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

“It’s too early for this,” Austen groaned sleepily. He was lying out across three chairs in the airport terminal. His feet were in Spencer’s lap and he had a book covering his face. I chuckled as I went over to where he was sitting. I lifted his head and sat down, letting his head fall back into my lap as I gently ran my fingers through his hair. The feeling of fingernails gently scraping his head always relaxed him. It was very strange but that’s Austen for you. “Explain to me why we have to leave at…four in the morning?”

“Because it takes five hours to get there and don’t forget the times will be different,” I explained. “We leave here at four and fly for five hours. In Montreal it would be nine o’clock but when we land it will be six o’clock in the morning.”

“So…if you think about it, we’re only flying for two hours?” he questioned.

“If you put it that way, yeah.”

“Ok, we got the food,” Rhyder announced as he and Evan came back carrying breakfast wraps, bowls of fruit, and smoothies. They handed it out to us and we didn’t hesitate to dig in. Usually I try to stay away from airline food because I didn’t trust it, but this was my only exception. It was too early for me to find something else to eat.

“Explain to me why we’re eating again,” I asked with a full mouth.

“Because your food didn’t tie us over,” Austen replied, spitting crumbs up into my face. Sick! “Sorry,” he apologized, reaching up and wiping off my face. “So what’s the plan once we get to the other airport?”

“As soon as we get there we’re going to meet up with Paramore. If I calculated correctly they’ll get to San Francisco a few minutes before us. From there we take rental cars to where our buses and then we take those busses around North America for our first tour,” Spencer replied, looking at his tour date schedule. We didn’t call him the father of the band for nothing.

“How do we know it’s them?” Rhyder questioned.

“Look for a short red head, it’s not that hard,” I muttered with an eye roll. “Honestly, did you guys not even look up on this band at all?”

“We’re not some stalker fangirls,” Evan spoke up as he chuckled. “We don’t go and find as much information as possible on people.”

“You could at least get some info on their reviews or something,” I replied. “That’d be like going on tour…with Madonna and not knowing any of her work or anything.”

“Why’re you getting so defensive?”

“Waaait, I think I get it,” Spencer said as a slow smile formed on his face. It was the smile that reached both eyes, or in his case his suspicious smile. Usually when he has that smile on his face his suspicions were accurate. “You like one of them, don’t you?” He asked as he prodded my cheek.

“Uh, no,” I replied, rolling my eyes. Just ‘cause I was a girl they always made fun of me when I did girly stuff, like get a crush on a guy or straighten my hair or something like that.

“You do, I can tell. Who is it? C’mon, tell us! Tell us!” Spencer pressed as he continued to poke my cheek.

“Poke me again and I’ll bite off that finger!” I growled through clenched teeth. He didn’t believe me because he kept poking me. I quickly turned my head and snapped my jaws at his finger. He quickly pulled it away and slowly shook his head at me, as if he were a parent.

I lifted my head when our flight was called. I was the only one out of the group who could translate French almost instantly when I hear it. The guys had to listen to it a few times to understand and to reply or react. Strange, seeing as they were from a French-Canadian province, but they learned English as their first language, French was mine. Evan didn’t know how much of French he knew but we served as his translators so he would know if he were being insulted or something.

“C’mon boys,” I sighed as I tapped Austen, letting him know to get off me. I swear if I didn’t watch them to make sure they actually got the stuff done that we needed my CD would never have been done on time.

We got onto the plane and took our seats. I was sitting with Rhyder and Evan while Spencer and Austen sat across from us with someone else. I felt bad for them. Austen was known for not being able to stay in a seat for five minutes before he went crazy and did something to annoy someone. It was usually me, but that’s what I get for knowing him for a long time.

“Are you ok?” Evan’s voice poked through my thoughts. I turned my head slightly to see a concerned look on his face. “The armrests are in your death grip,” he added, nodding at my hands. I looked down and noticed that my knuckles had turned white from how hard I was gripping the seat.

Did I mention that I hate flying? Always have, there’s something about it that gets to me. Probably the fact that any small thing could go wrong and we’d plummet thousands of feet to our deaths. That’s a perfectly rational reason.

