Maybe if My Heart Stops Beating It Won't Hurt This Much

~*Montreal, Quebec, Canada*~
Mack’s POV

“WAKE UP!”

Let me tell you right now that I am not a morning person, only when someone else is forcing me up. Normally, I’d be up at the crack of dawn doing work. Mainly writing lyrics but sometimes I’d be cleaning and washing dishes. I’m the mother of the group, but I can’t help that when I’m the only girl in the house.

Oh, let me explain a bit.

My name’s Mackenzie Desrosiers, Mack for short. Yes, my brother is David Desrosiers of Simple Plan, but this isn’t about him. It’s about me.

I got a contract with Lava so now I’m a recording artist. For the past three months I’ve been working on my CD. Writing non-stop and finding new guitar hooks to put into my music. My best friends from school, Rhyder, Spencer, and Austen play the guitar, drums, and bass respectively. I wouldn’t dream of doing this without them. The hard part was finding another guitarist to take on the lead position.

That’s where Evan Taubenfeld comes in. You see, he used to play for Avril Lavigne, one of my influences. When I heard he was going to audition I freaked. I have a slight celebrity crush on him, but it went away when he got a contract to work with us.

Another thing you need to know about me, unlike other solo artists, I don’t like to do stuff by myself. So, every interview that I’ve done so far the guys were with me and they’re in the pictures of the booklet of my debut CD Bleeding on Paper. I named it that because it was like I was pouring my heart and soul out onto the paper that I wrote my lyrics on. The name stuck because we couldn’t think of anything else.

“MACKIE! WAKE UP!”

That had to be Austen. He was the only one who dared to wake up me when I didn’t have much sleep the night before. The next thing I knew my bedroom door had swung open and a body landed on me. My covers were pulled off and I was face to face with Austen Jones, my best friend since Grade 2.

“Wake up!” He yelled, ignoring the fact that I was all ready awake. “Mackie, come on.”

Here’s the thing. I absolutely hate being called Mackie, but the guys call me that to annoy me. Don’t ever call me that unless you want to die. Just letting you know now.

“What?” I demanded as I rubbed my eyes and glared up at him.

“Did you forget what day it is?” He questioned. I continued to glare. I really wasn’t in the mood for one of his games. “We go on tour today, remember!”

“Oh yeah!” I shouted as I shot up, causing him to fall to the floor. I laughed as I jumped out of bed and raced to the closet to find something. I was going on tour. I wasn’t a headliner because I’m promoting my CD first. They said that I’d headline if I became more popular. Anyway, I’m going on tour with my favorite band ever, Paramore! I still can’t believe it! “Get out so I can change.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going to get a boner or something,” Austen replied, flopping down on my bed and grabbed a magazine. Forgot to mention, Austen’s gay. He embraces it too; it explains why he’s so eccentric.

I changed in my walk-in closet anyway. I changed into a black and blue zebra print t-shirt, white pants black and white striped fingerless gloves with skulls on the back, and my gray star covered Punkrose high-tops.

“Go wake up the others and I’ll make breakfast before we leave for the airport, ok?”

“Okie dokie!”

Austen rushed out of the room as I went down the stairs into the kitchen. The studio we worked in doubled as a house so we have been living here for the past three months. I’m glad that we can finally leave, although I will miss the place. It was very rad.

“Do you want anything specific?” I asked Rhyder as he came into the kitchen and I took eggs out of the refrigerator.

“No,” he replied with a yawn. “Unless you’re offering to kill Austen.”

“No. I’m the one who gave him permission to wake you guys up,” I replied as I made up my mind. Pancakes it was.

“Oh. So can I kill you now or would you rather wait until the tour is over?” He asked sarcastically.

“You know, I could easily poison your food.”

“I’ll shut up now.”

Suddenly there was a loud crash before the sound of pounding footsteps. Rhyder leaned back in his chair to look at the stairs as I walked over to them. Austen ran down the stairs, screaming about Spencer going to kill him by shoving his drumsticks down his throat.

Boys. How do you live with them?

“Umm…are they always like this?” Evan asked, coming into the kitchen. Sometimes I forget that we just met him a week ago. He fit in so fast yet he was still so new to things.

“Yeah, you’ll get used to it,” Rhyder replied. “Not like you have a choice,” he added quietly.

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~*Franklin, Tennessee*~
Hayley’s POV

“Hayles, let go,” Taylor muttered as I hugged him as hard as I could. I couldn’t help it. I mean, he was the official next member of Paramore. Right when we needed a touring guitarist for our new tour, The Final RIOT!

We knew that we wanted Taylor to be a part of this, but him becoming the newest member was even better. Now we wouldn’t have to worry about finding someone else, he’s been there with us since day one.

“Sorry. I’m just so excited! We’re going on tour again!” I cheered as I danced around the room.

“Can you save the celebration for later and help me with this?” Zac grumbled as he tried to close the lid to his suitcase.

I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from laughing out loud. He had thrown clothes into the suitcase and it was sticking up in a pile, it didn’t surprise me that he couldn’t close his suitcase. He tried to sit on top of it and force it shut but that didn’t work. Then he tried to get Josh to jump on top of it but that didn’t work either.

“Jerms, Josh, Hayles, sit in this,” Zac ordered as he glared at his suitcase. I sighed and decided to help him anyway. I waited for Josh and Jeremy to sit on top of it before diving ontop of them. We managed to get the lid down slightly as Zac and Taylor struggled to pull the zipper.

“Almost there…almost there…wait…wait…GOT IT!” Zac shouted as he zipped it the entire way. He and Taylor shot their hands into the air and high-five. “I defeated you, evil suitcase of openness!”

The guys started laughing as I rolled my eyes.

Boys!

Sometimes I wonder why I dealt with them and then I quickly remember that it’s because they were the only friends I had. I never had any other friends besides them and now that I’m in a successful band I’m not doing to great on the friend front. I just needed a girl to hand out with to make it better for me to deal.

Which is another reason why I’m excited to tour. This is the first time I’m touring with another girl. Her stage name is Mini D, which I find rad. The guys find it strange that that’s her name, but there has to be a story behind it. Like Pink or Madonna. From what I’ve heard and read about her she has a lot of potential to make it big. It reminds me of what people said about us and here we are, on another great tour.

The only thing was that I didn’t want to leave Franklin behind. I love this little town, it’s amazing. Everyone is so nice here and everyone says ‘hi’ to you whether they know you or not. On stage and on the road I’m more vulnerable to the criticism. While I’m at home it’s as if nothing can affect me but while I’m out there, I’m a little more self-conscious about what people say about me. The guys are there as buffers, but I can’t help but wonder why someone would say they hate me when they don’t know me.

Well, with another girl on my side, this tour will be a lot more interesting.