Helplessly Reaching For You

Don't Stop

Everyone was gone, my best friend, the two girls, and the one guy who I swore was checking me out. Yes, I know, that's very cocky of me to think he was checking me out, but that was not the problem right now.

The problem was that I was about to go up stage and sing and play bass for a bang who I didn't even know that well. I was about to be a laughing stalk. More importantly I as pretty sure Amelia was hating me more than anything.

I quickly walked over to the wall and carefully took the bass off it. No way was I going to risk dropping the gorgeous instrument.

"So, here are all the notes to the songs we'll be playing, which are seven," Luke said as soon as I turned back around.

"And here are all the lyrics to the songs, we highlighted Calum's parts for you," Michael said with a smiles as he, too, handed me back a handful of papers.

Taking a deep breath I looked through all the papers and sighed, "How am I supposed to memories these in five minutes?" All of this was starting to freak me out and I wasn't ready for that. For this whole thing in general.

"Oh, you actually think we'd give you only five minutes?" Ashton asked, wrapping an arm around my shoulder, "Nope. You got an hour. Maybe more."

"Yeah, we gotta get everything up on stage. And then sound-check everything. And then introduce the concert in general. And that'll take a good hour or so. We'll have the burly man come get you once it's five minutes until the actual conert," Michael said quickly as him, Luke, and Ashton began to approach te door.

So the were just going to leave me by myself to memorize the bass for seven songs and learn the small lyrics here and there? What if I messed up? What if I had questions?

"You know we wouldn't ask you to do any of this if we didn't think you could," Michael said, looking over his shoulder at me, he could obviously see the worried expression on my face.

"Oh.... Well, no I do," I said weakly. They never asked me if I sung good either. They sure were in for a surprise. But they were gone by the time I had sat down and adjusted both the papers and the bass in a way I saw fit.

Heartbreak Girl. Out of My Limit. Voodoo Doll. Wherever You Are. Unpredictable. She Looks So Perfect. And Amnesia.

I don't know how I did it. But I managed to memorize a good lot of the stuff they gave me to do. It was a natural gift, something most people wouldn't have done. But I just so happened to take bass lessons for seven years of my life.

Before I knew it, the body guard was back and this time he seemed to be a lot nicer to me, which was great while I was feeling nervous.

My gut was twisting as the man led me to the doors that would lead to the stage. With a quick good luck, he opened the door and I walked through.

There were girls. Everywhere. And then I looked over a few boys' faces. There were actually a lot of people here. A lot more than I had thought would be at their concert.

"Hey everyone!" Ashton called out as he walked over to me, raising my hand in the air, "This is our new friend Vivian! She's going to be susbstituing for our sick Calum tonight like we said earlier!"

The crowd cheered, or some of them did anyways. A lot of people looked around assuming that it was a prank and that's when life started to pull me down.

This new band that was just starting to get popular? I was going to pull them down in a heartbeat. And it wasn't going to be my fault, it was, but it wasn't. Hell that didn't make sense to me.

But the beat began to play and so did the other three boys. They sang. I sang. And nobody seemed to totally hate my singing like I thought they would. Things were good and were going pretty great.

After a short pause inbetween songs, I tried to think abut the next, and final song, Amnesia. It had a nice ring, a nice lyric. And I only had to memorize a bit of it. I should've probably looked at the rest of the lyrics though.

And the music started, along with the amazing vocals.

"I drove by all the places we used to hang out getting wasted. I thought about our last kiss, how it felt, the way you tasted. And even though your friends tell me you're doing fine," Michael sang. And it made me realize something.

There was a reason that Amelia had taken me to the concert and that was to forget about my terrible week. This song? This wasn't helping.

And now Luke was singing, "Like the way it felt to fall asleep next to you. And the memories I never can escape. 'Cause I'm not fine at all."

Now it was my turn and I tried my hardest.

"The pictures that you sent me they're still living in my phone. I'll admit I like to see them, I'll admit I feel alone." I sang-- I tried to at least. I'm sure that my voice was weak and soft, not like in the past six songs.

I hadn't even noticed the tears running down my face. I had stopped playing all together. I had just... broke in front of hundreds of people who lived in the same town as me.

It didn't take me more than I few seconds to set the bass down and sprint towards the door that I had enetered in. How embarrassing. I couldn't even sing. I couldn't even see straight. And I'm assuming that's why I ran smack dab into someone.

"Vi?" the voice said, and I came to slowly recognize it. It was the boy from the beginning. The one who was in the VIP room without permission or whatever. "Are you okay? No-- wait. You're not. Or else you wouldn't me crying."

The boy, who I think was named Calibur, had set the bag he was holding down only to wrap his arms around me in such a comforting way I couldn't help but melt into.

"It's sorta a lot...." I said with a sniffle and probably a few regrets of running inside.

"I have time. Explain."