There's a Story at the Bottom of This Bottle

**Alex's Point of View**

I sat in my bed, strumming my guitar, at 6:56 in the morning. I didn't sleep all night. I usually don't anyways. This is when my thoughts begin to get to me. The girl in the bed next to me curled up closer to me.

"Alex, no more playing. I'm trying to sleep." She muttered. I'm surprised she remembered my name. I know I didn't remember hers. We were both to drunk. It seemed like I moved on, yeah. If you asked anyone if I was heartbroken for the past 4 or 5 years, they would say no, does he have a reason? Everyone pegs me for a man whore, just like in high school. And I was one. I wasn't going to deny. I was just trying to find a temporary replacement to fill at least a small bit of the huge hole in my heart.

I laid back in my bed thinking about what happened after she left. I remember taking the box and putting it high in my closet. I remember crying and staying in my room for weeks at a time. I remember calling and texting her until finally she changed her number, no one ever gave me the new one. I remember taking a small trip to Michigan. I remember wandering the streets showing pictures to random people asking if they've seen her. I was like a parent who had lost it's only child. I was like a three legged stool with one of the legs missing. I was pathetic. I still am but I try and hide it better.

I was so strung out on Lola I lost touch with people for a while. I would just go out and party and fuck random chicks. It was sad, I'm surprised I didn't have some kind of STD. But then I got back into doing band practices and getting gigs. I got back to hanging with my friends but it always felt as though something was missing. I remember at the end of that first summer after graduation, Tegan, Dalia, Erin, Nova, and Hanna left for Vegas to go to school. Matt told me that Hanna ended up going to Los Angeles to become a model. Hanna Beth, yes little Hanna Flyzik turned into that. It's not a bad thing for sure. I guess when she visited I tried to get with her when I was drunk but she refused. She sees past my little act. She was the only one to ever turn me down. Every other girl always said yes. And that's a lot. I would usually have at least 4 girls a week.

Aneko stayed and became our photographer. But she lives with the girls in Vegas when we aren't on tour, sometimes she'll just stay in Baltimore. Lyric stayed too, becoming a show promoter. She also sells concert tickets. She knows a lot of bands and people and is always very happy but I can tell she misses Lola. Both her mom and her. I remember hearing my mom and Eliza talk about Lola dropping out of school and moving to Vegas. I didn't believe it until we had a stop on the tour there. We ran into her at a celebrity escort service where she was supposed to be my date for the night. I didn't know it was her. I though it was some girl named Alexis Williams. Guess it's her name for work. Hanna said she chose it cause it reminded her of me but I highly doubted that. I always heard about her from the guys we went on tour with. She escorted a lot of them. Some of them even got her to sleep with them. Of course it killed me to hear this.

Lola's mom had been depressed ever since Lola chose to go to Vegas instead of coming back home after getting kicked out of school. I knew she wouldn't cause of me. Lilly always had to be there to take care of their mom or sometimes me or the guys would. She drank a lot and when she was drunk she would talk constantly about Lola. It would always kill me when I took care of her.

"You're still up? Did you sleep at all?" the girl in my bed asked me as she rubbed her eyes. I shook my head and got out of the bed. "Want to take a shower together?" I looked at her and she did these sad eyes. She looked kind of like Lola. I always slept with the girls that looked like her. I know used to sleep with blondes a lot but that stopped after Lola left. I shook my head and the girl's face fell. She huffed and gathered her clothes and left my apartment. I quickly took a shower and went to get clothes out of my closet. While I was looking for clothes something fell from above me, off the shelf. I bent down and picked it up. I let out a shaky sigh as I examined the picture of Lola and myself on Halloween of our senior year. I quickly picked it up and grabbed some random clothes. I set the picture on my dresser and continued on with my day with my mind on one thing. It was all I could ever focus on.

Or I should say she was all I could ever focus on?