Of Our Souls

I was sitting on a lawn chair beside our bus and gracefully smoking a rolled up cigarette. It wasn’t a habit of mine and I didn’t smoke often, but when I did, I only did it when something bad had happened or if I felt hurt and angry. Right now, I was beyond furious at what I had read on tumblr.

Some girl, a fan, as she called herself, started to spew some idiotic facts about me that weren’t even true. I mean, she was from America, I was from the other side of the world and she was telling everyone that she knew me personally and that I was the biggest slut in high school. Then the same story about me sleeping with my precious babies was thrown in and lastly, a photo of me and Austin was taken when he was dragging me to get some food and that started even more gossip. According to the girl, Austin was my next victim and that after I get what I want, I’m going to throw him away like some piece of trash.

It angered me to no end that some people tried to start bullshit and get attention. It seemed that all they could do was talk and sometimes what they said, hurt me a lot. I was just thankful that the guys hadn’t been around when I found that post. They would’ve done something stupid which would’ve made everything worse. In my opinion, if I just sat there quietly and tried to ignore every piece of hate I got, they would stop talking. So far it seemed that the hate was only increasing.

“Hey there. Didn’t think you were a smoker.” I looked up in surprise to see Austin and Alan with smiles on their faces. Lazily I shrugged my shoulders and inhaled the poisonous smoke into my lungs.

“It’s my form of letting out my anger.” I answered, as Austin and Alan sat down beside me on lawn chairs. Austin turned to me with furrowed brows.

“Most performers give their all on set and that way let go of all their anger.” He started talking and I looked down at me lap. “And you played a set a few hours ago. Didn’t it help?” With a sigh I shook my head. After I had taken another long drag of my cigarette, I looked at him.

“I got some hate on tumblr and I got furious that people like to talk shit. It happened barely twenty minutes ago.” Once again, I inhaled the poisonous smoke and turned away my eyes from Austin’s concerned gaze. “So, no way I could’ve let go of all my anger when I was performing a few hours ago.” His eyes bore into the side of my head and I closed my eyes.

“People get satisfaction from starting rumors. It seems that it’s an accomplishment to some of them.” Alan muttered and I slowly nodded my head.

Silence settled around us and I sighed to myself, thinking that I was exhausted from all the rumors that were spewed on tumblr about me. I was seriously considering the fact of making a video and telling everyone the real story behind our band, but I was too scared to do that. There were only two options how everyone would react to that: start more rumors or stop the rumors. And I was scared that everyone would choose the first option.

“Okay, I am rounding up Phil, Tino and Aaron and we’re going to find your band mates. I think you two are going to watch Star Wars, so we’ll just go and get drunk.” Alan stood up and I looked up at him in surprise. It had slipped my mind that I was supposed to watch Star Wars movies with Austin.

I watched Alan walk off before I turned my head to Austin who was watching me with furrowed brows. The tip of my cigarette kissed my lips as I inhaled the familiar scent of mint into my lungs. It should’ve brought calmness to my nerves, but the more I sat on that lawn chair smoking, the more I felt angry. I was supposed to be having fun with my band mates, but here I was, destroying my lungs and damaging my vocal chords because of something that I had read on the internet. It was stupid, but who said that I knew how to deal with rumors? As a matter of fact, I was the only one from the band that was always over-thinking things. Little things, like people talking shit, got me emotional and I could never deal with it.

“Let’s go watch those Star Wars movies, yeah?” Austin asked quietly with a smile on his face and I locked my gaze with his. His eyes held some kind of sadness behind them, but I couldn’t really tell for what. Like a flash, the memory of him holding my hand snapped in my mind and I turned my eyes away feeling embarrassed for some reason. They had fit so perfectly and I didn’t have a clue why.

I remembered all those times when I held Paul’s, Henry’s or even Adam’s hand. None of those times did it feel so right as it felt with Austin. My mind couldn’t comprehend the fact that something so simple could feel that nice, or that it could surprise me to no end. I tried to remember how I felt when Paul held my hand, but all I could come up with was that it never seemed strange. It seemed okay, because that’s what friends do. And the more I thought about it, the more I came close to realization that my hand fit in Paul’s and Henry’s hands too, but never had I noticed it nor had I been so surprised. Maybe it didn’t feel so strange because I knew them so well and the whole thing with Austin just surprised me, because we had met barely a few days prior to that.

“Yeah, let’s go.” I answered Austin’s question while silently reassuring myself that it was all in my head and that I was over-thinking everything once again. As I threw the cigarette in the ashtray that I had beside my lawn chair, I felt Austin watch my every move. The inner fight that I had going on before he and Alan came, suddenly just disappeared and I looked up at him in surprise. He had this cute grin on his face and it seemed that he was going to start jumping up and down like a little kid in a moment.
Right that moment, I realized that not only was I angry for nothing, but that it was pointless too. I had to admit that being in a band wasn’t always going to be a pleasant ride, but if I wanted it to be pleasant, it was up to me to make it so.

“You look like you’re ready to burst from happiness.” I teased Austin, as I stood up. His brown eyes shone in excitement as he nodded his head furiously.

“We’re going to watch Star Wars!” He exclaimed and then threw his hands in the air. “How can I not look like I’m ready to burst?” I couldn’t help myself as I let a chuckle escape my lips. Throwing back my head, I found myself laughing loudly for no apparent reason and it was only moments before Austin joined in and we were both laughing at thin air.

“Hey, Greta…” He spoke slowly after we had calmed down and started walking towards his bus. I turned to him with a content smile on my face and he grinned. “Don’t let them get to you, because if you let them be the reason why you’re not smiling or laughing every day, this won’t be the most awesome experience of your life.” And I fully agreed with him. He was right and I knew that I shouldn’t listen to someone who had no connection to me at all.

“You’re right. It’s in my nature to over-react and over-think.” I shrugged my shoulders, but kept on talking. “But I think that Warped will teach me how to deal with all of that.” The OM&Mbus was in sight and a few moments later we were beside it.

“Plus…” Austin stopped suddenly and I turned to look at him. “You have a pretty smile. It would be a shame if you didn’t smile a lot.” The butterflies burst in my stomach like fireworks on New Year’s and I found myself blushing like a tomato. I was at a loss of words, but it didn’t seem to faze Austin, because with a chuckle he lightly pushed me inside the bus and from that moment forth, I no longer felt angry or annoyed. The whole batch of rumors that I had read about disappeared somewhere deep inside my mind and the only thing that was left there was surprise.

No one had ever told me that my smile was pretty…