In This Starless City

Gorgeous gorgeous banner by Kelso. I love her more than I love Jack Barakat. Fact.

______________________________________________

My head connected with the carpet of the Barnes & Noble floor. I was trying to immerse myself with books and magazines and music for the day because one: it was raining heavily outside and the overcast weather did nothing but remind me of what happened two weeks prior to that day and two: I was looking for any way possible to spend time away from the tour site.

Go figure that only two weeks into a summer-long tour I’m already getting tired of being around the same people constantly.

That was unfair though, I thought reasonably. I wasn’t sick of all of them because not all of them had done what the one black sheep had.

My stomach rolled inside me as I thought about Jack. I hadn’t talked to him since that cloudy, inauspicious day in Seattle and we were now back on the east coast, getting ready to perform once again.

Alex, Rian, and Zack were all beside themselves to be back in Baltimore, Maryland as far as I could tell. I’d include Jack in that statement, but his vow not to talk to me included even being in the same room as me. And in the off chance that he was forced to be in the same room with me, he kept his end of conversation short, curt, and emotionless. He had completely cut me off from anything of personal concern to him…

…and I couldn’t explain to anyone how deeply that cut me.

I grabbed a random book of the shelf to my right and opened it above my face.

“Time passes. Even when it seems impossible. Even when each tick of the second hand aches like the pulse of blood behind a bruise. It passes unevenly, in strange lurches and dragging lulls, but pass it does. Even for me.”

I made a face and closed the book to look at the cover, scowling at the black front cover embellished with a wilting red and white flower. Stephanie Myer’s New Moon couldn’t have been more unintentionally poignant toward me in that inopportune moment.

I put the book back on the shelf and folded my arms behind my head, crossing my feet at my ankles and staring up at the fluorescent lights that burned bright white above me, the sound of the rain pattering against the window sending a tranquil, warm feeling through the store, but the moment the sensation reached me, it seemed to disappear, stopped dead in its tracks by the bubble of brooding melancholy that I had been enveloped in for that past two weeks.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My emotions were all over the place lately and for a lot of different reasons.

One was that I was on tour and even though it was two weeks in, I was still a little in shock. All my life I’d wanted to make music that could and possibly would reach out to someone in the world and make a difference in their lives. And there I was, on tour with All Time Low, doing just what I’d always hoped I’d do. And I was happy about that.

Another thing was being back on the east coast. The Pacific coast is great and all, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the Atlantic coast in the middle of July. I was so close to my home in New York City that I could almost hear the sleepless city from Maryland. And I was relaxed about and by that.

There was the fact that I would be turning twenty-one in a little over a week. Finally, legal drinking age in America. Growing up in England and being told that you had to be eighteen to drink made the transition to America a little harder. Waiting those three years to finally have the freedom to go to clubs and not have to go through the rigmarole of IDs and then getting those unsightly big purple circles on the back of your hands seemed like waiting for hell to freeze over. So I was excited about.

And then there was Jack; and how much I missed him; and how much he probably didn’t miss me whatsoever. He was probably living life like he had been sitting next to an empty seat on that plane ride to LAX. My insides hitched and I withdrew a shaky breath. And I was genuinely upset and messed up about that.

And lastly, there was the fact that after the New York City show that was two nights after the show in Baltimore, we’d be going overseas to London to play a few shows there. I’d be going home and I’d be seeing my parents and my brother and any of the few friends I had when I lived there. And I was both nervous and completely overjoyed about that.

So, the damage didn’t appear that bad. Most of my emotions were positive. However, the negative ones were smothering and while I was looking forward to many things that kept me from going under, those few things were there that made me want to pull the trigger.

I rolled to my feet and walked to the large window of the Barnes & Noble and took a look outside. The rain had picked up and was now splashing down to the ground in drops that looked to be the size of quarters.

I groaned ironically. I was usually a huge fan of rainy days such as these, especially when it was only a cool rain. Just warm enough to run around in, but just cool enough to use as an excuse to stay inside your tour bus, wrapped in a blanket and watching movies.

But this rain was truly ill timed and I would've given anything in that particular moment for the sun to burst through the clouds like a fucking pro, destroying this overcast day.

I walked out of the Barnes & Noble and was immediately drenched to the bone. I blinked and kept walking back toward the tour site, ignoring the honks of cabs as they approached me, letting them go splashing past me without so much as glancing at them.

I got back to the tour site and walked straight to my bus, trying not to notice the light on in the All Time Low bus. My boys were inside, warm, dry and smiling. They each looked at me with concern and confusion when I stepped inside, shutting the door behind me, enunciating the silence of the inside of the bus when the door cut off the sound of the rain outside.

None of them said anything but continued to stare at me, slack-jawed.

