I Hate Myself Without You

Josh had been acting strange ever since we had gotten home. I still didn't know if he felt the same way he had; he'd been very quiet with me. I tried to preoccupy myself with something, like the album. I showed the rest of the band the song I wrote at my parents house and they all agreed that it should go on the album. We started on arrangements for them 10 songs we had (Marque's included) and soon we got in to the studio to record. Josh was producing some of the tracks on the album (one I wrote and one Airin wrote). Mostly Airin was doing the producing.

We were in the studio one day, recording the song Marque had worked on, one of the songs Airin was producing. Zack was recording the acoustics of the song in the booth while Airin sat at the mixing board. We had recorded Marque's vocals, and we were all amazed with him. Marque had always said he wasn't a singer. We did one take of the song and we all decided that Marque had to sing more. His voice was very reminiscent to Adam Gontier's of Three Days Grace and Stephen Christian of Anberlin; he had the rough sort of growl to his voice. He also had very nice high notes. They weren't as high as Joshes, they were probably closer to Stephens. I actually had a hard time harmonizing with him because his voice threw me off for a little while. We invited Matt to record vocals for the song as well. He had also helped Marque write the song, which still remained nameless.

Airin pressed a button on the board and spoke to Zack. “Okay, that sounded great.”

“Should we do another take?” Zack asked, removing the large headphones.

“No, I think we're okay,” Airin said. “If I find I glitch, we can fix it later.” Zack nodded and walked out of the sound booth. Airin was busy mixing what Zack had done into the song. “Okay, Josline, you want to try the drum track again?” Airin swivelled in his chair to look at me.

“Yeah, sure,” I said. We had to move some things around to set up the drums again. I got into the booth, put on the headphones and sat on the drum seat. The recorded song played through the headphones and I read over the sheet music, different coloured highlighter lines were spread across the page. Green was Marques vocals, yellow was Matt's. Blue was bass, orange was acoustic guitar, purple was electric guitar and pink was drums. Drums started on the second verse, so I had to wait for a little while. Marque's voice started to ring out in the headphones.

Phone calls that haunt you,
while our lives are changing
this shouldn't be your time,
this isn't your time.
One moment, shaking every minute
This wasn't your time,
this wasn't your time.

You won't come home,
No you're never coming home.
I need someone to help me get things right.

There will be no more waking up
early in the morning to see your smile.
No more vacations, just us two.
It hurts to say there will be no more Christmas
No more funny Valentines.

You won't come home,
you're never coming home.
I'm watching everything fall apart,
I'm watching everything fade away.

But I can promise you,
you'll be there for every song.
The rise and the fall,
you'll always be here, I swear.

There was a bit of a solo before the end. I stayed silent until Airin gave me the thumbs up. I took the headphones off and hung them over the music stand. “How was that?” I asked. “Do I have to do it over again?”

“Nope, you don't. That was good.” Airin's voice filled the booth. I smiled and walked out of the booth. Airin was listening to all of the samples over to give it a final mix, and to see if there was anything we needed to fix.

“Hey, does any one want any coffee? I can go get everyone some from across the street,” I offered. Everyone nodded. Zack opened his mouth to tell me what he wanted. “Triple-triple,” I pointed at Zack, “Regular coffee with soy milk for Marque. Coffee with a double espresso shot for Keith, and a triple-triple for Airin, even though he doesn't need the sugar,” I said. Everyone confirmed their orders and I left the studio. It was a small thing, only one floor. It was Airin's personal studio (Storage Space Studios). He rented out an old coffee shop and turned it into a studio. He spent thousands of dollars renovating and soundproofing the place.

I started walking down the street when I heard someone call my name. I turned around to see Josh running at me. “Hey, what are you doing?” He asked, his face red.

“I was just going to get coffee for the guys, why?” I replied.

“I wanted to see if you were hungry or not. So I brought you this,” he held out a brown paper bag towards me.

“Thank you,” I smiled and looked inside the bag. I saw a bagel and an apple.

“I didn't know what else to bring for you. We're low on food again.

“We have lot's of food in the house.”

“No good food,” Josh said. “It's all that soy crap that you buy.”

“Josh, do you know what you had for dinner last night?”

“Yeah, chicken.”

“What did you have for lunch?”

“Burgers...”

“Do you know what that stuff is made out of?”

“Dead animals?”

“Soy crap,” I laughed. Josh looked horrified.

“You've been making me eat that!?” He exclaimed.

“You liked it, didn't you?” I smirked. Josh now looked embarrassed.

“Yeah...I did,” Josh smiled and we started walking down the street. Josh laced his fingers through mine. It was nice to actually being having a slight physical contact with him. “So how's the recording going?” Josh asked.

“Really well. We might have finished Jazz's song,” I said.

“Is that what it's called?” Josh asked.

“No, it doesn't have a name yet,” I explained.

“I would consider keeping that.” Josh smiled. We continued walking in silence, our hands swinging with one another. Once or twice, a few teenage girls stopped to take pictures with Josh. They didn't even acknowledge me until Josh mentioned me. Over twitter and Facebook, and a few other social media sites, I got lot's of hate mail about being with Josh. Some girls said that I only kept Finley so Josh would stay with me; I don't normally respond to hate mail, but those girls pissed me off. I would never use having a child as an excuse to keep a relationship together. I had plenty of haters on twitter. I didn't really care, because I was happy in my life, and I wasn't going to let them get to me. “So, Josline...' Josh said once the gaggle of girls had left. This time he wrapped his arm around my waist. I wrapped my arm around his, putting my hand in his back pocket. “You aren't mad at me, are you?”

“No, why would I be?” I asked.

“Well, we just weren't talking for a few weeks. I thought you were still upset about what I said when we got back home,” He said sheepishly.

“No. No Josh, I'm not mad at you for that. It's understandable. People get to certain points in their relationship at different times. I'm fine that you're content just being boyfriend-girlfriend. Yes, I'd love to marry you one day, but I understand you're not ready yet,” I stopped him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I love you Josh, and I always will.” I gave him a quick kiss and planted my feet back on the ground. “Don't think you have to always please me so I'll be happy. I want you to be happy too.”

“But I like making you happy. You deserve the absolute best. Especially after all that's happened to you,” Josh kissed my forehead. “I like treating you like a Queen,”

“Can we just leave being a Queen to Airin and Marque? They seem to have that covered.” I chuckled. Josh smiled.

“Yeah, sure. Well, what can I treat you as?” We started walking again, out hands linked with one another.

“As your girlfriend,” He gave my hand a slight squeeze.

“That I can do.”