I awoke to loud laughter, cheering, and some table drumming, most likely courtesy of Josh. After rubbing the blurry out of my eyes and groaning at the thought of getting up, I rolled out of my bunk and stretched my back. How on earth did these two sleep on this bus all the time? These bunks are certainly not comfortable enough for a whole tour.
Without bothering to change out of my pajamas and fix up my hair at least a little bit, I slid the door open and took a step into where the boys and Jenna were. But within that one step, I quickly found out that it wasn't just Josh, Tyler, and Jenna.
"Oh... my.., god..." I mumbled under my breath. Of all mornings for me to not fix myself up the slightest, this would be the morning that I would get out of bed and find not just our normal crew, but also Matt & Kim, Misterwives, Hoodie Allen, Walk the Moon (well, half of them), and Halsey.
And if they didn't already notice my presence, I would've scurried back to where I previously was, but of course, Josh had to see me and laugh at my cookie monster pajama shorts, making all of them look over at me.
"Alena, you're 26, don't you think you're getting a little old to be wearing those?" He laughed again, now that everyone else was also looking.
"Shut up Josh." I rolled my eyes, still unsure of how I was supposed to be acting right now.
"Guys, this is Alena, she's Tyler and I's old friend from high school. We let her tag along for this first week of the tour. Alena, this is Matt, Kim, Mandy, Etienne, Will, Marc, Jesse, Mike, Steven, Kevin, Eli, and Halsey." As he spoke their names, they all raised their hands to introduce themselves, as if I didn't already know who each of them were.
"Hey, I'm really sorry, I'm not exactly presentable right now, Tyler and Josh failed to inform me that all of you were coming." I scratched the back of my neck and reached back to try and make my hair somewhat normal from the mess it was from sleeping.
"I'm not surprised at all that they didn't say anything. Don't be sorry." Kim waved it off, trying to make me feel a little better about the whole thing.
"Really, don't, I love your pajamas, don't listen to Josh." Halsey laughed when Josh pouted at her, but she just ignored him. "C'mon, take a seat." She scooted over so I could sit next to her at the table, Josh on the opposite side of her.
"Thank you, really, but I should be getting ready and grabbing a bite to eat." Before anyone could say anything, I turned and went back to the bunks and quickly slid the door shut again, finally taking a real breath.
I rid of my pjs and slipped into some leggings a sweater that I had gotten yesterday with Jenna, after lacing up some ankle boots, I brushed through my now dry, straight hair. After washing it last night, the waves were gone and I was now on natural hair for the day.
I made sure my purse had all of my money and my phone and anything else I could possibly need, and before opening the door and going back out there, I took a deep breath.
"Heading out now?" Hoodie, or Steven, or whatever I was supposed to call him, asked, a smile on his face.
"Yeah, do you guys want me to pick anything up for you?" I asked, looking around at all of the faces as I walked through them and made my way to the door. A collective, "No thank you," came from everyone. "Okay, I'll be back soon. It was really nice meeting all of you!"
I am literally the most awkward thing, I told myself when I finally stepped out of the bus and started walking out to the front of the venue, bringing me to the streets of NYC. It wasn't a long walk until I found a little cafe that wasn't too busy, and at this point, I was just looking for food.
Once my bagel and hot chocolate were ordered, I took a seat at a small round table and pulled out my phone to text Derrick.
"Good morning 💗 Are you at work yet?" Just as I was called to pick up my order, he responded.
"Just got to the office, we spent the whole morning trying to agree on some stupid layout for this lady's addition to her house, but she wasn't exactly cooperating." I could hear his voice in my head saying it, see him frustrated, when I took my breakfast back to my table.
"Sorry you're having a rough morning, I'm sure the rest of your day will get better."
"I sure hope so." He replied, then sent, "How's everything been since last night? Have you talked to Tyler yet?"
"Well, didn't really have much of a chance to after we got off the phone, and I woke up this morning to find a ton of other artists on the tour bus, most of which I'm actually a huge fan of, and they all saw me in my cookie monster pjs."
"Aw sweetheart don't worry, I'm sure they looked cute as always. No need to be embarrassed." Regardless of his message, I knew without a doubt that he was laughing.
"The only reason you like them is because you can see the bottom of my ass, jackass." I, however, wasn't with everyone long enough while I was in those shorts for them to notice that little problem. Although, for Derrick, it wasn't much of a problem.
"What can I say?" He sent back, and I just rolled my eyes, even if he couldn't see me do so. But instead of arguing and telling him that he would unfortunately have to wait until I was home, I took a picture of the hot chocolate glass and the empty seat across from me and sent it to him.
"Wish you were here."
"Wish I was there too. How come no one joined you for breakfast?"
"Not sure, they all seemed like they were working on something or they were busy or whatever. I don't mind, I offered to pick something up for them but they all declined. It's no big deal."
"Just be careful being out there alone, okay?"
"You have nothing to worry about, I can carry my own."
"Believe me I know, but I don't know about everyone else there."
"Don't worry about me, okay? Just go back to work." I sent. "I love you, hope you enjoy the rest of your day 💗"
"Love you too, thank you sweetheart xxx"
Once my breakfast was finally gone, I tossed my cup and wrapper into the garbage bin on the way out the door and went back out into the city. It was still fairly early, and I really didn't want to go back just yet. So rather than hiding away from everyone on the bus, I decided to do a little bit of sight seeing.
