I was instantly reminded why it is that up until this point in my life I had chosen not to get wasted. Waking up that morning, actually that afternoon, was even more painful than walking in on Lex fucking Kate. I didn’t think I could move, let alone walk when Zac tried to get me to go out to Isaac's car. My head was pounding, and my legs felt like rubber and when I finally stood up it felt like every drop of blood had rushed to my head at the same time.

I’m sure it didn’t help my pain any that I woke up crammed on Isaac’s loveseat with my head and legs hanging over its opposite sides, and Isaac loudly announcing that we’d be leaving for Cain’s Ballroom in exactly 30 minutes. Or the fact that he had taken it upon himself to open every single curtain in his house to fill it to the brim with sunlight.

I had no recollection of Zac and Isaac’s deal, and due to my newly formed fear of being alone I was not going to be left at Isaac’s house all day by myself. I tried to convince Zac that he didn’t need to go, and while I easily won him over, Isaac put down his fist. I even pled that we couldn’t go because I didn’t have any shoes but to quote Isaac, “Good thing Nikki left a pair of flip flops the last time she was here. You love flip flops don’t you?”

I think I might hate that man.

After my lost struggle with Isaac to stay at his house and die in peace, I was forced to face the light that burned my eyes, and stagger out to the car.

I felt like a vampire that day. I could barely keep my eyes open when I stepped out onto his front porch. Zac literally had to drag me out to the car, and add in a moving vehicle, and Isaac’s voice as he carelessly talked on his cell phone made my stomach turn over, and over, and over as I curled up in a ball in the backseat next to Zac, with my head on his lap, clutching his hand every time we hit the slightest bump. I breathed through my nose, inhaling deep, trying to keep from heaving, as Zac lazily ran his fingertips up and down my inner forearm in an attempt to keep me calm.

He was in a little better condition than I was, and I figured he must have done this before, but I sure as hell haven’t. Why anyone would voluntarily do this to themselves I have no clue.

When the car came to a stop behind the venue, I was faced with mixed blessings. I would be safe from the motion of the car, and Isaacs’s inconsiderate ramblings, but I would have to get out of the car and face the sunlight and no longer be safe behind heavily tinted windows.

Oh, and screaming fans. Forgot about them.

Great.

Before we got out of the car Zac handed me small orange ear plugs, and instructed me to put them in. Isaac got out of the car first and opened up my passenger door. I glared at him, and cursed at him under my breath. I slowly slid out of the car, looking down the whole time with my hands up by my face to keep the sun out, and block my swollen face from the fans. Zac slid out of the car behind me, and placed his hand on the small of my back and softly pushed me in the direction on the doors. He guided me as we rushed from the car to the door, and as soon as we were inside the dark venue, I leaned my back against the wall and collapsed to the ground.

Zac sat down next to me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I welcomed his embrace and let my head fall onto his shoulder as I started crying again.

“We’re gunna be okay,” he assured me, removing his arm from around my shoulder, and placing his index finger under my chin, and gently guiding my face up to meet his him. He looked me straight in the eye. “I promise.”

I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him, but I didn’t. And I knew he didn’t believe it himself.

“Don’t ever lie to me again,” I said looking down, avoiding his eyes. He sighed, defeated and wrapped his arm back around me. I could feel his hot breath in my hair as he breathed in and out.

“How are you going to be able to play tonight?” I asked him between sniffles.

“Luckily for me, I can pound my drums as hard as I want. If I played anything else I don’t think I could.”

After a moment of silence, I looked back up at his face and apologized. “I’m so sorry, Zac,” I said as sniffled.

“For what?” he asked. His face was inches from mine, which made it hard to focus on his eyes while I cried.

“For this. For everything. I just, it’s, you know, I, this, everyth-”

“Jovie,” he said softly, but sternly, stopping me from rambling. “This is not your fault.” He stared straight into my eyes, and I stopped crying as a sense of calmness fell over me. He lightly kissed my forehead, then I placed my head back onto his shoulder, and we sat in silence for another minute.

