Moving On - Luke Hemings

Backstage

"Ali?" The security guard called.

As soon as my name came out of the security guard's mouth, I knew exactly who it was. John. He was what everyone consided the highest rank of security guard. He dealt with 5sos personally, all day, every day. Since I spent every waking minute with 5sos for 2 years, and John was with them all the time, John was practically my second father. I really missed him in the last year. 

I spun around to face him. I thought of maybe acting like I didn't know him, that he was mistaking me for another Ali that looked exactly like me. That sounded stupid so I just decided to own up to my lies and tell at least Lauren what was actually going on. 

"Hey John," I said nervously, "How have you been?"

"The real question is how have YOU been? And why are you here? The last time I checked, you never wanted to see any of these boys' faces ever again," he spoke. I cringed when he said the last part, because now not only does Lauren know that I know them, Alex and Sarah know too. How embarrasing.

"I've been alright. I've kinda started over with my life, you know, moved back to America, made some new friends," I said as I gestured towards Lauren. He nodded.

"Why are you here though?" He asked. I was really hoping he would drop that topic.

"Well," I started off, "Lauren, here, doesn't really know about the accident and brought me here for my birthday," I explained.

"Oh my god! It's your birthday! The boys were talking about how it was your birthday this morning! Happy birthday sweetheart!" He said. Now, the girls all know that the boys were close enough to me to know when my birthday is. Just great.

"Thanks," I told him. I was about to say more, but Lauren spoke before I got the chance too. 

"Wait, first off, 5sos KNOWS YOU?! And second off, THEY KNOW YOU SO WELL THAT THEY KNOW WHEN YOUR BIRTHDAY IS?" Lauren practically screamed.

"Uh, yeah, I'm sure when we go to the meet and greet later, it will all start making sense. Right now, it's too long of a story to tell you while the show is going on," I tell her. When I looked back up to the stage, Luke was staring at me, while singing. He was probably angry that I was talking to John. 

John turned around to look at Luke, who started giving him a death glare. John took the hint, and said a quick goodbye to me before walking off. Lauren, Alex, and Sarah all started firing questions at me that I simply didn't want to answer. So, I tuned them out, and listened to the boys play their last song of the night, "She Looks So Perfect". 

An hour later, Lauren and I were being escorted backstage by Jimmy, another security guard that I knew. We were brought into this room with about 15 other winners of various contests. Everyone was mingling excitedly as they waited for the boys to show up. Me, on the other hand, was sitting in a corner praying that none of them would notice me when they walked in. Lauren was trying to get me to walk to the middle of the room and look more alive. She still didn't know why I was being like this and was quite frankly getting really upset that I was being so negative about the whole experience. She eventually convinced me to walk to the middle of the room where everyone else was standing. A moment later, Angie, the boys manager, walked in to announce the boys were on their way. After she announced that she immeadiatley recognized me and ran over to give me a hug. Angie and I were pretty close because when we toured, she was one of the only girls besides me on the road. She knew everything about mine and Luke's relationship and knew exactly why I left, too. We talked, catching up a bit and I introduced her to Lauren, who was still very confused about everything. 

I was still talking to Angie when they boys made their way through the entrance. I tensed, and Angie knew why and tried to calm me down. I knew I was destined for an anxiety attack because my heart started beating really fast and I couldn't breathe all of the sudden. All of the boys noticed me right away because Angie and Lauren started to make a big deal out of my aniexty attack. 

I hated this so much. I hated it because I was crying in front of him, once again, which I swore I was never going to do again. They both knew how to prevent my anxiety attacks before they got too bad because they both have had to deal with me having them before. When I first met each of them, I told them that if I ever had an anxiety with one of them around, there was a simple solution. All I needed was my phone and headphones so I could listen to a noise generator make the sounds of waves and seagulls. The beach was my favorite place and it was super calming for me to listen to and almost always resolved my anxiety attacks. 

Today, I had my phone, but so stupidly forgot my headphones. Angie started frantically asking other girls if they had headphones, to which none of them did. So, she asked the boys.

Coincidentally, the only one that did was Luke. Just perfect.

Hey guys! I hope you like this chapter! I feel like it was pretty long, so that's good. Tell me how you feel about the story. Feedback is always appreciated. Thanks!

-everyoneloves5sos :)