“If you’d rather I stayed outside and caught hypothermia or pneumonia, I’d be more than happy to oblige,” I insist, putting my hand back on the doorknob threateningly.

Oliver cleared his throat. “No, it’s just…” he trailed off, his eyes climbing up and down my topography. “You look like you were just hit by a truck.”

“I’m fine,” I reply sarcastically. “Thanks for asking.” I kicked my sopping shoes off by the door and walked to the back of the bus, peeling my wet clothing off once I was there an the door was shut behind me. I dropped all of my wet clothing into a pile in the corner of the back room before diving into my drawer and pulling out a new, dry, outfit. I then fell on my stomach on the bed in the back of the bus, releasing a deep and rather depressed-sounding breath as I did so. I heard the door creak open and I groaned. “Go away.” I hissed irritably.

Brandon chuckled and fell onto the mattress next to me. “Something wrong, darling?” he asks, his tone purely innocent. I rotated my chin on my forearm where it was resting to look at him and he was looking right back at me.

“I guess I just…” I started, but stopped, not liking where that was going. “I keep on wondering if…” I cut myself short again. I couldn’t exactly word what was going on inside my head. So I just looked at Brandon and said, “Something just feels off.”

“Is there something going on between you and Jack?” he inquires after a pause for thought. He still seemed guiltless.

My insides twitched in furious guilt. “Well, there’s that,” I murmur, turning my eyes so that I was gazing at the wall in front of my face. “But that’s not all.”

Brandon nudged me with his elbow and I blinked slowly. “Come on,” he prods gently. “Just say it. I promise I’ll try to follow no matter how many pointless tangents you go off on.”

I shook my head. “I’d rather not open the floor gates on you,” I smiled at him.

He shrugged “I just don’t like seeing my friend being a Negative Nancy,” he simplifies.

I couldn’t help laughing quietly. “Well, good thing my name is Charlotte, not Nancy.”

“Good one,” he pushed my slightly and I laughed at him, going with the inertia and rolling onto my back, flinging an arm over my eyes and letting out a breath. “Still negative…Nancy?”

I moved my arm just enough to give him a level stare out of one eye. He smiled halfway apologetically. “No, I guess not,” I answered.

“Good,” he says as he walks out of the room, announcing to Oliver and Nathan that the bitchy bassist was no more, causing them to cheer. I smiled and joined them in the front of the bus.

><><><><

That night’s show went by more quickly than others and I was back on my bus after showering before I knew it. I was clean, dry (for the most part since it was still raining outside), and I was content with staying in my bunk for the remainder of the evening.

That is until Alex came bursting through the door of the bus, bringing in some cool, evening Baltimore air as well as a few drops of rain that I heard splatter against the linoleum covered stairs. “Charlotte!” he hollers, his squeaking footsteps growing louder as he walked to the bunk area and pulled the curtain to mine back excitedly. He took hold of my wrist and yanked me to my feet. “Come on! We’re going to my house for a party!”

I planted my heels and looked at him. “Your house?”

“Yeah,” his enthusiasm wasn’t swayed by my sobriety. “It’ll just be us…and a few friends.”

I scoffed. “Yeah, and by “a few friends” you actually mean a hundred famous band members that will fin any and every reason to mortify me for their own enjoyment.”

His grin grew wider. “Exactly,” I ripped my wrist from his grip and made for my bunk once more, but Alex stopped me by whirling me around by the shoulders to face him again. “Come on, Charlotte. We don’t leave for New York until the day after tomorrow and none of us want to sit around in our buses while we have a few days and nights to get out and have fun,” I saw a loophole and made for it, but Alex cut me off. “And none of us want to leave you in the bus to be mopey all night either.”

“I won’t be moping,” I defend myself half-heartedly. “I’ll be sleeping.”

He groaned. “You can sleep anytime!” he tried to persuade. “Look, if you come with me and you don’t have fun, you can go to my room, lock the door, and be a party pooper.”

I sized up his offer. “You swear on your manhood as well as my life that no one will bother me if I so choose to take up your proposition?”

“I swear,” he held up his right hand.

I’m such a damn pushover, I thought.

“Let me grab my shoes,”

><><><><

When my foot crossed the threshold into Alex Gaskarth’s house, I knew that I was right about one thing: all of his aforementioned friends were famous and just dying to find out whether or not I would be showing up there that night.

Actually, the whole set up reminded me of a typical house party that someone would throw to try to get in with the popular crowd in high school. There were people in the living room, on the couches with beers in their hands and smiles on their faces, and when the sound of the door slamming shut resonated throughout the house, it grew quieter and people’s eyes turned to Alex and me. Apparently, the party had started before the host had even arrived.

I smiled bashfully, taking a side step so that I was partially shielded by Alex, averting my gaze from the eyes of all of those that were staring at me. I recognized quite a few pairs of them.