I could have stayed like that for hours, but unfortunately there was business at hand. The doors that Zac and I had walked through minutes before flew open, and I winced when the bright sunlight and shrieks rushed through the small opening reinforcing the headache that was just starting to leave. Taylor, Isaac and Natalie walked through the doors and found Zac and I sitting up against the wall.

They walked up to us cautiously and no one said a word for a minute, then Taylor spoke, reaching into his pockets. “Mom said these were ringing all morning.” He was holding our cell phones in his hands, and gave them to us. “And we thought you’d want this,” he said to me, handing me a grocery bag filled with the contents of my purse from the night before.

“Thanks,” I said looking into the grocery bag and shaking my head. I didn’t realize I’d left everything there, and I'm sure it must have looked strange to find everything spilled over Zac's floor.

“Where’re your kids?” Zac asked, noticing they weren’t there.

“Um, we left them at mom and dad’s,” he answered slowly, looking at Isaac, then back at Zac. “They missed ‘em, so we figured it would be nice to give them some time with grandma and grandpa.”

I watched Isaac’s face as Taylor spoke, and rolled my eyes when he nodded in approval of Taylor’s obviously coached response.

Liars.

“Natalie’s gunna take you back to the dressing room, Jovie,” Isaac spoke softly, extending his hand to me.

I took it, even though I didn’t want to, and let him help me up. He didn’t say anything else, but I knew that he’d told Taylor and Natalie what happened. I dusted off my back and looked down at Zac. He stood up too, and spoke as if he could read my mind.

“As soon as we’re finished warming up I promise I’ll come back there and find you.”

I reluctantly nodded, and turned around to face Natalie who silently led me back to their dressing room.

Once we were inside she shut the door behind us, and looked at me with sympathy. She stayed by the door rubbing her round belly, and waited for me to say something first.

I sighed and dropped my body onto the couch against the wall. “Isaac told you didn’t he?” I asked, then curled up and rested my head on my arms. I was exhausted, and it this was the last place I wanted to be, but it was either here and near Zac, or crying alone in Isaac’s empty house.

“No,” she said shaking her head. She walked over and sat on the chair next to the couch before continuing, “but we figured something was up when he told Taylor not to bring the kids because you two might be a little hung over, and to call Kate and tell her to not bother showing up, and to tell Topher there’s no use in them showing up tonight either. We may be pretty, but we’re not dumb.”

“He really didn’t tell you?”

She shook her head, “No. And he told me not to ask, so I'm not going to.”

“Have you talked to Kate?”

She shook her head again and sighed, “She won’t answer my calls.”

I rolled my eyes. “Some best friend you’ve got.”

My cell phone started ringing, and I looked down to see that it was Annie. Normally, I would have answered, but I was sure she’d be freaking out due to my abrupt absence. Once my voicemail and taken the call, I flipped open my phone and turned it off.

Natalie was still sitting in the chair next me, and even though she said she wasn’t going to ask, I could tell she was waiting for me to tell her. I decided that since it was somewhat obvious I’d just tell her to get her to leave me alone, so that I could hopefully crash and sleep for awhile.

“Kate cheated on Zac.” I said and paused when her eyes grew wide, then continued, “With Lex.”

“Your Lex?” she asked, her mouth staying open as she looked at me.

I looked down, and pulled my body into a tighter ball. “Yes, my Lex.”

“Oh my God, Jovie.”

“I know,” I said looking up at her. “You really didn’t know?”

She scrunched up her nose and fidgeted with her hands uncomfortably before answering without looking me in the eye. “Kinda.”

I nodded, “I thought so.”

She sat there from a minute and I shut my eyes. After awhile she announced, “I’m gunna go…somewhere and let you sleep a little.”

She shut off the lights, and walked out of the room then quietly shut the door behind her. As soon as she was out of the room I slipped off to sleep.

I woke up when I heard the door creak open. I didn’t move, but I opened my eyes just enough to see Zac's head poking in through the opening.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you up,” he whispered when I lifted my head.

“It’s okay,” I said yawning as I stretched out my body. I used my arms to push myself up, to make more room on the couch so that Zac could join me. He shut the door behind him then sat down next to me on the couch and yawned.

