Warped Vision

I went to sleep early that night, not wanting to ruin my day with tainted thoughts of the dilemmas I was experiencing. The next morning, I felt just as carefree and content when I awoke. That is, until I checked my phone to see that I had multiple missed calls from Justin and quite a few texts from twitter. I groaned, pulling myself up and resting on my elbows.

Looking back at the phone again, I noticed that I had slept soundly for over 12 hours, surprisingly. It was nearly 11am, and Alex would already be off of the bus, doing something for the band. That meant I couldn't ask him what happened with Justin yesterday. I was probably in a heap of trouble with him, judging by the amount of calls and voice mails he left me.

I threw the phone to the other end of the bunk, but picked it up only seconds later, remembering all the texts from twitter.

Having been pressured by the fans, I made a twitter account during the first week of dating Justin. They all wanted to know what I was doing, every second of the day. I only managed to tweet every once in a while, but it was good enough to get me a few thousand followers.

I pulled open the texts again, vaguely remembering having typed, “Had a great time with @AlanAshby and @AustinCarlile” into the twitter app on my phone before going to sleep.

The first text in response to that was Alan, sending me an emoji face that was blowing a kiss with a heart next to it. I rolled my eyes with a light smile, favoriting the tweet and moving on. The other tweets were from girls I had never spoken to, most likely fans of my brother or Justin.

Some of them were nice, saying things such as 'that's cool that you hang out with them too!' but most of them had an angry vibe. Girls were practically sending me hate, assuming that I was cheating on Justin with Alan. I let out a breath of disbelief. As if.

That was probably what the calls were about, too, since I didn't answer his text message. I should have probably called him back, yet like every problem I had faced during the tour, I put solving it off until later. I wasn't really in need of being yelled at about something that didn't even happen.

Sliding out of the bunk, I rested a hand on my forehead, feeling it growing hot and myself feeling more exhausted than I had when I woke up. I walked into the main room of the bus to get breakfast for myself, but noticed someone sitting on the couch out of the corner of my eye. The band wasn't supposed to be there, and I felt a pang of fear, thinking of who it could be after reading all of the angry messages.

I took in a breath, preparing myself for a shriek, but noticed that it was only Alan, sitting there and checking his phone. I let out the breath loudly, “Jesus Christ, Alan, what are you doing here?”
He looked up at me, his mouth open and him appearing to be unaware of how much he just freaked me out, “What? Sorry, your brother asked me to check on you.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” I sighed, walking the rest of the way to the cabinet. I grabbed a box of cereal and poured myself a bowl before sitting down at the table. Looking at him, I swallowed my first bite, “How do you break up with a boy you didn't want to go out with in the first place?”

He looked up at me again, “Uhh, is this a trick question?”

“No,” I shook my head, looking down at my cereal, “I'm being stupid.”

He laughed, “Well yeah, going out with someone you don't like is kind of stupid.”

“I am stupid. I went out with him for all the wrong reasons, and advanced our relationship for all the wrong reasons, and now he thinks I love him or something. This is just great.”

“You're not stupid. You just made a stupid decision, which can probably be undone,” he put his phone down and glanced up at me with a small smirk on his face, “Well, except for the sex part.”

My eyes widened and I was ready to ask him how he knew, but the realization came over me that Justin either bragged or Alex told him. Fuck everything. “What do you suggest I do about it?” I asked, trying to hide my annoyance.

“I'm your babysitter not your mentor,” Alan said matter-of-factly. I looked at him with a blank face until his smirk returned, “Break up with him like you would in a normal relationship? I don't know.”

“I've never broken up with anyone before, oh my god.” I whined, ready to face plant into the cereal.

I watched Alan as he squinted, confused for a moment. He let out a little huff, “Always the dumpee huh?”

“No, boys don't like me enough to date me,” I looked down and moved my spoon around in the bowl, watching the pieces of cereal swirl around, “Or notice me, for that matter,” I muttered.

“I know what you mean,” Alan said. It sounded like he was about to say something more, and if not, I would have questioned him. However, we were interrupted by the sound of someone stomping onto the bus.

I glanced over toward the door to see Justin looking at me furiously, “Did you lose your phone or something?” He fumed, “I've been calling you all day.”

I turned away from him, unable to handle the sight of him so mad, and looked at Alan with wide eyes. He mouthed the word 'clingy' a few times, and I smiled.

Justin must have not noticed Alan until I looked at him, as he spoke up again soon after, “What the hell? Do you guys have like a thing now, or something?”

“No, I--”

I looked over at Alan again and he stood, ready to interrupt me, “Well, not yet, she didn't cheat on your or anything dude,” He lifted his eyebrows, “But she was just telling me how hot she thought I was and that she wanted to break up with you.”