“The part has arrived!” Alex announces, raising his hands high in the air like he was being praised.

A tall, skinny boy slithered from between a few people and I couldn’t help but smile at the friendly, familiar face that mirrored my expression back at me. “It’s about time Charlotte got here,” William Beckett grins.

“Hey Bilvy,” I say in relief, walking to him and allowing his arms to wrap around me in a warm hug. “Get me away from the ego. I’m finding it more and more difficult to breathe the longer I’m in his presence.”

Alex scoffed. “You’ve made an odd choice as an escape route,”

I sneered playfully at him over my shoulder before follow William to the couch where he and I sat down.

“Long time, no see,” Bill says before pausing. “Or text, or phone call, or anything for that matter.”

I tried to look apologetic. “I’m sorry I lost contact. Tour has been…pretty eventful.”

Bill waved it off. “I was right about meet and greets, though, wasn’t I?”

Before I could answer his question though, my eyes caught a flash of brown and blonde hair beneath a baseball cap and my thoughts screeched to a stop and my words got all tangled up in my throat like flies in a spider web.

I stuttered and Bill only smiled at me, amused. I looked around again, trying to spot the hat or the hair or the eyes or anything…and then, I spotted him. Jack was standing in the archway between the kitchen and the living room, looking straight at me with an expression I couldn’t quite understand. I wanted to say it looked sad, but at the same time, there was something burning behind those eyes. Something that sparked my curiosity.

“I’m sorry, Bill, would you excuse me? I need to use the restroom,” I didn’t even wait for a response—not that I would’ve heard it in the first place—because I was off the couch and heading for Jack right when I saw him turning to disappear amongst the throng of people. I caught up to him just before he was out of sight. “Jack,” I called out to him but he was obviously ignoring me…still. My insides stung. “Jack, please, just talk to me.”

He turned. “About what, Charlotte?”

I shook my head slightly. Just hearing his voice for the first time in two weeks without it being his on-stage persona was enough to send my spirits soaring. “I don’t know,” I answered slowly. “Anything.”

Jack looked around and I saw what was burning behind his eyes and the same hurt and fury that was there two weeks ago. “Not now,” he forces bitterly, turning away once again.

“Well, when then?” I snapped loudly, but he kept walking away from me and disappeared around the corner of the kitchen, into the living room.

Pained, angry, and entirely too confused as to why I was the two former emotions, I thought of ways that I could quench the hurt just for the night. My mind worked fast and before I knew it, I had a bottle of whiskey in my hand and had unscrewed the cap quickly, taking a long swig of it and savoring the burn as it washed down my throat and landed in my empty stomach, causing it to lurch painfully.

I am so not a drinker, my conscience sang to me, but I ignored the voice and downed another mouthful, pulling a hissing breath in through my teeth.

Then, Alex rounded the corner that Jack had just disappeared around and his eyes widened when he looked at me. “I don’t remember you saying you were a drinker,” he states, not in a reprimanding way, but more of an ‘I can’t believe what I’m seeing’ way.

I swallowed another chug. The bottle was half empty now and I was beginning to feel a little off. I winced at Alex as the whiskey plummeted to my stomach. “That’s funny because I don’t remember inviting my mother to this party,”

He laughed and reached for the bottle but I pulled it away from his grasp. “Mine,” I laugh and he made a laughed slightly as my whiskey-bated breath cascaded across his face.

Then, in a rather quick movement, he had the bottle out of my hand and was looking for the cap that I had discarded somewhere on the floor without thinking about it. “I’d rather you didn’t drink your liver into remission tonight, okay? Aren’t you turning twenty-one in like…a week anyway?”

I giggled as I leaned against the wall. “Yeah,” Alex looked at me, looking thrown off. “I feel like such a rebel.”

He chuckled slightly before taking a small drink of the whiskey, pursing his lips as he swallowed. “Damn, how can you take such huge drinks of this shit?”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m more of a man than you,”

Alex’s jaw dropped. “You think so?” he approached me, but I walked around the corner and disappeared, laughing as I went.

I couldn’t remember the last time I had gotten that drunk…and at the time, I couldn’t remember the last time I had been that carefree. I roamed Alex’s house with no one but a cold beer in my hand, looking at the different rooms on the different floors, laughing when I came across Alex’s bedroom.

He was preoccupied with all of his guests in the other room, so I quietly continued walking until I came to a glass screen sliding door. It was still raining heavily outside and in my intoxicated state, I didn’t even notice I was outside of the house until I slipped on the wet grass and landed on my back, my beer flying from my grasp. I giggled to myself, the sound unusually loud in the quiet evening shower, and then I just lay there, staring into the pitch-black sky, blinking when the drops splashed close to my eyes.

