A Daydream Away

Alex's POV

My face was burning way too much to stick around him any longer. I knew that I should have stayed, talked about what we were going to do to get this band started-

I'm going to be in a band.

I squeaked out loud, the excitement too much for me to handle. My hand flew up to my mouth, covering it as best as I could while holding my guitar case, and I quickly turned my head, only to see that Jack was watching me as I was leaving. I saw him chuckle and wave goodbye. His face clearly read "I heard that." This elicited more heat to rise in my cheeks as I returned the gesture, as best as I could with the multiple things occupying my hands, and quickened my pace. I had no idea where I was going to be going at the moment, but my embarrassed self couldn't take any more of him. He was just too much.

My feet eventually brought me to a small café. It was a coffee shop called The Grind that radiated hipster hangout. I've been saving up quite a bit of my money lately, and today is a day of celebration that calls for more than gas station crap, so I walked into the quaint building and allowed the heavenly aroma and comforting warmth to surround me. Even though Jack had been so kind as to bring me some coffee, I wanted to treat myself to something a bit more fancy.

My eyes scanned the small building, taking in the atmosphere. It was indeed a very clean-yet-low-maintenance place. The red, crumbling brick that created the walls and the scuffed wooden floors gave the place a warm, rustic look. Scattered upon it were pieces of artwork that I assumed were created by local artists. My eyes looked to the back of the store to see a long counter taking up the entire wall, a chalkboard hanging up behind it, showing off their rather impressive selection of caffeinated and non- caffeinated beverages. There were a few slightly rusty iron round tables scattered around the middle with chairs to match. Additional seating were booths bushed up against the walls, the tables made out of what looked like oak and grey upholstry covering the benches.

After ordering myself a small, or tall in fancy coffee talk, vanilla latte, I made my way to one of the empty booths and settled myself into the worn fabric, leaning my back against it and letting out a sigh. Between this morning and now, I felt very content with life.

I allowed my mind to float to the person that it normally floats to nowadays. Jack's face stayed a constant image in my head, his raven and blonde hair being styled in a softly spiky way, allowing a fringe to lay over his olive-toned forehead and his bushy eyebrows that complimented his chocolate brown eyes perfectly. He had a rather large, crooked nose, but something about it was so endearing that it fit perfectly on his face.

The fact that he asked me to possibly be in a band with him made another smile grow on my face. I probably looked like a freak, grinning at my latte. Well, it was a good drink, I'll have to admit.

I barely knew this guy, we had only spoken a few times, yet he felt that I was what him and his friends were looking for. What if his friends don't like me? What if we end up sounding shitty and the entire plan collapses in on us? What if the same thing happens to us as what happened to the first band that I was in? My happy demeanor grew slightly darker at that thought.

When I was a sophomore, two of my friends and I decided that we should start a band together. We had been mulling over the idea for quite some time at that point, it being a joke at first until we started becoming serious about the prospect. I honestly had a great time, in the beginning. We were called 'Playground X', the name coming from a game that I used to play. We mostly played covers of various, popular pop punk songs, but all in all I thought we could get somewhere.

Everything started going downhill the moment my two friends found out I was gay. Instead of pushing it under the rug and accepting me for who I was, one of them would constantly make fun, always making the joke and asking me if I could deep throat the microphone as well as someone's dick, while the other just sniggered in the background. The practices started becoming less and less frequent and, in the end, Playground X was no more.

It hurt, really. These two kids, who I can't really remember the names of due to major memory surpression, were my best friends through elementary and middle school. How they could change their view point on me solely based on the fact that I was a "raging homosexual" made me want to tear my fucking hair out.

After the falling out of the band, word got out that I indeed preferred my own gender as opposed to the boy/girl norm, insinuating a lot of bullshit to come my way. Me being the sassy mother fucker that I am, I didn't take any of it and would normally throw it back in their faces. I still got shit from my two former band mates, but other than that I was left alone and was addressed with respect within my class.

Despite my sexual orientation, I never felt attracted to anyone. This was what confused the hell out of me for the longest time. I was gay, yet I've never liked another man.

Well, until now, that is.

Just the mention of Jack within my thoughts made my cheeks begin to burn. I raised my hand to touch the warmth eminating from my face, only to flinch away due to the bruise that covered my right cheek. I had completely forgotten about it. Had Jack seen it? Shit.

Remember how I mentioned before that my past wasn't the greatest? And that I've had to do some things that I regretted just to survive? Well, I ran into part of that past the other night.

