“Oh, wow. Are you okay?” I asked immediately, frowning.

“I- I’m fine,” he choked out. “C-can I have a hug?”

I wasted no time in climbing over the table to give him a proper hug. The boy clung to me tightly, sobbing into my arms. My heart was breaking for this kid.

He pulled away after a few moments, looking me in the eyes with a smile and wiping the tears from his pretty blue eyes. “I-I’m sorry. It’s just that your music and your videos have helped me so much in these past couple years. I, uh, recently came out to my family as gay, and they weren’t all that supportive, so I, uh…” He lifted up the sleeve of his arm to show me cuts and burns marring his forearm. I put a hand to my mouth to stop a gasp from escaping. Shit. Kids weren’t supposed to do this…

“What’s your name, sweetie?” I asked softly.

“B-Brandon.”

I smiled at him. “Hey, Brandon. It’s nice to meet you. Can I tell you a story?”

He nodded eagerly. “Okay. The name Waiting for Charlie actually does have a meaning to it. When I was younger, I had a best friend named Charlie. He was basically my only friend. We were like brother and sister. I knew he was depressed, and I had to stop him multiple times from cutting himself and from committing suicide.” It was safe to say at this point I was crying just as hard as Brandon was. The entire room was silent, listening to me talk. “One day, after twelve solid years of friendship, Charlie told me that he was going to take a walk into the woods, but it was something he wanted to do alone. He hadn’t been suicidal in a long time at that point, and he didn’t really seem that depressed anymore.

“So I let him go. I let him walk away from me that day. I went home and I waited for Charlie to come back home so that we could have our usual sleepover on a Friday night. After waiting for two hours, I left my house to go find him. I went on our usual trail into the woods, and after walking for about an hour, I found him hanging from a tree. He left no note, except for a carving on the tree that said, ‘I’m sorry, Lily.’

“Charlie broke my heart that day. I broke my heart that day. I lost my best friend, and although I never told him, I lost the love of my life.” I grabbed Brandon’s shaking hands in my own, ignoring the tears running down my cheeks. “Listen to me, Brandon. I lost Charlie that day, and it was all my fault. I will not lose anybody else. I don’t care what time it is, I don’t care if you think you’re bothering me or not, but you find me online, you send me a message, and I will help you. I promise.” I turned to the line, noticing that some kids had their cameras out and were recording the whole thing, but not really caring. “That goes for all of you guys, too. I won’t let any fans of mine ever hurt themselves. If you ever need me, I will always respond, okay? And if I don’t, don’t you dare give up. You keep trying to reach me. I will always answer.”

Without any warning, I heard some clapping from behind me. I whirled around to face Jack Barakat grinning and clapping for me, then jumping over the table to hug me. The entire crowd aw’ed at the sight as Jack bent at the knees to whisper in my ear.

“As amazing as this is, you really need to speed this up. You just spent ten minutes with a single fan, and there’s still about a hundred or so waiting for you.”

I shivered at the feeling of his breath hitting my neck, but held onto him still. “How much did you hear?” I whispered back.

“All of it. I’m sorry, Lily.” He replied, letting go of me and smiling at me as if nothing was wrong, then turning to the crowd. “Are you all ready to meet this sexy thing called Lily Sparrow?”

The crowd cheered, and he gently led me back behind the table, sitting down on my original seat and pulling me down to sit on his lap. I sat down in a daze, suddenly in complete awe that this had actually happened.

I saw Brandon turning to leave, and called out to him, making him turn back around and face me.

“Promise me, Brandon.”

The nineteen year old grinned and waved at me. “I promise, Lily.”

“And Brandon?” Jack called out from behind me, moving his head so Brandon could look at him in the eyes.

“Yeah?”

“You kiss as many boys as you want and fuck everybody else.” Jack said, wrapping his arms around me and winking at the boy.

As Brandon laughed and walked away, prompting the next person in line to walk over to me shyly, I realized something very important. Jack had me on his lap and was basically cuddling with me, and I didn’t care at all.