“Nat knows,” I said breaking the silence. He nodded and stretched out his legs before sinking farther into the couch.

“I’m not surprised.”

I shrugged my shoulders and agreed, “Yeah, me either I guess.”

“Are you feeling any better?” Zac asked, leaning his head back onto the cushion behind his head, and looked at me.

“I feel a little bit less like death,” I said with a small smile.

“You’re smiling again, so that’s good,” he said, patting my thigh.

I shrugged my shoulders inhaled deeply. “How long until you play?”

“I dunno,” he sighed, “an hour or so. I thought I’d try to get a nap or something though.”

“Thank God. No offense, but I wasn’t about to sit here and talk for an hour. You don’t have to twist my arm,” I assured him, and scooted over to one side of the couch so he could lie down on the other end. Our heads rested at opposite ends of the couch, and our legs met in the middle, so we carefully entwined them so that there would be no injuries, and settled in to sleep again.

I woke up to muffled music, vibrating through the walls of the empty, dark room that I’d spent most of my day in, recovering from my night of hell. I was feeling better than earlier, but the empty room took on an eerie feeling once it became a little darker. I started to feel a little panicked when I realized Zac was nowhere to be found.

I sat up on the couch and pulled my legs up to my chest, and wrapped my arm tight around them as I set my chin in my knees, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light radiating through the one window in the room. It was just barely night, and the sky hadn’t taken on its fullest black color yet. Instead it was a dark purple with streaks of dark blue clouds. There were no stars out tonight, and I could only see a small sliver of the moon.

I adjusted my body so that when I laid back down my head was on the opposite end, where Zac's had previously been. I could still feel the warmth that his body had left in the cushions, so he must not have left too long ago.

I rolled over onto my side, bent my knees and inhaled the scent that he left embedded in the couch, leaving me slightly light headed from the soothing scent. I drew in another deep breath through my nose and held it for a moment before slowly exhaling it. I’d always thought that the most soothing scent was “guy.” There’s that one smell that guys wear, granted there’s slight differences between colognes, but they don’t stay too far from that once scent. For whatever reason that scent has an extremely calming effect on me.

Well, it had a calming effect on me until I remembered that scent as the one that Lex was wearing the day before.

He hadn’t showered that morning, and since I had commented before that Zac's cologne was the perfect guy smell, Lex had taken upon himself to douse himself in Zac's cologne before he left for the jewelry store with Kate. The one time he actually listened to me had to be the one thing that could haunt me forever. Scent is the strongest link to memory, and from now on whenever I smell that cologne I just know it’ll make me think of him.

He hugged me before he left, burrowing my face into his chest, filling my head with that smell. I even complimented him on it. He was wearing the tan and white plaid button up shirt that I bought for him when we firsts started dating. He always wore that shirt, and when he went out of town he’d let me keep it at my house to remember him.

He loved the fact that I worked in a thrift store, because I would get half off the already cheap clothes that he adored. His favorites were the “old man pants” and the occasional button up shirts from the seventies. He’s get so happy when I found weird clothes to add to his collection. What can I say, he was easy to please. All it took was a three dollar pair of brown polyester pants.

I’m pretty sure that his entire wardrobe consisted of clothes that I’d bought for him. The thrift store clothing and black All Stars, that is. His most prized possession is the All Star that Brendan Kelly from the Lawrence Arms signed for him. He would wear them everywhere, even to his Sister’s wedding. I was pretty sure that him and my mom would have to duke it out on whether or not he’d be wearing them for ours.

He’d wear the same pair until they were completely falling apart. The only time he would buy new ones were when his were completely unable to be worn, because he hated breaking-in a new pair, because hated them when they were still bright white. He called them too ghetto then, and he threw a fit when they got popular again, because his plain black All Stars got expensive, and people started calling them Chucks, which drove him crazy. He pitched a fit when he went to buy a pair of plain black ones and all they had were black ones with pink on the inside. He literally made the girl behind the counter cry.

