I Want You All To Myself

Three

Hayley's POV 

I felt like I was on top of the world. All these people who didn't know me cheered for me like I was the queen. They followed my every more, listened to every word coming out of my mouth. And strangely enough, I didn't feel so stressed out anymore. I actually felt... good. It was all so unreal that I started thinking it was only a dream, and I didn't care about messing up anymore. 

"We are Paramore!" I yelled. Everyone yelled back incomprehensible words of encouragement. Wow, was this real? 

The next song we were playing was Conspiracy. Ah, that old thing... As the drums and guitar kicked in for the intro, I threw my head backwards and stared at the sky. Wow, this was one beautiful intro. I felt really proud of myself all of a sudden. 

I looked back at the crowd and brought the microphone to my mouth. "Please speak softly for they will hear us... and they'll find out why we don't trust them..." My voice echoed through the sky, returning to my ears with a foreign undertone. I barely even recognized it, but I was slowly getting used to that. It was becoming so easy, almost natural. "Speak up dear, for I cannot hear you... I need to know why we don't trust them..." 

The speakers exploded then, flooding the crowd with our melodious noise. The response was almost immediate. Soon, everyone was yelling their throats out. "Explain to me this conspiracy against me!" I had done this a hundred times, but the feeling still surprised me. When I sung, I felt like I was in a different dimension. Nothing else mattered. It was just me, my voice and the music spinning around me. The crowd vanished, their yells molding into the music and eventually disappearing as well. For a second I was flying. 

And then, I opened my eyes again and a new energy filled me. I didn't care about the heat, the sweat covering every part of me, the sharp pain at the bottom of my throat. I couldn't stop moving. I danced and jumped and spun around to release the energy, but I felt like the more I tried to get rid of it, the more there was. It was truly incredible. 

We finished the song without any trouble. I didn't even understand why I'd been so stressed out before. This was so easy. "You guys having a good time?" I asked happily. I took their screams as a "yes."  

"Alright!" I yelled back. "Give it up for Jeremy, Zac and..." Come on, just say it. "Josh!" My moment of hesitation had been so short I didn't think anyone had noticed. The crowd yelled even louder-wow, how was that even possible?-and we started our fifth and last long. "I'm Hayley, by the way," I said quickly and everyone laughed. Phew, wasn't I funny! "This song rhymes with the last one!" I said then. My own statement honestly surprised me. I hadn't even realised that until I'd said it. My brain sure worked in strange ways onstage. "It's called Emergency!" I added, thinking it would probably be a good idea to mention that. 

And we were off again. The magic was back and I welcomed it happily. This would never get old. This was the best day of my life. 

And I couldn't help but look forward to the next ones. 

Josh's POV 

The more time passed, the less I noticed it. My life had broken down to a pointless boredom. I couldn't even call it "life" anymore. Just like I'd expected it, the craving had come back. But it was easy to ignore now. It couldn't help me anymore. I didn't want its help. 

"Fuck heroin," I muttered to myself as I stared at the ceiling, slumped on my bed like an old rag. That's pretty much all I did anymore. I lay in bed thinking about how much I hated heroin-and pretty much anything else-and not doing anything about it. My mom urged me to get up and do SOMETHING, but gave up after a few tries. Maybe she just thought this was the post-rehab effect. Maybe it was.