When Past Becomes Present (an Alex Turner fan fic)

Chapter 3

His voice was strong and steady as he spoke, but I could hear that he was a bit nervous for some reason. "I wrote this when I was missing a girl from the past. Someone I always find myself missing; someone I was with for a long time." Wow. I knew this song was probably about some other girl, but I couldn't help but associate his lyrics with myself. It comforted me somehow, like I meant something to him. 

The music began. They really were sounding great. This would have taken them ages to get right back in high school. “Have you got colour in your cheeks?” Alex’s voice rang out. “Do you ever get that fear that you can’t shift the tide that sticks around like summat in your teeth?” I knew what that was all about. He had always been afraid of not being able to amount to anything; to be on a path of nothing and not be able to stop it. “Are there some aces up your sleeve? Have you no idea that you’re in deep? I dreamt about you nearly every night this week…” His voice was sounding beautiful. “How many secrets can you keep? ‘Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat until I fall asleep.” I thought about Alex listening to a song that reminded him of me, falling asleep, and dreaming of me. I knew that wasn’t the case, but I couldn’t help myself. He still looked as dreamy as he always had; that gaze on his face while he sang, I just couldn’t get over it. 

Then the gaze turned to me. “Do I wanna know? If this feeling flows both ways…. Sad to see you go, was sort of hoping that you’d stay…. Yeah and we both know that the nights were mainly made for saying things that you can’t say tomorrow day.” I remembered us talking about that one night, we’d only been together a few weeks at that point, though; he couldn’t have remembered, but I had. “Crawling back to you…Ever thought of calling when you’ve had a few? ‘Cause I always do. Maybe I’m too busy being yours to fall for somebody new…” His voice trailed off as his gaze shifted back away from my area. I wanted so badly for him to be singing to me, to mean those words. Because I definitely meant them. I couldn’t count the number of times in college I thought about picking up my phone and dialing his number after a party I had probably drank too much at. 

*Alex’s POV*

I looked away. If I sang to her the entire song she’d be freaked out. I promised myself I wouldn’t look that way for the rest of the song; I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted her to know I’d incorporated her into most of the songs I wrote anyways. ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ was really only half written by me. I did the first verse and the chorus, all about her, and Jamie and Matt scrawled something together for the rest. I still don’t know where they got it seeing as they weren’t even serious about anyone at the time, but I never questioned it. 

I still couldn’t believe she was here. I hadn’t seen her in four years, and yet I recognized her immediately. She hadn’t changed a bit, but somehow she looked more amazing than I had remembered. I had a million questions in my head for her: Why was she here? Did she still remember me, and how clearly? Did she like what the band had become? What was she doing now? I knew as soon as I saw her I had to do something special. I gathered the boys quickly and told them to reroute it to the songs that first came to mind when I thought of her. Hopefully she would understand, and try and get in touch with me afterwards. It was all I could manage to get her back, and Lord, did I want her back.