Cricket On Tour

So, I’m a chicken. And a baby. And instead of confronting Alex about Holly, I pretended to be sick and spent all day in bed watching excessive amounts of Grey’s Anatomy. The boys showed up around the time I had deluded myself into thinking I shared a life story with Meredith Grey and was on the phone with Lanie.

“No! I’m serious! I’m dark and twisty just like Meredith!” I said hotly to Lanie on the other end of the phone.

I heard Rian laugh as he walked by.

“Dark and twisty. More like rainbows and gumballs, Crick.” Rian said as he ruffled my hair.

“Feeling better, babe?” Alex asked.

“Nope!” I said too quickly. “Better not come near me, I think I’m contagious.” I coughed convincingly to make my point.

“Cricket, do you really think I care?” Alex said making his way towards me.

“But what about the fans?!” I said aghast. “If you got sick and let them down that would be terrible.” Yeah. I could give a shit about the fans.

“She’s right, Alex. You can’t afford to get sick.” Zack said. And never in my life have I been more grateful and ready to agree with my brother.

“I’ll just sleep here on the couch.” I piped up. “No worries!” Alex looked a tad crushed and I felt bad. But only for a minute, I mean he is the one who wrote the song for the bitch and not for me.

The next morning Alex decided to be a concerned boyfriend and insist I go to the doctor.

“Cricket, if you’ve had a fever for two days you really need to go see a doctor.” Alex said reaching out to feel my forehead.

“Oh, you know what,” I exclaimed nervously and ducking out of his reach. “I feel fine! It must have been some twenty-four hour bug. Like, I’m totally fine, so I gotta jet. Go, you know, do…stuff.”

Alex looked confused and still concerned.

“Babe, are you scared of doctors?” he asked with a little smirk on his face as if he had figured it out my odd behavior. And as a matter of fact, I was. Unless they look like McDreamy, or McSteamy, or McPretty, but that is beside the point right now. I never should have faked the fever, I mean; I’ve seen Ferris Bueller about a million times.

“Um, yes.” I said shiftily. “Terrified. Have you seen the offices? They smell funny and they’re creepy clean, and latex gloves happen to freak me out, especially when they snap them as they put them on. So, if you don’t mind I’m going to find Cat and help her with the stuff that she needs help with.”

And with that I made my break for it and bolted from the bus.

“I think Cricket is avoiding me.” I heard Alex say gloomily as I slammed the door shut.

Crap. I needed to enlist Cat and Lanie to figure this shit out. And as if by some telepathic miracle, Lanie called me.

“Thank God you called!” I said in lieu of a greeting.

“Yeah, Crick, this isn’t a good call. You need to get to my hotel room NOW.”

“Wha-why?” I asked definitely freaking out.

“I don’t want to explain over the phone, so just get here.” And then she hung up. Which did not help the fact that I was totally panicking.

So, I flagged down a cab and politely, but really kind of screamed at him, asked the cabbie to hurry his ass up because it was an emergency.

“What! What’s going on!” I said as I flung myself into Lanie’s room.

“Just look.” Lanie said pushing her computer towards me. And there on some gossip website was a picture of Alex and me walking into a hotel room, and then of me leaving in Alex’s shirt to get ice. What. The. Fuck. Everything was starting to spin, and it didn’t get better when I saw the headline. “Alex Gaskarth Shacks with Stalker in New Mexico.”

“What is going on?” I shrieked.

“Holly.” Lanie said her face contorted with rage. “She must have been in the hotel and taken pictures of you two and sold some crap story to the tabloids.”

“What does it say?” I asked closing my eyes. I couldn’t read it myself because then it would actually be real.

“It says that you’re a crazy stalker who has been following Alex for months and that you kept throwing yourself at him and he has been using you for sex. All from an “inside source” close to Alex.”

“I can’t believe this. That is untrue! Can I sue? Defamation of character? SLANDER!” I cried.

“Well, actually, it’d be libel, since it’s written,” Lanie said trailing off when she saw the murderous look I was giving her. I so did not need a grammar lesson right now.

I stood up and started walking towards the door.

“Cricket, where are you going?” Lanie asked pulling my arm.

“To get this taken care of.” I yanked my arm away from Lanie and got into yet another cab.

I barged into the bus a blubbering mess. She was destroying my life. Soaking someone with water balloons is not anywhere near as bad as telling the whole world you’re a stalker whore.

“Cricket!” Jack exclaimed when he saw me. “What happened?”

“Where’s Alex?” I demanded.

“Bathroom. Showering.”

I swung the door open with too much force as Alex was drying off.

“Babe, what’s wrong?” Alex said worry all over his face. I had never really cried like this the whole time we’d been dating except for when I sold Midas and Tego.

“Look,” I said thrusting my laptop in his face. His face dropped. “And I’m pretty sure you know exactly who’s behind this.”

“Cricket, it’s not my fault. I mean, I’ll take care of it.” Alex said in a rush.

“NOT YOUR FAULT?” I shrieked. “Obviously, it is. It’s your psycho ex that you wrote a song for and so I guess you liked her way more than you have ever liked me because I don’t have a song! So, just go talk to Crazy and tell her how much you just looove her and you can laugh at silly Cricket who is just so naïve and not important enough to have a song written about her and how awesome you two are!”

And I stalked out of the bathroom and the bus. I didn’t know where I was going, but all my pent up feelings had come rushing out and I had a feeling that I had just made a big, big mess.

“Hey Cricket!” stupid John said all perky walking my way. I did not want to deal with him right now. “Oh.” He said when he saw that I was obviously upset.

“I need a drink.” I told him and grabbed his arm and dragged him back towards his bus.

Time to drown my sorrows. Bottoms up kiddos.