I put my head in my hands and felt Justin's gaze burning into me. What the heck was he even saying? Did he really have to add the idea of me being attracted to him? Because I didn't need any more lies in the relationship I had with Justin.

“So, I suggest you leave.” I heard Alan whisper sassily. I could almost picture him cocking his head with a harsh smile on his face. His words were followed by a short breath of irritation from Justin and the sound of footsteps leaving the bus.

I snapped my head back up once I was sure he was gone and stood up to shove Alan, “What the fuck was that?” I exclaimed as he laughed.

“You said you wanted to break up with him,” He attempted to reason, flinching his arm up as I pushed him again.

“Not while simultaneously giving him the idea that I,” I scrunched my face up, “Like you, or something. You douche bag!” I continued to push him and he wrapped his arm around me, putting his other hand under my legs and lifting me up.

I glared at him, silently telling him to put me down. He simply looked down on me before speaking again, “It was just a joke, Hannah. It's not like you actually have to pretend to like me or anything.”

I rolled my eyes and heard the sound of footsteps climbing the stairs of the bus again. We both looked over, and I was scared Justin had returned. But all I saw was Alex standing before us, seeming to feel quite unsure of what he was looking at. “Did I interrupt a moment or something?” he asked with little emotion.

“NO,” Alan and I said simultaneously as he let my feet touch the ground in one swift movement. I side-stepped probably more than a few feet away from him and he gave me an uneasy look. I returned it with a scowl.

Alex eyed us skeptically as he walked past us to the bunks, “Well okay...”

“Look,” I said through nearly clenched teeth once my brother seemed to be out of earshot, “Alex is back. You can leave now.”

“What if he's leaving again soon?” He asked, lifting an eyebrow and crossing his arms over his chest.

I pointed to the door to signal him to leave, even though I'd already told him to, “I think I can be fine on the bus by myself.”

He let out a sigh and turned around, walking a few steps. Before he was out the door though, he turned back to me again and spoke in a high pitched voice, “Don't play with scissors and don't answer the door for strangers. Call me if there's an emergency, honey!” And with that, he left.

Despite being mad at him, I laughed lightly. Just as much as his laughter was contagious, his jokes couldn't help but make me even a little happy. I turned around to walk to the bunks, but nearly ran into Alex, him standing right behind me.

“So, how's Hannalan?” He said, smiling as if I was hiding something.

I scrunched my eyebrows together. “What?” I retorted irritatedly, letting him know that I had no idea what he was talking about at all.

“The fans already made up a couple name for you and Alan.” He laughed, pulling out his phone and showing me a few tweets of some of the fans he decided to follow.

“That's disgusting,” I pushed the phone away from my face and walked past Alex to get to my bunk. I felt like I just wanted to sleep, even though I got so much rest the night before.

He prevented me from going any further though, pulling on my arm, “Hey, did Justin come by? He was looking for you.” He noted, but didn't give me a change to reply before continuing to speak, “I tried to get him to break up with you yesterday, since I knew you'd have trouble doing it yourself and I didn't want the guilt of a practically fake relationship eating you alive. But he refused.”

“Yeah he did,” I pursed my lips, “and Alan broke up with him for me, suggesting that he and I were going to date in the future.”

Alex let out a single, loud “HA!” at this, and looked at me glaring at him before trying to suppress further laughter.

“This isn't funny,” I groaned, crossing my arms, “Alan is the last person I want to date.”

“Why?” Alex smiled at me and tilted his head to the side. I continued to glare at him, unphased. He lifted his hands up in defense, “Okay, fine. I get it. I'll stay out of it.”

Finally, he left to let me have peace in my bunk. I got under the covers and rested my eyes for a moment. I was unable to asleep though, a weird feeling coming over me each time that I was about to. It wasn't even like Justin and I were actually broken up, since Alan did it for me. I had to do it for myself.

I turned on my side for a moment before groaning and pulling out my phone, opening a text to Justin:

“I'm sorry, Alan was just being a dick. Can we talk sometime later?”

I let out a breath and shut my phone throwing it like I had before. Although I was afraid of Justin's reply, I awaited it almost obsessively, reaching over to check it once every five seconds. Almost 20 minutes past, and I figured he was probably ignoring me.

It was understandable, since I didn't protest anything when Alan was speaking. I just didn't feel like I had the words to say anything.

But just as I was going to give up and lie back down, I heard my phone vibrate from across from me and hurriedly picked it up.

“Fine,” the text from Justin read, “I'll talk to you backstage before we play. Around 5.”