[AustinCarlile] Burning Brighter Than The Fire [Sequel|LiveForever]

Eleven.

Author's Note:
More action next chapter! Austin will be back in the story and such. I just wanted to get things rolling again.

I think there’s one thing that will always bother me about dating him, and it’s probably the worst thing I’ve ever thought, it’s selfish and it makes me feel like a horrible person. But, everywhere we go, he demands attention, even when he doesn’t know he’s doing it, all the attention is on him, always, and there are always people who come up to him and take his focus off of me and off of what we’re doing together, and for the rest of the night or day or time together I can’t get his focus back because all he talks about is how fantastic those fans he just met were. He’s never talked about me the way he talks about them, with such love and adoration and such pride.

That’s probably why people think that I'm with him for the publicity, but that’s sad really, because what publicity do our bands get besides on Twitter and Tumblr. I'm not in magazines that go on stand every week, I'm not on those gossip shows, it’s pathetic, and it’s actually ridiculous that people would even consider the thought that I'm with him for his fame. Really, I don’t need him, not for fame, I already have fans, I already sell out venues, I've already toured the world, he doesn’t do anything for me, I don’t tour with him, and I don’t think I've seen him on stage since Warped.

Thinking about it, it hurts, how I'm never better than his fans, how they're the people he always wants to talk to and spend his time with. We haven’t been on one date that a fan hasn’t come up to him and asked for a picture and spent at least ten minutes talking to him about his or her life, and I get that, I get that he’s a hero, but I need him, too.

My fans come up and say hi, I'm fine with that, that doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t bother me when his fans come over and say hi either, that’s okay, that’s fine, if we saw friends they would come over and say hi, too. It’s the fact that they spend forever with him and then he’s so wrapped up in how great he is and how much his fans need him, that I'm left sitting there or standing there all alone because he’s never mentally there, he’s always with fans, always. Pictures are cool, I’ll take the picture for you and smile while doing it because that’s fine, you’re not asking to have sex with him or asking him to marry you, that’s cool, I don’t mind, but don’t flaunt your assets, especially when I'm around.

“Your eye is looking better.” Nate says as he sits down beside me on the couch, biting down on his lower lip, the tension growing thick, and I don’t really know why, why there’s tension, but I can feel it, and I hate it. “You shouldn’t have hit her.” Here it comes, a lecture, because as a girl, I can’t fight, not physically, and not even verbally, because the guys can handle it and I shouldn’t put myself in a position in which I can get hurt, I've heard it before. “Is he coming to the show tonight?”

Sighing softly, I nod my head, running a hand through my hair, knowing that the only reason my eye looks better is because I put so much makeup on, trying to cover the spreading bruise. “Can we just not talk about the bruise or the fight or anything about that part of the night? She said something about, just forget it. He can be dead for all I care.” No one has ever said anything about the sperm, I don’t talk about him, I don’t really think about him, he’s a distant, fading memory, but what she said, it hurt, and thinking about Austin leaving, too, it hurt even more.

Nodding his head slowly, he looks down at the cell phone in his hand, a text message from my brother waiting to be open on the screen, something about how I am, I can’t believe someone told him, or he found out himself, which would be worse, I hope someone told him. “You know, we’re all worried about you. We just want you to be happy.” Combing his fingers through his hair, he turns his head to the side, looking at me, raising an eyebrow, as if to ask if I'm happy, and I don’t really know what to tell him.

I don’t know if I'm happy. I can be. I know how to be happy. I just don’t know what I'm feeling right now. I'm not ready to be second best to thousands of people. I'm not ready to be alone. I'm not ready to be hurt again.

“I’ll be okay, Nate. I, just, I don’t know. How can I keep coming in last?” If there’s anyone in this world I would turn to for advice, besides my brother and Bailey, it’s Nate, simply because he pretty much knows everything, about me. Knitting his eyebrows together, he tilts his head to the side, confused, and I know that I have to explain even though I wish he just knew what I was talking about without me having to tell him. “How can I keep coming in last place in his list of priorities? We can’t go out in public because if we do I only have his attention for about ten minutes and then the fans come and he’s not mine anymore. And when they leave all we talk about is his fans and how hard their lives are and how he wishes he can take away the pain and I'm just sitting there wishing he could realize he’s putting me in pain.”

He doesn’t say anything, just sits there, taking in everything I said, I don’t really complain to Nate, I know that I can, but it’s hard, he has other things going on, he’s trying so hard to keep his head focused on the tour, but I know he’s worried about his dad and his girlfriend and it’s just not fair to dump everything on him. He’s done so much for me, he stayed by my brother’s side through everything, and I hate seeing him in pain, so I try to not put him in more by showing him that I'm in pain.

Placing his phone on the armrest of the couch, he inhales sharply through his nose, trying to think of what to say, but I don’t need him to censor his thoughts, I know what they think of Austin and I know what they think of our relationship. It’s a love-hate feeling they all have, because there are times when Austin and I have that perfect relationship that people wish they had, and then we have the relationship that I hate and he fails to see anything wrong. “Either you two need to talk about this so he knows or you need to find someone who is going to put you at the top of their priority list. I know he’s at the top of yours. You do that. You just need someone who is going to do that for you.”

“Austin asked about him, if I would let him back in my life.”

“Is that what’s bothering you?”

Shrugging my shoulders, I shake my head, I don’t think it is, I just don’t want to talk about him, or think about him, all I want to do is pretend that he never existed, that’s all I want.