With Me Tonight

I woke up to a brightness coming from the light on the ceiling and nearly blinding me when I try to open my eyes.

I squinted and brought my arm up to cover my eyes, going to turn onto my side away from it, but freezing when I felt a weight on me. I brought my arm away from my face and looked down to see Hazel curled up and resting on my chest.

Slightly shocked, all I could do was look down at her. She was fast asleep, her face void of any pain or sadness I know she is going through, and her mouth slightly parted as her cheek is squished on my chest.

The sun coming into the room made her hair glow and the freckles on her face easier to see. A slight smile came on my face looking down at her so peaceful and beautiful, but it was hard to hold because I know that the peacefulness now doesn't match whats on the inside.

I sighed slightly and laid back down on the pillow to get comfortable, doing my best to not to move too harshly and bump Hazel.

Now I was pretty much wide awake, but I wasn't going to get up for Hazel's sake, and because I just want to lay here for a while. I need to think. I want to try to sort out what's going on because I have no clue. But after barely even a minute of thinking, my mind just wanders to the future. I start to think of what it's going to be like, or how it could be like.

I think I mostly just want my Hazel back, but right now, I just want her to be okay...

*

After laying on my back and staring at the ceiling with a busy mind for a while, I feel Hazel start to stir on me. I peek down at her, watching as she tries to get comfortable, but then just gives up and decides to open her eyes.

I watch as she blinks and looks around, realizing slowly where she is. And then when she looks up and see's me, she realizes she's curled up on my chest and sits up pretty quickly.

She looks like she about to say something, but once she's sitting, her eyebrows scrunch together and she puts a hand on her head. I sit myself up slightly by propping up on my elbows, still looking at her.

I take a guess that she's dizzy from sitting up so fast, but once it passes and she pulls her hand away from her head, her eyes are full of sadness and disappointment. They didn't match the peacefulness like she had when she was asleep.

"I.." She starts. "I'm hungover."

Her voice was dull and nearly emotionless, but I could still tell that she was tredding on eggshells to keep her cool. I knew I had to tread as well to not crack her eggshells.

"I'm... I'm fucking hungover," she repeats, her voice slowly showing how much it's hitting her.
The thing that hits me is thinking of her in rehab. It was when her sister came to the funeral that I found out how bad Hazel had gotten. When I found out she drank herself striaght into rehab. I was more than shocked.

Her sister was yelling, mostly furious to see my God awful face, but after hearing what Hazel went through, she was right to. I would have also. I pushed Hazel to that. I've always known Hazel was an avid drinker, so I should have known she could have gotten really bad... Like the night she drank so much she was taken into the hospital. That was the night we found out about the baby..

I gulp and shake the thought away, sitting up fully to be at Hazel's level now. She wouldn't look at me. It was as if she was embarrassed, or dissappointed. I don't know if it would be because I know that she went to rehab now, or because she got drunk last night.

But she has no reason to be embarrassed. Sure, last night... or earlier today? I don't
know what time it even is... But when I ran after her and found her in that torn up room, it was shocking and hard to see her like that. I was upset, not liking the reminder of all those times she would turn to drinking instead of turning to me, but I wasn't mad or disappointed.

She worked so hard, I know she did. I could tell she had tried so damn hard to become the better Hazel she wanted to be, even though to me, she doesn't have a better.

"You should go," she said quietly under her breath.

My eyebrows creased together and I sat up a little more, not sure if I heard her right. Why does she want me to go? "What?"

I started to think of all the things I could have done wrong, or why she doesn't want me, but all that came to mind was last night... What I said. I told her I loved her. I couldn't stop myself, I couldn't hold it back. Shit.

"Please," she said in a light beg.

I didn't move or leave or say anything. I just looked at her. Her head is bowed down, her eyes casted low as she picks at her tights.

She didn't want me to go, not really. I could tell, I can read her. She just wanted to put up some wall, to be alone to suffer because she's embarrassed? I don't know, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm not leaving.

I push the blankets and duvet off of my lower body and push myself to the edge of the bed before spinning around so my legs dangle out. I hear Hazel take in a soft breath when I do because she thinks I'm actually leaving. Like I'd do that without even putting up a fight... Yeah, no.

I simply just reached over to her bedside table to the clock to look and see what time it was. 8:30 at night. Damn. That's one way to screw up my sleeping schedule... I guess we were both just exhausted.

