The Young and Lost Club

THIS IS THE SECOND UPDATE TODAY, MAKE SURE YOU'VE READ BOTH!

I woke up to my phone ringing, and I did a very stupid thing: I answered without looking at who it was first.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“Hello?” I said, still half asleep. It was 4 am, and I was exhausted because Alex and I had spent the evening together and frankly, the boy wore me out. “Who is this?”
“You know damn well who it is Clark Cecelia Abrams. And you have been avoiding me.”
I recognized the voice this time. “Lizzie?” I questioned, sitting up and running a hand through my tangled hair. “Lizzie is that you?”
“Of course it’s me,” she snapped. “Where the hell have you been.”
I struggled to find words to say. “I…um…I…”
“Really, I’m kind of hurt, Clark. I know you and my brother broke up, but did you really have to cut me out of your life too?”
I winced, closing my eyes. “It wasn’t like that Lizzie.”
But she wouldn’t hear it. “I thought we were friends,” she said harshly.
“You…you are Liz, I just couldn’t…”
“What? You couldn’t call me?” I could just see her now: Lizzie Urie-Macalaster, Brendon’s older and favorite sister, and my favorite member of Brendon’s family. She looked just like Brendon, the brown hair, the big eyes, the fish lips, the same addictive personality. She was Brendon in female form. I hadn’t spoken to her in months.
“I’m sorry,” I amended. “It wasn’t like I was avoiding you, personally. I was just trying to avoid anything to do with…”
“With Brendon,” she supplied for me.
“Yes.”
There was a brief silence. “What you did was really shitty, you know.”
I felt offended. “What I did? What about what he did?”
“At least he tried to fix things. You just ran away.”
“Because he cheated on me! You can’t be on his side Lizzie!”
“Of course I can! He’s my brother, and you hurt him! Of course I’m pissed at you!” She wasn’t shouting, she was just stating the facts and it hurt more than I thought I could bear. “And it doesn’t help that you never once called me to try to explain, or that you ignored my phone calls. Maybe then I would have felt some sympathy.”
“You have no idea what I’ve been through,” I said evenly. “No clue, Lizzie. Maybe I was wrong to cut out people, but I was…no, I am hurt. He broke me. He didn’t just cheat on me, he broke me. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”
Lizzie was quiet for a long time. “The kids miss you,” she said finally, and I knew that in her way, it was her agreeing to put this disagreement behind us. “They keep asking where Aunt Clark is.”
I shook my head. “Don’t say that.”
“Can’t…can’t you work things out when you’re on tour together?” She sounded like she was pleading. “You two belong together…I won’t like any other girl he brings home as much as you.” She added in the joke and even though it wasn’t really funny, we both laughed anyway.
“I don’t know,” I said sighing. “It’s asking a lot.” Well, that and the whole fact that he had moved on, and that I had no clue if I was capable of working things out.
She sighed. “Oh shit! Is it 4 am there?”
“Yeah.”
“Oh god. I’m sorry. I was just sitting in bed and thinking about you and decided to give a call, I didn’t even think of the time difference!”
“No it’s fine.” I said truthfully. “I’m glad you did…I miss you.”
“I miss you too.” Pause. “Well, look, call me back sometime at a decent hour, okay? I want to catch up.”
“I will.” I said, but it felt like a lie. How could I talk to her? How could I be her friend when our common interest was no longer there?
I lay awake for a long time after we hung up, feeling like shit, and wondering if maybe, somehow I was reaping what I’d sowed, and how, suddenly, I felt like everything was my fault again. At 5 am, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I got dressed, through my hair up and went to one of the 24 hour grocery stores down the road.
As I was trying to figure out what fruit snacks Brian and Taylor would like best: Pokemon or Spongebob, I heard an all too familiar voice. “Clark? Is that you?”
My head shot up. Fuck, it was like the Ghosts of Christmas Past were haunting me today. “Oliver,” I said weakly. “Hi.”
