This Is a Reason for Broken Wings

Zacky's POV
It was about 10:40 at night when Lauren got a hold of me on my cell.

She was frantic, raving on about how our Auntie Pat had called to tell her they had to perform an open heart surgery on our mom. Luckily, the surgery went as planned and our mom was going to be just fine.

When Lauren called she was at the airport waiting to catch a flight back to the LAX. She was going to be with our mom, to help her while she recovered from the surgery. I said I wanted to go with her and help as well but she refused, saying that it was something she needed to do.

So ... I respected her wishes and let her go alone.

I think it may have been because she had finally realized what sort of pain and trouble she had put our mom through as to why she wanted to do this by herself. Now, in a time when our mom desperately needed somebody to help her through, Lauren felt ... no, Lauren wanted to be the one who'd hold her hand and make sure everything would be alright.

After we finished with the Warped Tour I went up to L.A. to visit my mom for a couple of days. Our mom was home, doing very good, and was back to her old self. She said that she didn't need any more help from Lauren (whereas the house work and stuff goes) and told her that she could go back to Huntington with me.

But ... Lauren chose not to.

She said that she had gotten a job at the Guitar Center in the drum department. I may have forgotten to have mentioned that she's incredible on those damn things ... Although I much prefer the sounds of a guitar than the beating of some hallow instrument ... But anyway.

Lauren went back to Huntington one last time to pick up her clothes and any other stuff she had around my house and then she left. I don't think she even said goodbye to any of the gang.

I admit, I was pretty fucking bummed when I heard that Lauren wasn't going to be coming back to stay with me. But then again, she didn't really have anymore reason to stay ... When Lauren first moved down here it was in hopes that she'd get her various 'problems' somewhat under control. And now I can honestly say she's a completely different person; which is a good thing mind you.

Lauren used to be a very vicious and hateful human being who didn't give a fuck about anything or anybody. But now ... she's the complete opposite. She's back to the old Lauren that everybody wanted to be around and that everyone loved.

And one of these people happened to fall in love with her ...

Yes, Matt told me everything ... his feelings for Lauren, everything they did together (well, he just sort of mentioned them but didn't bother to get into details thank God), why he decided to take Val back and why he decided to dump her three weeks later. He even told me about the very last conversation he had with Lauren.

It hurt to see him so miserable and, well, heartbroken. But as cheesy as it sounds, I knew there was still 'hope' for these two crazy motherfuckers. And how did I know?

Lauren said she fell for Matt but then somehow learned to shut off those feelings, seemingly overnight. There's no way that anybody ... anybody ... could just go cold turkey for these sorts of feelings overnight. Lauren still had feelings for Matt, I knew she did.

That's why she chose to stay back up in L.A. with our mom ... because she's scared of these feelings she'd developed for Matt. She's scared because she actually fell for someone and because she fucking fell hard.

As time passed us by down here in good ol' Huntington Beach, things were much like they always were, with the except that we now had a wedding to plan. Who's wedding you ask? Me and Amber's wedding you morons.

By the time the countdown to the wedding date (which was on December 1) hit three weeks we had gotten most of the arrangements taken care off. Pretty much all that was left now was for the tailor to put the finishing touches on the dresses and deciding what alcohol we wanted to serve at the after party and we were ready to go.

I couldn't wait until December 1; the only thing that could dampen my mood was the storm raging like a motherfucker outside. But even on the rainiest of days there's always something ... or someone who could brighten your spirits.
End of Zacky's POV

A part of me was glad to be back here in Huntington but another part of me wasn't. Not because I hated it here or anything but because I knew how badly I had broken someone's heart here.

But I had to come back here regardless of how guilty I felt.

The past couple of months that I've been in L.A. I've been thinking hard about ... stuff.

About how empty I've been since I left the gang ... About how much it fucking hurt to leave Matt like that ... And about how miserable I without him in my life ... I've made some assumptions, some 'hypotheses' if you will, about why I've been feeling so lost and crappy, but I needed a 'second opinion.'

I took a deep breath before reaching up to ring the doorbell at my brother's house. There was a slight pause before a voice called back to 'hang on.'

Smirking to myself I decided to press the button again and again, not stopping until the door started to open.

"Fuck, I said hang-" Zacky stopped short, letting his mouth fall open as he stared at me standing up his threshold.

"Uh ... a 'hi' would be nice." I grinned, slightly amused by his surprised expression.

"Lauren?" He asked, still staring at me. "Lauren?!" He asked again, letting a huge smile spread across his face as he wrapped his arms tightly around me, pulling me into a hug.

