The Girl At The Rock Show

Tessa’s POV:

To say that Tessa was heartbroken was an understatement. She was completely crushed. After Matt tired to talk to her after the movie the night before, she completely shut down and didn’t talk to anyone else, just mumbling that she didn’t feel good as she made her way back to where her friends were waiting. Vinny just nodded and gently guided her towards the front doors and she tried to ignore the sympathetic looks everyone else was giving her. All she wanted to do was be alone.

The drive home was one of the quietest she had ever had to endure. A few times Vinny had tried to explain that he talked to Matt and it wasn’t what it looked like but she didn’t listen. She knew what she saw, Vinny was just trying to be nice and help her get over it. Even though it didn’t help too much, her heart was still broken.

When they got back to Tessa’s place, she didn’t say anything more as she climbed the steps and unlocked the door, setting her bag down and kicking off her shoes. She was usually a little more of a neat freak but she didn’t really care at the moment and just left them as she walked through the dark place to her bedroom and closed the door.

After she changed and crawled in bed, she could hear the muffled voices of her siblings talking in the main room but didn’t even bother to make out what they were saying. Her mind was filled with too many different thoughts and she couldn’t fall asleep or even care to think that they were talking about her.

She must have fallen asleep in the middle of her thoughts, too exhausted from everything that happened that day, falling into a dreamless sleep. When she woke the next morning, she felt like crap but didn’t understand why at first until she rolled over to see why she had woken up and saw her sister crawling into bed next to her with a sad expression. Then it all came back.

“Morning Tessie,” Kate said quietly as she gently brushed some hair out of her face. Tessa only managed a grunt in reply and shut her eyes, trying to make her brain shut up. “We have to leave soon for the show and I wanted to see if you were up or not yet.”

“I’m not going,” Tessa replied simply as she rolled onto her back to stare at the ceiling.

She could feel the confused look her sister was giving her but didn’t even bother to look over to her to explain, she knew Kate would just continue talking anyway.

“What do you mean you’re not going?”

Tessa shrugged, “exactly what it sounds like. I’m not going. I have a few things to do around here before we leave again and I need a day off.”

“You know avoiding him isn’t going to solve all your problems.” Kate said as Tessa snapped her head to the side to glare at her sister. “I’m just saying. The sooner you face him the sooner you can understand what really happened. It’s not what it looked like.”

Tessa sighed and blinked rapidly, trying to wish away her tears, “why does everyone keep saying that? It’s like everyone’s taking his side.”

“There are no sides to take, it was a misunderstanding. Please, just go talk to him. He’s just as broken up about this as you are.”

She scoffed, “yeah right. Because he looked so broken up about it last night when he talked to me.”

“He talked to you?” Kate asked shock evident in her voice. “What did he say? Did he explain what was going on?”

“He didn’t have to; it’s obvious that he just used me, leading me on until he came back to town to go crawling back to his girlfriend.”

Kate sighed, “That’s not what happened at all.”

Tessa just shook her head as the tears tried to take over again. She knew that if she tried to talk, that her voice would crack and that she would start crying. She had spent enough time crying the night before; she didn’t need to start again. All she wanted to do was be left alone. Was that so hard for everyone to understand?

“You know what; I really don’t care at this point.” Tessa said, forcing herself up out of bed and over to her closet. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore, and I don’t want to go. Just leave it at that and go have fun.”

Kate sat there on her bed exactly where she had been since the conversation started, watching her like a hawk. “What are you going to do about your assignment then?” She asked as Tessa rolled her eyes.

“Just because I’m not going today doesn’t mean I’m giving up on it. I just need a day to myself. I’ve been with ten guys nonstop for over 30 days and I need a little alone time. Please, just go with Vinny and have fun, I’ll be fine here on my own.”

A few moments of silence and then Tessa finally heard Kate get up. She glanced over to see her sister walking towards the door and turned right as she opened it to give her a sad worried look before walking out into the hall and closing the door behind her. Tessa stared at the closed door for a few moments before she allowed the first of the tears fall again and went back to her bed and crawled in, pulling a pillow over her head and praying that it would successfully block her from the rest of the world.

~*~*~*~

Vinny’s POV:

He glanced up when he heard Kate step back into the hallway, closing Tessa’s door behind her. The sad look in her eye and the small shake of her head was all Vinny needed to know that his sister was slowly falling apart.

He and Kate were already dressed to go to the venue but saved enough time incase Tessa wanted to go, even though he knew that she wouldn’t. At least Kate tried to talk to her, but he knew that Tessa needed some time alone and so he mentioned heading out while grabbing the car keys and his bags and heading towards the door with Kate following behind him.

When they got to the venue, after a very long, quiet drive, Vinny led Kate toward the busses to find ATL’s. He gave a short nod to all the crew who was already up and saw Flyzik looking almost as miserable as his sister, talking to Colussy and trying to get some early morning things done.