Oliver King, my ex-boyfriend, who I had abandoned for New York City, without so much as a goodbye. Before Brendon, I could have easily counted him as the boy who hurt me most. He had cheated on me, had called me horrible, disgusting names, and made me believe I was in love with him. He looked exactly how I remembered him, light hair, light eyes, tattoos spirling up his neck. He was bad. Bad, bad, bad. Just looking at him, I felt my chest tighten in anxiety, I tasted acid in my mouth, I felt all of the spine I had grown since I had left him crumble away. Looking at him, I was 20 years old again. Looking at him, I was insignificant.
He was talking a mile a minute, and I was barely paying attention, wondering how shitty my luck was that I would run into him at 5 am in a grocery store miles from where he used to live.
“So what about you?” He said suddenly. “Where did you run off to?” He said it so casually, like it had never even bothered him. Like it was funny that I had left, an amusing trick, rather than a turning point in my life.
“Um,” I coughed. “New York.”
And suddenly his whole face changed. One minute he was looking at me like I was something humorous, the next like he wanted to murder me. That was also typical Oliver, his mood changed on a dime, I never had any idea when he was going to be set off, what kind of mood he’d be in. The change was just as terrifying as it had been 4 years ago. “Did you think that was funny?” He snarled. He took a step closer, I took a step back. “Huh? Make me look like a goddamned idiot? You running away like that?”
“Oliver,” I said calmly. I was terrified, but I was keeping my cool. “It was 4 years ago.”
“I don’t give a shit if it was 10 years ago. No one does that to me!”
“Oh grow the fuck up!” I spat at him. I tried to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and shoved me violently against the fruit snack, knocking several boxes to the floor. “Let me go,” I said lowly.
“No.”
My temper snapped. “Really? One scream and you can be arrested, we’re in a fucking Walmart, Oliver. Let. Me. Go.”
He seemed to realize his mistake at once, and then his mood changed again. He dropped my arm and smiled at me. “God, I was just kidding Abrams, calm down.”
I glared him, and he held up his hands, still smiling and then walked away, down the aisle and made a right.
Once he was out of sight, I took a deep breath and let it out shakily. I couldn’t get air. My lungs couldn’t fill up, my head felt dizzy, I started to hyperventilate: I was having a full blown panic attack in the middle of Walmart. I knelt down, sitting back on my heels, taking deep calming breaths, trying to calm down but it wasn’t working out so well. Panic attacks were hard to control, especially when they hit you from out of nowhere, like Oliver.
“Ma’am, are you okay?”
I jumped and stood up, wiping my eyes quickly on the back of my shirt sleeve. “Yeah,” I assured the sale associate. “Yeah, I’m fine, I just dropped some of these and…and…” my voice cracked and I quickly knelt down and started gathering up the boxes Oliver had knocked over.
“Hey,” the sale associate knelt down as well, and placed a hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay, I’ve got them.”
“O…okay,” I said shakily, standing up again. He was still staring at me like I was a crazy person, so I forced a laugh and then wiped at my face again. “Sorry, I have horrible allergies.” He simply nodded, still looking worried. So I quickly turned, abandoning the cart half full of food and headed back to my car.
I drove around for a while, eventually finding some shitty coffee shop and I went in, ordering cup after cup of coffee. My phone started going off around noon. “Hey babe, you up for round two yet? ;)” Alex. I couldn’t even think of trying to deal with that right now. And then, because Alex has a phone whore and never understood why people couldn’t text back immediately. “Where are you?” and “You can’t still be asleep, its almost one” and then, “is something wrong?” “Clark can you please just text me back?” and then, finally around 5 o’clock, when the caffine was making me feel ill and shaky, Jack texted me “Can you please just respond to Alex? He’s about to have a hissy fit.”
I sighed, getting up finally, stretching, stiff, sore, and jumpy from sitting around for hours without moving. I checked my blackberry once more (Just one more, from Alex “ok well please call me tonight, I hope your not mad at me”) and then walked to my car and drove back to the house.
