I walked out of a stall in the ladies room to find a girl who looked about fifteen crying into her friend’s shoulder, crumpled on the floor at their feet. Making a split second decision to mind my own business so I didn’t get left at the airport by the guys, I washed my hands and dried them. I grabbed my stuff and as I headed for the door I heard, “Oh my god, Raegan Jones.”

Stopping in my tracks, I turned back to see both the girls standing in shock, smiles creeping onto their faces.

“Hey!” I said awkwardly hoping this wasn’t going to take too long. I had been pushing it running into the bathroom in the first place. “What’s up?”

“I’m sorry I’m crying.” One of the girls said with a sniffle and a giggle. “I’m just so upset I didn’t get to give Austin my gift.”

My eyes found the crumpled gift bag at her feet and I sighed.

“I don’t have a lot of time. The vans are going to leave me here if I don’t hurry up, but I can get that to him.” I said pointing at the bag.

“Really?” The girl asked looking completely shocked. Her friend leaned down and handed it to me, each of them running forward and throwing their arms around me.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” They were saying.

I hugged them back smiling brightly at both of them.

“Can you have him tweet us?” They asked. “Just so we know he got it. It’s something special we
made for him for his mom.”

“Of course.” I said nodding. “He’s going to love it.”

I quickly said my goodbyes to the girls and broke into a fast paced walk as I headed for the spot I was supposed to meet everyone.

“Austin!” I screamed not thinking this would be the first time anyone heard any sort of communication between us in months. Alan’s eyes went wide with shock and some people stopped and turned around. Austin looked at me like he was embarrassed I was talking to him in public after the other night. I couldn’t help but think of how much it hurt to see the look on his face.

“What?” He asked his voice had a bit of an edge to it that took me by surprise.

“Here.” I said shoving the bag at him with a little more force than necessary. “This is from one of your fans. I found her crying in the bathroom over you.”

His features softened as he took the bag from me and slowly opened it. I noticed the heart necklace I had gotten him for Christmas hung from his neck.

“Thank you, Rae.” He said giving me a sad smile as he opened his gift.

“Don’t mention it…” I said not sticking around to see what it was. I made my way over to Alan who threw an arm over my neck as we walked out of the airport in and into the bright Melbourne sunshine. “He’s wearing my necklace…” I mumbled.

“He’s not over you. I told you.” Alan said as we strolled along the sidewalk towards the van.

“He came to my room, fucked me, hasn’t spoken to me since, and looked embarrassed that I just openly spoke to him in a public place…he’s gone Alan.”

“Rae, you don’t know that.” Alan said as I stepped out from under his arm and left him on the sidewalk. I found a seat towards the back of the bus, knowing Austin would take the front. Alan
plopped down next to me a moment later. “You don’t know that, Rae.”

“I have a good hunch.” I said with a roll of my eyes.

&&&&&&&&&&

“Rae, you’re not coming!” Alex said fixing his hair in the bathroom mirror.

“But why?”

“Because, you get up to no good when you drink.” He said waving his hands at me.

“Alex, I’m not going to drink. I just want to come. I don’t want to sit in the hotel room by myself again.”

“Rae, I’m just looking out for you.” He said giving me a sad smile.

“I’m going. I can handle myself.” I said turning on my heel and slamming the hotel door behind me.

Everyone was planning to hit the bars that night, and I didn’t want to be left behind for a few reasons. One, because it was just plain boring…and two because I had a plan up my sleeve to get information out of drunk Austin.

I stormed off to Alan’s room where I had left some of my stuff to finish getting ready. He, Aaron and
Phil had gotten into the mini bar a little bit before hand.

“How’d that go?” Alan asked as I leaned in his mirror doing my makeup.

“He was being a dick about it.” I said shrugging.

“So you can’t come out?” Aaron asked.

“No, I’m coming. Alex Gaskarth isn’t my father.” I said with a laugh.

Alan smirked placing a sloppy kiss on my cheek and let some more people in the room to hang out on the balcony. Just as I put the finishing touches on there was a knock on the door.

I straightened my shirt and opened the door to find a familiar pair of caramel colored eyes looking me
up and down.

“Woah…” Austin said quietly but I heard him anyway.

“Are you going to come in or are you just going to stand there eye fucking me?” I questioned leaving the door open and heading back into the bathroom to clean up my makeup stuff. I gave myself an internal high five for saying that to him.

The vans arrived that were driving everyone to the bars and I ran into Alan as we were waiting for the elevators.

“Woah! Raegan! If I wasn’t with Maddie and all…you look fucking hot…” He said giving me the wiggly eyebrows and making me giggle.

“Go home, Alan. You’re drunk.” I laughed pushing him away from me.

“You’re my date for this evening!” He declared throwing an arm around my neck as we got on the elevator.

Austin was shooting daggers at the back of Alan’s head. I felt a surge of pleasure go through my body knowing he was getting jealous.

The bar was packed when we got there. They had a cool stage where a local band was playing.
There was even an area where they had video games along one of the walls for people to play. I sat with Jack, Alan, and Aaron at the bar. We joked around and I watched as they got progressively hammered. Adam was running around taking pictures of everyone.

