Letters

Quick after her birthday, they went back in tour for a month and three weeks. They would be home only five days before Christmas.

This time, Adam Elmakias was with them. Alan was as he always was these days: half drunk most of the time. He paid attention not to drink too much, because everyone would freak out if he did. But he still needed alcohol to hold on: his little baby wasn't here to smile and make his world brighter.

The guys had decided to leave him be, as long as he wasn't acting too much self destructive.

He talked a lot with Adam. About Katelynn, but also about everything. Adam wasn't someone who had a lot of success with girls. And his job wasn't helping. Not every girl could take not to see their boyfriend for months. So they talked, and Alan kept telling him how Zoey had been awesome. Every time he spoke about her, his eyes would lit up, and he would smile at how perfect she was. But every time, once he was done, he remembered everything, and his eyes died, his smile faded.

The only way to make him smile and actually keeping it, was talking about his daughter.

~~~~~

In the middle of the tour, they had a show in Phoenix, so the girls had decided to come and they would stay for around a week. It wasn't making Alan too happy: being the only one without a girl wasn't great. But he had agreed when they asked if it bothered him. He couldn't always stop their fun. He had to be nice too.

He had already planned to mostly hung out with Adam and their drum tech, since they were the only single men, but he would rather be alone with Adam, since he was closer, and trusted him more. Even Austin's girl, with who he wasn't serious, was there. Everyone was nice to her, but everyone knew that Austin wasn't going to stay with her. They were all nice, but they were all pretty angry at Austin, since he was using of her love. But none if them dared to talk, the only one who ever did was Zoey. And now they all let him.

Even Eli was coming to see Justin. While she was there, Katelynn was staying with Alan's family. The two grand parents wanted to be with their grand daughter, and Sandra wanted the same. She kept reading stories to help Katelynn to sleep. She was editing child book, therefore she read her favorites to the baby.

The day of that show, Alan kept away from them. He wasn't feeling too well, and didn't want to sadden them. He had wandered around, until he found some fans.

They asked for him to sign so he did.

"Coming from far?" He said, noticing that one had a weird accent. He had nothing to do and didn't want to go back yet, so a discussion seemed good.

"I'm from Australia, I'm here only for the month, but we still got the places!" one of the girls smiled wide.

"Well, I hope the show's gonna be great for you."

"Well, I hope for you too!" The other girl smiled.

"It's true that you have a daughter?!" Another fan called, from afar.

Alan smiled. "Yeah it is."

"How old is she?" The Australian girl asked.

"She just turned one." He proudly smiled.

"How is she called?"

"Katelynn."

"Who's the mom?" One of them asked.

Alan froze. He swallowed slowly. He knew all the fan were wondering what was happening to him.

Quick, find something to say!

"She... She's really pretty." Was all he could say. "I'm gonna go" and with that, he ran away. Hoping they wouldn't talk too much about what they witnessed.

If he told people, would he have questions like this one? Would the questions get personal? He was worried.

He walked backstage,and sat next to the guitars. The guys were all out. They were probably with their girl, or waiting for them. He took his phone, looking through internet, and random social medias. He didn't have anything else to do. He wondered about calling his parents to see Katelynn, but knew that it would only worry them. It wasn't like Eli who was used to it. And they didn't know everything. He didn't want them to freak out.

Then, he walked to the bus, to lay in his bunk listening to music.

Around four, Justin pushed the curtain open.

"Hey mate, the girls are there."

Alan groaned, but stood up. He greeted everyone, smiling.

"Alan, we have a surprise."

Alan frowned at Aaron's words. "What you mean?" He asked, noticing Adam preparing his camera.

"We need you to close your eyes." Eli smiled.

He observed their smiles, before closing his eyes. He felt a hand wrap itself around them. "Just to be sure." He heard Amanda say.

There were foot steps, a door being open, some more footsteps.

"Open" Amanda said, pulling her hand off his face.

He opened hiss eyes, and his hand went over his face.

Right before him, was standing Sandra. But that wasn't what dragged his attention. The baby in her arms did.

After the first seconds of shock, he saw that the baby was looking at him, and rose her arms to reach him.

He ran to her, wrapping his hands around her. He twirled her up in the air, over his head. Then he pulled her down to kiss her as she laughed hard. He finally held her against his chest, still kissing the top of her head.

And he remembered that they weren't Alone. He looked around, and saw everyone with huge smiles.

He blushed lightly as he heard Austin's girlfriend, Stephanie, say how cute he was.

"How?" He whispered to his sister.

"Well, we thought that since we aren't far from home, I could drive here, and maybe sleep at a motel, or something, so I could bring her to see her daddy performing."

He smiled wide, and kissed the top of Katelynn's head.

"I’m so happy you’re here." He smiled to his baby.

The little girl put her hand on his face. "Haaha"

"Yeah, Dada." He smiled to her and she smiled wide. He observed her. She was growing so quick. Her hair had grown since he last saw her, and he was glad to see they had the exact same hair. Except that hers were curling all over her head. Sandra had put them into an only elastic on the top of her head. She was so cute like this.

