Outside

34

The weeks were flying by so fast and before any of us knew it, we were on the third week of tour, which meant we had a week break coming up.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't dreading the break, I hadn't spent much time with Van as he was doing show after show, and I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to hide my suspicions of who he was calling almost every night at midnight on the balcony.

It wasn't that I didn't trust Van, it was more that I didn't know if I wanted to. Of course I knew he was an angel in the form of a man, but it didn't rid me of the voice in the back of my head telling me he had someone else. I knew the only way of finding out was just to ask him, and I knew that relationships never work unless things are talked about, but I just couldn't bring myself to ask him if he was cheating on me.

We were moving from hotel to hotel, and each one had a balcony where Van would spend an hour or two almost every night talking on the phone to whoever 'N' was, and it was worrying me to my core. I couldn't fight the feeling in the pit of my stomach, the fear I had been feeling for the three weeks that had past since I saw that letter on my boyfriend's phone screen.

"Y'alright?" Larry startled me with his hand on my shoulder, he followed my eyes with his own and found me staring out at the man with his arms resting on the railing of the balcony with a cigarette hanging from his lips.

"Yeah, just bored is all" I lied. I knew he could see right through me, Larry wasn't the type to let things go easily, he was the type to question you until he got an answer he was satisfied with.

"Don't worry about him Lyla, he's just been busy with the label and his parents calling him twenty-four seven" Larry said sweetly and walked out onto the balcony to meet with Van.

They're eyes locked onto mine at the same time and I quickly turned around and headed straight for the door, I couldn't bare the thought of Van finding out that I was beginning to lose trust in him without me actually telling him.

Truth is, Van has been stressed for a few weeks now, I was starting to think that maybe it was just the label calling, maybe it was just his parents giving him a hard time. But it didn't stop me from glancing back to the balcony every time he was out their with tears in my eyes and doubt in my mind.

It was hard not to think about, I tried to tell myself it was nothing and I tried to stop it from bothering me, but the curiosity just built up more and more each time he ditched me for the phone.

I thought about what Lois said, Van loves me, he would never do anything to hurt me and he would die before he cheated. I replayed her words in my head over and over until I believed them.

I was sitting in the lounge of the hotel we were staying at for the next few nights, scrolling through my instagram, trying to find something to distract me from the stress I'd been feeling lately, when Van came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my shoulders and kissing my neck.

"Ryan, stop that" I giggled, putting my phone down and turning my head to kiss his soft lips.

"I know I know, you hate public affection" He laughed, jumping over onto the sofa like a child to join me, he was all happy as Larry for a few seconds but then his face gradually dropped and a frown gradually formed, "so I noticed you've been kinda distant lately, is everything okay?"

I knew this question was coming sooner or later, I always ditched the conversation before those words could come out of his mouth, but I didn't have the energy to avoid him today. I felt like it was time to ask him about 'N'.

"Everything's fine! It's just that you've been on the phone a lot and I guess I've just been thinking too deeply into it and wondering who it is that's calling you almost every night?" I took a deep breath, said my bit and looked down at the chipped paint on my finger nails to avoid seeing the twinkle in his eyes fade away when he realised I'd been stressing over him.

"Lyla baby, why didn't you just talk to me about it? I promise you it's nothing to worry about" He said, his soft and delicate voice instantly soothed me and almost rid me of any doubt I had about us. "But if I tell you who's calling me, you gotta promise you'll let me finish before you get mad, yeah?"

"I promise" I said, holding up my little finger and wrapping it around his.

"Nyree has been calling, asking how we all are, she knows about you and she swore on her grave she wasn't trying anything, she was simply just wondering what we were all up to" he said, looking at his suede boots, unzipping them and then zipping them back up, "you have to understand that she's a childhood friend to Larry and I, we can't just forget about her and remove her from our lives just because of a breakup"

He refused to look at me, if I was him I'd do the same thing. My eyes were watering so much that it was difficult to stop the tears from streaming down my cheeks and falling onto the blue jumper I had in my lap ready to put on when we went out. I didn't even know why I was crying, Van just told me I had nothing to worry about, so why was I still worried?

"Darlin' don't cry, please, I promise you... You're the only girl I have eyes for, I would never do anything to hurt you" He held my face in the palm of his hand and shuffled closer to me, pulling me into his chest and rubbing my arm. "It wasn't always her though, sometimes it was my parents, sometimes it was the label"

"I love you Lyla, only you" He whispered, kissing the top of my head as I rested it on his shoulder.

I felt so pathetic, crying into my boyfriends embrace about something that wasn't even worth crying over. I knew I had nothing to worry about, Nyree knew about me. Van loved me. I was safe in his arms with the knowledge that he would never hurt me. But still, I felt so weird about the late night calls, hearing him laugh so loudly on the balcony as it echoed through the city. Watching him pace up and down, waving his hands around, smiling as he talked to his ex girlfriend. It just didn't sit right with me at all, but who was I to tell him who he could call? Who was I to tell him not to talk to a childhood friend?

I was nobody in his huge life. I held no significance in his ever growing dream of becoming a world known rockstar. I was just a girl tagging along because she had nothing going for her. A girl who abandoned her parents for a boy who still told his ex girlfriend to have 'sweet dreams' over the phone as he looked out into the lit up City of New York.