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Chapter 23- Check out

Alex's POV

When it comes to morality, there are two kinds of people in this world. Those that want to do good, and those that want to do the opposite. And then there is me who wants to do good but somehow always manages to fuck things up until it is irreparably bad. Where that put me on the morality scale, I did not know.

Last night I had made up my mind to do something crazy. Tell Kristen how I felt. I'd been totally against the whole idea of it because I just couldn't risk it, although there seemed to have been more hope than before with everything that was going on between us. The tension had increased yet I still had my doubts about what it all meant. But something just snapped in me and all my doubts disappeared last night. The three beers I'd had after the show may or may not have influenced my decision.

I was going to do it. I texted her asking her to meet me backstage. The waiting made me anxious and I was starting to rethink everything so I had another beer. I knew it wasn't the right move but I thought hell, whatever gets me to do it. I knew I was never going to do such a thing sober. I waited a bit more and there was no sign of Kristen. And then Ofcourse, more anxiety followed. So I took my phone out of my pocket to call her to see where she was at and what was taking her so long but with it, I pulled out something else. Matteo's card. All I could think of after that was her dancing with Matteo at the pub, her kissing Josh. My doubts reappeared. My courage diminished. I even felt a little angry and I knew more alcohol was only going to make that worse. So I smoked a joint to loose myself up and be a bit more relaxed. That's where I went wrong because everything after I lit up that blunt felt like a hallucination.

I was feeling lesser and lesser like a real person as the weed took it's effect. It had probably been only 20 minutes but it felt as though many hours had passed by. My perception of time was pretty poor because of how high I was, I could barely remember anything prior to hitting that blunt. I was completely dissociating. As I sat there completely wasted, waiting for a person I could not longer remember, for reasons I couldn't remember, a couple of groupies got in. Groupies weren't exactly our thing. I had no idea how they were even let in without a pass as the security were told to be very strict. When Matt took notice of it, he got most of them to leave like we do at most shows. However, a few of them stuck around. Andrea was one of them.

Now Andrea was a real head turner. Even in my state, although I paid  attention to no one else or anything else around me, I took notice of her. At the moment I had no idea she was a groupie, it only hit me later when Matt told me about it. She was just sitting around, smoking and talking to someone on the phone while looking effortlessly cool.

A few minutes went by and she approached me. I don't remember what we talked about but I remembered telling her I was leaving for the tour bus at some point. She then asked me if she could come along and I must've said yes since the next thing I could remember was us making out in the bus. I couldn't remember what lead to the kiss either, couldn't remember initiating it. Probably didn't. I was sort of just letting her do whatever at first, I couldn't care. But then I engaged in it, which was... well, a terrible decision. I don't know why I did it because although she was very attractive, I barely remember feeling any kind of excitement or rush when she kissed me and started to undress me. But I engaged in it for whatever reason and it didn't matter because when the realization of what I had done hit me, I felt an intense rush of panic and guilt. Kristen. Fuck. How could I forget? How could I have let this happen?

The effect of my guilt coupled with the weed and alcohol was so intense that I felt as though I could see and hear Kristen in the room with us. I felt terrible and immediately stopped what was going on before we went too far. Andrea asked me what was wrong but all I could hear was Kristen's voice calling my name. I thought it must've just been the weed again and tried to brush it off but when Andrea told me she heard it as well, I decided to go out and check. And there she was, right out of my delusions.

The whole interaction with her afterwards was so awkward. We were both just sort of... speechless, both surprised to see each other. I was an idiot for this but I still tried to confess to her after what she had just seen. Dick move. When that failed, fortunately, I tried to make her stay. But other than that I had no idea what to tell her. I was high, drunk, and guilty, most of all. So I said nothing sensible and she just left. She looked extremely uncomfortable and insisted that she wanted to leave so I couldn't really stop her.

The timing of all this couldn't have been anymore worse because today was the day Nick was going to propose to his girlfriend. Kristen and I had been tasked with all the planning and arrangement for he proposal which meant that we were going to have to spend a lot of time  together. And I could already tell that it was not going to go well. Even if she did forgive me, or let's say it turned out that she didn't even care about what happened last night, I still had my own demons to deal with.

                                 ***

It was time to finally bid goodbye to Rome. I wheeled out my bags and belongings to the hallway as I got ready to check out of my hotel room. Kristen was also doing the same thing, just two rooms away. She was standing in the hallway and unlocking the door when I took notice of her.

"Hi," I said without much thought, but yet still completely guilt ridden.
Quite audacious of me.

She looked at me for a moment and replied "hey,"

A few seconds of silence followed as I did not know what move to make next. Sorry felt too formal and saying nothing at all seemed inconsiderate. After some quick thought, I decided that I should just get things out of the way.

"Look, about yesterday..."

"I told you last night, it's okay." She quickly replied. 

"I know, but it must've been so awkward for you..." I was barely even able to look at her.

"Again, it's fine. There's a lot that needs to be done today so let's just forget last night ever happened and focus on what is important." She replied.

I don't know what reaction I was expecting but avoidance wasn't one of them. I really wanted to tell her that nothing happened between the two of us last night and that I only did what I did because I was high but she didn't really give me a chance to. It was clear to me that she was dodging the topic which made me feel even more guilty and terrible because now she was just going to assume I slept with someone else behind her back, without giving me a chance to explain.

"Alright. You're right. I'll get your luggage." I offered to help.

"I can handle it." She said as she tried to hold them all together.

I was no stranger to Kristen's stubbornness but the tone of her voice told me that this wasn't her being her usual self.

"There's way too much, don't be silly." 

"No it's fine, I'll hold it." She insisted. She was not even looking at me as she spoke and she sounded a bit off.

We took an awkward lift together to the reception, returned the keycards and thanked the staff. We then took an even more uncomfortably silent taxi ride to the railway station. We did a bit of waiting there, still not really talking to each other. When our train finally arrived, we hopped in and said goodbye to Rome as we started our journey to Tuscany.

On the train, she spoke to me a few times but it was all about the proposal and the work we had to get done. The whole conversation felt formal and very unlike something between two close friends. When I tried to speak of something else, she just gave a forced smile and nodded. I was beyond intimidated by this new behavior but I had no one to blame but myself for causing it.