~~~~~~~

He stayed the whole afternoon with his baby, playing with her. He had missed her a lot. When he had to go on stage, Sandra put on her ears some big headphones, made to stop most of the noise. He laughed at how cute she looked. Austin took a picture of her. It always puzzled him how his friends loved taking pictures of her, while he didn’t thought about it. He was living the time being, not caring about anything else than her, and the moment they were sharing.

He went on the stage, and the crowd that day was truly amazing.

Until that song came.

Another You. It was the worst. It was still hard to listen to that song. But while he was mentally preparing himself to play it, Austin spoke.

"I want to dedicate this song to one person, one and only person. You were the best human being, and we miss you." And he looked at the sky. Or, well, the ceiling, since they were inside of the venue.

Alan tuned his head to his right, looking at his daughter. He wished it was Zoey who were holding her at this moment, and not Sandra.

White walls, filled with nothing
But nervous paces
All around I see
Something’s off
Inside of myself
I see it in their faces.

Alan’s eyes went shut. It was hard to hear his own words. To hear how bad he had once felt. Now he was a lot better, but it was still hard for him to take it.

Say anything, say anything
Say anything that can make this all okay
Take it away, take it away
Take away all of this emptiness I feel
‘Cause I will never find another you

He was crying by now, mouthing every words, as he played. He loved her. And now, she was gone and he missed her like crazy. And he would be alone for the rest of his life. He couldn’t stand it.

He continued to play, trying not to show too much of his sadness. He turned his head to his side, to see his baby looking at him, and clapping her hands. He saw the worried looks of the adults, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the look into his daughter’s eyes. She was admiring him. He kept playing, but more like a machine. All he could see was her. He saw her laughing, and probably talking -even if you still couldn’t understand a word, she was making noises to copy talking. He smiled wide to her, as he heard Aaron sing.

So I’ll carry you with me in my dreams, my memory
So I’ll carry you with me, you’ll always be with me