I uses to prostitute- yes, prostitute- for a man named Ronnie Radke. It was only a few months of me being on the street, getting turned down time and time again by record labels, when he found me. After shamelessly checking me out, he offered me a job. Me, only being 18 at the time and being scared shitless at the fact that I didn't have a place to sleep, accepted his offer right off the bat. I mean, getting paid to have sex? Why the fuck not.

I was one of his "workers" for a little over two years. He would praise me, call me his best male worker and told me that I was "Sexy as fuck, 'nd I'd bone ya if I was into dick."

He actually did. It wasn't pleasant.

Despite being given a place to sleep and was assured security, I felt dirty, disgusting, used. The glitz of the job wore off real quickly after the first customer. The man was a sleazy old fucker. Nobody after that was any better. After one unbelievably unpleasant night, which left me with a gorgeous scar running from my inner thigh to my knee, I decided that I was done.

Ronnie was less than pleased. After a rather loud and aggressive fight, I was locked in a room until I "learned my lesson".

It didn't take long for me to get out of there. With a bit of Alex charm, he let me out and I ran. I ran long and far, not caring where I let my legs take me, though this meant leaving behind everything that I had gotten, including my money.

The shittier part was, though, that he found me.

"Sir?" A female voice asked me, breaking me out of my thoughts. I looked up to see a girl, maybe only eighteen, looking at me with concern. "Are you okay? You've been staring at your drink for a good thirty minutes now."

Had I really been out of it for that long? The young girl kept looking at me, waiting for an answer I presumed. I nodded, then glanced down to my drink to notice that it had separated while I was in thought. I let out a sigh. Looks like my thoughts have both wasted me money and a good drink.

I didn't notice that the girl was still there until she picked up my mug. "You look conflicted, I'll make you a new a new one." And, before I could tell her not to go through the troubles, she walked off, her golden honey hair that was tied up swishing behind her. I didn't even notice she worked here.

For the umpteenth time today, I felt the corners of my mouth tug up.

I don't know what it was about today, but it jus kept getting better and better.

--

Later that day I found myself standing on an unfamiliar block, my eyes darting left and right, attempting to catch something familiar looking.

Ever since my encounter with Ronnie, I've been trying my best to not have him find me again. The first time he did, I found myself getting the lights knocked out of me. Good thing we were in front if a convenience store, or else I'm afraid other things would have hapened.

My eyes flicked across the street, attempting to figure out another way to get back to my "home". An empty alley way jumped out at me, and I decided that I wouldn't be found walking through there.

As I walked through, swaying a bit from lack of sleep, I began hearing footsteps approach me. Passing it off as just another homeless kid, I continued my trek. It wasn't until the footsteps got both louder and closer that I decided to turn around. "Can I help-" I began, only being cut off by the wind leaving my lungs. My gut flared in pain as the man in front of me retracted his clenched fist.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going Gaskarth?" I heard Ronnie's voice hiss.

Looking at him through bleary eyes, I noticed that he wasn't alone. There were maybe three or four guys with him, I couldn't tell due to my vision being distorted by pain. Good LORD is he strong.

No words came out of my mouth, pure fear trapping them at the back of my throat.

"Wrong answer, sweetheart." Ronnie whispered, a smirk on his face. He leaned his face closer to mine, letting his hot breath hit my face. "Ya know, I've missed you." His hand grabbed my chin, lifting my face up so I was directly looking at him. He stuck out his tongue and licked from my jaw to my temple, causing me to shiver. After that, he let me go and took a step back. "Well boys, you know what to do. He's comin' with us."

Before my mind could process what was going on, I felt rough hands grabbing me and throwing me to the ground. Foot after foot connected with my stomach, my back, and every other body part they could find. I don't know how long it went on for, my mind only focusing on the pain.

"Get the fuck away from him! What the fuck are you guys doing?" I heard a strangely familiar voice scream from down the alley.

The kicking ceased. I could barely lift my head up to see who my savior was, but I was thankful.

I heard more yelling before my attackers hurried away. I think he said he was going to call the cops, but I was close to passing out from how much pain I was in.

My savior rushed over to me and I could sense him crouching next to me.

"Hey kid, hey, are you alright?" The savior said. All I could do was grunt in response, attempting to move my body so I could see him. When I did, he gasped.

"Holy shit, Alex? Alex! Are you okay?" the panicked voice rang through my ears.

The last thing I whispered was "Tom?" before everything went black.