My Understandings

“Okay we obviously have a lot to discuss, first, Miley.” She nods. We are currently seated in the back lounge, having a band meeting. Everyone is in their Pj’s and is drinking some alcohol beverage of sort. She takes the empty bottle and spins it, landing it on who gets to go first. It lands on Ryan.
“Cool beans. Okay, I have only one thing to say, Andy. He’s becoming a real ass and I think he’s stealing my weed bro.” he huffs. Max snickers at him, his curls bouncing. Ryan raises his hand and smacks Max upside the head. “I’m serious. He’s becoming a problem.” I nod and write it down on a notepad. Ryan spins the bottle and it lands on Miley. She quickly ties her multicolored hair into a sloppy bun and begins to rant.
“I, too, also have a problem with Andy. Today, he picked a random fight with me, that’s why I was trying to choke him.” The image replayed in my head. I walk back to my bus to find Miley straddled on his waist, hands around throat, while Andy himself was trying to push her away. His was face palming her, shoving her face away, but that didn’t stop her from chocking him. It took three WCAR guys and Beau to pull her off.
“He was talking about the fact that he hooked up with the chick at a bar and then had to nerve to say he had to explain some stuff to you. He then called me a nit-wit and that is when the fight came on.” I nod and write this down. So far I have a chart. One it is two categories. Andy and Other. So far, two votes for Andy. She spins the bottle and gratefully, it landed on Max. I had too much to say. But it was a little off that every meeting we have, I always goes last.
“Hey, guys. I it just me or the fact that every meet we have I always go last?” I look into their eyes for answers. Miley looked me dead in the eye, she has a good poker face. Next was Ryan. It was hard to tell because his pupils weren’t even dilated. I shoot my glare at Max and his eyes widen in fear.
That’s right, come clean.
After a minute he cracks.
“Okay! Okay! Just stop giving me The Look!” he reached into his pocket and dumped out five magnets. “Gigs up Ryan.” Miley says. They too empty the contents of their pockets. All of them magnets.
“So you all use magnets to attract the bottle?” the all nod in agreement.
“Yup.” Max said popping the “p”. “We figure you always have the most stuff to say, so it’s better if you go last.” Even though it’s true, I couldn’t help feel quite embarrassed by this. My mom would tell me this all the time. As she quote, I was quite the talker.
“Well, I do have something to discuss.” My best friends groaned and took another swig of their alcohol. “Well, first, I want to come clean about something.”
“YES! Finally!” Ryan yells out of nowhere. We all give him questioning looks.
“Ryan, I didn’t do any pot or weed so calm your horses.” His gaze shifted as he slumped down. “Horses calmed.” I took a deep breath. I was getting ready to tell them about me and Andy. I opened my mouth and everything came rushing out. I explained why I went to Andy for comfort, after the rape, I explained everything and at the end, Miley was furious.
“I’m going to fuck that fucker!” she got up, but I shot Ryan a look and he grabbed Miley’s hand. She composes herself and sits back down on the pillow.
“We can settle that later. Right now, I want to finish my band meeting.” She nodded, but avoided my stare. No doubt in mind she’s mad at me. “I want to suggest our order. I was thinking, we could, you know, keep Miley as a clean vocalist, Ryan is still backing vocals and I can be an unclean vocalist. Until we get a keyboard player, Max could be a backing vocalist too?” the tension in the air between us quickly vanished as it appeared. Max was chuckling quietly to himself and Miley was staring at him.
“You don’t get it do you?” it was more of a statement than a question.
“Get what?”
“Ell, we love having you as our main vocalist.”
“But, I feel like Max doesn’t get his fair share of, I don’t know, fame? It’s always the three of us.” “Ellie, I love just being the drummer. I don’t want as much fame as you guys. I’m fine as it is. And when we get a keyboard player, I won’t be alone. Ellie, we admire how you switch from sounding like Kellin Quinn to screaming your heart out like Jared Warth. We like our set as it is. Though it’s nice to know you actually think about us.” I blush at this statement and quickly flip my hair to hide my face.
“Okay and also, Tonight Alive has been confirmed for the Headline tour. We’ll do a couple cities in the U.S and a city or two in England, one in Australia then we’re home. Also! Our album has been completed. The demo has been sent and the artwork has been printed! As soon as we go to L.A, we’ll go there to discuss some things, get signed, and then we work on our first music video!” I exclaimed. I’m so excited for what lies ahead of us. the songs on the album includes; Beautiful Lie
Dark In My Imagination
Life As We Know It
Stuck On You
A Thousand Years
Waiting (Cover)
Underneath Every Smile (Cover)
Lights (Punk Goes Pop)
Beautiful Lie (Acoustic)
“A video for which song?” Max asks as he pops some candy in his mouth.
