In This Starless City

We were on the bus and heading toward New York City around noon the next day and despite how hung over Oliver, Nathan, and Brandon were, not even they could hide their excitement.

So, needless to say that if three drunkards could be ecstatic, I was practically bouncing off the walls.

We were all on the floor of the lounge of our bus, our limbs tangled with each others’, laughing and breathing rather heavily. My head was between Oliver’s shoulder blades. Somehow, he had ended up face down on the floor.

“Since those Baltimore bastards hammered us last night, I find it’s only fitting to take them out New York style,” Brandon suggests, his fae mischievous.

Oliver and Nathan both agreed with the same amount of enthused maniacism.

I huffed, planting my cheek on Oliver’s back hard. He winced. “What?”

"Yeah, plotting revenge that has absolutely everything to do with alcohol sure is a lot of fun for a twenty year old that's only three days away from being legal," I poked him in the ribs and he squirmed away from my finger. The boys all frowned at me. "It's torturous just sitting in the same room with your three. Not to mention those other four with livers that work harder than the president."

"Well, maybe if you weren't so noble…” Nathan stopped dead in his words when I fixed him with a stern glare.

“With my luck, the exact moment my fingers touched an alcoholic beverage, a cop would walk into the joint,”

“Okay, I believe that,” Nathan put his head on the floor and I gestured to him gratefully. “Wait! That means when we get back to London, it’ll be your birthday!”

“Yeah, but I’m old enough to drink in London now,”

Nathan thought for a moment. “If you want to drink with us, drink with us!”

“Nathan, we just went over this--…”

“Fuck karma. We’ll go to Angels & Kings! Pete can do us a favor,”

“I don’t want to owe Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz III anything. Ever.” I climbed off of Oliver and onto the couch. Nathan was sitting up and leaning against the leg of the table across from me.

“Sounds to me like you’re just looking for reasons not to go out with us,” he was staring me down.

I exhaled sharply before diving across the couch for my phone as it blared Keane’s “Somewhere Only We Know”. I pressed ‘talk’ and pressed the speaker to my ear.

“Dibelo,” I say, dropping my and Nathan’s discussion.

“Do you remember when I was really drunk that one time?” Alex’s harsh whispering voice carried through the speaker and I had to keep myself from rolling my eyes to myself.

“You’ve been drunk more than just one time, dear,” I reminded sarcastically. Alex groaned with impatience and I could hear him shuffling around the bus. My curiosity for the situation spiked and I stood from the couch and went to my bunk, lying down and pulling the curtain shut. “What are you talking about Alex?”

“Back in Las Angelas when we all went out the night before we left for tour,” He wasn’t necessarily whispering now, but he wasn’t talking at full volume. I had to press the phone to my ear so hard that it was painful. “You and I were dancing and I said something drunken about someone on this tour liking you,” my stomach flipped and my sarcastic mood was replaced with one of pure excitement. I urged him to go on and after a slight pause, he said, “I think I may have crossed a line in telling you that.”

My excitement was shot to hell for a moment. “What?”

Alex made to correct himself. “No, no, what I mean is that what I told you may have been a little melodramatic,” my excitement exploded again.

“So, you just decided to tell me this now?” He hummed and I could see him nodding in my head. “And you’re not going to tell me who this boy is, are you?”

He stayed quiet just a moment too long. “Unless you want me to,” he seemed genuine enough, but to relieve myself of sounding like a desperate girl with a schoolyard crush, I declined. “I suppose I should’ve seen that coming. I really was going to tell you though.”

“Yeah, and I was about to admit being madly in love with you since the day you spout white hot Californian sunlight into my eyes on that plane,” my voice was so frosted with sarcasm it almost didn’t make me smile.

“Well, I already knew that, but it’s always nice to be reminded of how irresistible I am,”

“Stop touching yourself,” I command and he chuckled in forced guiltlessness.

I was dead on in my last assumption and he’d have to own up to it someday.

“How far from New York are we?” Alex whines, now speaking over his normal decibel level. Apparently, the secrecy had stopped. “We’re getting antsy over here.”

I checked the time on the screen. “We should be there right…about…” I trailed off and pulled the curtain to my bunk back, leaning out to see out past the bus’ windshield. “…now.”

Alex shouted in excitement and then, after announcing that he’d be seeing me when we stopped at the venue, he hung up on me.

I climbed out of my bunk and walked to the front of the bus to see Oliver, Nathan, and Brandon pied in the front behind the windshield. In their reflections, I could see their ear-to-ear smiles. I joined them in their ecstatic reunion with our home city as the New York skyline began drawing closer.

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We got to the venue where we’d be playing the next two nights, but seeing as it was only noon and the show was at six thirty, we had some extra time on our hands.

“You guys are not going out to drink this early in the day,” I state as our group of eight stood on the stage, crewmembers setting up wildly around us.

“You’re being selfish,” Oliver whined, stamping his foot like a child that had gotten his favorite toy taken away and put in his mother’s purse.