“Oh, she hates flying,” Rhyder told Evan. “She’s always afraid that the plane is going to crash into the ocean or something. I personally think she’s been watching too much LOST.”

“That’s a good show,” I defended myself.

“Oh, it must be great if it made you this paranoid,” he said sarcastically with an eye roll. I punched him on the arm and buckled my seatbelt when the sign lit up. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly as I heard the engines kicking up. I gripped the armrests so hard that my fingers were beginning to hurt. I felt Rhyder slid his hand underneath mine and clasp them, intertwining our fingers. I squeezed his hand as I felt the plane pick up speed.

“You can open your eyes now.” I felt someone prodding my shoulder and I forced my eyes open and looked around. People were moving back to their seats, eye masks were being lifted and seats were being returned to the upright position. “Look, we’re here. You fell asleep,” Evan said as he pointed out the window. I leaned over and looked out the small oval window at the landscape that we were getting closer to.

We finally landed at San Francisco International Airport North. I really wanted to go to LAX, because it was by LA, but that would have to be saved for another time I guess. The guys and I waited a bit for people to get off before we grabbed our things.

“Zac, is the only thing you think about food?” We heard a female voice above everyone else’s as we moved closer to the gate.

“Hayles, we didn’t get to eat before we came here. They didn’t have food on the plane that was worth buying.”

“He has a point,” another male voice spoke up.

“Just wait until they get here and then we can go and have a huge group breakfast, ok?”

“Fine,” the first boy sighed.

After I checked that we had all of our gear (which wasn’t that much since we sent our guitars and stuff ahead of time) I reached out and tapped the red head’s shoulder. Seeing one of my favorite bands in person would normally make me get super nervous and excited at the same time, but when I saw them I was calm, which shocked me.

“Hi!” Hayley greeted us happily. “You’re Mini D, right?”

“Yes,” I replied, blushing at the ridiculous name that I agreed to go with. “But you can call me Mack. This is Spencer, Evan, Rhyder, and Austen,” I said as I pointed to each guy.

“That’s Josh, Taylor, Zac, and Jeremy,” Hayley said as she pointed to each guy, all of which who greeted us in different ways. “How was your flight?” She asked as she turned to pick up her bags. “Oh, I guess you need to get to baggage claim,” she said before I could even respond. “We’ll walk with you!”

“Ok. And to answer your question, it was less nerve wracking than before. But that was only because I was asleep,” I explained. She gave me a confused look. “I hate flying,” I stated.

“Oh, I used to hate it too. But you get used to it. And it’s the quickest and less gas consuming way to get somewhere,” she pointed out as we weaved our way between the crowds of people that were moving in the opposite direction of them.

“Mack, right?” Zac asked as he suddenly appeared on my other side. I nodded. “How old are you?”

“Nineteen,” I replied.

“Yes!” he shouted, pumping his fists into the air. “Finally! Someone else my age!” I continued to stare at him as he lowered his arms, but the smile never left his face. “Taylor’s nineteen too. Before he joined us I was the youngest one.”

I smiled a little before directing my gaze downwards. A habit of mine that I tried to break, I only did that when I had no clue what to say to someone to break an awkward silence. I glanced behind me and saw that the rest of the guys were getting along great with Paramore, it was just me who had a hard time meeting people.

“Why so quiet?” Hayley asked, her bright green eyes flashing as she poked me in the side. “We’re starting tour today! So, tell me about yourself.”

“Yeah, tell us about yourself,” Zac echoed.

“Well, what do you want to know?” I questioned.

“First, where’d you get that Skelanimal t-shirt?” She asked, looking at it. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. No one seemed to know that the shirt I was wearing was a Skelanimal shirt.

“Umm, I got it from a thrift store,” I replied, tugging at the end of my fingerless glove, another bad habit. “There’s a really good place called Friperie Potetr in Montreal.”

“We’re going there for part of the tour. You’d have to show it to me,” Hayley said as she skipped head of me.

Hayley’s energy was refreshing. My boys always had energy, but they used it to eventually destroy something. Her energy was the type where it would instantly wake others up and make them want to have that energy too.

“So, do you have a boyfriend?” Zac asked suddenly.

“Oh, no way man!” Taylor shouted from behind us. “Don’t even think about it!”