"Zacky?!" I replied, mocking his voice as I hugged onto him.

"What the fuck are you doing here?" He laughed, pulling me inside and out of the rain.

"Well ... " I trailed off as he pulled away from me and shut the door. "I'm moving back down here."

"You are?!"

"Yuppers." I said, nodding my head. "And could you do me a favor and quit the yelling?" I joked.

"What? Oh, yeah." He grinned. "But ... you're really moving back down here?"

"Yeah."

"Awesome."

I couldn't help but let out a little laugh as Zacky pulled me into another hug, picking me up slightly, and set me back down.

"You're a weirdo." I smiled, shaking my head a bit.

"Eh ... I'm just so fucking psyched that you're moving back."

"Yeah ... Anyway ... Not that I don't love you or anything ... But where's Amber?" I asked, looking down at the ground.

"She's upstairs ... Why?"

I shrugged my shoulders.

"I just wanted to talk to her about something." I said casually. "Girl talk." I added when he raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, well ... AMBER! Get the fuck down here right now!"

I shot him a funny look as he plopped down on the couch, turning on the T.V. just as I heard Amber coming down the stairs.

"Hey, don't fucking talk to me like that you son of a bitch!" Amber shouted back. "Keep that shit up and no fucking sex fo- LAUREN?!"

"Hey, hey hooker." I grinned, going over to give her a hug.

"Holy shit, where the hell did you come from?" She laughed.

"She's moving back." Zacky spoke up while still focusing on his movie, 'Night of the Living Dead.'

I nodded my head, confirming his statement. Amber opened her mouth to say something but I stopped her.

"Hey, I gotta talk to you real fast." I said. "In private." I added, hoping that Zacky would take the hint.

He didn't reply or show any signs that he even heard what I said.

"As in alone by ourselves."

"We have a kitchen, dining room, laundry room, and plus like a gazillion other rooms for you two to be alone in." He mumbled, not bothering to look at us.

"Ugh, fine then." I sighed. "You see, Amber, there's this really bad itch deep down inside my vagina and every time I have sex with some-"

"Alright! I'll go into a different room." Zacky said literally jumping off the couch and running from the room before you could say 'buttfucker.'

Amber laughed a bit, shaking her head as we took a seat on the couch.

"So, what's up hun?" She asked.

I took a deep breath and let it out slow.

"Um ... how do y- Zacky get out of here!" I shrieked, nearly jumping out of my skin when he came walking around the corner.

"Shit, relax." He said, looking sideways at me. "I'm just trying to get to the front door. I'm gonna go visit my friend Matt ... As in Mathew Charles Sanders." He said, grinning as he emphasized Matt's entire name.

I felt my cheeks start to flush when his grin got bigger, giving me a look that suggested he knew my feelings for Matt.

"Oh yeah?" I asked calmly. "Awesome ... Now go."

His grin faltered a bit and he continued his way to the front.

"You wanna come with?" He asked, stopping short to look at me.

"Um ... I'll just stop by and see him later." I said nervously.

"Eh, suit yourself." He said, disappearing through the door.

I stared across the room to the spot where he was standing just seconds before, spacing out a bit.

"Uh, Lauren? What were you asking?"

"What? Oh."

I snapped out of my thoughts and looked back at Amber.

"Um ... How do you know when you love someone?" I asked quietly. "I mean ... How do you feel? What's it like?"

Amber frowned slightly, looking as if my question had caught her off guard.

"Well ... I image it's different for every body but ... I guess for starters you ... you can't image your life without that person." She said hesitantly. "Er ... I don't really ... " She trailed off.

"I mean ... how did you know when you fell in love with Zacky?" I asked shyly.

A smile slowly spread across her face.

"When I fell for your brother it was like no sacrifice was too big, and no distance was too great for me to travel for him. And every time I thought about him, I'd feel happier than the moment before. It as like ... I couldn't wait to see him for whatever reason ... " She blushed. "I know, cheesy sounding, shut up." She added. "I don't know ... you just feel it in your heart, your mind, and ... fuck, I don't know, your soul I guess."

"It is like ... you can't stop thinking about the person and ... your heart skips a beat every time you see them ... And you don't care about anything else and would do anything in the world for them?" I asked anxiously.

"I ... yeah ... it is." She said slowly, cocking her head to the side a bit as she stared at me. "Lauren, are you ..."

Matt's POV
I was lying on my couch with my laptop propped up on my stomach, strolling through some pictures as the storm raged on outside.