“Okay, go out and drink while leaving me to stay here at the venue alone with nothing but my thoughts and this big, nostalgic city,” I put my hands on my hips and locked my leg in a pose that would’ve made Dane Cook stand up and applaud.

Four of the seven heads of the group turned toward Oliver in expectation, but Brandon and Nathan and already abolished my sarcastic suggestion.

“Okay, then what are we going to do?” the group murmured amongst itself and I cleared my throat.

“Did I not say nostalgic?”

We were al crammed inside a cab within fifteen minutes and I gave the driver directions to Brandon and Oliver’s old high school. Looking around the car, slightly confused and look a little distressed by the lacking use of seat belts, he pulled away from the cure and swerved right into the New York City noontime traffic surge.

It felt nice to be flung around in the seat of a cab again. Horns honking, citizens screaming, music blaring, sirens shrieking; I couldn’t have wiped the smile off my face if I tried. Oliver, Nathan, and Brandon were each seated by a window. I sat by Brandon in the back seat, Jack by my side, Zack by his, then Rian, and Nathan by the door on the other side of the taxi. In the front seat, Oliver was seated shotgun while Alex was squeezed between himself and the still nervous-looking driver.

We reeled around a corner so sharply I imagined a James Bond-like maneuver in my mind where the car rose onto two wheels on one side. I groaned under the weight of the four boys being pulled against me by inertia. I didn’t think Brandon noticed whatsoever. He was so entranced with the big city lights. I’m sure he had missed this place more than I had.

The cab started straight again and the six of us in the back seat straightened ourselves out. The cab slowed down and I expected another sudden twist in our car ride but instead, it came to halt, and outside the window I could see the high school.

Oliver was out of the car first, which surprised me being as he was the most reluctant about the idea of returning to this place. Brandon opened the door and held it for me as Rian and Zack climbed out on the other side after Nathan. I got out and made to shut the door, but stopped when I saw Jack climbing out after me. He smiled as he passed and I almost slapped myself when I felt my heart skip a beat.

The eight of us walked into the school’s main office, and upon stepping inside, I felt like I had been pulled back in time almost three years. I recognized the two women that sat at their desks that were behind a counter that divided the room. Mrs. Mason was on the left, Mrs. Wilson on the right. The principle’s office was down a short hallway to the left, the walls clear glass. The desk in that office was empty. The two women were looking at us expectantly.

“We’re wondering if we could get some visitor’s passes please,” I asked politely. Oliver and Nathan looked around the room, their vocal cords paralyzed as they were both taken aback by just being there. They had probably been in that office often enough due to their detentions and visits with the principle I could only imagine how much they were praying not to be recognized.

And I knew for a fact how much the boys of All Time Low didn’t necessarily want to get attacked by a mob if it could be avoided.

However, the women behind the counter were sharper than their age lead on and as one squinted at us curiously, the other asked, “Are you Charlotte Connery?”

I smiled sheepishly and nodded. The two women stood suddenly and I felt myself—as well as several members of my company—jump. They both walked around their desks and toward the counter that we stood before. I wondered if they’d pinch my cheeks and tell me how much I’d grown since I was last in this school. I never did attend classes here, after all. But I knew these halls well after spending my days here, waiting for Brandon and Oliver to get out of class.

However, all they did was smile as they got eight visitors passes for us, handing them one by one over the counter.

We each put the lanyards of the laminated passes around our necks and smiled at the ladies before slowly making our way out of the office. Being the last one out the door—to my extreme displeasure—I explained to the ladies that we’d only be there a short while. And then, I too left the room with the eyes of the two women following me until I was around the corner.

We walked up and down the halls and I recalled each classroom as we passed it, naming the teacher, the subject, and a select few of the kids I remembered Brandon or Oliver complaining about because they were class douche bags or sluts.

This reminder sparked some laughs from the aforementioned troublemakers of these halls. I guessed some things just never grew old.

We passed the gymnasium and I had to stop, gazing into the huge room. The floors were as shiny as always, maybe even a little shinier than I had ever seen them when I roamed these halls. I had played volleyball and basketball and kick ball and dodgeball with friends on that court floor to pass the time before band practice. It was full of fun memories. It was where I had first met Nathan after he had moved to New York City.

I stood in the doorway, barely listening as I heard my name being called somewhere down the hall. I was so wrapped up in the past that I was hardly in the present anymore. Then, I felt someone standing beside me, and then there were fingers laced within mine.

I looked down at my hand and then followed the arm upward to see Jack, looking at the gym and then looking at me when I had turned.

“Come on,” he says gently, almost questioningly, like he would’ve stayed there and basked in my homesickness if I would’ve asked him.

Bu I would do that. I couldn’t do that. Instead, I let him pull me away from the doors slowly, and once we were a few feet away, I started carrying myself of my own volition, swinging our still entwined hands between us.

I saw Brandon and Oliver turning the dials on lockers down the hall as the group stood around them, laughing when they realized their old lockers had been repossessed by the present generation of students.

