Feet First

I walked onto the bus and found my band and crew all basically naked.

Somehow this didn’t shock me, because it was 91 degrees outside and everyone just wanted to not die of heat stroke.

I’m sure the bus was hotter than outside, but you didn’t have the sun beating on your skin in here.

“Something extremely small world-ish and weird just happened.” I announced to the bus.

“Nobody gives a shit Alex, did you bring water?” Jack said.

I threw a bottle at him, and it hit him in the stomach.

“What happened?” Rian asked, taking a bottle of water, and handing one to Zack.

“Do you remember Annie Collins?” I asked all of them.

Jack sat up, “Wait, wasn’t she that babe you hooked up with in high school?”

“Yeah, but do you remember her little sister? Maggie?”

“The quiet kind of weird one?” Zack asked.

“Yeah. She’s on Warped. Isn’t that insane? She has a band, and they call her Olivia now because
Maggie was her middle name or whatever.” I trailed off.

“WAIT, is she the one that walked in on me naked and started crying for some party?” Jack asked.

Rian laughed. “Hey I remember that. Probably scared of all your hair.”

“Whatever, does she look anything like Annie now that she’s older? And if so, I’ve got dibs.” Jack
said.

My mind flashed back to what Annie looked like.

Annie was hot, basically the textbook version of hot. Long blonde hair, hazel eyes, round face, pretty
smile, long tan legs, tiny waist.

Just a checklist of everything a guy should want.

But her and Maggie didn’t look a like at all now that I thought of it.

I thought of the Maggie, well Olivia I saw today.

Her hair cut short and dyed red, stunning blue eyes, shy smile, dimples, taller than Annie but not
too tall, cute little nose that I think she had pierced, and she was paler than Annie was, but her skin was flawless.

She was beautiful.

“Well, they don’t look alike, like at all, well they have the same chin and face shape, but Annie was
like hot, but, Mag- Olivia, is, well, she’s uh, gorgeous really.” I stumbled on my words, not sure what
to say.

“Okay dibs.” Jack said.

“You can’t just call someone.” I said, my tone sounded defensive when I didn’t want it to.

“Well, she probably knows what went down with Annie bro.”

“God, now I’m remembering this girl, she was like in love with you dude.” Rian chimed in.

“Not really.”

“Well we can discuss this more later, we have shit to do.” Rian said.

I reflected on what he’d said.

We were never actually together.

We were basically friends with benefits, but Annie always wanted more.

But I always made excuses.

I couldn’t have a girlfriend because of the band, because she was going off to college, but because I
didn’t want one.

Looking back, I was kind of terrible to her, but I did like her, a lot.

Maybe I did love her, at one point, but not enough to stay with her when she went to school.

Now that I thought of it, the last time I talked to her was the summer after her freshman year of college; I saw her walking around Baltimore.

I remember her telling me she had a boyfriend, and I was happy she found someone.

I reminisced about Annie, and I finally decided to call her.

Well, I could ask Olivia for her number and call her, maybe.

Then the thought came to me that I didn’t really know Olivia well.

I mean, wasn’t it weird that I’d been really close with her sister for two years and I barely knew
anything about her?

It struck me that I wanted to know about her.

I decided to make that quest of mine, to get to know the other Collins sister better.

Thoughts about Annie and Olivia clouded my mind as I dismounted the bus.



“Damn, they’re actually good.” I turned and told Flyzik after Mags and her band had taken the stage and played a few songs.

“Not bad at all.” He said.

I watched her sing.

For such a small girl, she had a lot of presence.

She didn’t talk much on stage, but her guitarist, I think his name was Sam, reminded me of a
younger me, and the bassist Matt reminded me of a younger Jack.

Like how Mark Hoppus told me the same thing about him and Tom.

Then I realized, it was because they looked up to us.

I stood there, this thought blowing my mind.

Shit.

I couldn’t believe I’d been someone’s Mark Hoppus.

A huge smile spread across my face.

“You look like an idiot. What are you smiling about?” Matt asked.

“Who do those kids remind you of?” I said, pointing at the two, and at the perfect time really, they
we’re yelling at each other form across the stage and introducing their last song.

“It’s you and Jack, minus all the fuck’s and talk of vaginas.” He laughed.

“Exactly.” I said, smiling even bigger now that I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

I took a picture of Maggie on stage, and tweeted it.

“Lovely lady singer of Five Feet Under killing it, come see this band at Warped, they’re not shitty.”

Matt and I walked back behind the stage after their last song.

“Hey.” I said, “That was an awesome set.”

She turned around.

“You watched us? Really?” She smiled really big.

“Yeah, I wanted to see what little Maggie grew up to be.” I laughed.

I pulled out my phone and showed her the picture, “I tweet promoted you guys I hope you don’t
mind.”

The Jack and Alex of the band high fived each other.

“SHIT MAN, maybe people will actually come watch us now!”

Maggie’s smile just kept getting bigger and bigger.

“Thank you, so much, like, wow.” She said, looking at the ground and running her hand through her
hair.

“Here’s how you can make it up to me. You, give me your number, and I’ll text you when our sets
done, and all of you come hang out on our bus. Sound cool?” I said, handing her my phone.

She turned around towards the guys, “Well, do you wanna hang out with All Time Low?”

“Is that even a question.” Young Alex said.

She smiled at me, pressed buttons on my phone, and returned it to me.

“I’ll see you guys later. We’re playing at 5:30 if you wanna come catch our set!” I said.

I started to walk away.

“Wait! Alex!” I saw Mags running behind me

“Yes?” I asked.

“You don’t have to do this you know, I mean hang out with my band and I.”

“Are you kidding? They seem like awesome guys, and they want to meet us, that is like the coolest
thing ever to us. And besides, all the guys and I want to catch up.” I smiled.

“Thank you.” She said.

“You gotta stop saying that.” I said, and turned to get Flyzik, and go get ready for out set.

“Well it’s safe to say two things.” Matt said.

“And what would they be Mr. Flyzik?”

“One, you kind of like her, and two, you just made three aspiring musician’s day.”

I smiled at him.

“Well, we’ll have to wait and see about that first one.”