And let me tell you, those shoes reeked. He rarely wore socks with them, and once they got wet they were unbearable. For some reason, he thought it was hilarious to take them off in the van when everyone got out for bathroom breaks at truck stops. That way when everyone got back into the van it was almost impossible to breathe. Of course it was funny when he did it in the van that I wasn’t in, but not when I was in the infested van.

Or he would hide one of his shoes in the other van, and that way they couldn’t find it to take it out, so it would smell for an entire day until they found the shoe. But someone always got him back, and one time it backfired on him. He left just one of his shoes in the other van, and Adam his bass player threw out the old shoe and replaced it with a brand new, bright white shoe. He was so pissed off that day because he had to wear one beat in shoe, and one brand new shoe which drove him crazy. He didn’t talk to Adam for the rest of the day. If I’m not mistaken, that was the last time he did that.

He was fun and spontaneous ever since we started dating. The first time I saw his band play, during one of the songs he got up from behind his drums and jumped into the crowd. He jumped right in the pit, and when he got back on stage he had a bloody nose, but it didn’t stop him from playing. He was actually kind of proud of his “battle scar.”

After the show, Annie and I were talking, waiting for Topher to come find us, and when he did he had Lex with him. As soon as Lex saw me he recognized me as “that girl from Lenny’s Thrift Store!” We hung out at the venue afterwards, for a good part of the night. I was nervous the whole time, but he was beaming with confidence as he came down from his post-show rush. He joked most of the night, calling all attention to him, but even if he wasn’t I'm sure I wouldn’t have been able to take my eyes off him anyway. I remember him just smiling at me, and it sending my stomach into somersaults.

He was the drummer, and I guess it would be a lie if I said that didn’t affect my initial attraction to him. After that the attraction went deeper, but that night I was in complete awe of him, and I couldn’t help but feel special when other girls would come up to talk to him and he would just smile and continue talking to me. Now it’s just annoying to have girls coming up to him when I'm talking to him, but it used to be exciting to have him when other girls wanted him.

We exchanged numbers that night. Not on purpose, or so Lex would say, but I'm sure he had it planned out. He told me he couldn’t find his cell phone, so he used mine to call his. It turns out that it was in his pocket the whole time, but that way he got my number and his was saved to my phone. To this day he denies that he did it on purpose, but I know he did.

And being spontaneous, he kissed me that night. I just got into my car when he came running out of the venue calling my name. I started to roll down my window, but when he reached my car he opened my car door, bent down and kissed me right on the lips. I was taken completely by surprise by the feel of his soft lips pressing hard, but yet delicately against mine, with the heat of his face radiating against mine, sending shivers up and down my spine. The kiss couldn’t have last more that a few seconds, and when he pulled away I didn’t open my eyes right away in fear of realizing it hadn’t really happened.

When I finally worked myself up to opening my eyes he was still there smiling. Without say anything at all, he shut the car door, turned around and jogged back into the venue. He didn’t turn around, but he waved over his shoulder just before he entered back into the venue.

I sat glowing in my car for another five minutes trying to calm myself down enough to drive home. The whole way home my face was red, and my cheeks burned from smiling. My heart raced as I played the kiss over and over in my head feeling like a 12 year old girl as I squealed with excited and called Kinsley to brag.

She was jealous. Really jealous, and I must say that that added to my excitement. Kinsley was the more outgoing type than I was, and always lured boys in, and was set on conquering “Trophie.” But he didn’t want her. He wanted me.

And he called me the very next day.

We started dating about two months later. He was anxious to date, but I held him off long enough playing hard to get. I made him work for it, I suppose, but I really wanted to make sure that I knew him before we started dating, and I wanted to make sure he knew I wasn’t in it for sex, and that he wasn’t either. That and I wanted to make sure he knew my name was Jovie, not Josie, and that took a couple weeks to get it into his head.

Things just happened perfectly, or so I thought. Annie and I became better friends, and if it wasn’t for me meeting Lex I'm not sure she and I would have become as good of friends as we are now. My brothers really like him too, and since growing up me and my brothers weren’t really close, we got to be closer because they actually enjoyed hanging out with Lex and I.

