They say that when you die in your dreams, you die in real life, but when my eyes flew open, I was 100% positive that I was alive. I was also 100% sure that I wasn't at my house, I was in Nate's bed, and I had a hangover. I sat up, rubbing my head.
Fuck hangovers. I threw the covers and ran into the bathroom, where the shower was running, and got sick into the toilet. "You okay?" Nate's voice came from the shower.
"Nope," I admitted, my voice scratchy. "To be honest, I don't remember much of last night."
"What about your dreams? I think you were having a nightmare."
"Oh, yeah. I was kind of hoping that liquor would keep those away." Maybe I didn't drink enough. Maybe I need more. Or maybe I need something else. Or maybe I need something stronger.
"I'll be out in, like, ten minutes. I can make you breakfast and coffee."
"I couldn't eat anything," I said, still leaning over the toilet. I felt like I'd be sick again any second. "Anyway, haven't I pissed your girlfriend off enough for a while?"
"I don't think she'll care."
I scoffed, which hurt my throat. "You act like you've never met your girlfriend."
"What are you saying?"
"Remember when we went to the midnight screening of that movie a couple months ago, and she didn't talk to you for three days because she considered it cheating?"
I heard him laugh. "Yeah, you're probably right. Doesn't matter, though. How's she gonna find out?"
"Sometimes, I think she's psychic," I sighed, leaning back against the wall and flushing. "I should probably get going. Call me later and fill me on what I did last night."
"You really don't have to-"
"Oh, but I bet Jess would disagree. I'm saving your relationship. Thanks for letting me crash here." I stood up slowly, trying to keep my throbbing headache to a minimum. "If you don't mind, though, can you point me to my clothes?"
"I laid them out in the living room."
"Okay, thanks."
"Liz-" he started. but I ran out of the bathroom, eager to get somewhere else. I didn't want to explain all of the reasons I'd resorted to breaking the law and the rules of my probation. I didn't want to tell him all of the reasons for the lowest moment since he'd known me. I just wanted to get back to my bed and maybe sleep for another couple days.
But the dreams. Those, I didn't want. I went into the living room, seeing all of my clothes on the floor. I took off the shirt he'd lent me and shuffled back into all of my items. They were stiff and awkward from what I could guess was rain. What had happened last night?
I went through all of my pockets, not finding my keys, so I looked in the junk drawer in the kitchen, where he normally puts them when I'm pissed drunk. They weren't there either. I sneaked back into his room while I heard the shower turning off. I didn't want to give him another chance to try and coax me into staying for breakfast.
I quickly looked through his drawers, and they weren't there, but his clothes from yesterday were on the floor near his closet. If he took my keys from me last night and I turned into some kind of nuisance- which if very possible- he probably has them in his pockets. And I was right. I dug them out of the back pocket of his jeans.
I nearly ran into him on the way out of his room. He grabbed my wrist, careful to keep one hand on the towel around his waist. "Liz, honestly, I have stuff for breakfast. It really doesn't matter about Jess. I can wash your clothes to get the smell of rain and shit out. Really, just hang out with me for a while."
When I saw him with those pleading eyes, begging me to stay here and talk to him, probably about something I said last night. I was drunk. Who takes a drunk person seriously? "I really shouldn't. Nate. I don't think I'm supposed to be out of the house this long."
He eyed me suspiciously, and I had to will myself from caving. He's just trying to be nice, and I must've been a handful last night. If the least I could do to make it up to him was stay here and let him feed me, why shouldn't I? But I couldn't. No. The same way that he's convincing me to stay here is how he'll convince me to tell him all about what happened, and that's a not a road I want to travel down. Not right now, anyways.
"Take a poptart and a juice box on your way out," he sighed. "You have to eat something."
I gave him a small smile and pulled him in for a quick hug, which was kind of awkward considering his lack of clothing. "Thanks again for letting me crash here. Maybe sometime you can tell me what I did."
He chuckled and shuffled into his room, closing the door behind himself. I went into the kitchen. Who was I to turn down free food? Especially juice boxes. I mean, I'd bought them. Every juice box in his kitchen was forced upon him by me and Alan.
I grabbed some juice and was just about to slip on my shoes when I noticed the bottles of alcohol sitting on the counter. Nate was two years older than me, making his 21 already. That came in handy quite often. I knew I shouldn't, and the responsible part of me screamed for me to just leave and find some healthy way to calm down.
But then remnants of the dream came back to me and everything that'd happened those two days we were stuck in jail was on replay in the back of my mind. Temptation started to prove too strong, so I slid on my shoes and grabbed a bottle of gin. It was the one that I knew Nate wouldn't miss. He never drank it unless he had a lot of people over. Perfect option for a pathetic and desperate under-aged person like me.
I walked out the door, remembering where I'd parked. Apparently, I'd been able to function properly at that point in the night. It was after I'd parked that things started to get fuzzy. I passed the bench I'd sat on, and then I found my car. I tossed the bottle in the passengers seat. If I got caught with that, I would get in a shit ton of trouble, but I wasn't thinking straight.
I barely paid attention to the streets I was turning down until I got onto my street and had to pull into the driveway. It was about 10 o'clock in the morning, so I wasn't expecting too many people to be awake in the house. I mean, who likes to wake up at this time in the morning? Nobody, especially somebody with a hangover... A.k.a. Me.
