All We Are Is Actors On A Stage (Zack Merrick)

You've Got It Made

The show that night was one of the hardest ones I have ever had to pull off. I couldn't bring myself to even look semi decent. I felt like I had been hit by a freight train and I don't doubt that I looked exactly how I felt. My performance lacked a lot of passion too. I felt awful about giving a bad show but my head was so fucked up. All I could think about was how Zack and I fought and all day he thinks I've been ignoring him. Also, what did I even tell Alex? I have no memory of talking to him so I'm honestly scared as to what I could have told him. I'm a really private person. My youtube is the most public thing I do and I still don't share anything I don't want people to know. And since being on tour all I've done is like vlogs and tour updates. Sit down videos are impossible in this type of situation.

I got off the stage and immediately grabbed my phone to see if Zack had answered me. After I woke up and registered what I could I texted him explaining I must have drank because I was trying to mend myself somehow. I don't even really know why I did it. I don't drink for a reason and this is just another reason to never do it again. He had been ignoring me all day. He was opening my messages but not answering them. I didn't know how to react. I sent another as soon as I checked and saw no responses.

Liv:

Hey....there's so much I want to say and I don't know how to say it through a text nor do I really want to. I'd really like it if you'd answer me so I can see you after your set and talk to you. If that's okay.

He read it. But he was actually typing....oh god.

Zack:

Yeah. We can talk I guess. You can come to my room after our set. Just meet me up there. Ask Kurily for the spare key if you see him.

He was going to talk to me. This was all I needed, a chance to explain. Explain what I didn't even understand. I better start understanding. I found Kurily standinfg on the side of the stage with Alex. I walked up and tapped his shoulder and Alex's face lit up when he saw me.

"Liv! How are you?? You were off last night."

"Im fine. Hey do you have the spare key to Zack's room. He wants me to meet him up there after the set. I might just go now and think about some stuff." They exchanged worried glances and he grabbed the room key out of his wallet.

"Yeah. Here it is. It's messy up there. He got mad last night. So just watch your step."

Zack isn't violent. What all happened last night? I was still trying to put pieces together. I vaguely remember our fight. I remember saying he was acting as if he didn't care to see me at all after this. I remember getting so mad I accused him of just using me as a fling to keep him happy and occupied for this tour, an experiment was the word I used. I remember him getting really mad at that. I remember him yelling at me saying he loved me so much it scared him because losing me is now one of his biggest fears. If not the biggest. I remember crying and him trying to comfort me and me yelling about how I didn't need this on top of everything else. Him asking what everything else was and my eyes going wide realizing what I had said and getting up and leaving. I remember walking down the street to the bar everyone was in and immediately ordering a drink. I remember Ryan and Casey being concerned. I remember Lynn saying to let me have fun but she was already shit faced herself. I remember just getting drink after drink and I remember Ryan attempting to cut me off and me threatening his life. I remember dancing a lot and singing really really loudly. I also remember talking to Alex a bit, but only about Zack. Not anything else. Which is good.

I hadn't even told Zack my current depression state. My Schizophrenia wasn'y acting up which was good I was just really depressed. I was smoking less though because I was trying to lose more weight and it made me feel shitty for some reason. But I only really smoked when I substituted smoking for food. I weighed 140 now which was my goal weight for years. I wasn't really happy with it but I was just dealing with it. I ate more around the band and Zack than anyone else. I wasn't self harming either. I just felt hollow half the time. I only felt anything when I was on stage or with Zack. Like his presence just made me feel whole. But I was trying to detach because I knew once distance came in I would want to die so badly.

I didn't tell Zack that though. I told James but he was trying to reassure me it'd be okay but i hung up out of frustration. Heather just said I'd find a way because I always do which I knew to be true. My band knew I was going to have trouble dealing but not how bad I knew it was going to be. So what did I tell Alex besides that I fought with Zack? Because Ryan said him and I talked for hours it seemed.

I went up to Zack's room and opened the door and gasped. His suitcase and its contents were thrown everywhere. He had a photo of us on the end of his bed. I gave it to him with a cheap Polaroid camera I had because I lied and said I was going to die in five seconds from the radiation and he had to remember me somehow. There was an empty Jack Daniels bottle with the cap missing on the table the tv looked hot still from a long nights use. I turned it on to a music channel that was already on. I started trying to pick up the room. The bathroom had toiletries everywhere. I knew he probably attempted to shower to calm down and got frustrated at the small shampoo bottles and threw them. I even do that those things are annoyingly useless.

I heard the key going into the door and it opened and he was there. He shuffled in shutting the door quietly and grabbed a towel and a new shirt and dabbed himself dry from the performance and changed his shirt and put on some basketball shorts. I just kept picking things up and gently setting them in his bags until he was ready and was sitting on the side of the bed staring ahead. He didn't have his gaze fixed on anything he was dead staring. I sat down next to him and had my hands on my jeans rubbing my thighs from my anxiety running high. He put his hand on mine and stopped my motions. I turned and looked at him biting on my lip piercing in nervousness.

"What do you remember from last night Olivia." He asked in a very calm tone. I ran him through what I knew had happened and where I lose all memories. "Okay. That's more than I thought you remembered. After I left you immediately walked up to Alex and asked him to talk. He told me basically everything you told him because he was worried about you. He said you started out by talking about how we fought. And then you strayed into your mental state. You told him so much that you worked yourself into a panic attack. Like a full blown one where you cry and shut down until you can't function at all/ He walked you back to the hotel, more like carried you there. and got Ryan to try to get you to take your meds and sleep. You told Ryan you didn't want to take them because you didn't even want to live so what was the point. He couldn't reason with you at all Olivia. You were so drunk that you were so honest about how little you want to be alive. He called me was like dude I don't know how to handle it she's never been this bad. I came over and you attacked me, not like hitting but yelling. You said that I had made you feel so wonderful and then I was going to just run away and leave you to die. That you had opened up to me just to watch me leave and never come back because I had "Gotten what I wanted out of it" and you started saying how you didn't even want to be alive. Olivia you told us in such great detail why you wanted to die and how you wanted to die. You had obviously put so much thought into it. The rest of the band came in because you were being so loud and we were all trying to calm you down. You ended up crying so hard you fell asleep on Ryan's bed and I picked you up and tucked you in. I came back in here and evaluated how I handled our fight and drank and made this mess because I felt so awful for being that awful. That was what happened last night Liv, that's it."

I couldn't even speak. Tears were streaked down my face and my mouth was open from shock. I don't drink and apparently the one time I do I have an episode that could warrant me going to an inpatient psychiatric unit. I looked over and there were tears in Zack's eyes and he was just watching me with love and concern both streaking his face.

"Do you really want to die, Liv?"