Shooting Love in Real Time.

"So, have you guys seen them before?” James shouted over the sound of the support act, nodding toward the promotional poster of the guys. Marissa and I looked at each other and laughed. “What?”
“More times than we can count, I would say!” I shouted back between laughter.
“We grew up here, you don’t go through all that and not see them a few hundred times,” Marissa clarified.
That was what we found to be the best thing about James. He grew up in New York and his parents moved him here to finish high school in Baltimore at seventeen. As he was two years younger than I, that meant he didn’t move here until after I’d left for Arizona. He had absolutely no personal insight into my life, or Marissa’s, before the day I met him in class.
It was basically our dream come true.
“Hey, we’re just going to head to the bathroom before the band starts, do you mind keeping an eye on our drinks?” I asked James, looking at my watch as the support act filed off. He nodded, and Marissa and I wandered toward the general direct of the ladies room. Instead of turning right to the bathroom, however, we carried on toward the backstage doors. We flashed our passes at the doorman, heading back to wish our boy’s good luck before their set.
“How are you feeling?” I asked Alex, linking my arm through his when I found him in the corridor. He was about ready to go on and psyching himself up to go on.
“Better now,” he responded, flashing me a cheesy grin. I smiled and laughed, he had always remained the biggest sweet talker. “Are you guys staying back here or heading out front?”
“We’re gonna hang out with James out front,” I replied. “You know we like to hang out front when it’s a home town show.”
Alex’s brown creased for half a second before he nodded. He wasn’t the jealous kind, so I paid it no mind. He probably just assumed we’d be staying back here.
“We’re heading back out,” Marissa told Jack. “We told James we were going to the bathroom.”
“Good luck!” I grinned, kissing Alex quickly before flitting off with Marissa. We pushed our way back through the crowd toward the bar, where James had dutifully stayed with our drinks.
“Geez, how long does it take to go to the bathroom?” He asked, handing us back our drinks. “It’s nearly time for All Time Low!”
“The queue was ridiculous,” I told him, grabbing my drink and thanking him for keeping an eye. “It’s expected pretty much up until they start playing.”
“So, where are your gentlemen tonight?” He asked. “I thought you said they’d be here.”
“They couldn’t be here tonight. They were busy,” Marissa responded, perching herself on a bar stool. “Maybe some other time.”
“Yeah, maybe.” James looked at us quizzically for a second before turning his attention back to the stage. They were nearly done setting up.
Within a few minutes, the first cords of Weightless struck up and the lights dimmed. I was in the middle of a sentence, when the crowd grew too loud to hear myself think, never mind for anyone else to hear me speak.
“All right, all right, we’re gonna tone it down a bit now,” Alex said as he swapped guitars nearly an hour later. “Now, I hate to play this song at home town shows, but I know you guys love it, so here it goes. Here’s Remembering Sunday.”
His eyes locked on to me when he said it and I looked away. I knew why he didn’t like playing it: I didn’t like hearing it. It reminded me of yet another awful thing I had done to him in our time together.
I mean, really, no this one wasn’t my fault. But I hated to think of the pain we had caused each other. I knew he regretted what had led up to this, and we still didn’t talk about it. It was off limits even when arguing.
Even though she doesn’t believe in love, he’s determined to call her bluff. Who could deny these butterflies? They’re filling his gut.
“Hey, are you okay?” James shouted in my ear. I’d barely even recognised that I’d started to cry, eyes locked back on to Alex as he sang his heart out.
“Yeah, just bad memories,” I called back. James wrapped his arm around my shoulders in a loose hug, and I smiled up at him.
I don’t mean to be a bother, but have you seen this girl? She’s been running through my dreams and it’s driving me crazy, it seems. I’m gonna ask her to marry me.
James’ arm dropped from my shoulder as a sob shook from my body and Marissa took his place. “I’m fine, I promise,” I told them. I wiped the tears from my eyes as the song drew to a close and I took a deep breath.
That song got to me more and more each time I heard it. Everyone knew it, just like I knew I couldn’t control it.
“Ah, man, we need to lighten the mood!” Jack chimed in as he climbed back on stage. He looked at me too as he said it, and I nodded with a smile.
“If it’s any consolation, I found my whoever,” Alex laughed. I heard a mixed response to the remark, a few shrieks of ‘I love you, Alex!’ mixed in with the general screams of the rest of the crowd. “So, on to better things, this one is for her. Stella, won’t you take me home?”
Marissa and I both shouted in response, echoing the cries of the bodies around us. James looked on, probably even more confused than he ever had been before about our strange reactions.
“God, you two are weird!” He shouted to me. I laughed back in response.
“Once you’ve known the two of us as long as we’ve known each other, you’ll understand just perfectly!”
“Then let’s dance!” He shouted, pulling me away from the bar a little and starting to dance. I joined in quickly. Well, I say I joined in, what I mean is I moved my feet a little and jumped up and down shouting the lyrics in his face.
Their set ended and Marissa, James and I all pushed our way through the crowd and out the front door. We bade our farewells to James, and walked in the opposite direction, faking like we were going to go to our car. Instead, we walked round back and went to see our boys.
Marissa vanished as soon as she caught wind of where Jack was and I continued to push my way through the hustle and bustle to find Alex.
“Hey, Zack, where’s Alex?” I asked, finally managing to find one of the guys.
“I don’t know,” he shrugged. “He was here one minute, and gone the next. You’d better try Jack.”
And with that, he vanished too.