Status: Working on it!

Warped Vision

Chapter 8

I woke up the next morning feeling anything but refreshed. Sore, I sat up and stretched, hitting the top of the bunk with my hands. I looked down at a sleeping, yet smiling Justin and smiled weakly back. He looked so peaceful and so..satisfied.

My smile dropped quickly, though, after the realization of exactly what I had done the night before hit me. My sudden change of mood made me feel queasy, and I pulled my clothes on as fast as I could and shook Justin awake with whisper-yells of his name.

It took quite a while, but I finally got him to look tiredly up at me. I forced a grin in his direction, “I have to go,” I continued to whisper, kissing him on the forehead.

“Already?” He yawned and squinted his eyes, looking over me at an alarm clock, “It's only 5am. Stay another hour, babe.”

I shuddered at the sound of the pet name as he pulled me back down and closer to him. I only lied there for a moment before sitting myself up again and grabbing the rest of my stuff, “Alex doesn't even know where I am,” I said, sitting by the edge of the bunk, ready to jump down, “I'll talk to you later, promise.”

Jesse was there to greet me as soon as I my feet were on the ground. He lifted his eyebrows and followed me into the main room, where I sat to put my shoes on. “Did you have a nice night?” He asked, suggestively.

“Fuck off,” I muttered, pulling the second shoe on and bolting out the door of the bus. I was thankful that the mapping of the buses was the same at every venue as I ran through the maze that I had been through many times before. I was fucked, I was so fucked. It was strike three, definitely strike three. Almost out of breath, I neared the All Time Low bus. But, as always, there had to be a detour.

“Hannah!” Tony grabbed on my arm, stopping me in my tracks and pulling me abruptly to face him, “I looked for you last night, but I couldn't find you.”

“Yeah,” I breathed, “I stayed on the Sleeping with Sirens bus again.”

He rolled his eyes and let out a groan, looking down at me disapprovingly. It was like he knew it without even being told. Could you see it in my face? If so, I was definitely fucked. Not telling Alex where I was and sleeping with Justin? I was never going to be allowed to leave the bus again.

After a moment of looking at me with disdain and shaking his head, Tony finally spoke again, “You know, I'm sorry if I hurt you yesterday.”

Hurt me? More like crushed my hopes and dreams. He shouldn't worry yet though, I guess I still had some hope. Maybe he was just caught off guard and didn't know what to do? But still.

I looked back at him and tried to wipe any sign of emotion off of my face, “It's fine, I don't know what came over m--”

“No,” he interrupted, laughing ironically and shaking his head again, “Hannah, I know you well enough to know that you don't do anything without the ways it will benefit you in mind. You know exactly what you're doing when you're doing it. Things don't just 'come over you.'”

In a way, he was right. I must have been so certain that he liked me that I thought I needed to do something to speed things up. But I think all I did was just screw everything up. I let out a sigh and stared down at my shoes, which I then realized were on the wrong feet.

“Look, Hannah, I didn't mean to make you think that I had feelings for you or anything. Another girl I cared about a lot had a bad experience with Justin. I was just looking out for you.”

I looked back up at him with sad eyes, “That's it? That's all you were doing?” I asked with the small ounce of hope I had left in me.

“That's it,” he let out, pursing his lips awkwardly, “So we're clear then? I don't have any romantic feelings toward you and I guess I won't get involved in your love life any longer. I don't want to give you any more false hope.”

“Uh, yeah,” I croaked. He must not have known how long or how much I had liked him, because this hurt so much more than false hope. Well, of course it did. The truth always hurt more than hope. “Thanks for clarifying.”

I stood awkwardly in front of him and bit the inside of my lip, trying not to cry. I wasn't sure if he had anything more to say or do (maybe this was all a joke?) or if I could just leave.

“Well, I'll see you around,” He waved, turning back to his bus.

“Yep,” I muttered, feeling as if I couldn't breathe. This was real life and I wasn't going to get what I wanted.

I wasn't going to get what I wanted and I was still left with the shit that I caused while trying to get it.

I returned to my own bus soon after and was welcomed by a very tired and very irritated looking Alex. He stood up to greet me and I felt like sobbing or puking all over the floor. He either didn't notice or didn't care though, as he began scolding me right away, “Where the fuck have you been? I called you and Justin and neither of you answered. Everyone else claimed they didn't know where you were. I was ready to call a search party together for you.”

I tried to ignore his harsh-sounding voice, walking right past him and to my own bunk. He was relentless though, following me and continuing to lecture, “Don't ignore me. Explain yourself!”