I was so relaxed there.

I could hear it beginning to quiet down inside the house as well as cars in front of the house roaring to life and driving away. I wondered if I had been forgotten about, but then, to my surprise, Alex appeared above me.

“How long have you been out here?” he asks, the rain sliding down the ends of his hair and landing on my neck.

“Long enough to feel the ground water soaking through the soles of my shoes,” I wiggled my toes as I said this, feeling the water slosh around inside of them.

“Well, I guess you won’t notice this then,” Alex’s maniacal grin widened and then, something green was falling toward me, exploding on my chest and releasing a wave of water into my face and down my torso. I stared at him in shock.

I leapt to my feet but once I was there, he hit me with yet another water balloon. “Dammit! That’s not fair because I don’t have any ammunition!”

He threw another one and it splashed open on my shoes. “Life ain’t fair, darling,” he sings and then he was running toward the house and I was running after him.

We got inside and since he disregarded the water that was being tracked inside the house, I did as well, kicking my shoes off by the door and taking off toward him again barefoot.

However, I rounded a corner a little to quickly and, slipping on my wet feet, slid on the hardwood floor and fell, landing hard on the floor. Alex laughed somewhere far away from me in the house as I lay there, getting up slowly and trying not to slip again.

And then, just my luck, the precise spot my first step landed was in a puddle left by Alex. I slid forward abruptly and trying to compensate, ending up falling backwards. Instead of landing on the hard, cold wooden floor like I embracing myself for, however, a pair of arms caught me and when I looked back and up, I saw Jack looking down at me.

His face was a little surprised, but those eyes were as hard as ever.

“Are you drunk?” he asks in unexpected surprise.

I pulled myself away from him and stood up quickly. “What’s it to yo--…” I made to snap at him, but as I stood, I felt the back of my head throb in pain. I swayed on my heels and stumbled slightly. Jack’s arms were around me within the second and I placed my hand on the back of my head. “Ouch,” I rubbed the pulsing area gingerly, feeling a pump that had formed. I must’ve hit my head pretty hard when I had fell.

My temples started to ache in that moment and my vision was going in and out of focus.

“Come on, Charlotte,” Jack says and I thought I heard some irritation in his voice, so I struggled in his grasp.

“I’m fine,” I grunted. “Let me go.”

He kept a tight hold on me. “You’re not fine. You can barely stand.” He was pushing me deeper into the house and then we were in a bedroom and Jack had shut the door behind us. I continued to fight him until he forced me to sit down on the bed. “Sit still.” He commanded and the tone of his stern voice stunned me. He ran his hands through my hair carefully and I winced as his fingers ran over the tender bruise on my scalp. He murmured an apology. “That’s a pretty big bump.”

“Thank you Dr. Jack. Can I go now?”

“You’re not going anywhere,” he states, walking to the door and turning the lock on the knob.

“You can’t be serious,” I say, standing from the bed and walking toward the door. “You’re not keeping me hostage in here, Barakat.”

He placed himself between the doorknob and myself. “Oh yes I am, Connery.”

I sneered at him before turning to the bed and flinging myself onto it. “I thought you were too pissed to even breathe the same air as me,” I grumble, looking at him from the corner of my eye. He didn’t respond and I looked up at the ceiling, sobering up suddenly. “I’m sorry, Jack,” I say, listening to the rain patter against the window beside the bed I was laying on. It reminded me of the day this whole mess between the two of us had started. “It was wrong of me to make presumptions about a girl that I don’t even kno--…”

“You were right about her though,” Jack cut me off quietly.

“What?” I looked at him.

“She’s pregnant and the kid is obviously not mine since it’s physically impossible to make a baby when you’re hundreds of miles away from each other.” His voice was emotionless. I didn’t know what to say but Jack walked to the edge of the bed and sat down. “So, I guess I should be apologizing to you.”

I laughed slightly. “There’s nothing to forgive,” I smiled at him. He grinned back at me and a series of excited trembles shook through my stomach.

He lay down next to me. “How’s that whiskey treating you?” he ponders amusedly.

I groaned. “Awfully,” I respond, putting my hands on my stomach. “I’ll be hung over and bitchy tomorrow.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Jack says, turning his head so that he was looking at me. “But I think I can handle you.”

What I said next was not of my volition. “You seemed to when you caught me earlier,” I looked at Jack and I could’ve sworn I saw his cheeks grown slightly red. I snuggled closer to him, noticing how chilly it was in the room. My eyelids were growing heavy. “Thanks for being there.”

“I’ll always be here,” his voice floated into my ears.

But I couldn’t be sure if that last part was the alcohol in my system, my extreme exhaustion, or maybe I was slowly fraying around the edges. Regardless, I knew one thing for sure: I fell asleep with a smile on my face that night.