ALEX'S POV
"It takes my pain away..." my phone blew up next to me, and I cringed as I heard the noise. Every noise was like a thousand bullets to my brain. Make it stop, my brain asked as I answered the phone. "Alexander?" My mother's voice rang through my ears.
"Mom? What's up?" I asked, sitting up and moving Jack's head out of the way. He stirred, but murmured something and his head fell again.
"Heather's turned up over here. I don't know why, but she's somehow found her way over here. Are you fighting or something?" She said.
"No.We haven't fought in awhle. I could've sworn she was in bed. The guys and I were drinking last night but it wasn't too wild. Has she said anything?" I said, finding my keys and walking out to the car.
"No, she won't talk to anyone. She might have said something to your Dad, but right now she's just curled up on the couch crying. I'm really worried about her, honey. Has anything been bothering her lately?" She said. I started the drive to their house, which was about five minutes.
"Nothing I can think of. She's been pretty happy. I'm on my way over, I'll be there in a minute."
"Be careful, Alexander," she said as she hung up. Soon enough I was at their house, and blew through the door like I normally did. Heather was sitting on the couch, curled up into a little ball.
"Heather," I said, walking over to her. She looked up at me, with tears in her eyes. I sighed, sitting down next to her and pulling her into my lap. She put her arms around my neck and started crying softly, about what I didn't know. And she was freezing. All she was wearing was one of my over-sizes t-shirts that went to her knees and a pair of athletic shorts that were Rian's. "Heather, what's wrong baby?" I asked, rubbing her back. She just shook her head and Mom and Dad came into the room.
"There you are," Mom said. "She just turned up here, about five this morning. She didn't say anything to me, but she did talk to your Dad for a few minutes." Dad walked into the room, and looked at Heather sadly.
"Hey, son," he said. "All she could tell me is that it was too much. She just kept saying that she had to get away. I don't know what could be wrong with her." I looked down at Heather, who was curled up and still crying in my lap, shaking her head.
"What's too much?" I asked her quietly. She shook her head again, another tear making its way down her cheek. "Baby, you can tell me." She swallowed and held onto me tighter. "Come on, beautiful. Whatever it is you know I'm here for you. You can tell me anything."
"I just need it to stop, Alex," she finally said.
"What do you want to stop? I promise, whatever it is, I'll stop it," I replied.
"The nightmares," she said quietly. "They're just too much. Every single night. I just want them to stop and they won't. I sound like a freaking five year-old but I just can't stop them." I kissed her forehead, pulling her closer to me. She was having nightmares? Why hadn't she told me? I would have done everything I could to help her, and now it was just about too late.
"Look here, Princess," I said. "I promise, I'm going to stop them. No matter what I have to do I'm going to stop them. Nothing there can hurt you. And they're your dreams in the first place. You can control them, honey. I'm sorry that this is happening, and I'm going to do everything I can to stop them. You could have waken me up. You could have waken any one of us up." She shook her head.
"You would have thought it was stupid," she replied, playing with the hem of my old t-shirt that she was wearing.
"Look at me," I said. She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. "Heather Raeleigh Gaskarth, I will never think anything you say or do is stupid. If you need help in any way I'm always here for you, no matter what. I don't want you to not come to me because you think that I'll think it's stupid. I know everything's tough for you right now. That's what's causing the problem. We can solve it if you'll just tell me the problem in the first place."
"Thank you Alex," she murmured, smiling. "I love you."
"I love you too Heather," I replied. She leaned up and kissed my cheek, wiping away her tears.
"Do the two of you want anything to eat?" Mom asked. "Before you leave again?" I looked down at Heather, who shook her head.
"I'm fine Mom," she replied, her voice breaking from her tears. She then got up from my lap, and I stood up behind her and put a hand on her back as we walked out to the car.
"If you ever need anything, just call us," Dad reminded her. She nodded and shut the door to the car, and we slowly drove back home.
Heather's POV
I sighed as we reached the house again. I don't know what came over me last night - I should have just come to Zack or Ri or Matt like I usually did whenever Alex was wasted. But instead I had just started walking, and had ended up at my parent's house. I don't know why I didn't wake them up in the first place. Because they were drunk, I thought. Because they don't care about anything while they're drunk. Because they're crazy when they're drunk. Because no one cares, especially when they're as drunk as they were.
"Where were you guys?" Matt asked when we walked through the door.
"Heather went to Mom and Dad's house last night and wouldn't talk to anyone. NIghtmares," Alex explained, putting his keys in the key bucket by the door. I went over to where Zack was sitting and plopped down next to him, putting my head on his shoulder. Zack looked at me with an air of concern, but I shook my head. Alex went downstairs to Rian's room/Alex's man-cave, leaving us all to fend for ourselves.
"What was it about?" Zack asked, pulling me into his lap as everyone else moved closer to us. I loved the atmosphere of everyone seeeming to care about me.
"You already know what it was about," I said. "You don't need to ask me." Zack nodded.
"Tom again?" I nodded. "I'm sorry. On the bright side you start recording next week. I hear the studio band they've gotten to work with you is pretty sweet." I smiled.
