Letters

Alan looked up at himself in the bathroom's mirror of his house. His right eyes was bruised. Not too much but still. He observed the rest of his body. His sides were covered in bruise.

He knew where each of them came from. The prior night, when he had lost control. He and Owen had a fight, and a bad one. None of them were really hurt, it was just bruises. But Owen looked way worse than Alan. Alan hadn't seen him since, but the outcome of the fight made it obvious: after some seconds, and a nice punch in Alan's head, Owen was laying down, Alan on the top of him punching him the harder he could. Until Austin had pulled him off of him, and took him home.

Alan knew he had fucked up. He shouldn't have gone mad, and punch him. But he barely regretted it. After all, Owen asked for it.

He pulled his shirt on, sighing. He went back to his bedroom, and took his phone. Did everyone know? He wished they didn't, but they manage to get to know so many things, so maybe they knew.

He logged on Twitter, and scrolled down, slowly. He saw a tweet from Roxane that made him frown.

@Roxane: @Owen I thought you were different. I'm disappointed.

Alan, curious, went to Owen's profile, and stared.

The last tweet was a pic of his bruised face. He was looking way works that Alan. The caption read "@AlanAshby attacked me last night."

He saw how many many people had re-tweeted it, and he knew everyone would soon know. He scrolled through his tweets, and was more and ore shocked, and hateful towards Owen.

He saw a lot of tweet about him having lost the love of his life. About an asshole who had stole, used and killed that person he loved. He even saw a picture of Zoey's tombstone, without all the flowers Alan always put there, with just one bouquet, Owen's one. The caption was "I brought colors, this place is usually too grey. I guess I'm the only one coming there."

Alan stared at the pic, his chest heavy. How could he do that? And why the fuck would he lie that way?

And he knew many fans would be reading all if that. Would they believe it? Would they know Owen was lying?

Owen posted a new tweet.

" Many people asked me why Alan attacked me. We had some argument about... I'm sorry I didn't want to say that, but he's the one who seduced my girl, took her away, and he's the reason she's gone. All I did was talk with him about that. I shouldn't have, but I did anyway. I tried to have him at least apologize for everything. I guess I should have shut up. "

Alan stared. What the fuck? He felt his insides boil with anger. He unplugged his phone from the charger and called Owen. He had had his number when he had invited him to celebrate Zoey's birthday, and since he had kept the same phone since, he still had him.

Owen answered almost instantly. He must have had his phone close to him. After all he just posted.

"Yeah?"

"How can you fucking say that? You're the only one going to her tomb? Why are you lying?!"

"If what I'm saying is not true, why haven't you talked about her sooner?"

"What? but that has nothing to do with that!"

"It has everything to so with that. I'm tired of seeing everyone being behind you, helping you. That's not fair."

And he hung up.

Alan stared at his phone. He didn't have time to think about what Owen had said, as his phone started to ring. Austin's name appeared on the screen.

"Yeah?" Alan picked up.

"You alright?"

"Yeah."

Austin could heard that it was only a facade Alan was putting up, but he didn't say anything.

"He's a dick." Austin clenched his jaw. He had read everything on twitter, and was worried about his friend. Alan didn't deserved that. But now, whatever Alan would say, it would look like he was trying to cover, and lie.

"How about we go to Carol's, for now?" Austin asked. Austin simply wanted to cheer him up. And since Katelynn was there, that was the best place to do that. Alan agreed, and Austin decided that he was coming and driving them.

While waiting for the singer to come, Alan just watched people respond to Owen's words. People were mad at him. Owen would probably post another one with more details.

When Austin send him text to tell him he was there, he just stood up, put a sweater on, and some flip flops, before walking down to the elevator. And then to Austin. He looked like a zombie.

The drive was silent, until Austin broke it.

"You know, we all know the truth, and people will soon too, and they won't believe his bullshit."

Alan didn't answered.

Austin parked the car, and Alan instantly stood up to go inside. He didn't even knock. He walked straight inside.

He entered the living room, greeting everyone with a simple 'hey'. Sandra gave him a smile, but he didn't look at her. His eyes were focused on the little girl who was playing with wooden toys. She turned around as she recognized her father's voice. A huge smile formed on her lips, and she ran to him, her arms up in the air for him to take her up, and screaming some 'aaahaaaah'. It was the closer she came from Papa.

A huge smile mirrored hers on his face. He took her up as she came close, and held her against his chest. He lowered his face in her neck. She giggled, and held him back. It felt so right to have her like that.

If only Zoey was there with us...

He could almost feel her arms wrapping themselves around the two of them as if they were truly there.

He pulled away, to observe his daughter's face. He smiled at her, as he held her on his hips.

