Fool Everyone

I curled up in the van facing the wall, knowing that if turned around I would meet the eyes of everyone on tour. I was exhausted from the entire day and the last thing I wanted to do was face the inevitable firing squad of questions. I felt nothing but eyes on me. I had sworn to myself that I wouldn't cry once they had arrived to pick me up, but it was no use. The pressure from the impatient stares broke me.

Immediately after the first sob escaped my lips I heard a groan. "Dammit Allie don't start crying!" my brother exclaimed to me. "Just turn around and tell us what the fuck happened! What's wrong with you?!" Of course that just made me cry harder. I felt everything crushing on my shoulders.

Once Eric had expressed his dissatisfaction at my behavior, a soft-spoken chorus of "dude, let her be," "don't yell at her," and "she's been through a lot" rang out from Justin, Jared and Andrew. I peeked behind me to see the three of them leading my brother off the bus. I buried my head into my sweatshirt and continued to drown in my misery.

A few moments passed before I felt a gentle had on my shoulder. "Hon...do you need some space?" Debby asked. I heard someone else kneel down next to her. Deanna added on to her question. "We can stay if you'd rather a hug or something but if you wanna be alone we understand...you have an awful lot going on."

I gently shrugged them off as my answer. I had a feeling Deanna was still angry with me, and really just felt that crying alone in the van would be the best option. Luckily, the two of them were able to read me easily and knew I wanted them to leave. They both rubbed my arm and said to let them know when I was ready to see people. I just nodded, too tired to even mumble a word.

I heard the door to the van open as my two friends exited and what sounded like huffing in the distance. My brother must still be upset about the whole situation. I cried harder after hearing that. I had really let him down and ruined his whole tour. Yeah, he got on my nerves but at the end of the day he was still my big brother and I hated to disappoint him so much. That's all that this tour made me. A disappointment.

A grand total of about three minutes passed before the door was thrown open and slammed shut again. I jumped in the air and expected to see Eric back to yell at me.

Instead I was faced with Nick.

He looked angry at first but immediately changed his expression once he saw me crying. I silently cursed myself. The last person that should ever see me this broken is Nicholas Santino. He had never seen me cry and I felt ashamed that he was seeing it now. Shame of course has always made me feel worse about everything, so that just made me cry harder. I moved as close as I could to the wall and avoided all eye contact with him.

Within seconds I felt arms wrap around me in a tight hug. "Hey..." he said quietly. "I know I'm probably the last person you want a hug from but you need one...don't cry it's ok that creep is gone. He isn't gonna hurt you."

I had half a mind to pull away from him, but something about this hug felt really safe. Against my better judgement, I turned around and buried my face in his shoulder. He didn't ask what was wrong. He just kept hugging me tightly, protecting me from the rest of the world.

A long time passed before either of us moved again. My tears slowly came to a halt and I started to move away from him. After hating him for so long it was bizarre to be this close to him. He looked concerned as I started to move away.

"That asshole didn't hurt your or anything right? He didn't like...touch your or anything and make you hate all physical contact...right?" I shook my head no. "Then why are you so...I dunno...like this? He's gone, Allie. You don't need to worry about him."

I looked away from Nick. I didn't have the heart to tell him that HE was the problem.

He sighed deeply and let go of me. "This is all because of me, isn't it..." he said with a hint of regret in his voice.
I studied the ground, not wanting to see his face.
"Debby told me that Jared brought up...that night. And that he painted both of us in a pretty bad light. She said that's why you ran...because you were ashamed of it...and ashamed of me..."
For the first time since entering the van, I croaked out a response. "No...I'm not ashamed of you..."

His head cocked to the side. "Then what made you run?"
I took a deep breath. "Me. ...I'm ashamed of me..." And with that the tears started flowing again. Only this time, the tears were accompanied by every insecure thought that had ran through my head since starting this godforsaken tour.

Keeping all of your walls up every second of the day is exhausting if you do it for too long. Sometimes, you need to let them come crashing down.

After babbling and blubbering like an idiot for a while, Nick stared at me with the most caring expression anyone had ever shown me. "...all of that was bottled up in that head of yours?" I sniffled and nodded. "Damn, Allie...I had no idea..."
I shrugged. "How could you have? I"m good at hiding things...well I was anyways..."

He shook his head. "You should never have to feel like that...I feel so guilty for causing so many of those feelings...I knew that I had hurt you but I didn't realize just how badly...I am so sorry..."

There it was. The apology I was waiting for. "I mean...what you said and did sucked but for some reason I guess I can forgive you" I sighed. He was just doing what he thought was best for everyone. Sure, it ruined things more, but he thought his actions would make things better. I had tried doing the same thing. I figured it was time for me to apologize too.

"I did some pretty shitty things to you too, Nick. We both let this thing get way out of hand...I'm sorry too..." He gave a small smile. "It's alright. We both just let our feelings get the better of us" he responded.

I made a face. "Fuck feelings. They ruin everything."
"Yeah, but then you wouldn't have happiness either and that would suck more" he chuckled.
"Happy. That's something I haven't felt in a long time..." I trailed off trying to remember the last time I was really happy. I could tell Nick was doing the same.

He answered before I did. "Arizona." I had no idea what he meant by that, so he continued. "The show in Arizona was the last time I was really happy...specifically towards the end of the show in the dressing room...when I was kissing you."

My, my, Mr. Santino sure does have a way of making a lady's heart flutter.

I felt myself blushing and tried to hide the smile creeping up on my face, but it was no use. He grinned at me and took my hand. "...I'd really like to get that feeling again..."

My face got hotter as I realized he was asking to kiss me again. I hesitated a few seconds, wondering if this would be the right decision. Thinking back to all of the other shitty decisions I had made in the past few weeks, I figured one more couldn't do too much more damage. Slowly, I nodded my head, my heart pounding.

He smiled shyly and gently kissed me. The drama and world surrounding us faded away.

That was the moment I realized that I was hopelessly in love with Nick Santino.