Gloom & sunshine

Chapter 1: Anguish

The thing about breaking up with someone, no matter what point you are in the relationship, no matter how wonderfully, how horribly, or how impassive you feel about the end...

It still fucking sucks.

Hitting that final send, on the shittiest conversation he'd ever had to have, Awsten felt his world collapse. Sure, he had been the one to initiate the ordeal, albeit breaking up over text was never the intention, and it added to the feeling of wanting the ground to open up and swallow him whole. Ciara was too smart to not see it coming from the sudden, 'Hey, can I call you tonight about something?' text after a few days—he's not proud of it—of ghosting her calls and texts.

"Aws? Hey... Awsten?"

Awsten jumped, his grip a bit weak from anxiety, he nearly dropped his phone. His heterochromatic eyes didn't hide anything as they met the brown of his best friend's.

"Hm? What's up, Otto?" He mumbled as he swallowed around the lump in his throat, trying to bite back the tears that made his nose burn. He glanced around and noticed Alex Gaskarth looking at him curiously a couple feet away. Awsten tried to give him somewhat of a smile to say nothing was wrong, but he could feel how stiff it was. Alex leaned over and handed Awsten a bottle of water without a word, just a gentle smile. Awsten nodded his thanks, tracing the ridges of the plastic cap with his calloused fingers.

"Come on." Otto patted Awsten's shoulder and held out a hand, hoisting the blue-haired singer up and leading him off the stage the crew was gathered on, not noticing a pair of bright blue eyes following them. They walked through the now quiet halls of the venue, until they reached a dead end that had an abandoned snack table littered with piles of unused napkins and cups. Otto turned to look at his friend to see silent tears running down his stubble dusted cheeks. By the looks of him, Awsten hadn't shaved or slept in a few days.

"Aws... What's going on?" Otto asked as gently as possible.

"It... It's nothing." His voice was thick, Otto felt awful seeing him like this.

"This isn't nothing, man..."

Awsten looked down to side, sniffling lightly, swiping at his eyes with the sleeve of his floral sweater. He took his bottom lip in his teeth, worrying at the skin.

"Come on, what's so bad that you don't want to tell me?"

Awsten looked down at his fingers, pulling his sweater sleeves over his hands. "C.... Ciara and I... we broke up..." His higher toned voice was low and heavy, saying it out loud made his stomach sink, his legs felt like gelatin.

"Oh... fuck, dude, I'm so sorry..." Otto stepped forward, hugging his friend. Awsten hugged back lightly, but really, he didn't want to be touched. He just wanted to take a nap and forget this wretched day. "I'm gonna go get Geoff, okay? He'll be able to help."

"No, no... I... I don't want him to know..." Awsten stepped out of Otto's hug, still looking down at his hands. He took off his glasses and rubbed a bit too harshly at his eyes.

"What? Why not?" Otto was shocked to hear Awsten wanted to keep such a devastating secret from Geoff, their adopted dad, the most responsible of the three.

"He'll... try and fix it..."

"He'll try and cheer you up." Otto grabbed some of the napkin off the table and handed them to the singer.

"No, he'll try and convince me to get back together with Ciara..." He blew his nose in the napkin, then started crying again.

"Awsten... You're crazy about her... I can see how much pain you're in... Don't... you want to get back together with her?"