Austin, who had entered and greeted Sandra and Carol, and observed his best friend and his daughter.

He took out his phone, and took a pic of the two of them, looking at each other Alan with so much love in their eyes.

He stared at the phone: what to write as caption? "How could someone say he doesn't love her." But it would be weird. He looked back up at the pic. He sighed and posted it without caption.

"You've seen?" Sandra asked him, as Alan played with Katelynn in his arms.

Austin nodded.

"What an asshole." She shook her head, and Austin nodded again. He sat down next to her. A little too close, but none of them complained.

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

After that day, Alan was keeping everything to himself. He didn't talk about what Owen was doing. Instead, he stayed with Katelynn. She was living with him until next tour, which started on the 7th of February. It was a pretty big one. They were headlining.

Everyone was excited, but Alan was dreading it. Since over a year, tour had become something hard to do for him. And he wondered if many fans would know about Owen's words. On internet, it felt like everyone knew, but that was internet. He wondered if Owen would do something.

Only time would tell how this issue would end. Alan knew, even if he refused to really admit it, that he would have to tell people the truth. But for now, he refused to.

The tour started then , and he had to let go of Katelynn, again. The tour was okay, and the fans were nice. Owen hadn't done anything more than a few tweet insulting Alan. But still, Alan wasn't okay, he felt that it wasn't over with.

He had taken the habit to sat in the back lounge for hours, and play music. He never stopped. He was writing songs. that was one of the reasons the guys had welcomed him with open arms in the band. The former guitarist wasn't much of a writer, when Alan couldn't stop writing songs. Most of were never heard by anyone other than himself. When he felt like they were good enough, he shared them with the guys. And there they decided to change some parts, or make one song out of two. Alan was always open, and never felt hurt because the song he proposed never ended up on a record. There was one song, he really loved, that the guys had never heard. It was the one for Zoey. The one he had sung on the top of a bus, right before the sunrise, to the silent night.

Now, he had already 4 songs. They weren't really great, but he only wrote them to externalize his feelings. Since they had made Restoring Forces over a year before, he knew they would soon start to make the next record.

But the song he was writing at the time were far from the usual songs of the band. Instead of being angry and fast, most were slow, full of feelings. In fact he wasn't writing them for an Of Mice And Men album, but for himself. To be able to externalize his feelings, and not to explode.

When he wasn't playing on his guitar, he was calling home, to see Katelynn, on the screen.

Many person were still waiting for him to talk, and tell the truth. But he refused. Seeing all the fans on the tour had made him realize that most of them didn't know about this, and that even those who knew, most of them didn't believed Owen.

The guys had talked, when Alan wasn't there. They all agreed that from what they could hear Alan was writing a lot of songs, and that they seemed good. Alan was a great song writer, so none of them were worried about the quality of the songs. They had had an idea: Since they knew that it would be really really hard for Alan to explain what happened, to put all of it into words, maybe he could put it into songs. They knew the songs he was writing were about Katelynn, or Zoey, or maybe what Owen did. They knew it because Alan always wrote about what was going on in his life. All they needed was to comfort him about that, and their manager. Their manager because the album, if they made it, would be totally different from before, and would probably be more calm, or maybe that would be hard for them to play the songs live. For all of those reason, and more, they needed to have a discussion with their manager. But first, they needed to talk with Alan.

They found the occasion at the end of a show. They had walked back to the bus, and Alan was showering. He was the last one to shower, so everyone else was sitting in the lounge. Justin was there too, since he totally agreed with the idea.

Alan walked out and walked to the back lounge, but Austin called him. Alan walked to him instead.

"Do you want something?" Alan asked.

"We just want to talk."

Alan frowned, but sat.

Aaron started to explain him. "We've heard that you were writing music, since the start of this tour." Alan nodded, frowning. It wasn't a secret, but he wondered why they would talk about that: those were too far from what they were doing to be used on a record. And they would probably feel too weird about them to play them live, so it wasn't achievable, and he knew it.

"We would want to make a record with them." Phil said, in one go.

"What? But..."

Before Alan could finish, Austin cut him. "We know it's different from what we usually do, and that it will be very personal, that's why we are asking you, and leaving you the choice."

"But, why? i mean, the fans would probably not like it, it's too different... It's not gonna work."

"Alan" Justin said, taking his attention. "They're asking you to make a record for Zoey. A whole record about everything that happened, to tell to everyone what happened. You can't hide everything forever, and maybe songs will be better than interviews. And I don't think the fans won't like it. I think that you all can do a great album."

Alan stared at him. A whole album to say everything he couldn't say out loud. was it really a good idea? He took a deep breath.

"Yeah, let's do it."