Stuck On Loving You

Alex–

I walked all over Los Angeles like a stranded traveler looking for a home to stay in. I had lost track of time and I left my phone back at the studio, so when I saw the sun starting to set, I hoped like hell that everyone was still at there working. Unless they didn't want to wait for me again; I had a tendency to storm out of a room at the slip of her name. I've never learned what effect she had on me or if there was something she held over my head that made her seem so irresistible. The anger swelled up in my hands, turning them into fists whenever I thought of her being away. My mouth ran dry every time I remembered that she ran from "us", without a call or a note left behind, all because of a fight.

How fucking childlike of her to do that.

My feet brought me back to the parking lot of the studio. Looking up, I realized that some of the guys were still there and a sigh of relief found its way out of my chest.

"Look who's back!" Mike chuckled as I walked through the door and took my hood off, giving him a small grin. After walking around for hours, I did feel a little better. But I have this small feeling that I would've felt a hell of a lot better if I would've seen Lana. Just a glance of her so I could see for myself that she was doing okay. I knew her so well that I could see her for a nanosecond and know her mood, how her day was, and what she was thinking.

I looked around and everyone was there except for Cassadee and Rian which meant, to me, a weight had been lifted for at least the time I was here until I got back to the house. "Sorry about that guys," I apologized while sitting down next to the mixing board, right next to Jack.

"It's okay, man," Jack said while placing a hand on my shoulder. "We know what she does to you." I nodded, not knowing what to say before an image of her face place itself in my mind again.

I looked over at Mike. "Can we just get to work?"

He nodded and told me to get in the booth, that more vocals needed to be laid down. Thankfully singing was one of the things in this world that took my mind off of everything - it made every single emotion go away. I was on a planet of my own, feeling everything through words and not stuck in my mind like usual.

Before leaving my seat, I looked at my phone, ignoring the texts and heading straight to Twitter. A couple lines came to my head from an Imogen Heap song that has been on repeat and to be honest, it fit everything almost too perfectly.

@AlexAllTimeLow: "Come decay with me in closed loops and future-proof cardboard to caviar. Let's show them how good we are."

I smiled at myself after pressing the tweet button, but then out of curiosity, I searched for her Twitter. I knew it by heart, but didn't follow it so I didn't have to torture myself. And trust me, it did take quite some time to find it. Sometimes I just wondered if she was thinking of me.

And she might have been, due to the abundance lyrics.

1h: "You know I'll fight my corner and that tonight I'll call ya after my blood is drowning in alcohol. No, I just wanna hold ya."

2h: "Call at 7:03 and on your machine I slur a plea for you to come home, but I know it's too late and I should've given you a reason to stay."

2h: This wasn't how my day was supposed to go. I guess your past -will- always follow you.

3h: "I admit, I'm still watching the days go by and sleeping alone is starting to break me down. It's cold, but I should've known."

And with that last tweet, I hit the home button and set my phone down, locking the screen. I just needed to get into the booth and sing, not think about those lyrics, that song, and those feelings.

Maybe checking up on her was a small mistake, but sometimes curiosity gets the best of people.

♡♡♡

It was around one in the morning when Zack, Jack, and I finally left the studio and started to head back to the house. It was obvious that they were exhausted from doing nothing but sitting around. No one was talking, it was just pure silence. The thing I liked the most about being with my best friends almost every day of the year was that we could all just sit in silence together and it was never awkward. We knew that the album was going well and that made us happy enough that we didn't even have to talk about it. The feelings were all mutual.

As we stepped foot in the house, the only sound heard was that of a movie and Rian's soft yawning. All three of us went our separate ways to our bedrooms. My mind went blank as soon as I got in there, so with a bottle of wine in my hand, I headed towards the bathroom that was connected to my room.

I turned the shower on and opened the bottle while sitting on the floor, up against the cabinets. I hummed to myself and thought about everything that was going on, trying to block out everything that was Lana while sipping on the bottle.

Thirty minutes had passed and I was almost to the bottom of the bottle. I did something I shouldn't had and pulled out my phone. As I started scrolling through the contacts I remembered that her name wasn't in there. I actually memorized the numbers so I couldn't make the call in a drunken stupor. I started laughing to myself, thinking about how completely pointless that move even was.

Six of the numbers were dialed, just one more and I could hear her voice. My thumb only hovered over that last number until I realized that this was a stupid idea. That, or I wasn't drunk enough.

I stood up and turned off the shower. In the midst of doing so, I tucked my phone in my pocket after making sure it was locked.

"Didn't know you were still up," Flyzik greeted me as I walked into the kitchen. Jack was with him, along with Zack and all three of them had pulled out the alcohol.

"Yeah," I said, "give me some of that. I can't sleep." I pointed towards the Jack Daniel's that was near Jacks hand.

"Can't sleep or want to drink away your thoughts?" Zack asked me with a sympathetic smile.

"Can't sleep." I forced a laugh.

"What if you had no arms and were unable to wipe your ass?" Jack asked all of us after staring at the black marble countertop for several minutes. We all chuckled while giving him a weird look. He obviously had more to drink than any of us so far.

Shots and a half a bottle of booze later, I was ready to stumble into bed while having Zack escort me to my room. I took off my pants and shoes, too lazy to strip off my shirt, so I just climbed under the covers.

With my thousandth sigh of the day, I reached for the remote and turned on the tv. Then, I grabbed my phone and dialed those same exact numbers, except this time, I actually called.

"Hey, you've reached Lana. Leave a message and if I like you enough, I'll get back to you. Bye!"

I smiled hearing her voice, even though it had gone straight to voicemail.

"Hey, uh, Lany, er--Lana, sorry. It's Alex... Gaskarth. Cass had said she saw you earlier, so I just wanted to say hi... Or something, I guess. Whatever..." I sat for a few moments trying to collect my words, but this was a drunken slurred call. "I miss you, Lana... And I want you to know that. It's the truth I just... I don't even know why I'm making this call, honestly. If you don't want to call back, then I understand. Just, I don't know... I'll see you when I see you, okay? I don't know when or where that will be, but that doesn't mean I don't hope it doesn't happen. I'm just happy that you're okay. I love-- oh, wow, I'm done. Goodbye, Lany."

And with that, I hung up knowing that I had just made a complete rambling fool of myself. I almost pray that she won't listen to it.

Now I'll fall asleep with a picture of her perfection in my head and nothing but that. I wish Jack or Rian would've walked past my room and stopped me from ever leaving that message in the first place.