[AustinCarlile] Live Forever

[AustinCarlile] Live Forever [ChapterFifteen]

Author's Note:
Okay, I'm so mad at myself, because this isn't really how I wanted this to go. I mean, it is, I wanted them to tell each other they like each other and crap, but I don't know. I think I'm just at the point of just making them a couple and getting on with what I wanted to do with the story right away because this is boring me. Yeah? Yeah. Sounds good. Oh, and if you're into shipping Austin and Alan, check out TacoBelle's Austlan fanfic.

“How are you?” I smile, not fighting the upward curve of the corners of my lips, as I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, tugging my right ankle up, placing it under my left knee. It’s been two days, two days of travel, of staying locked in the bus for the most part, trying to get to the next venue as early as possible just to know that we’re there and not have to rush or worry about sitting in traffic. This was keeping me sane, talking to him, being able to look at him, to see that he looks happier, to see that he’s moving more, to hear him improving his speech.

He smiles back, a real smile, it makes my heart melt, I know that he knows it’s because of him, nothing else is really going well for me, and he knows it, I tell him everything, he’s the best listener I’ve ever known. “I-I-I'm g-goo-go-good. Wh-Where ar-a-are you n-now?” I can see my mother in the background, the book in her hands covering half of her face, sitting on the extra cot, the one that became her permanent bed, but she pays no mind to me, pays no mind to my brother, not right now, she’s constantly worrying, constantly asking questions.

My mother and I talk all the time, I text her constantly, as if I'm still in high school, letting her know what’s happening, asking for what’s going on there, complaining, letting her vent, anything really, and it’s always been like that. Blaze and Tatum would joke about how it wasn’t just the three of us, it was four of us, that my mom was always included, because they looked at her as if she was their mother as well, she was that mom, the one they went to when they needed advice or to vent.

I don’t talk about them, my brother and my mother, ever, not with people who don’t know them personally; it’s no one’s business really. I'm not ashamed of them, if anything I'm proud of them, I'm overjoyed that they’re the people I call my family, but I don’t want pity because of what happened to my brother, I don’t want cliché words of advice, I don’t want any of that, so I don’t let it happen. They don’t need to know, they don’t know him, it’s not my story to tell, really, and even if it was, I wouldn’t, they don’t need to know everything about me.

“We’re in Vegas. We just got here about an hour ago with some of the other bands. It looks horrible here. It’s so hot.” I wish he was here, with us, as the tour manager, not that I have anything against Hunter, he’s just not my brother, he wasn’t what we had envisioned in the beginning. When Nate and I realized that we had talent, that we were good enough to form a band and get on a record label, it was always with the plan to make Adam our manager, that no matter what the label said, Adam would be our manager or we would simply work unsigned.

It didn’t happen that way, it was that way for a while, in the beginning, before we were signed, a few months into being on a record label, and the people at Fearless never cared, they liked Adam, everyone liked Adam, and then he got into the accident. That’s when things changed, we stopped touring for a while, simply told everyone that we wanted to create an amazing album and we couldn’t do that on the road, but Fearless knew, they're the only people outside of my makeshift family who knew.

He nods his head slowly, placing his hands on the armrests of his wheelchair; I’ve grown accustomed to that sight, him sitting in a wheelchair, confined to it, using it as his only means of getting around. In all honesty, I’d rather him be paralyzed for life and stuck in a rehabilitation center than six feet under, and maybe it’s selfish, but life without him would be hell. “Yo-you neve-nev-never did we-well in t-th-t-the hea-heat.”