Protection, Zack Merrick, All Time Low

33

Wanna dedicate this to my girl Sammy, spookyysammy

Two weeks later

Zack

Recording the bass for another song, I see Alex and Kimberly joking around, when I'm nearing the end of the song, Kimberly picks up the phone.

Honestly this is the happiest I've seen her in weeks, and it hurts, because she isn't smiling because of me.

Her face falls after a minute, and tears brim her eyes as Alex tries to comfort her. At the end of the song, the tech gives me  thumbs up, I take off the headphones and set my gutair down, and go see what's up.

"What's the matter?" I ask her, very concerned for my crumbling girlfriend.

"Auntie is in the hospital from a heart attack." She finally says after sobbing into my shoulder.

I wrap my arms around her and kiss her head.

"I've got to go see her." She demands. "She raised me."

I can hear her heart shatter, Alexs too.

"You can take a few days off?" Nano says quickly. "Go visit her?"

"I think I ought to." She replies, looking up at him.

"You guys are done for the day," Nano exclaims, "Why don't you go visit her?"

"I don't want to go alone." She looks to Alex. "And he can't go because Lisa will spout out a baby in a month." My heart breaks, she would rather Alex go than me, I realize this is his aunt too, but it still hurts.

"I can go?" I tell her, looking at Nano for permission, he nods curtly.

"Lets go back, we can get a flight for in the morning." I tell her. She hugs the boys, we thank Nano, and then we leave.

"Baby, it's going to be okay."

She's been depressed since we left her parents two weeks ago, why does this have to kick her even more when she's down? I frown, and drive her home. She's crying hard, and I just want to pull her into my lap and kiss away her tears, so I do when we pull over and I pull her into my lap.

"I'm sorry." She sobs. "You have the worst girlfriend in the world. I've hardly talked at all lately."

"No, you're no where near a bad girlfriend. You've just been sad, it's okay, you've been through a lot of shit, baby. I won't leave you."

She cries, but crawls out of my lap. It breaks my heart again. "Lets go so we can go home and get a ticket."

I do as she says, not talking. She doesn't talk to me for the rest of the night till its time for bed and she had been reading while I was designing clothes and reading tweets.

"Time for bed?" I ask her. S

he nods, but has an etched frown. "You implied that you thought about leaving me." She whispers as I get up to go.

I'm halfway out of the room, and then I turn around. "Baby, no, why would you think that?" I ask, going back to her and bending down in front of her, taking her hands in my hands.

"You said you won't leave me, but I didn't ask that."

"I have not ever thought about leaving you." I promise. "You're not the girl anyone would leave, not ever. You've been having bad days, that's alright, do you want to talk about them?"

"I just can't help but wonder what would happen if it would have been me that died instead of Tommy." She says, looking at our hands. "No one would have been as hurt."

"Okay for one, I had the biggest Goddamn crush on you that it hurt." I pause, "Alex would have been even more torn up, you're his baby sister. Jack wouldn't be the bubbly guy he is now. Even though you left to move back, you stayed in touch, Alex was a mess, knowing he was the fault of you leaving, and thinking it was because you hated him, even though you assured him it wasn't that." She cringes and I brush her hair back from her face. "I love you, so much." I tell her and kiss her forehead.

"Denny wouldn't have abused me, if I stayed. I wouldn't have caused my aunt so much stress she had a heart attack." She snaps.

"Stop thinking like that, this is how it happened, this is your fate. This is their fate. This is us. Denny is going to die bitter and alone, you won't have to do that. And your uncle will be there for your aunt ever step of the way."

"She could die because of me."

"You haven't caused this."

"But I did. And I'm going to kill her like I'll be killing you one day."

"If you're the one that kills me, all I could do is thank you."

"Thats a bit extreme."

"It's true, princess. I love you, and your aunt does too, you didn't cause this, but even if you did, she wouldn't mind. She loves you."

"I love her."

"She knows, now lets go quickly pack for our flight."

"Okay." She smiles warmly, and I help her up, but don't let her go before kissing her.