Don't Cry | Axl Rose

Paitence- Athena's POV

"Are you okay?" I hear the man's deep voice say. I slowly turn around and look at him. He continues approaching me slowly. "Please, let me help you." He says gently. His voice is relaxing to me, soothing in every way. "My name is Axl R-."

"I know who you are," I say sheepishly, looking down at his feet. "And thank you. I really needed someone tonight." I raise my head and look into his eyes. "I'm sorry I'm holding you and your bandmates up. I-I know you have a show tonight. I'm a bit of a fan..."

"It's alright, honey, I told them to wait. I just wanted to make sure the beautiful mystery girl on the rooftop was safe. What's her name, anyway?" Axl says, smirking a bit.

"Athena. Athena Shanely-Nicks." I say, blushing. I'm beginning to feel more comfortable around Axl. Axl extends his hand as if we are about to shake hands, but when I give him my hand he kisses it. This makes me blush even harder.

"Athena," Axl says thoughtfully. "Athena..." He repeats. "Huh. I think that's a lovely name, almost as lovely as you." He smiles at me and I look down at my feet. "It suits you well, with your waist-length brown sugar colored hair and hazel green eyes. And all your freckles are gorgeous." It's silent for a bit, but it's a soothing silence. Axl and I both walk over to the ledge, leaning slightly and looking down at the busy New York City street below.

"Were you gonna jump?" Axl asks quietly, his eyes fixated on the cars down below.

"I- well- um, yes, I was," I say, almost shamefully. "But I was going to see if I could hear any of your music from the roof first and if I could, I was gonna wait until the end of the concert and then jump. W-when you saw me I was kind of j-just planning it all..." My voice shakes a little bit and tears start to form in my eyes. Axl turns his head and looks at me. I just keep staring down at the cars below me, thinking about what could've been.

"Well, hun, I could give you a million reasons why you shouldn't." He says.

"Thank you, but I feel like I could come up with a billion reasons why I should." I say. My breath hitches as I try not to cry. "I mean, I just ran away from my abusive family situation, which is good, I guess, but I still have twenty years of terrible memories I have to deal with. I'm twenty-three now and almost all of the memories I can think of have something to do with some sort of abuse. My parents recently gave birth to twins, and that's when I knew I needed to get out of there. If not for me, than for them. I couldn't bear to see them go through what I've gone through. It would just entirely shatter me. So now we live out here in the city with one of my friends. She's watching them right now. My sisters and I are originally from Scarsdale. It's just... It's been hard." I stutter a bit.

"Oh, wow. I-." Axl gets cut off by a yell from across the street.

"It's been fifteen minutes! Get your ass over here!" Slash yells from the dressing room window. Axl sighs and flips Slash off.

"I really do think I should go, but hey, why don't you come with me? I'll get you a seat in the front and then I'll make sure you can get backstage after the show." Axl extends his hand again, I gladly take it and he begins running to the elevator. I trip over my feet a bit as he pulls me into the elevator, but I just giggle a bit to play it off smoothly. We get off on the main floor, run through the lobby, and past the security guards, Axl shows them a less than affectionate gesture. We run across the street to the venue, still hand in hand.

This is the most thrill I've experienced in quite some time. Axl takes me through the stage door, and from there he leads me up a few sets of staircases to their dressing room. I can't believe it, I just had a conversation with Axl Rose, and now I'm standing in the same room as Axl, Slash, Duff, Izzy, and Steven. I just stand in awe for a moment, taking everything in. Upon seeing that Axl has returned, the rest of the band starts to head to the elevator that takes them to the stage. "Just follow me, and I'll make sure you get a seat." He says, taking my hand again. I follow him to the elevator, and we ride with the rest of the band down to the level of the stage. We get down there and Axl hands me off to a security guard. "This is Athena, make sure she is able to get into the front row, and let her backstage once the show is over. She's with me." The security guard nods and Axl smiles at me before heading on stage with the rest of the band.

The security guard takes me to the front row and I stand at the edge of the row. I thank him and he smiles at me before going backstage again. The audience is so loud, it's almost deafening. The band starts to play and I get lost in their music. All the pain and suffering from earlier seems to slip away. Deep down though, I still can't help but wonder what Axl was going to say before Slash interrupted him.