the Reckless and the Brave (Sequel to Scream, to be Heard)

I've Got the Guts to Say Anything

I was sitting on the couch with Alex and the guys when Matt held the phone out to Alex. He looked at him wierd and then took it. "Yeah, this is him," Alex said, rubbing his arm. "Yeah, we'd be glad to. Alright. We can fly out tomorrow and do it. Alright. See you tomorrow." He then hung up and handed the phone to Matt again.

"What was that about?" Rian asked.

"They want Heather and I to do a photo shoot and a magazine interview tomorrow with Teen Vogue," he said. "I just confirned it, Heather and I are flying out to L.A tomorrow."

"Teen Vogue? Really? Cool, I've always wanted to be in there," I said. "What time?" He went online and got us a couple of plane tickets and then told me we would need to be at the airport. We played the show that night and went straight to the bus, and slept. Then the alarm clock went off I had to drag Alex out of bed. We got dressed and went to Starbucks to get coffee before the flight, and went through security at the airport and got on the flight, which lasted about an hour. Alex fell asleep on my shoulder, and I woke him up when we arrived. Then we went over to the Teen Vogue headquarters.

"Name, please?" The lady at the front desk asked.

"Alex and Heather Gaskarth," Alex answered.

"The 12:20 appointment?" Alex nodded and we went to sit over in the chairs they had set out. We both started playing with our phones, and did for about five minutes before we were led back into a room.

"We'll do the interview here, and after that we'll do a photo shoot. The interview will run on the Teen Vogue website, and the interview and photo shoot willl appear in the next issue," the lady who was in charge of us said. She was about Alex's age, maybe older, and had long brown hair and was wearing a robin's-egg blue dress. The cameras set al around us, and everyone looked to be wearing designer clothes. I sudeenly felt a little intimidated, since I was just wearing red Celebrity Pink skinny jeans and a baggy-ish black and white striped shirt with a black pocket and combat boots.

The interview soon started, and i felt the camers staring into my eyes. "What is one song that describes your relationship?"

"Wow, that's hard," I said. Alex agreed with me.

"I think Hear Me Now by Secondhand Serenade," Alex said. I nodded.

"Yeah, I think so too. Let's go with that," I agreed.

"How would you describe each other's taste in music?" The interviewer asked. I had to think a minute, which was okay because Alex answered.

"Basically mine with a lot of Katy Perry and ELO and the Beatles," he said. I laughed.

"That's really hard. Like he said, but he actually has more Katy Perry than I do. Great taste, though. But a little too much Weezer for my tastes. I'm more of a Linkin Park person, if you know what I mean," I answered. Alex laughed and ran his hands through his hair.

"Heather, you've gone on tour with Alex and his band All Time Low for a few tours now. How would you describe a normal day with the guys?"

"Well, it's usually never the same. And it's far from normal. But the day usually starts with someone screaming about who took their clothes and running around screaming. Then we usually sit around in the lounge and play on the Wii or Xbox or something or watch TV. Once we get to the venue, we usually do a sound check and go eat or something until it's time for the show, then Alex makes me go to bed," I replied.

"Alex, you were just recently awarded full custody of Heather after trying the second time in two years, how does it feel?"

"It feels amazing. Waking up in the mornings and realizing that Heather's not there was really hard for me. But now that she's back with me I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders. As stupid and cheesy as it sounds, she's my sister. I need her, you know?" He replied. I looked over at him and smiled. He gave me a smirk and a look that told me to shut it.

"So, Heather, you've given a few rumors about recording an album. What can we expect on the album?"

"A lot. A few originals, maybe a cover or two. But there's going to be a lot of classic rock influences, I'm very into heavy bass and drums and loud guitar. And Alex will be on a few tracks, as well, so I hope people enjoy hearing what I can come up with. Right now I've got about three or four tracks that I'm defenitly putting on the album, but I can't say what they're called," I replied.

"Buy it or I will hunt you down and hurt you," Alex commented. I laughed.

"Alex, your sister is obviously very talented, and you are both musicians and singers. Is there ever any competition between the two of you?"

"Not at all! We both know that we're really talented, but I think there's a line between it. Like she has so much passion in her voice and for me it's just stage presence. But we're both cool with each other performing and everything. I wouldn't really call it competition but when Heather was nine or ten and she had just started living with us, she would say that she wished she had written, I think it was Running from Lions, and now I'm always like, 'wow, I wish I had written that," He replied. I blushed a little bit.

She asked a few more questions and then we were dismissed to the photo shoot. They had set out a gray tank that looked more like a cropped shirt and a navy blue skirt with white flowers. I put the clothes on and went to makeup, where they put some light makeup on me, then curled my hair so it spiraled down instead of the straight mess it usually was. I also put in some skull diomand earrings and brown combat boots to add to the 'me' in my outfit.

Alex came out and was wearing a navy blue silk dress shirt to match mine and gray skinny jeans, and a white leather jacket. His hair looked freshly straightened and was sticking out in all the right places. "Well you clean up nice," I said, giving him a hug.

"Shut it," he said. As the lady came up to us he wrapped his arm around my neck and put his head on mine.

"Just come over here, within the frame. We don't know if we're going to keep white or add something in in place of the green screen," the lady said. Photographers started snapping away, and after that we picked out the ones that we liked the best for the cover photo and pages for the interview. For the cover photo we picked one of me on his back, my arms wrapped around his neck. For the interview photos we picked one of me wearing the leather jacket and him pointing and laughing and the other one was him hugging me and kissing the top of my head and me laughing. "The interview and photos will be in the next issue, and now we were going to put up the two of you preforming on the website." We were led into another green screen room, but this one had two acoustic guitars and two stools plus microphone stands. We took the guitars and worked out that we were going to play an acoustic version of Therapy. I tried not to cry as I sang, but tears blurred my vision and I let one fall down as Alex sang the bridge. I though of everything we had been through without Tom and just wanted to scream. Every time I hear Lullabies or Therapy, I start to cry. This time I had to hold it together, and barely managed to sing the last chorus without bursting into tears.