Summer Is When Everything Could Happen

“Ally, hey Ally!”, Lance’s voice echoed through my earlobes, making my eyes shot opened. I sat up straight and found Lance at the van’s doorway.

I groaned and rubbed my eyes because of the blinding light from outside. “What now?”

“Max caught an allergy, so he can’t do merch today, but my cousin, Ruth, covered for it. can you help her set up?”

A few minutes we spent staring at each other and then, I surrendered. “Fine, give me five minutes to change.”

Lance grinned and sauntered off. I rolled my eyes before getting out from the van and took some clothes from my duffel bags. I changed in the trailer and when I opened the trailer’s door, a red head smiled at me.

“Hi!”, she chirped. I walked out from the trailer and stuffed my dirty clothes into my duffel bag. “I’m Ruth, Lance’s cousin.”

“I’m Ally.”, I smiled and picked up the first box of merch and handed it to her. “You’ll do merch for today?”

She nodded as I picked up the second box, which I would carry myself. “Yeah, I live here in Tacoma, and I always wanted to get to know Lance’s friends from Arizona.”

“Well, you’re not going to meet only his friends from Arizona. Probably, you’ll meet all of the bands here.”

Ruth grinned widely and we talked more as we walked towards the tent. When we passed by The Summer Set’s, John was talking with their merch girl, and when he noticed me walking by, he looked away.

It felt like someone gripped my heart and crushed it. Ruth probably noticed my expression change but didn’t question it for politeness. When we got to our tent, we started to open the boxes. I pinned up some t-shirts on the cork board and Ruth set up the table.

My mind was filled with millions of things. About John, Stephen and Jack. Speaking of Jack, I haven’t seen him around these past few days. I wasn’t too focused on my work and didn’t notice when a thumbtack pinned on my index finger.

“Shit!”, I cursed as I pulled it out. A little blood lake appeared and it burst out quicker than before.

“Ally! You okay?”, Ruth looked at my finger and she rushed off to the van to look for a band aid. When I was still staring hopelessly at my finger, someone’s hand took it and cleaned it up with his shirt.

I looked up and found Jack’s face, concentrating on my wounded finger. He pulled out a piece of Pokemon band aid from his pocket and wrapped it around my wound. “Here.”

“Thanks, Jack.”, I smiled and he smiled back. I stood up, jumping on him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I missed you, buddy.”

He hugged back and rocked us side to side. “I miss you too, Ally cakes!”

We hugged for another minute until Ruth came back with a band aid in hand and a confused look plastered on her face. “Oh, Jack, this is Ruth, Lance’s cousin. She’s filling in for Max today.”

“Hi, Ruth!”, Jack pulled her into a hug and I could tell she was very surprised when she got hugged by Jack Barakat.

“Hi.”, she squeaked up and when Jack let her go, her face turned red hot. She excused herself to continue her task and I had to laugh at her face. Jack asked me to company him walking around the arena, and Ruth said that it was okay, so I left her to do the merch setting up.

Jack told me everything I’ve missed when we were in our quiet term. He taken care of Gummy for the past few days and he told me that Gummy peed in his bunk. “I tell you, dog’s pee stinks. Real bad.”

“Then why did you let him sleep in your bunk?!”, I laughed while I clutched on my stomach due to the laughing.

“He reminded me of you.”

My laughter stopped and I narrowed my eyes at him. “What do you mean?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. When I looked at his eyes, I always reminded of you. The way he looked at me, and the way he would barked when I took him out for a walk.”

I smiled and hugged his side. “Thank you, Jacky. You’re my bestest friend.”
***************
“What’s up, Tacoma?!”, I shouted through my red microphone after we were done with our last song. “You guys are amazing, you know that?”

The crowd screamed in return. I traded my keytar to my Gibson Hummingbird acoustic guitar. After I slung it around my torso, I put my mic on it stand again. “So, I want to sing you a song. For the most special guy this summer. to Stephen Gomez, I’m in love with you.”

The crowd screamed and my fingers started the intro to Real Thing by Boys Like Girls.

‘Jamie's in love
She's got the summer blowing through her hair
She turns it up
She says tonight you take me anywhere
Bobby's in luck
He got a fire burning in his eyes
He turns it up
And he says girl you better hold on tight’

My eyes wandered to the side of the stage, to the back of the crowd and to the right side of the stage, but Stephen was nowhere to be seen. Dana, Pat, Lance and Jack, who were standing side stage, noticed my expression.

‘Cause this is the real thing
Love changes everything
This is the night when every heart's exploding
The real thing
Slow down it's happening
'Cause you got time to burn in the heat of the moment
That summer radio
Fireworks off the patio
A 3 AM string of green lights in a row
And the real thing
Love can change anything
If you can just let go’

As I kept singing and playing, I tried to tell myself that Stephen will be here, but I couldn’t even lie convincingly to myself. My mind started to sorted what could make him not here.
Probably he was on his way, or maybe he got stuck in a bathroom or his van, or he forgot. I didn’t want to try to think the other options.

‘Jamie's alive
She's got him rushing through her veins tonight
So hit the lights
It feels too good to ever say goodbye

Cause this is the real thing
Love changes everything
This is the night when every heart's exploding
The real thing
Slow down it's happening
'Cause you got time to burn in the heat of the moment
That summer radio
Fireworks off the patio
A 3 AM string of green lights in a row
And the real thing
Love can change anything
If you can just let go

Whoa
Can't pull the brakes on this runaway train
'Cause whoa
This is the heartache that won't go away’

I couldn’t take my curiosity anymore, so I just finished the song after the bridge. The crowd didn’t mind anyway, so after they screamed, I ran out from the stage and gave my guitar to the tech.

“Ally, where are you going?!”, Dana asked as I ran out from the backstage. I ignored the calls of my name as I ran through the swirling crowd. My eyes looked around, trying to find Stephen’s familiar figure.

I decided to run to The Summer Set’s merch tent first. There were Brian, Jess, and Josh, talking with some fans. I asked them where Stephen was, but none of them knew. After an hour of looking, I tried to control my breath and when I looked around, my breath got stuck in my throat.

Stephen was flirting with a girl. I could tell by the way he smirked and by the way she giggled, and their distance, it was too intimate. He tucked a piece of the girl’s honey blonde hair into the back of her ear, and the most heart breaking part was, he started to kiss her neck.

My vision was clouded with tears, and he didn’t even notice I was there. I looked down and saw a little pebble. Without anymore thought, I picked it up and threw it to them.

The girl gasped and glared at me, but Stephen’s eyes widened at me. “Shit.”, he breathed. “Ally.”, he walked towards me.

I bit my bottom lip, holding back the tears that almost fall down. I turned around on my heels, running back to the van.