Hidden Girl

41- More Than This

Azalea tried to tell me how big High Fliers has gotten but I didn't normally listen. I hung out with Sebastian but none of the other boys knew I was back. They don't need to know either.

"Just this one gig," Azalea pleas. "Please?"

"Fine but just make sure he doesn't see me," I finally cave in. I might as well see him, just he can't see me. I need to know that he's okay. He still means the world to me.

"Fine," she replies angrily. "I picked you out an outfit. It's on your bed."

I nod my head and head up to my room. The shirt that Azalea bought me makes me smile. She knows me too well.

It's a black tank top that looks like Luke Hemmings's shirt. It says "You complete mess" in white text and she paired it with jean shorts. The tank top shows my tattoo and fits me perfectly.

"Thanks for the shirt," I tell Azalea with a big smile once I head downstairs. She stands there looking cute as always.

"Anytime." She smiles and we hop in the car. She drives us to the venue and I'm surprised to see it's a building that is just made for music, not like a bar or pub.

We actually pay for their tickets but it really isn't that much. We walk into the stage area and it is just a really large room with high tables and bar stools with most chairs turned to face the stage at the far side of the room. We take a seat in the back in the middle.

A steady stream of people come in and I recognize a lot from high school. I see Katherine loudly walk in and take a seat towards the front with her friends that are equally as annoying. Azalea and I both role our eyes at them.

"Oh and I did invite Jenny over,"Azalea says shyly but I smile at her, the opposite of what she thought my reaction was going to be.

At that moment I hear a scream and I turn around to see Jenny shoving past people to reach us. She looks exactly the same. I jump off the chair just as Jenny came hurtling at me.

"I'm gonna kill you for not talking to me while you were away!" Jenny screams at me as she hugs the living daylights out of me.

"I'm sorry I'm sorry," I repeat over and over again as I hold my friend close to me. "It will never happen again."

"It better not."

We catch up on what I've missed until the lights dim. We hear a single guitar chord being strummed. The lights come onto the stage and my heart stops.

He stands there smiling down at the crowd with a wide grin. Everyone cheers loudly for them and I hear Alex laugh. He looks almost the same as when I left.

His hair is the same, dresses like he normally would in skinny jeans and a t-shirt, and he stands the same as he always did when he held his guitar.

"I never actually expected anyone to come," Sebastian as he strums his guitar.

"Same here," Alex says with a smile and I can immediately tell the difference that I didn't notice before.

It's in his eyes. They used to glimmer with his happiness but they seemed, for use of words, dead. There was no sparkle. He looked like he could barely smile. But he carried on no matter what as he sang out.

She's all laid up in bed with a broken heart,
While I'm drinking jack all alone in my local bar,
And we don't know how,
How we got into this mad situation,
Only doing things out of frustration

Trying to make it work but man these times are hard

I find myself lost in the words that Alex sings, song after song. He avoids the bands that hang on his wall on his posters since he is not going to sing something that reminds him of his dad, but he obviously has no problem singing songs that remind him of us or of just me.