“I saw her first.”

“You can’t possibly be playing that card.”

My lip twitched slightly as the two started fighting. I mean, hello, I was still walking right next to them. I didn’t understand boys sometimes and they’re giving me another reason not to.

“Ignore them, half the stuff that comes out of their mouths isn’t worth knowing,” Josh said as he shook his head.

Before I could thank him Hayley practically yelled in my ear: “Come on! The faster we get your stuff the faster we can eat! My stomach won’t stop yelling at me.” Hayley grabbed my arm and dragged me to the baggage claim. We spotted our stuff and pulled them off. Austen’s bag was the hardest to get off of the belt because it was so heavy.

“So I brought my favorite pairs of shoes with me,” he said in an offended tone when he noticed everyone staring at him.

“That’s every single pair in your closet!” I said as I threw my hands into the air in exasperation.

“It’s not every pair,” he said with a roll of his eyes, “it’s all but three.”

“Ok, to stop any bloodshed, let’s go,” Rhyder said as he jumped in between Austen and me. It’s a good thing he did too or else I would’ve strangled him. Austen would do this to me to test my patience.

“Race ya,” Hayley said in a challenging tone as we got close to the exit doors.

“Go!” I yelled before she could start running and I took off ahead of her.

“Cheater!” She yelled as I heard her footsteps after me. We were making so much noise that probably bothered people at six in the morning. Hayley and I let out shrieks every now and then when we almost crashed into someone in our haste to get out. I could faintly hear Josh, or maybe it was Jeremy, mutter, “Oh no, not another Hayley”.

“Ha! I beat you!” I shouted, punching my fists into the air once I stepped outside. I was panting slightly despite how fast I ran.

“You…cheated,” she said in between breaths as she glared at me. I felt bad for racing her. I mean, seeing her jumping around on the stage all of the time it’s obvious that she’s fit, but I’ve been running cross country since I was thirteen so I had an unfair advantage.

“You’re lucky I’m so nice,” Rhyder said as he pulled my bag behind him with one hand. He used his other to pull his and my carry-on and his were on either shoulder.

“Yes I am,” I replied before grabbing my bag off of his shoulder and he dropped his on the sidewalk. “You’re too nice,” I added before standing on my tiptoes and kissing his cheek.

“Yeah, sometimes I wonder why I put up with you,” he said with a smirk, flicking my forehead. I stuck my tongue out at him and he returned the gesture. If you haven’t noticed, we don’t always act our ages, which is the beauty of our friendship.

“’Cause you’d miss me if I left.”

“No, not really.” I punched him in the arm. He let out a squeak and grabbed it.

“Oh please. That couldn’t have hurt, you baby,” I said with an eye roll. “Where’s that car? I’m starving!”

“Are you PMSing?” Spencer asked as he stared at me, his head tilted slightly.

“No, but you’d know it if I were,” I replied. “I’m just starving.”

“Is your stomach talking to you too?” Hayley asked seriously. I glanced over at Jeremy who gave a ‘go-with-it’ nod. “Mine’s been yellin’ at me ever since we left Franklin. Waking up at five and not eating is not a good idea.” We all turned towards a large van when it pulled up. The driver got out and asked if we were who he was going to drive to the hotel. We confirmed it and threw our bangs into the back before piling into the van.

“I say we go to Denny’s,” Zac spoke up.

“No, I just want to go to hotel and get food there and not leave,” Rhyder said as he slumped in his seat, letting out a yawn.

“No, Denny’s,” Zac whined.

“Hotel,” Rhyder whined in response.

“Denny’s.”

“Hotel.”

“Oh my god,” I muttered as I slid down in my seat.

“Just wait until you’re stuck on a bus with them. If that doesn’t bring you guys together, I don’t know what will,” Hayley said with a chuckle. “Being stuck in tight places like that makes you have to address things so it’s an advantage and a curse ‘cause you can’t stay mad at someone, you’d have to talk it out.”

“Oh, so this entire time you secretly hated us?” Josh asked in a fake offended tone. Hayley rolled her eyes and lightly hit him on the nose.

“We’re here,” the driver called as he pulled over.

Hayley and I glanced at each other.

“Race you!” We shouted in unison.