At one point Alex, Jack, Austin, and a few Pierce the Veil guys took the stage covering Blink-182 songs causing the crowd to go crazy and run up on the stage.

It was as the crowd dispersed and people started going back to what they had been doing before the impromptu concert that I noticed Austin making his way towards where I was sitting at the bar. I turned to face back to the bar and pretended I hadn’t noticed him until he sat right in the stool next to me.

“Bartender…” He said tapping the bar. “Two shots!”

The bartender nodded and got to work measuring out the alcohol before placing them down in front of Austin.

“Thanks man,” Austin said taking one and sliding the other to me.

“I’m not allowed to drink.” I said pushing the glass a little too hard and watching some vodka splash on the counter.

“What are you talking about?” Austin said with a laugh and I turned to face him, sweat was still dripping down his face from the stage lights and I found I couldn’t stop staring at his lips. “Take the shot, Raegan.”

Sighing, I obliged, feeling the slight burning sensation make its way down my throat and warm my belly.

“You going hunting or something?” I said gesturing to his camo pants on the camo print ampersand on his shirt.

He smiled, his eyes staring straight into mine, he didn’t stop staring or smiling as he said, “You look gorgeous tonight.”

I burst out laughing. Right there. In his face.

“What’s so funny?” He asked still smiling and adding a little chuckle of his own in.

“You break up with me when I need you the most and just stop talking to me. And then! And then! I get dragged out here on this piece of shit tour because everyone thought I’d kill myself over you!” The smile was slowly fading from Austin’s face as I continued to recount the last few weeks in hysterical laughter. “And then! You barely speak to me! And here’s the kicker Austin! Here’s the best part! You come to my room in the middle of the night, fuck me, don’t say a word to me, and have the balls to tell me I look pretty two nights later. Oh boy, the last few weeks sure have been a blast haven’t they?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes that had surfaced from my laughter as I looked at Austin who was looking anywhere but at me.

“Raegan, I don’t want to do this right now.” His voice was low, almost growl like.

“Are you going to wait another three weeks to tell me what’s going on in your head?” I questioned taking a sip of my Shirley Temple.

“Raegan, stop it.” He said meeting my eyes and I could tell he was hurting. I could tell I had finally caused him a bit of the pain he had been causing me recently.

He looked around quickly before standing and pulling me down from my stool. I didn’t protest as he dragged me through the crowd by my wrist, keeping me close to his backside so that we could squeeze past people easily. He found some hallway by the bathrooms that he dragged me to the end of and pushed me up against the dirty wall. He stood over me placing his hand on the wall above my head.

“You wanna talk, Raegan? Let’s talk.” He said and the smell of the alcohol on his breath stung my nose.

“I just don’t understand what we are anymore, Austin. I don’t understand what you want or how you feel.”

“I wanted you Rae. I wanted us. A huge part of me still does….but I’m pissed off you threw everything away for your love affair with drugs.”

“That’s what you think I did?” I scoffed. “Look, Austin. I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I have all this fucked up shit going on in my head. I can’t be your perfect girlfriend right now. I can’t sit at home and go to work and live a normal life while you’re on the road. I can’t function. When you’re around, it’s like everything bad never happened to me. You make me feel like I did before I ever moved to Boston.” I felt the tears start pricking my eyes as I started pouring out my own frustrations to him. “And when you leave I have this huge void of depression and sadness. Drugs are the only way I know how to cope with it and with the anxiety. And it got out of hand. So out of hand.”

“Then come on the road with me. Fuck working. I have plenty of money to take care of both of us, Raegan.”

“No! I need a life Austin! Do you realize what you’re asking me to do?”

“I’m asking you to say fuck everything and just come be with me.”

I shook my head looking at him. “That’s what you want from me? You want me to never get better, never learn how to live on my own, just chase after you and your dreams and pop out a few kids for you? Are you kidding me? Do you even see how unhealthy that would be for both of us?”

“And what if you never get better, Raegan? Am I just supposed to sit back and watch you snort lines off the table in my back lounge the rest of my life?”

“Just say it Austin…” I said closing my eyes and bracing myself for impact.

“Say what?” He spat.

“Say you don’t love me anymore. Say it.”

He sighed loudly, “Raegan, I’m not going to say that.”

“Well then you’re just kidding yourself Austin! You’re just fucking kidding yourself then! You don’t trust me! You don’t believe in me! You don’t want anything to do with me! Just say it! Say that you don’t love me anymore!”

My face was suddenly in his chest and I realized I was crying violently and he was stoking my hair.

“Shhh….shhh…shhh…hey…stop it…stop, stop, stop, stop, stop…I love you, Raegan…I really do…I love
you.”

He placed a few kisses on the top of my head before resting his cheek there and I tried to settle my body down.

“I’m sorry…I’m so, so sorry that we’ve come to this.”

It was then that I knew what I had to do in order to get him back. And I began formulating my plan in my brain as I stood there in the dirty hall way, against the wall, taking in Austin scent and letting him clog my senses.

I pulled away from him and looked into his eyes.

“Can we just spend one last night together and forget everything?” I mumbled into his chest. “Just you and me?”

I looked up meeting his eyes with mine.

“Come on babe, let’s get to the hotel room.” He said with a smirk.