These doors were the clearest memory I had of this city.

“This is the first day of my life,” the lyrics were past my lips before the song was even in my head. “I swear I was born right in the doorway. I went out in the rain, suddenly everything changed. They’re spreading blankets on the beach,” my lips were moving, my vocal cords working, but my mind was in a far off place. I felt Jack look sideways at me. “Yours is the first face that I saw,” I smiled, as I knew he was smiling at me. “I think I was blind before I met you,” I looked at him as we continued to walk slowly. “I don’t know where I am, I don’t know where I’ve been, but I know where I want to go.”

“So, I thought I’d let you know,” Jack picked up quietly, his fingers tightening adoringly around mine. “That these things take forever. I especially am slow, but I realize that I need you and I’m wondering if I could come home.” He pulled his hand closer to his side and thus pulled me closer to him. I didn’t mind though. “You should sing more often.”

I looked at my shoes as they scuffed along the white and tan tiled floor. “Oliver’s always been the lungs of the band,” I say blankly.

Jack looked me over. “We’ll see about that,”

We had walked out of the school and to the football fiend, calling our bus driver and asking him if he’d mind picking us up so we wouldn’t have to attempt hailing a cab in this part of the city. He said he didn’t mind, but that it might be a while because of traffic.

We didn’t mind that at all.

The track around the field still had hurdles set up from track season and we all had a good time leaping them one by one. I had my camcorder in my purse and I filmed Jack as he ran toward a hurdle, stopped and kicked it, ran around it and leapt the next one like a dork, his legs splayed at weird angles, his arms in the air, his mouth wide open.

We were all laughing when Alex attempted it and almost landed flat on his face when his foot caught the top of the obstacle.

Soon after that, we were all laying in the middle of the field, exhausted. Our bus was there not long after we had ended our row of athleticism. Then, we heard the bell ring inside the school, resonating outside through the speakers, and I looked at my phone to see that it was half past three o’clock. I wondered if the school kids would rush out and see us there, and my thoughts came to life when I saw the first trickles of the flood of kids walk outside and see our tour bus parked by the fence.

Then, all eyes landed on us and the crowd that had been walking was now running full speed toward us. And when I say ‘us’, I actually mean Zack, Rian, Alex, and Jack. However, my boys and I had a fairly large crowd of our own, though ninety-nine point nine percent of the people surrounding us were female.

I smiled at the kids as they voiced how excited they were about the shows that night and the following. A few boys squirmed through the crowd and asked for pictures with me, which I gladly obliged to though I wasn’t so happy with one boy that placed his hand dangerously close to my ass.

My eyes flashed to Rian, Zack, Jack and Alex. I wanted to see how they were dealing with such attention. Sure, they were more experienced than I was, but they didn’t have that much experience under their belts.

My eyes landed on Jack as he posed with a girl who looked like she had bleached her hair a hundred times too many. Her hairline was receding, her pale blue eyes held nothing but pure ditziness, and when she placed her hand on Jack’s waist and pushed her chest out into his side, sporting a low v-cut shirt that was a straight boob shot, it was all I had in me not to tackle her to the ground and rip every last shred of sickly blond, albino-like hair out of her stupid skull.

What turned my utter rage into complete outrage was how Jack just smiled through the picture despite how obvious her body language made her out to be.

My eyes narrowed to slits and I felt my lip curl back for a nanosecond in a vicious snarl. I felt someone put their hand on my shoulders to steady me, but I ripped away from their touch and pushed my way through the crowd to Jack’s side, shoving the bleach blonde bitch out of the way. She voiced her objection and I almost punched her in the mouth.

“Come on guys,” I say, taking Jack’s hand clandestinely and looking everyone but him in the eyes. “Our bus is waiting.” And I pulled Jack through the throng of girls, glaring each skanky-looking one down as I went.

We got on the bus and I released Jack’s hand, walking straight to the table and sitting down, ignoring the screaming fans that still stood outside. We had given our visitors passes to one of the boys and told him to return them to the office for us. Whether he would actually do it or not was up to him. I didn’t care.

Jack slid into the seat beside me. “What was that all about?”

I wasn’t going to pussyfoot around my or his feelings. “She was trashy,” I say blatantly. “I doubt she even listens to your music. She probably just saw your face on the Internet or in a magazine and has decided she wants you in her nasty lacey panties.”

Jack looked at me with wide eyes. “Moody much?”

I sighed, looking away from him and out the window as the bus’ tires began to move and we started to pull away from the school parking lot. “I have low tolerance for girls who have little to no respect for themselves.”

“And you know that girl has no self respect?”

“Did you see what she was wearing?” I turned on him, looking at him dumbly, but he didn’t seem to catch my drift. I exhaled again before murmuring, “Pretty girls don’t put out.”

The entire bus erupted in objective chatter, but Jack stayed silent beside me and I wondered if he could see straight through the façade that was suddenly crashing down around me…