Yeah, Zoey will always be with me. Always. He felt the ring on his chest. Always.

~~~~~~~~~~

The rest of the week seemed to drag on forever. All the guys had their girls there, so he stayed all day long with Adam. Adam never complained. He would have loved to hang out with everyone, and he didn’t really cared if they all had their girls or not, but he knew that Alan needed him. Alan couldn’t stand being close to couples for too long. It reminded him too much of her.

The others weren’t saying anything about it, and felt a bit guilty about that. But Alan himself told them it was okay. He told them they couldn’t stop seeing their girls just because he was still hurt. He knew it would be hard when he agreed. But he didn’t regretted it: The guys were happy to see their girls, so he let them. He only stayed a bit away.

He also had asked them if they thought he should tell everyone about Zoey. Most of them told him to do as he pleased, and to tell what he felt okay with. Eli told him not to. She thought that it would be hard, because people would ask a lot of questions, and he wasn’t ready for them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some days before going home, they had an interview, only him and Austin.

The guy made them sat, and was sitting between them. After a short presentation, he started with questions about the album.

"So, this album contains more personals songs, am I right?"

"Totally." Austin agreed. Alan nodded too. With time, he was more okay to talk about the album. He had now learnt to make a difference between his memories of Zoey, and people talking about the album, and even the songs which talked about her.

"Which ones are the most personals? Another You, I suppose?"

Alan stared some seconds at the microphone the men was handing him. Before using all of his strength and taking it.

"Well, yeah, it’s one of the most personal. But I think this song is really different from the others. I mean, every song has meaning, but most of the time it’s for whoever wrote it that it makes sense. The others just follows him. I think that this song mean something to everyone of us."

Alan smiled a bit as he saw Austin’s proud smile. He was proud to see his friend able to talk that way.

"And what does it mean?"

Austin answered this time, much to Alan relief.

"It represent a period of time. It represent also a person, and some of the bests memories we have as well as some of the worst. It’s a song that makes us want to cry almost every time we listen to it. But it makes us smile too, because of the great memories. I think that’s why people like this song, because it is so strong."

"And who wrote it? Did you wrote it together?"

"Nope, Alan here wrote most of it. Me and Aaron helped a bit for the lyrics, and obviously Phil and Tino helped for the instrumentals, but Alan created most of it. He created the skeleton of the song."

Alan smiled a bit.

"Really? Did you wrote other songs?"

"Yeah, I also wrote Would You Still Be There, and well, helped on every song."

"And how was it, to only come back for the studio?"

"Well, It was pretty much like for the Flood. I had never met Phil, Tino, or Shay when I walked into the studio. This time we knew each other more, so it was really easier. I think we were all glad to play and write again together."

"Hell yeah, we did!" Austin laughed. "As you know, the year before the album was… complicated for the band, to say the least. We almost separated more than once, and so, being back together writing, and continuing what we all fought for was really great. I do believe that it helped us all, and that we all felt better after."

Alan nodded.

"And about that, none of you ever explained why all those hiatus, separations, occurred, and we want to know!"

"Well…." Alan stared. "It was kind of my fault, for the most. I had a lot of shit going on in my personal life, and I couldn’t take that plus the band. I ended up exploding, and quitting. As weird as it seems, I think it wasn’t such a bad choice, it helped us all getting better."

"So no quitting again, right? Everyone likes you in this band."

"Not again, I don’t want to live this ever again!" Alan laughed. Why was he talking so much, he didn’t know. But he felt as if it was helping him. "But you know, sometimes you need to take time to put your life back on tracks. Sometimes it’s hard to take everything."

"What happened to make you so fucked up?"

Alan stayed silent, trying to know what to say. "Someone took my whole world, and turned it around, destroying everything I believed in. And it took time to land on my feet. Once I was, I went back with the guys, and everything became perfect!"

"Does this has a link with the rehab you got in?" the guy had a lot of questions, but Alan was trying to answer, hoping it would make him feel better.

"Well, okay everything didn’t go perfect, right after I got back. It takes time to stand back up when life knocks you down. It didn’t went perfect, but I did it. Now I’m… Way better. I’m clean since the rehab. And I try not to drink too much neither."

"Congratulation! It seems really hard to stop once you’re addicted."

"It is, but once you’ve decided that you would stop, because there’s things more important than the drug you’re addicted to, you can do it. It’s a question of willing. And that’s what is making it so hard. Nobody can really help you, they only can show you that you can live without them. Or at least that was what it was for me. I guess it’s different for everyone."

"And I’ve heard you have a daughter? Was she already born?"

"Yeah, she was. That’s what helped me a lot. I couldn’t… I couldn’t abandon her." She already lost her mom. His lips burned with the desire to say it. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t drop a bomb that way. He closed his eyes.

Austin saw that this was a little much for Alan to handle, so he started to speak.

"She’s the cutest thing ever!" The interviewer turned to him, as Alan’s eyes stayed deep in thoughts. "She already have us all wrapped around her fingers." He laughed.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean, She’s all the time into someone’s arms, because we all love playing with her. We are all spoiling her."

"So you’re all around her? Like one big family?"

"We totally are one big family. She’s Of Mice’s baby. Well, she’s more Alan’s than ours obviously, but still. When we’re on tour, our girls, and even some of our families stay with her."

"That must be great!" He turned to Alan. "Isn’t it?"

"Yeah, it is. Even if sometimes I want to have time with my daughter, without having ten person around, but it’s fun. It helps everything."

The conversations carried on about different subjects.

~~~~~~~~~~~

At the end of the interview, Alan and Austin walked back to the bus.

"I didn’t thought you were going to talk that much!" Austin congratulated him.

Alan shrugged. "Maybe it can help, I mean, I feel weird hiding her. I want to be able to talk about her… But it’s hard. So maybe… Talking this way, without saying too much, maybe it’ll helps."

"I hope so." Austin smiled wide. Alan was clearly going better. He was taking baby steps, but he was making it. The old Alan was slowly coming back.