“I screwed up, Alex! Okay?” I blurted, whipping around and actually beginning to cry, “I did everything wrong and got nothing out of it at all!”

His face softened a little at the sight of my tears, but he still appeared angry, “What are you talking about?”

“Everything was for Tony,” I spoke hurriedly, “God, I'm so stupid. I was destructive to get Tony to notice me, I went on a date to forget Tony, I continued to date Justin just to make Tony jealous, I thought it worked and kissed Tony but he just totally rejected me. And even after that, everything was about him because I fucking fucked Justin to get back at...you guessed it...Tony! I can't even live with myself right now. I keep acting without thinking. I just need to stop.”

“W-w-wait, back up,” Alex spoke, concerned, as I let out a breath, “You slept with Justin? When?”

“Fuck! You see? I keep saying and doing things without thinking,” I let my head back and sighed heavily, “Last night, after Tony and Justin got into a fight because of another one of my stupid fucking plots to get Tony jealous.”

I expected him to throw a hissy fit over this fact, but Alex simply hugged me and rubbed my back as I continued to shudder out heavy sobs. I could barely breathe when he pulled me away to look at me again, “Why are you so caught up with him? Everything you've been doing is so not like you. Do you even really like Justin?”

I put my head on his chest again and breathed out, “No, I mean...now I sort of do. But not enough to truly want to sleep with him. I mean...ew.”

“Oh, Hannah,” he ran a hand through his hair, “Look what you got yourself into.”

“And now Tony made sure to clarify that he doesn't like me. So I'm basically dating Justin for no reason and this has all been for no reason and—and--I'm just done.”

Alex hugged me again and let out a sigh, picking me up like he used to when I was younger and taking me to the couch, “How come boys don't ever like me back?” I whined and looked up at him with puppy dog eyes.

“Because you do conniving things like this instead of actually trying to be a likable person,” he laughed a little and I looked up at him, annoyed. Seeing this, he made a noise to signal that he was thinking, “You honestly just need to stay away from all of them for a while.”

“We tried that already,” I complained, resting my head on Alex's lap and looking up at the ceiling, “What do I need to do? Just stay cooped up on the bus?”

He looked down on me with an expression that told me he had his own 'brilliant' plan in mind, “No, I have a better idea.”

“Where are we going?” I asked Alex for the third time later that day as he dragged me around all of the buses. He looked down on me, playfully annoyed, just like he had the other two times.

“Would you just wait?” He chuckled, “We're almost there.”

Finally, we got to an unfamiliar bus, which Alex knocked on the door of. I sucked in my breath, afraid of what I was going to have to endure.

A tall boy with a sleeve of tattoos and short black hair opened the door and greeted my brother happily. I pulled at the bottom of my shirt, feeling uncomfortable and out of place. It was even more awkward once he greeted me by name. I'd never met him in my life.

“Is Alan in?” Alex asked the boy hopefully, attempting to look around him inside the bus. I squinted and my stomach sank at the sound of yet another name that was foreign to me. I would have to spend the majority of my time for the rest of tour with someone I'd never associated with before. Great.

“Yeah! He mentioned something about you stopping by. Come on in,” We followed the boy to the back lounge of the bus, where I was surprised to see the red head I had encountered a few times before.

The urge to puke came over me again, and I hoped my “babysitter” would be one of the other two boys sitting with him.

To my disappointment, though, he stood up happily to take part in a swift handshake with my brother. He then turned to me and let out a thrilled yet awkward, “hi!”

“Hannah, this is Alan. He won't pressure you to do anything at all,” my brother said with a laugh, urging me with his eyes to say hello.

“Hey,” I gave him a weak wave, looking down at the floor and shifting my weight from one foot to another. I looked back up after a moment to see him looking just as reserved.

“We, uh, we met once before. When you went to the catering tent.”

“Right,” I nodded, offering a small smile, “Thanks again for that.”

“Great!” Alex marveled before Alan could respond, glancing at both of us and throwing his hands into the air, “That means you two have already acquainted and it's fine for me to leave.”

I widened my eyes slightly and begged him not to with my eyes, but he ignored it and looked to the front of the bus, a devious glint in his own, “I've got my own business that I have to take care of.”
♠ ♠ ♠
ok this is under 2k words and im really pissing myself off now with how weak my writing as been. but here it is, it's just a filler though :( I go back to school on thursday (two days? dumb, i know) so updates will be less often after tomorrow. I have finals next week :( :( :(
comments are appreciated ♥