I push myself off of the bed and stand up, turning to face Hazel. My nice shirt and pants are a little crinkled from being slept in. I'm sure I'm quite the looker right now.

"I'll make you dinner," I say lightly and she finally is looking at me now. "We can have..." I debate saying what came to my mind, but say it anyway. "We can have onion rings. "

I can barely catch a falter in her mostly blank expression, but mostly it's just her green eyes looking up at me without light or sparkle like I wished they had. But she was still beautiful, with her hair messy, her makeup slightly smeared, and her dress hanging off one of her shoulders, she was simply beautiful.

But it was a sad beauty, one that was accompanied by puffy red eyes and tear stains over her freckles. One that made you take a second take because it was simply heart breaking.

She breathes in a deep breath before pushing away from the covers and moving to get up off the bed. She doesn't look at me again when she does, she just brushes her hair behind her ears and starts to leave the room. I watch her as she does, only able to faintly hear what she's too afraid to look at me in the eyes to say.

"I don't want onion rings," she mumbles.

My face falls slightly and her words sting a little. It's was easy to hear that it wasn't just a simple statement. One of the best nights we had together was when we went out to dinner and spent half of it laughing about onion rings... she knew that. She didn't want onion rings.

I took in a big breath and ran my hands through my hair, letting them slap lazy down onto my sides after. I just looked at the doorway Hazel just left out of, not knowing what to do or what to feel or what to think.

It was obvious enough that she didn't want me to follow her... at least I can't read her enough to know if she did or not, so I stayed back, not knowing what I would even say. And when I heard the shower start to run, I walked over to her bed and plopped down onto it.

My head bowed down and I rested my arms on my knees while I let out a big sigh. What the hell am I supposed to do? I love her and now she knows because I screamed it at her loud and clear. Am I starting to regret that?

I groan a little and start searching myself for my phone. Of course, it's still in my pants pocket. I have no clue how I slept in these clothes.

I turn it on and look over all my messages I missed, a few from the guys in the band, mostly Alan, one from my dad, and some from our tour manager. He's probably not too happy I'm missing shows. Fuck, I don't even want to think about that.

I ignore most of them and open up Alan's contact, hitting the call button and holding it up to my ear as it dials. I run a hand over my face as I wait for him to pick up.

"Hey, Austin," his voice comes through the speaker after a few rings. His voice is refreshing.

"Hey, whats up?" I say, my voice raspy from the tiredness.

"Eh, nothin'. We all just got back from dinner so just hangin' around," he says and I can't help but wish I was there for dinner and to 'hang around'. "What about you? How's everything?"

"Today didn't go that great," I sigh, resting my chin on my hand that was propped up cause my elbow was resting on my knee.

"I can't say that's a surprise," he sighs, too. "How is she?"

"She's in the shower right now, fell asleep after we got back," I say, not really wanting to go into detail about all that went down, but still wanting to bring it up because I need to talk to someone about it, no one better than Alan.

"How'd it go?" He asks.

"Well," I start, bitting at my lip. "Guess who showed up?"

"Who." He demanded to know, I guess there's too many shitty people that could have showed up.

"Hazel's mom."

"Jesus..." Alan groaned. I know the feeling.

"It wasn't very peaceful either... And she brought... Well, she had whiskey or something," I say, rubbing at the back of my neck. "I don't really know what 'cause Hazel drank it all..."

I said it fast to get it out of the way and there was only silence after. I can just picture Alan's face falling and then a glare coming over it.

"What?!" He finally broke. "Who? What? Why? How? What?!"

"I don't know... Hazel's mom said all this shit to Hazel, she said Hazel wasn't even her dad's daughter or something," I explain, reliving the day in my head. "I don't know what happened but the next thing I know Hazel is running and she has the alcohol she took from her mom. I went after her as fast as I could, but it took me forever to find her and once I did... it was gone."

Alan let out a deep, long sigh over the phone. "How is she doing with it?"

"How's she doing with everything else?" I answer his question with another question. It's all just a big mess. I guess everything is just bad.

I could picture Alan nodding and agreeing with me because he stayed quiet, just letting out a little huff. It was silent between us besides the static of the line for a while. He didn't know what to say and neither did I. But I did have something on my mind.

"I said something earlier..." I start, scratching the back of my head. Alan was quiet, waiting for me to continue. "I... Fuck, I told her I love her... Like, I yelled it. I yelled it really loud and now it's all..." I trail off from my mumbling and just sigh, my head falling down again.

