[AustinCarlile] Live Forever

[Austin Carlile] Live Forever [ChapterFour]

Author's Note:
I know, it's not the best, and there is no drama. But, I have to build up to their relationship. And, let me tell you, it's killing me because they're going to be the cutest couple I've ever written about. I just want to start writing it, but that would be weird, I don't think that Austin would just jump into a relationship. Or would he (in this story)? You'll just have to read the next update when it comes out. OH, and all the songs by Devon's band Every Anchor is really by Picture Me Broken because I can't write lyrics for my life.

“What other tattoos do you have?” His question shocks me, breaking the comfortable silence between the two of us that lingered in the air for so long, his voice is soft, sweet, as if he wants to know because he’s interested and not simply creating small talk. Tilting his head to the side, he smiles, glancing at my left arm, pressed against my side, the brown inks showing slightly. “Like, that one.” Pointing to it, he raise an eyebrow, truly and genuinely interested in what makes me who I am, what I have felt such an attachment to or felt was so symbolic that I had to have it tattooed onto my skin.

Lifting my arm, twisting it so my palm was facing the sky, the cloudless sky, I glance at the dreamcatcher, m eyes shifting to Austin’s body, sitting so close to mine. “I got this for my eighteenth birthday, to keep away all the negative comments and bad feelings.” It feels so easy, so natural, to tell him this, to talk to him the way I would talk to one of the guys, I don’t have to think, even though my insides are tangled with nerves I feel comfortable with him, sitting next to him, talking to him. “I spent at least ten hours at the parlor. The guy who did this tattoo, Jeremy, has done all my other tattoos.”

Drawing his eyebrows together, he pulls his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins, turning his head to the side to look at me, his eyes squinting in the bright sun. “Other tattoos?” His question makes me laugh; I nod my head, shrugging my shoulders, unsure as to why that’s shocking, not knowing what he means by his surprised tone. “I mean, I know that you grew up in this hardcore scene, but I didn’t picture you as the girl to sit down and deal with needles.”

“I'm not.” It’s weird, the guys don’t get it, my family doesn’t get it, my friends don’t get it, Jeremy doesn’t get it, I don’t get it. I love my tattoos, all of them: where they're placed, what they mean to me, how they look, who did them, why I got them, who was with me when I got them done, how much time and effort was spent on creating them, everything. It’s not easy, being judged, all the time, for things that make you happy, for things that remind you of moments in life that you never want to fade away from your mind. “Your body is a canvas; I chose to ink mine with things that remind me of the good things in life.”

Nodding his head, he silently tells me that he knows what I'm saying, that he agrees, that he knows what it means to make the decision to put something on your body permanently. “Is this what you always wanted to do?” Confused, I knit my eyebrows together, wrinkling my nose, cocking my head to the side, the heat finally setting in, causing sweat to bead near my hair, so I run my hand through it, trying to push it away so he doesn’t see, but then again it’s Warped, of course I'm going to sweat. “Did you always want to be a singer?” It doesn’t make sense to me, I don’t understand, why he’s taking such an interest in my life, what he sees in me that he doesn’t see in the other girls on this tour, and there are beautiful girls, girls who would usually catch a Warped guy’s attention.

There was a time, a few months ago, that I didn’t really want this, didn’t really know why I was doing this – the money sucks, the hours are crazy, the touring never ends, my throat burns all the time, I'm rarely in a comfortable bed. Though, since I was little, I wanted this, wanted the tours, wanted the long hours in the studio, wanted the fans, wanted the influence, wanted it all, the good and the bad. “I wanted to be Lita Ford when I was younger, or Belle from Beauty and the Beast, so I settled for the more realistic of the two. I don’t know. I didn’t really do anything to help me become a singer. It just happened. I'm happy that it did, though.”