"Just what I need. Recording all day," I replied. "Better build up some sleep then. I'll go see what Alex is doing." I got off his lap after he gave me a hug and walked downstairs to find Alex playing Skyrim again. He paused the game and put the controller down when he saw me, and I noticed that he must have just taken a short shower because his hair was wet and he was in fresh clothes.
"Hey," he said. "You start recording Tuesday, you know." I nodded.
"Zack just reminded me," I replied. "I'm going to go to bed."
"You want some food first? Ri got Macaroni in a cup again." I smiled and nodded. He knew exactly how to make it. All he did was put not as much water in the cup so that it wasn't very moist and then mixed the cheese sauce in so it was all clumpy and sometimes a little crunchy. It sounds weird but it was very good. I gave him a hug as he remembered something and rubbed my back. "And Invader Zim is on Netflix. Bring the Roku up to my room and watch some. I really need some sleep too. Massive hangover." He kissed the top of my head and pulled away, the both of us going back upstairs. He got two cups of Macaroni out and put some water in as I got the Roku and connected it to Alex's big TV, then settled underneath the covers.
I wished I had Alex's bed. It was huge. And soft. And it was really comfy because he had one of those mattress covers that was foamy so whatever position you were in it remembered. But being Alex, he ruined it by having purple and gold bedding for the Ravens, as well as several Ravens posters in the room. Soon enough Alex came back upstairs, holding the macaroni bowls. He made me move over so that he could fit on the bed and handed me a cup and a spoon, and started an episode of Invader Zim. "Alex, can we get a pet robot named Gir?" I asked him as I finished off the macaroni. He gave me a look, shaking his head.
"I don't think they sell those honey," he said. "Hate to break it to you." I did a sad face and fake tear, wondering how I can go from crying my eyes out at my parent's house to being here, curled up with Alex watching my favorite cartoon. Then again, I was bipolar. This kind of thing did happen a lot. "You excited about recording Tuesday?" I shrugged.
"Kind of. But it'll be a long process," I said. "Trying to record twelve songs in a couple of months." He sighed.
"I'll be there the entire time, though. And we get to sing together on a couple tracks. And-" He started.
"Alex," I said. "Don't worry. I'm stoked. I'm just nervous that I'll mess it up somehow." He pulled me closer to him and pushed the hair out of my eyes.
"Nah, you won't mess it up. Do you know how many times Squire and I have broken the sound board because of playing around with the filters, yet the record has still come out? Seriously, break the sound board or Squire and I'm going to kill you," he said. I laughed.
"I'm not going to break Squire," I replied. "Don't worry. And I'm not going to break the sound board either."
"Good girl." He kissed my forehead and went downstairs with our bowls, coming back up with a bag of Sour Patch, some Rollos, and a big bag of gummy bears. "So remind me why you like this show again?" Zim and Gir were trying to sell a bunch of candies, and were currently yelling at the sun.
"Because it's cute. And Gir is adorable beyond belief," I replied. He laughed.
"Okay then. I just don't understand this. At all," he said. I tried to explain to him what the show's concept was, which just stumped him even more. Eventually we gave up and turned it off, and just decided to talk. That was stupid, because we ended up falling asleep in about five minutes. Oh well.
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"I AM FINALLY CONFIRMED! TAKE THAT, TWITTER!" I heard Alex scream.
"What the-" I got up and looked around, seeing him jumping up and down and pumping his fists in the air. "Alex, what are you doing?"
"I'm finally confirmed on Twitter. Finally," he said happily. "After two years of hard fighting, I am finally confirmed." A tear slipped down from his eye and I rolled my own eyes, falling back onto the pillow.
"So you feel the need to scream that while your little sister is sleeping in the same room? Love you too Alex," I replied. He did a pouty face and flopped back down next to me.
"You know you love me," he replied, hitting my arm. "By the way, we're doing a concert later. Since Kermit's in the shop would you want to sing Sunday with us?" I nodded, grinning slightly.
"I love the hometown concerts. They're the best," I replied. "Where is it?"
"The tent on Thames. It's a thing for Dulaney," he said, referring to the school where he went and where I would go to if we resumed normal schooling. "Setup is at six but the show starts at seven. We'll probably eat after since there's a barbecue tent too. Some festival/fundraiser thing." I nodded. "You wanna go grab some Starbucks? Without Rian? And post it on Instagram and my new official Twitter so that way he'll be jealous?" I nodded again, laughing.
"Lemme go change first," I said, leaning up and kissing his cheek before getting up. "Can I steal some stuff from your closet?" He nodded and I walked into his walk-in, taking an old GK shirt and a pair of his jeans, which worked fine because they were a little short on him but were perfect for my height, as my legs were slightly shorter. I quickly pulled them on after closing the door and went into my bathroom, pulling on a pair of converse and my hair into a ponytail as well as my glasses, then went back to where Alex was sitting in another pair of skinny jeans. "Alex, put on a shirt," I said, walking into his closet and pulling a random Foo Fighters shirt out of the closet and throwing it to him. He groaned and complained that it was his favorite one and he didn't want to get it dirty before I chucked a pair of Adidas at him, which made him scream like a little girl.
"Watch the hair," he growled as he looked in the mirror to fix it. I rolled my eyes and threw him his wallet, and we slipped out of the house without a sound.