Slightly Bruised and Broken From Our Head on Collision

When I wake up I have a crick in my neck and my mouth feels like something’s crawled there and died. I sit up and my head pounds heavily, I close my sore eyes and try to remember how I ended up on Alex’s bedroom floor. I turn around and scan the room. The clock on the desk flashes brightly and states 11:32am. I frown to myself.

I get downstairs after showering and brushing my hair and teeth and look around. I walk into the kitchen and wonder why I can’t find anyone. I’m about to get some milk out of the fridge when I see the note pinned there.

Gone out to Taylors, Alex said its important Left you some bagels On the side in the tinfoil love you Jack xxx p.s my parents are at their holiday home painting the front room p.p.s I know what happened last night

The whole note fills me with dread and I decide I’m just going to pretend I never saw it. I pin it back onto the fridge and ignore the bagels on the side. I grab some cereal and eat it out of the packet. I drink some water straight from the tap and walk quickly back upstairs.

I sit on Alex’s floor and start singing to myself. It’s a catchy tune that I recognise from somewhere but I can’t put my finger on where.

Falling from high places, falling through lost spaces, now that we’re lonely. Now that we’re so far from home. Watching from both sides these towers been tumbling down, I lost my mind here; I lost my patience with the lord. And we lost faith in the arms of love.

I suddenly actually listen to the lyrics and I start to cry. I curl up in a ball and cry and cry and cry. All my emotions hitting me in tsunami waves and knocking everything else out, it hurts to cry this hard but I can’t stop.

I lose track of time and when Alex and Jack come home I’m still in the same position, lost somewhere between sleeping and awake, tears still violently falling. They call around the house for anyone but I can’t raise enough energy to call out or get up. Jack calls my name and I hear the catch in his voice, but still just stay in my little ball of misery. I hear footsteps on the stairs and for some reason try to hide my face. Alex walks into the room with Jack just behind and I try to control my breathing. Jack leans down to me and pushes my hair out of my face and kissing my forehead.
“What’s wrong baby?” he whispers to me, I shake my head and cry harder. It’s scary because I honestly don’t know. He pulls me into him and lets me cry on his chest. After a while I stop crying but Jack doesn’t let go.

Later that night I play my guitar and sing a song I made a long time ago, I almost forgot about it. I play the familiar chords and close my eyes and sing quietly.

Falling from high places, falling through lost spaces
Now that we’re lonely, now that there’s nowhere to go
Watching from both sides, these clock towers burning up
I lost my time here oh; I lost my patience with it all
And we lost faith in the arms of love.

Where you been hiding lately? Where you been hiding from the news?
Because we’ve been fighting lately, we’ve been fighting with the wolves.

Red tongues and hands

Falling from high places, falling through lost spaces
Now that we’re lonely, now that we’re so far from home
Watching from both sides, these towers been tumbling down
I lost my mind here oh; I lost my patience with the lord.

And we lost faith in the arms of love.

I open my eyes and see that Alex has sneaked into my room while I was singing. I watch as he sits on the edge of my bed and smiles at me.

“That’s so pretty.” He murmurs, tilting his head slightly.

“Can you teach me the lyrics for the band?” I blink slowly and he laughs.

“Oh yeah, can you be one of our guitarists?” I laugh and nod and start to teach him.

About three days later I’m in Taylor’s garage for ‘band practice’ with Jack, Alex, Zack and Rian. Taylor’s asking everyone if they know how good Alex is at singing and Alex is blushing and kissing him on the cheek and telling him to stop making him sound so amazing. Rian is rolling his eyes and drumming loudly over Jack’s words and making him annoyed and Zack’s just sitting in the corner polishing a bright pink bass guitar. I frown in confusion and Zack catches my eye and grins. It confuses me further.

When Alex finally makes everyone quiet he asks what we want to do first, everyone wants to do a blink cover before we start doing our own stuff. Before we start the cover of I Miss You, which is the only song Rian knows the drumming bit to, Zack quietly tells me he wrote a song for the band and could I read through it and change anything that fits better and change the lyrics if they’re out of time. I smile sweetly at him and agree to read it over. He makes me promise not to show the rest of the band before I’ve finished changing it. I agree and then Jack counts us in.