“Stuck On You. Since so many people liked it.” They all nodded. “We still don’t know if All Time Low is participating on the tour or not, but of course Of Mice & Men are.”
“Well, band meeting adjourned. Now let’s go to bed.” Max and Ryan got up and left. Leaving me in a very awkward situation. The air was filled with silence, you could cut it with a knife. Miley got up, getting ready to climb the bunk when I called her.
“Miley?” I wasn’t going to sleep in the bunks tonight. I’m going to watch some movies and crash on the living room. Well, not really. I go into the living room, ball myself up in the corner on the floor and cry myself to sleep.
“Yes Ellie.”
“I’m sorry.” She didn’t respond so I took this as my sign to leave. I sit on the couch, not bothering to turn on the television. Instead, images from that night replay in my head. If I wasn’t trying to be a cocky bitch, I would’ve left and probably none of this would ever happen. People are saying that I’m strong to keep smiling, but this is just a fake smile. I’ve used it so much, people believe it’s real. I put my hand to my cheek and I could feel where he hit me at. Suddenly, the air has become very thick. I begin to wheeze. Oh, God. I’m having an anxiety attack. I claw at my chest, grasping for any sort of air to enter my lungs. But it wasn’t my hands clawing at my chest, it was Josh’s. he’s raping me again. I fall to the ground and begin to shake, clawing at any source of help. My hands come in contact with my phone and I dial a random number from my contact list.
~Austin~
I was lying in my bunk, staring at the ceiling trying to get some rest. But my nerves wouldn’t let me. In two days, we would be flying out to L.A and I would watch my best friend get singed to a record label and their career will be taking off. My phone began to vibrate under my pillow. I wonder who would be calling me this late at night.
“Hello?” I heard wheezing in the background. Someone is trying to breathe.
“A-Au-Austin!” the voice croaked. Their breathing became short pants. “Austin!” the voice cried. I voice that I loved dearly.
“Ellie? What’s happening? Are you okay?”
“I can’t-breathe-no-air!” she can’t breathe? The last time I heard that was when she had her………oh. My. Jesus.
“You’re having an anxiety attack?! Oh lawd! Ellie! Ellie?” the line became very quiet. But I could hear her shallow breathing. “Ellie, listen to my voice princess. When I say go, breathe in, ready go.”
“No-air!” she croaked.
“Princess, there is air just-”
“His hands! He’s raping me again!” she frantically yelled. “No air!”
“Elizabeth!” I snapped in a sturdy tone. “Listen to my voice.” It was quite. “He’s not there. You’re just imaging it. Now listen to me, there is air. You have to find it. Now breathe in.” more pants. “Elizabeth,…..breathe in.” after a couple seconds of silence, I heard the quiet shaky intake of breathe. “Now release.” I heard the shaky breath being released. I did the same actions telling her to breathe for about five minutes when she calmed. It was quite for a while. We were both still on the phone, just listening to each other’s heartbeat. After six or so minutes, I spoke up. “Why did you call me and not one of your band members?” I asked.
“You understand me better. The last time I had an attack was when-”
“Your father died. David was bomb-shelled drunk, trying to drink away the problem, which only cause you to panic more because-”
“I thought I was gonna lose my brother too.” She finished. Once again the quite overcame us. it wasn’t an awkward silence. It wasn’t because we didn’t know what to say, heck, we have so much we can talk about. We just didn’t want to talk. Our breathing presence was doing most of the talking. I began to hear quite sobs coming from the other end.
“Austin, I’m scared. What if the attacks never stop? What if-what if-”
“Shhhh. Don’t think that way.” I said, while trying to not let her hear my voice crack. Whenever she would cry, I would cry with her. Especially with the death of my……mother. I was a fucking wreck and the only person I allowed to see me cry was Ellie because she understood. To loose someone close to you. Now whenever I hear her cry, I cry too.
“You’re never gonna lose me.” I whispered, hoping she didn’t hear me.
“Austin?” the quite voice asked.
“Hmmm?”
“I’m tired.”
“Then get some sleep princess.”
“But I wanna keep talking to you.” And so we did. We did a catch up over the two years. I got to know some habits of hers. Like smoking, the fact that she’s still bulimic and she cuts, the fake smile she pulls through, of course, I knew it was fake, David and his girlfriend. She wanted to know if I was bored of her talking, but I shushed her and told her to finish with her story. She wasn’t the fragile 23 year old I stupidly left. No, she wasn’t the love struck 21 year old I met years ago. No. She’s a very strong 25 year old who’s been fighting a battle for too long. Soon enough, I heard soft snores coming from her end of the line, indicating that she fell asleep. but I wanted to hear her breathing, so I fell asleep to, phone on speaker. I fell asleep to the quite snores from my Ice Princess.

Notes