"You guys have only loved each other since like the freaking dawn of time, like come on," he sassed. "You guys have to stop being so damn stubborn."

"I'm not stubborn," I defend myself. "I'm just trying to give Hazel some time and space right now."

"Okay, here's a question," he started, his voice full of sass. He's like a teenager sometimes. "...Why?"

I scrunch my face together. "Why what?"

"Why are you giving her space and time? Why aren't you like working hard to get her back or whatever? Come on, Austin, I thought you were good at this," he said promptly. I rolled my eyes.

"She's sad, Alan..." I point out. "I can't just.. I can't..."

"You can't what? What are you trying to do, Austin? She loves you, you love her, you make her happy... What am I missing?" He asks. I can picture his dumb ginger eyebrow raising.

"It's complicated, Alan," I sigh, having trouble explaining. "It's.. Ugh. I don't know what I'm doing, okay? It's just bad right now and... and I don't know... Fuck, what do I do?" My voice starts getting a little desperate and lost, so Alan gets a little more serious.

"Okay, okay, look.. It's fine. Let's just think, put our heads together and stuff, yeah?" He says and I nod, sighing like he can see me. "What do you think would be best for Haze right now?"

"She can't stay here, this place isn't good for her," I state, thinking to her dad's office that she tore apart. "She won't want to just leave it though.. I don't know."

"Do you think she'd want to come back on tour?" He asks.

"I don't know, maybe? It's not a bad idea."

"I think it's worth talking to her about. It definitely is," he agrees.

"Okay. I will tonight, I'll tell you what she says," I say, sitting back up straight. I listen and hear that the shower is still running.

"Alright, we all miss you guys. Hope to have you back soon, man," he says and I sigh.

"I feel like shit for missing shows and doing that to the fans," I mumble, shaking my head.

"But you'd feel like more shit for abandoning Hazel," he reminds me, keeping me from worrying about it too much. "And you've only missed a few shows. They understand, you know they do."

"Still feel like shit," I sigh.

"Yeah," he agrees. "Who doesn't these days, ya know?"

All I can do is stay silent, nodding because it's completely agreeable. It seems like everything and everyone has been kind of crappy lately. Even Alan, who's sad about Hazel and her dad and he's been struggling over his ex. They were together for a little bit after Hazel and I... split. But she had to move or something so she broke up with him and randomly left one day. We don't really talk about it. It was so short that pretty much only the guys knew.

"Alright, I'll let'cha go, man. Go talk to Hazel, and tell her I love her," Alan says in a breathy voice.

"Sure, tell everyone I say hi. I'll talk to you later," I sigh.

"See ya later, Austin." Alan says before the call comes to an end and beeps in my ear.

I huff out a breath and run my hands through my hair and then back down over my face as if to rub away all the struggles. But it doesn't really work so I shove my phone back in my pocket and stand up, walking out of the room.

When I start to pass the bathroom, I slow down and listen through the running water. I don't know what I'm listening for, maybe for Hazel to somehow know I'm here and say I love you back or to just tell me she wants onion rings.. I hear neither of those, but instead I hear a faint crying, just like earlier when I found her in her room.

I closed my eyes and leaned my head against the wall next to the door, only able to listen to her cry. Hazel is the only thing that can mend my broken heart, but also tear it into smaller pieces.

I took a deep breath in and sighed it out, my head running all over the place and my heart hurting from her tears that disappear in the running water.

I wish I could stop the tears, I wish I could make it better. I wish it could just get better. I wish for so much, but when do I start to make the wishes come true? When does Hazel allow me to?

All I know is things can't stay like this... They can't stay bad. It will destroy us all.

I just hope Hazel will say yes to going back on tour. Maybe there I can make it better...

Notes

yay another chapter! It's just a little bit more of Austin's side and a lot of what he's thinking.

I'm about to wrap up this washington trip *hint* hint* cause I think it's getting old and the story line is running thin here. We need to go back on tour, yeah? !!

I have ideas for the next few chapters, but I've just gotta brainstorm and put it all together! I'll try not to go too long!

I hope you guys are enjoying this! I'm trying to get back into the drama but I kind of feel lost in it all... ah. What do you think? Let me know! Talk to me! What do you think is up with Hazel?Why no onion rings??

:))))