Straight up to my room I went, seeing Kyle passed out on the recliner as I walked past. I started pushing my door closed, setting the bottle down on my dresser, but a hand on the other side stopped the door. "Lizzie?" Ben's voice said.
"What?" I answered.
"Where were you?"
I sighed and let him come in. "Just out," I shrugged. "I had dinner with my parents."
"That was last night. You weren't there the entire time and we all know it."
"So?"
"That coul get you in trouble. Where were you?"
"Why are you up this early?" It was a poor and desperate attempt to get the attention away from me.
"Don't know." His eyes flicked to the bottle on my dresser. "Did you stop at the liquor store? Wait- no. That's half empty. Did you get drunk last night and pass out in a dumpster or some shit?"
"No," I said through my teeth.
"Nate's?" he guessed.
"Yeah, for a little while."
"And you just so happened to steal a bottle of gin? You got rid of our alcohol so you could steal somebody else's?"
"It just kind of happened."
He scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"What?"
"You're kind of a hypocrite."
"Thanks."
"I take it you want to be left alone."
"That seems about right."
"Don't drink too much."
"I make you no promises."
"Liz-"
"Whatever, whatever."
He held my gaze for a while, trying to see if he could trust my word. He really shouldn't, but I wasn't one that you normally distrusted. He turned around and left, pulling the door closed. Then I sat down on the edge of my bed and stared at the bottle sitting there. I couldn't get another one without raising suspicions, so how do I make this one last while finding some way to have it fill the void?
My eyes shifted to the bottom drawer of my dresser, where I'd forgotten something that Alan had hidden. I hopped up, pulling the drawer open and searching until I found what I was looking for. I had a box of marijuana in here that Alan had stashed a while ago. It was all that we had left since his mom had taken it upon herself to clean while we were gone.
Well, it was what I was left with now. I opened my window a crack, sticking a shirt under my door so the smoke wouldn't alert any of my housemates. With this and the half-bottle of gin, I should be good for a little while.
At least I was hoping I would be.
-----
*Alex's POV*
"Hey, Matt," Jack said. "Matt. Hey, hey, hey. Hey. Hey. Matt. Hey, Matt. Hey, hey. Matt. Matt. Hey, hey, Matt."
"Shut up, Jack," Flyzik snapped, finally looking up from his phone. We only had about two weeks left on this tour, and Jack gets restless when we spend a while on the bus. We hadn't had a day off in a while, especially with finding ways to make up the missed Dallas show.
"But I have a serious question," Jack whined.
"What?"
"Why don't we have anymore Lucky Charms?"
"You ate them all," Rian pointed out.
"Well, why haven't we bought some more?"
"Because we didn't think you would eat them all," I grinned.
"We should be trained by now to be ready for anything."
"Including the bottomless pit known as Jack Barakat?" Zack inquired.
"Especially that," Jack smiled. "One more question. When are we going into New York?"
"We have a Syracuse show in three days," Rian read from the schedule on the wall.
"And where do Liz and them live?"
I groaned internally. I don'y understand why Jack felt the need to keep in touch with those guys. They're felons. Somebody in the spotlight as much as the four of us are doesn't need to be associated with people like them. I mean, sure, they were cool people and had potential for a great friendship with us, but that was all down the drain now.
And, maybe, there was a part of me that went along with that for the sole reason to keep Liz off of my mind. I hated that I thought about her, and I hated that I wondered about her when I didn't have anything else pushing on my mind. I hated that the fling I was having with Tay was brought upon us by the futile attempt to push Liz out of my memory. It was strange: the more that I tried to distract myself, the more I thought about her.
Bad. It was all so very, very bad.
"Niagara Falls," Zack said confidently.
"Are those cities kind of close?"
"Yeah, kinda," Matt shrugged.
"Great," Jack smiled, dialing a number on his phone and putting it on speaker.
"Hello?" Liz's voice came through the phone. Why does he have to do this? I could easily just get up and walk out of the room
"Hey, Liz!!" Jack cheered.
"Oh, hi. How's it going?" Honestly, she sounded horrible. Her voice sounded empty and scratchy. I could tell that she was tired, but this was a different kind of tired. When I'd woken her up from only an hour of sleep, she hadn't sounded this bad. I hated that it made me worry.
"It's going great. Are you going to come and see us at our show in Syracuse?" Straight to the point.
"That's, like, a four hour drive," she informed us. Okay, not as close as we'd all assumed. We were from Maryland. We didn't study the geography of New York. "There's a show in Rochester, though, right?"
"Yeah," Rian yelled, making sure that she could hear us.
"Is that closer?" Jack asked her.
"Yeah. It's about three hours closer. I can see what I can do about coming to see you then. It's been a while since I've been to a proper concert."
"What better concert than an All Time Low concert?" Zack chuckled.
"We're the only band made up of four of the hottest guys ever," I joked, finding my voice at some point. I couldn't help myself.
"Oh really?" she teased, a smile in her voice. "I didn't know that Tom Hiddleston, Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, and Liam Hemsworth were in All Time Low."
"Shut up," Jack laughed. "You know that we're sexy as all hell. You just don't want to think about it because it makes you miss us too much."
"If that helps you sleep at night." I liked it better when she had to joking tone in her voice. She sounded just about a thousand times better.
"We'll see you at the Rochester show," Jack concluded.
"Well, I don't-"
"We'll see you there," Zack demanded.
"Byeeeeee," Jack sang, and then he hung up.
So, I guess we were seeing her in Rochester.