Can You Keep A Secret?

Chapter Sixty-Two

       

-Andy's POV-

            The flat was quiet. Everyone had gone out to celebrate Jack coming back, but I'd claimed to have a headache and stayed behind. It's not that I wasn't happy he was here – I was. But behind everything, there was still that nagging sadness, and I let it come out now that I was alone.

            I felt pressured to be okay now, that anything less would be a disappointment to everyone around me. We'd had our deep conversation, yeah, but I'd refrained from discussing the true depths of the situation. At some level, I knew that I could trust them. It wasn't like they would try to hold anything against me, but I had designated that this was a battle that I had to fight on my own. There had already been too many casualties with what little information that I had revealed.

            It wasn't something that I wanted to talk about, but it wasn't something that I could keep entirely inside, either, so I dealt with it in the best way that I knew how – I found a piece of paper and a pencil, and I began to write.

            Half an hour later, I had spilled some of what I felt onto the paper in the form of a song. I looked at it for a second before writing down the one thing a title – "Rescue."

            Once I'd finished, the absence of anyone else in the flat seemed palpable, and I needed something else to distract myself. Realizing that I hadn't been on any form of social media in weeks, I opened up twitter. For a while I just stared at the screen, unsure of what to say.

            I decided on a simple "Glad that whole family's back together ♥ - Andy", and waited a moment for the replies to flow in. I saw more than a few people excited that I'd finally said something, so I sent out another, saying, "Sorry for being so inactive but I still love you all more than life itself – Andy".

            Getting into the vibe and feeling a little emotional at how quickly the replies were coming in, I added "We do all of this for you guys. Thank you for always sticking with us, your support means the world not just to me but to all of us – Andy". I felt bad for having lost almost any connection with them in the past month. They reminded me what I was here for, and their love and support was unwavering, even though most of us had practically dropped off of the face of the Earth recently.

            I wanted to make it up to them, and I vowed to try and come on here and talk to someone at least once a day. I remembered seeing Rysa at the mall that day with Liv and decided to message her about it, only to be greeted with a paragraph that she had written for me. Reading through it, about how she hoped I was okay and that she loved me, and then about how much I had helped her and how much I meant to her, I could feel myself start to tear up.

            I tried to think of a reply that would express how much she meant to me, how much they all did – Sometimes it was easy to forget that not everyone viewed me in the same way that I viewed myself. Sometimes I feared that even the Roadies didn't like me that much – That I'd been around for too long and was no longer interesting to them, that I was only there for the music part.

            I mean, most people didn't even care if I DMd them. If it were Brooklyn, they'd freak out, but I was just me. Just Andy. Nothing special. But, for just a minute, I was able to forget all of those thoughts, as I struggled to put into words what I wanted to tell Rysa. Maybe any other time a "Thank you baby ♥" would've been enough, but, in an odd way, this one message had changed everything. Not permanently, but even a second of feeling loved and appreciated and cared for and needed was a sweet relief from all of the other negative emotions I'd been feeling.

            Another DM appeared from her – "Andy? L" I began to type.

            "Rysa, I could begin to thank you enough for everything that you have done for both me and the band. Please don't ever feel alone, you've always got me and you mean more to me that you know. I know how hard that things can get, but please hold on. Your support is what keeps us going. Thank you for make me smile (and for the other day as well) I love you so much – Andy".

            I wanted to feel closer to everyone again, and connect with as many of them at once as possible, so I closed out of twitter and opened up YouNow instead. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd done one of these – it was long overdue. I found that I felt happier than I had in a long time as I watched the viewers rise and the comments section begin to fill up.

            After a bit of talking and interacting, I felt the urge to share with them a bit of my personal life to let them know that they aren't alone.

            I took out my guitar, strumming a few chords as I said, "This is just something that I wrote. Uhm, this is called Rescue." I couldn't fight the smile on my face as I began to sign – "I have never seen a heart that's never been broken before, until mine."

            Just like at the station, I let myself get absorbed into the music and the song, beginning to belt it out as I sang, "And you can tell I'm getting older, 'cuz I can't carry that weight of the world on my shoulders." As I got towards the end of it, I could feel the emotions from everything that had happened rising back to the surface, showing themselves in both my voice and the words of the song.

            "So come and rescue me, I can tell I'm getting weak and I, I know deep down inside, that I know I'm not alright, iiight, iiight." It felt a bit like I had just bared my soul for the whole world to see, but, in a way, it felt good. I was glad that I had shared this piece of me with them. I was overcome with a positive feeling, but I couldn't quite figure out what it was, when it finally hit me – I was healing.

            I sat and soaked it in, and allowed myself to believe, really and truly believe, that I would be able to get through this.