Seize the Day

(Zacky's POV)

The months seemed to fly by as we waited for the beginning of tour to start. I hadn't talked to Autumn since that day she came over but I did make the best of my time and spent the last remaining moments that I had with my son. I made sure he was set with everything that he needed before I left and I think that Gena was really grateful for it. "Have fun out there Zack and try to stay out of trouble." She laughed lightly, hugging me into her side as she held onto on little Z in her arms securely. I chuckled and returned the hug happily. "I will don't worry about that. How about you just make sure you take care of yourself and same for you mister, you better take good care of your mommy and make sure she's safe." I winked over at our son who just smiled and giggled cheerfully, making me grin with pride. He was turning out to be such an amazing kid just like I knew he would be. I looked down at Gena who just stared at me with a certain gleam in her eye. I wasn't blind to it, I knew she missed me and still had feelings about me but we both agreed that we would keep it mutual for the sake of little Zack and for her soon to be marriage.

Now here I was sitting on my bunk in the new bus watching Jimmy and Brian play Xbox while Matt and Johnny were up front drinking and watching movies, waiting to get to the venue. We were headed to Arizona with our good friends in Eighteen Visions. Autumn was out of sight and out of mind thankfully so I didn't have to worry about dealing with her yet. "Do you mind getting up and helping me for a second?" Guess I was wrong about that one. I hesitated a moment, peeking an eye up at her curiously, hoping she was asking someone else and not me. But there she was standing beside me with a large box in her hands. I silently cursed to myself under my breath before I reluctantly got up from my bed to see what it was that she needed. "What?" I asked bluntly. She huffed putting a stay piece of hair behind her ear "Larry said this box was all of the shirts you guys had but there's only about twenty in here." I peeked into it and sure enough there was only a handful of shirts in there. "I'll let Matt know to call Larry before he heads out here so he can bring the rest of them. Anything else?" She shook her head and shrugged "Nope that'll do thanks jerk." I snorted at her remark, making my way back over to the bunk area until I heard Matt yell that we were here. "Just perfect."

The show had went rather well then I had expected. The crowd was fully amped up and ready to get crazy by the time we had went on, making it a lot more funner to play. Our fans always gave us the energy that we needed to keep going. Autumn was swarmed with eager kids wanting to buy shirts after we finished our set, making an evil grin spread across my face. I wanted to she if she really could handle the pressure of being our merch crew. "Zacky, instead of being an asshole to her why don't you try working on being nicer? You said it yourself you need to work on becoming that person you used to be instead of this person now." Jimmy said from beside me, hanging a sweaty arm over my shoulder. I groaned loudly, throwing my hands up in defeat. Nobody was going to let me have fun, were they? I waltzed over towards the merch booth casually, stopping to take pictures and sign whatever was handed my way by the people who noticed me standing beside Autumn. "Did you come over here to make my life harder?" She muttered annoyingly, shoving a handful of money into the box before handing over a shirt. "No, I actually came over here to help you." She laughed loudly, obviousy not believing me. "I'm serious Autumn, I don't want any bad blood between us. Besides we're done anyways so you can start packing up." She looked at me in surprise but agreed none the less and started to toss shirts into the loading boxes.

It was around 2 in the morning by the time everything was loaded and finished with. Autumn hadn't said much to me besides a simple thank you or yes the majority of the time I had helped her with the inventory. But I was curious to find out more about her and I figured now would be the perfect time. We had invited a couple of our friends from Eighteen Visions onto our bus for a small first show celebration and I was determined to get Autumn to crack open a bit more. "Do you want a beer?" I asked her as she sat down on the small sofa in the front across from Johnny and Jimmy who were smoking cigarettes and talking about trying to learn new songs to jam to together. She lightly shook her head no. "I don't drink but thanks though." I eyed her suspiciously but sat beside her anyways. "Like at all?" She nodded, looking down at her hands. Obviously it wasn't something she liked to talk about. "Sorry I didn't mean to keep going." She sighed and smiled shyly "It's fine trust me. Do you smoke anything else besides cigarettes?" It was my turn to smile now. She reminded me of Marigold. "I do. I smoke a little bit every now and then. My girlfriend used to smoke a lot." I noticed her facial expression shift slightly once I had mentioned about Mari. "Oh I see, she sounds like a cool girlfriend." My heart ached just talking about her, especially to someone I didn't even know but I knew I needed to be honest. "She was, she died a couple years ago."

Autumn's eyes went wide and her hands covered her mouth in shock. "Oh I'm so sorry Zack, I didn't mean to bring her up. Oh God I'm sorry." I rubbed my neck uneasily but shushed her. "It's ok, honestly don't worry, I don't mind talking about her. But if you'd like, I want to start this over the right way. Hi Autumn, I'm Zacky." I extended my hand out to her slowly. She looked at me before shaking it gently. I smiled at her "It's nice to meet you and welcome to the Avenged Sevenfold family."