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

Tell Me that You'll Open your Eyes

Almost immedietly, I cut too deep. Where I would normally start screaming for Alex  or one of the guys, I still smiled and let the blood run down the sink. I heard Rian say something, and open the door. I jumped back, hiding my bloody arm and my razor. But it was too late. The smile on his face faded as he eyed the sink. He slowly walked over to me and grabbed my arms. In the first, he took the razor from my hands and set it down on the vanity. Then he grabbed my bleeding forearm and inspected it. It stil hadn't stopped bleeding yet, and the entire arm was covered in smeared blood. "When did you do this?" He asked seriously, in a low tone I had almost never heard him use. I didn't answer him, and the anger in his eyes kept growing. "I said, when did you do this?" He asked so loud he was almost shouting. The other three guys appeared in the doorway, their eyes all glued to my arm.

"Now," I mumbled. "Just now." He sighed and turned around.

"Zack, go see if there's a hotel doctor or something. Jack, you better go with him," Rian said, ignoring Alex's presence. Alex just stared, a faraway look in his eyes.

I didn't really feel like getting a lecture right then, and didn't worry about getting one. "Attention-seeker," Alex said coldly. Then he turned on his feet and walked out of the hotel room, and slammed the door. My eyes filled with tears, but I didn't let them out this time. Instead, Zack came back into the room, without Jack. They must have passed each other and Jack had chosen to go with Alex. Zack handed Rian a strip of bandages, cleaned off my arm, and wrapped the strip around my forearm untill no more open cuts were visible.

"Am I an attention seeker?" I asked quietly as Zack tied it off. He shook his head and sighed.

"Look. You're not. Alex is just pissed off right now and there's nothing we can do about it. He went to the studio to do who-knows-what. I say we just let him be right now," he said. Then his phone started blasting a random tune and he answered it, said a few words, and hung up. "That was Jack. He said they're going to go ahead and record the backup vocals and the guitars, and that we'll trade off and record the bass and drums later. He didn't say anything about vocals." I nodded.

"That's fine. The last thing I feel like doing right now is trying to record," I said, flopping onto my bed.

"I'm going to the Starbucks across the street for awhile," Rian said. That obviously meant he was going to go call Cassadee and get more Starbucks points. He walked out the door, leaving me and Zack. Zack got out his acoustic and started playing some random song. I turned on my phone and started listening to Angels Cry by the Red Jumpsuit Apparatus, and instantly felt a pain of regret as I pressed the sleep button and unlocked it, as the lock screen was me with Alex. I noticed that I was in Alex's bed, curled under the covers. And I was using his hoodie as a pillow. I pulled the hoodie into my hands and inspected it. Like Alex, the hoodie radiated heat. I pulled it over my head, and sat up with my legs against my chest as I got a notification that Alex had updated his status. Confused. Confused beyond belief. Why? Because everything that I used to be close with is drifting away and onto a path of destruction. Below it were comments from fans, saying how sorry they were and that they loved him. I laughed in disbelief. How could he say that? And I was not drifting away into a path of destruction or something. He was talking about me like I was a train wreck. Which I was. Well, emotionally. I bit back a curse and threw the phone next to me. It landed next to me again with a flop. To let myself recover from my emotions I took a shower. I pulled on a purple tank, black, purple, white, and rust-colored tribal print spaghetti strap knit tank, and some black shorts from Aero and my favorite pair of black Toms, and then went back out into the inter-connected rooms after drying and straightening my hair. This time, everyone was back, including Alex. Wow, recording Lullabies didn't take as long as I thought it would.