I lingered for a while on a picture of me and Lauren. Although it hurt me to look at it I still couldn't take my eyes off of it because just for that one moment I was able to remember what it was like just to be with her. Fuck, I missed her so much but I never had the guts to call her or go see her or anything.

Even though she said she couldn't love me I never stopped loving her. Day in day out she's all I think about. It's crazy ...

Suddenly the sound of my doorbell going off brought me back to earth, scaring the crap out of me in the process. Whoever the hell it was didn't wait for me to answer the door and they came barging into the living room.

"Dude ... What's up?" I asked Zacky as he plopped down on the couch across from the one I was lying on.

"Oh, nothing ... I came to see if you wanted to hang out at the house." He said casually.

"I ... Okay." I said slowly.

"Alright, get your shoes on, let's go."

"But-"

"Now, I got somebody waiting at the house for me."

"Fine then." I mumbled, closing my laptop and sat up, stretching a bit.

About ten minutes later we were pulling up into Zacky and Amber's driveway. I frowned a bit when he chose to park outside instead of inside the garage, meaning we'd have to make a mad dash for the front door.

Inside the house was freakishly quiet.

"I thought you said there was somebody waiting for you here." I said quietly, kicking my shoes off by the door and taking off my coat.

"Actually they're waiting for you." Zacky replied.

"Dude, what the hell are yo-"

I stopped short as I turned around coming face to face with her; the girl that I had once confessed all my feelings too, the girl who shot me down with words that stung like fucking bullet holes, the girl that I loved with all my fucking heart.

Lauren stared up at me, biting her lip slightly. I felt my cheeks turning at least three shades of red and I looked down at the ground, not wanting her beautiful stare to make my heart beat any faster than it already was.

"Matt?" She asked quietly, slipping a finger underneath my chin to make me look at her.

"Uh ... hi Lauren." I said timidly.

"Hi." She replied, smiling a bit.

Fuck ... how was it that her smiles always made me smile like a fucking moron as well?

Before I realized what I was doing I had my arms wrapped tightly around her, holding her as close to me as I could. As she wrapped her small arms around my shoulders, hugging me back, all the love I had for her seemed to multiply with each passing second.

I gave her body one last squeeze before I pulled away from her, building up my courage just to look straight into her eyes.

"Matt, I've missed you." She whispered, still smiling softly up at me.

"I've missed you too." I whispered back as she placed her hands on either side of my face.

Feeling her pull me ever so slightly down towards her I took the hint and started to lean forward, placing my hands on her hips as I did so. The time that it took to close in the gap between us seemed to take agonizingly forever and when our faces where just a couple inches apart, she stopped.

"Matt ... I'm sorry for those things I said to you." She whispered. "Because ... They weren't true ... And it took me until just now to realize that they weren't."

I removed one of my hands its place on her hip and reached up to brush away the couple of tears that fell from her eyes.

"Are you saying ... " I trailed off, not really believing that this could actually be happening. "That ... you." I paused, swallowing down the golf ball sized lump in my throat. "Love me?" I whispered.

She nodded her head a little.

"B-but if you don't have those feelings anymore I-"

I cut her off, finally filling in the space between our lips, kissing her deeply. With this one kiss I was able to let her know how very fucking much I was still in love with her. I pulled away from the kiss slightly breathless ... not that it was an aggressive kiss or anything ... but because that's just what Lauren Amber Baker did to me.

I rested my forehead against hers, holding her close to me.

"Will you be my girlfriend Lauren?" I asked quietly.

The bliss I was experiencing just then seemed a fade away a bit when I saw the hesitation in her eyes.

"Matt, I'll be anything you want me to be just to hear you say you love me." She said honestly. "Whoa, don't ever let me say something that fucking corny again." She added with a smile.

"So ... Is that a yes?" Zacky asked, making his and Amber's presence known.

I laughed a bit as I watched Lauren's cheeks turn a soft pink.

"Is it?" I asked, prodding her slightly.

She nodded her head, and buried her face in my chest to hide her face as it started to turn a deep shade of red.

"You guys are a weird couple." Zacky said, rolling his eyes as he pulled Amber off towards the kitchen.

I guess we were pretty weird; when we first met, she kicked me in the balls and beat the shit out of me, giving me a black eye and a big cut on my forehead (which left a little scar mind you) in the process. In return I gave her a fat lip and made her get twenty-three fucking stitches in her left hand. Who the hell would have thought we'd be together in the end?

But once you think about it ...

This is only the beginning.