Of course, walking around the city by myself was a little lonely, but I didn't want to bother anyone back at the bus, they were all busy and I couldn't interrupt them just to go sightseeing with me. All of them had been to New York before, so they wouldn't really care. But regardless of how beautiful everything around me was, it was hard to enjoy it by myself. So, I went back a lot earlier than I'd expected I would.
"Hey everybody I'm-" I started to say as I turned to close the door behind me after walking back onto the bus, before I saw that everyone that was previously here, was no longer here. I released a sigh before dropping my couple of shopping bags on the couch seat and turning back out of the bus once again.
I'd expected everyone to be in the venue, but I got another surprise when I'd found that it was just Tyler on the stage gracing over some of the keys on the piano on stage left.
"Where is everyone?" I asked, my heart in my stomach from nerves as I walked out to join him on stage.
"Wanted to go out, I don't know where, but not here." His tone was dry and dark as it had been the past few days.
"May I ask why you didn't join?"
"Didn't really feel like going anywhere..." His head was still bowed down, eyes on the keys. "Besides, I didn't think you'd want to come back here to find everyone gone."
"Well, thank you," I walked across to where he was seated, "Do you mind if I sit?" I asked, gesturing to the space on the bench next to him. '
"Oh, not at all," He immediately scooted down, making a few inches more of room for me to be seated next to him. As strange as it was, this was the closest I'd been to him since we saw each other again, and it was not only slightly weird, but also oddly comforting.
"It feels a lot smaller with no people in it." I choked out, referring to the venue, the thousands of empty seats out of reach in front of us. "I can't even imagine being up here with all of those people."
"You could do it, maybe not making music, but you can certainly do public speaking. I think you could handle it."
"Maybe back in high school... graduation was one thing but being in this place or any of the other places you guys go? That's a different story." I laughed a little at the memory of standing at the podium for our high school graduation, and how different everything was then.
"What changed?" For the first time, Tyler turned his face towards mine and actually looked at me, and his hands lightly fell from the keys against his thighs.
"Well, a lot has changed since high school you know." I didn't mean between the two of us, although, it certainly came out that way. "I mean, I've changed a lot since high school."
"How do you figure?" His previously slouched back straightened out slightly. I thought about it for a moment; of course I'd changed, but I didn't really think about how I'd changed very often, usually just about what had changed.
"I've grown up a lot,"
"Well of course you got older Alena," He had a small chuckle behind his voice.
"No, you know what I mean," I laughed a little too.
"Alena you've always been mature. I don't think you possibly could've matured any more since the last time I saw you." I didn't respond, he was sort of right.
"I don't know, I guess I don't have the same confidence that I used to have." It was something I tried to ignore a lot, but I really had lost a lot of confidence throughout the past few years. Why? I don't know. I graduated college and I have a great job and I'm engaged to one of my best friends, my life is going beautifully. But there's just been something missing in me.
"That's crazy," He shook his head and closed his eyes quickly before opening them and stilling his head again.
"No, it's true." I sighed, finally admitting what I'd been holding in for a while. "I'm sorry," I said after a pause, "I don't know why I'm talking about this with you..."
"You can talk to me Alena."
"Really? You've been pretty difficult to even be around the past few days. How do you suppose that I can talk to you outside of our awkward, unsettling small talk?"
"I'm sorry," He sighed, his eyes going back down to his lap and the piano keys again, no longer on me. "It's been really... difficult, I guess."
"What?"
"Come on Alena can't we just be honest with each other for a minute?" I didn't say anything. "I never thought it was going to matter because I never thought that I was going to see you again. But very clearly, that is not the case." His back was straight and he was now completely facing me, one leg on each side of the bench so his whole body was turned to me. "What the hell happened after that Thanksgiving?"
"Are you kidding me?" My eyes went wide and I turned from the seats to face into him. "You're asking me what the hell happened after Thanksgiving?"
"Yes, I'm asking you-"
"Tyler I called you twice a week after that Thanksgiving just as we'd agreed to do and had done since I left for school. I texted you all the time, tried to see you when I came home for Christmas, and you ignored me. Not a single call answered or text responded to, no one answering the doorbell when I stood out in the snow on Christmas Eve so I could surprise you, nothing. You ignored me."
"And then when I finally get a hold of you on New Years, even though I'm at a party and trying to enjoy myself after you ignoring me for a month, you give me a call to tell me that you don't think that we can see each other anymore. And I ask you why, and what do you say?" Tyler didn't fill in the blank, despite that I could see it in his face that he remembered exactly what he'd said.
"You say, "It just isn't working out anymore." But you know why it wasn't working Tyler?"
"We let go Alena, we got tired and stopped trying."
"No, you let go Tyler. And I got tired of reaching out my hand for you to never take it."
AUTHOR'S NOTE; guys I am literally the worst I hadn't updated in two weeks before this. I am so so sorry.
To say that I've been stressed is an understatement, so writing hasn't been on the agenda the past two weeks. But I'm hoping to have more upcoming chances to write some more for you all and have it available to you ASAP.
Thank you so much for reading! Please vote/comment/tell your friends/share it with your fellow Tyler Joseph fanfic reading acquaintances. Lots of love, stay alive |-/