Brian was the only one home. “You look awful,” he said, looking up from his plate of food. He was sitting on the couch eating. “Where you with Gaskarth all day?”
“No,” I said, sitting next to him and taking half his sandwich. “I was just driving around today.”
He peered at me, “What’s wrong Mini Abrams?”
I smiled at the old nickname and leaned my head on his shoulder. “I’m alright.”
“Oh!” he said, reaching across me to the end table. “This came for you today,” he handed me a large brown envelope.
I glanced at it curiously, I didn’t recognize the handwriting that well, but then I saw in the corner, the return address was from P. Hemmingway. Pete. “I’m goning to go clean myself up,” I said, standing up.
“Alright,” Brian said. “Call me if you need anything.”
I waved to show I heard him and then slipped into my room, which was half boxed up, I never had fully unpacked here. I took a quick shower and then after I was dressed again, I sat on my bed and opened up the envelope. A CD case, with flowers and a purple design, saying “Welcome to the Sound of Pretty. Odd.” I chewed on my lip, staring at it and then saw the note that had fallen out from the envelope itself:
Hey Clark,
I knew, whether you wanted to admit it or not, that you would want some time to sit and listen to this before you are thrown into tour. Please remember what we talked about in Chicago: broken hearts hurt like a bitch, but they can heal, given time, and space, and friendship. Please know that you will always have all three of those with me, and know that I am only a phone call away.
Much Love,
Pete
I smiled despite myself and then started digging in my boxes to find my old CD player and then unwrapped the cd, and with a deep breath, pressed play. The first time through was excrutiating. Hearing his voice, all those happy love songs, hearing new renditions of songs I had heard them play back in Arizona which brought back happier times. The second time wasn’t much easier. The songs, they were all so amazing, so different, so them at the same time. The third time I listened, I managed to get through without breaking down. The fourth time, I was numb. As much as I wanted to pretend that any of those songs were about each other, as much as I wished that somewhere in there was a hidden message to me, I knew there wasn’t. It was what it was: and what it was, was a phenomenal sophomore album. Nothing more, nothing less.
I stood up, running a hand through my hair and then checked myself in the mirror. It would have to do. I grabbed my car keys, yelled goodbye to Brian and drove to Alex’s apartment. It was pretty late, but Alex would still be up, I was sure of it, and he was probably pissed at me.
I pounded on his door, and about thirty seconds went by. “Jesus, I’m coming already-“ Alex opened the door, shirtless and looking slightly befuddled. “Clark?”
Without thinking, I practically jumped on him, kissing him with everything I had in me. It took him a moment to respond, and then his arms were around me, and his hand was in my hair, and his hips were crashing into mine and we only pulled away when we both ran out of oxygen. “Holy shit,” Alex said, panting. “What the fuck was that?”
Everything, I wanted to tell him, but I felt so fucking guilty. Using him, as an outlet like this, it was so wrong and horrible of me, even though he had said it was okay. I started to pull away, but he grabbed my arms and held tight. I tried to avoid looking at him in the eye, but he tilted his head and made this funny face and next thing I knew I was giggling and he was smiling back at me. “So…are you mad at me or what?” Alex said. “I mean, should I let you inside so you can yell at me, or are we just going to hang out in the doorway?”
I shook my head. “Alex, why on earth would I be mad at you?”
“Fuck if I know, girls are weird like that.”
I laughed slightly. “I’m not mad…it’s just been an awful day, and I was feeling guilty…”
Alex raised an eyebrow. “Don’t feel guilty.”
“You deserve better than this.”
“I’m perfectly fine, thank you very much.”
I sighed.
Alex reached down, and yanked on the belt loops of my jeans, pulling my hips closer to his and kissed me again, and instinctually, I closed my eyes and deepened it. “Come inside,” Alex breathed into my ear. He started kissing my neck. “Come inside and let me turn your bad day into a good one.” His lips found the sensitive spot on my neck and I had to suppress a moan. “Okay?”
I nodded. I didn’t have any self control anymore, and Alex made me feel better. Alex could erase everything, if only for a little while.