“How is she?” Danny asked as Vinny walked over to where he stood by the coffee pot, pouring himself a cup. He knew that it was going to be a longer day than he had originally though and figured a few cups before the day started would help him get through it.

Vinny just sighed, “not good.”

“Yeah I figured,” Danny nodded as he also refilled his own cup. “Matt told us after you guys left what really happened. He came back to the bus around midnight or so and explained everything.”

“So you’re not pissed at him anymore?”

Danny just shook his head and gave a small smile and they both fell into silence. Matt started up his morning speech that he usually gave and then once he was done, everyone went to get ready to start the day. Vinny was about to also when Matt called him, asking him to come to the back room really quick.

“Hey Flyzik,” Vinny said quietly as Matt just gave a small nod, not saying anything else right away. He took that moment to see how wrecked the Tour Manager really was. He had bags under his eyes and didn’t have the usual upbeat tone in his voice. Not to mention the usual happiness in his eyes wasn’t there. It only came when Tessa was around and after they had officially started dating, the look never seemed to leave. But now, there was nothing.

“Hey Vin,” Matt replied, rubbing the back of his neck. A sure sign that he was uncomfortable and didn’t know what to say. So Vinny decided to save him.

“Sorry again about last night, I sort of jumped to conclusions,”

Matt gave him a humorless laugh, “Yeah well it was my damn fault, I gave you guys the ok to jump to conclusions. I would have reacted the same way if it happened the other way around.”

Vinny just nodded, both of them falling into silence. “How is she?” Matt asked, basically whispering it quietly enough that Vinny almost didn’t catch it.

“Almost as bad as you, did you get any sleep last night?”

Matt just shook his head, “what am I going to do Vin?”

“First you’re going to stop beating yourself up over this. It’s happened, you both are miserable, now it’s time to get over yourself and fix it. Soon. She’s barely talking to anyone at the moment so I would give it a few days, but no more than that. I can’t stand to see two of my favorite people miserable like this. You two are perfect for each other and I haven’t seen either of you two as happy as you were before last night happened. She still loves you, I know she does, she just has to come to realize this also.”

Matt sighed, “I’ve never seen her look like that before. She broke up with me and everything. Not that I didn’t deserve this. But how do I know she’s going to actually take me back like Emily was willing to?”

Vinny’s blood ran cold at that. “Wait; please tell me you broke up with Emily!”

“What? Yes, of course, as soon as I got home from the theater. I wouldn’t even think to show my face here if I hadn’t. Emily and I are done. For good. I made sure she understood that we’re broken up now and she threw a remote at my head to confirm it.”

Vinny sighed in relief, “Thank God.”

“No we’re done, the only girl for me is Tessa, and I just have to figure out a way to get her back.”

He smiled and reached out and gave Matt’s shoulder a squeeze, “you’ll find a way, I know you will. There’s a reason you’re our Tour Manger, you can fix any problem and you’re the best at your job.”

Matt managed a small smile and the door to the back lounge opened and Colussy walked in, taking in the fact that Vinny and Matt where back there alone and sighed.

“I know you guys need to talk, but Matt there’s some things that have come up.” Colussy said as Vinny shared a look with Matt and nodded. Matt pulled Vinny in for a quick hug and said a quiet thank you before nodding to Colussy and following him to the main part of the bus to fix whatever it was that came up.

Vinny took a breath and headed out to the main room also, finding Zack working out and Kate sitting there reading one of the old magazines that had randomly came onto the bus. She looked up and gave him a worried look and he just shrugged as he grabbed a bagel and put some cream cheese on it, stuffing some in his mouth and motioning for Kate to follow him. When they were outside, Vinny went to the trailer attached to the back of the bus and opened it and began to unload all the merch stuff. He was running a little behind schedule because of the talk he had with Matt, but it was worth it.

“So what’s on the agenda for the day?” Kate asked from where she stood leaning against the trailer watching him load some of the boxes onto the cart.

“Well you could come help me with these boxes. It’s not like I didn’t almost die a few weeks ago from my appendix almost bursting or anything.”

Kate rolled her eyes, “If I remember correctly, it didn’t burst and you were given a clean bill of health a few days later.”

“Still, it would be nice to have a little help from my sister.”

She just rolled her eyes again as she walked over to him and finished helping him load all the boxes marked ‘merch’ onto the cart. Once they were done, Vinny began to push the cart toward the main part of the venue where the rest of the tents were being set up with Kate following close behind him.

“Do you think everything will work out?” Kate finally asked before they got to the designated spot. Vinny didn’t need to ask to know who she was talking about and turned to his sister with shrug.

“I don’t know, but all we can do right now is wait and see and hope that everything will be alright in the end.”