My parents even liked him. Go figure. Even as “bad ass” as Lex liked to pretend to be, my dad knew Lex was afraid of him, so they trusted him not to do anything stupid with me. I’ve had other boyfriends in the past who my parents absolutely hated, but they didn’t hate Lex. Everything went so smoothly that from the beginning I felt like we could spend the rest of our lives together.

That’s why he had to be really creative of how to propose to me, because honestly neither one of us doubted that we would get married, and so I wouldn’t have been surprised I he took me out somewhere, all nervous to propose to me. Instead we were at my grandparents’ house on Christmas Eve.

My mom, who was apparently in on it, insisted that we pose for a picture in the backyard. It snowed all day that day, and the trees were completely covered. We went out for the picture when it started snowing again, and my mom had taken one picture and was getting ready for the second picture when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to the ground with him. We rolled around in the snow, screaming and laughing as we fought to cover each other’s faces with the snow. After a minute or so, we called truce, and that’s when he pulled out the ring and asked me to marry him. We were both lying in a pile of snow, while it was still coming down. What’s really neat is my mom actually got a picture of him while he was asking me, and you can see his white breath in the picture, so it’s like you can actually see his proposal. We got that one blown up and in black in white.

Okay, maybe that’s a little cheesy but I thought it was cool.

So I started crying, because I totally was not expecting it at that time. I said yes, and when he went in for the romantic kiss, I smashed a handful of snow in his face.

My mom got that on camera too.

I shut my eyes when it hit me that it was real. There was no way to undo this, and everything we had is long gone. I started crying again for what seemed like the millionth time since yesterday. It’s amazing how many tears I can produce; I thought I’d be all cried out by now with the rate I’ve been going. Each time it feels like I should feel better after I’ve let it out, but I don’t. I feel just as terrible, but with a runny nose and red eyes.

Once I’d stopped sobbing, or at least calmed down a little, I looked around the room to find the cooler with bottle water, pop, and a few bottles of beer.

“Don’t mind if I do,” I said out loud as I stood up and walked over to the cooler and picked up my cure on ice.

I walked back to the couch and threw my body down onto the cushions. I opened the bottle and took a sip, leaving my face twisted in disgusts. Then I took another. And then another.

I felt a little better after I drank away some of my problem. I was just buzzed to the point of feeling relaxed enough to wander through the venue to find the stage. I slipped on Nikki’s flip flops and stood up slowly, so to not loose my balance. I cautiously found my way to the door and walked out into the hallway.

I walked down the hall with my finger tips brushing against the cool brick wall the whole way for added support. The music seemed a little less distant as I staggered up a set of poorly lit stairs. I tripped over myself on the way up, and was thankful once I reached the top. I found myself at a landing, and pushed the door at the top open. I knew I was in the right place due to the heavy gust of music that pushed me backwards, almost sending my spilling onto the ground.

I eventually found myself standing off to the side of the stage, next to Natalie who was nodding along with the music. The dark that my eyes had grown accustomed to was now long gone as the bright stage lights leaked into the wings and lit up my face. The unwelcome light danced across my eyes, giving me no time to brace myself. The lights flashed from blue to green, then yellow to orange and red, over and over darting from left to right and up and down, leaving streaks of color as my sluggish eyes tried to follow them.

The lights mixed with the blaring music, and the crowd yelling along with Taylor almost sent me into sensory overload. I squinted my eyes to save them from the attack. I tried to focus on the ground, but the lights reflecting off the metal of the drums caught my eyes as it sparkled in the beaming lights. Zac was on his throne, fiercely pounding away. My heart jumped every time he hit the drum. I’ve seen him play before, but tonight I was more captivated by his while body movements as he released his emotion into his drums.

My eyes were feeling heavy, and I could feel my body start to relax even more, and lean to one side. I let my eyelids fall shut as I swayed slowly along to the music. I sang along in my head to the songs that had become quite familiar over the tour.

“Jovie!” A voice came cutting through my relaxing trance once the music had stopped. My body instantly tensed back up, as I pried open my heavy eyelids that had been guarding me from the abrasive lights.

Natalie stood in front of me, both of her hands were grasping my arms. She was smiling ear to ear, and started laughing as I squinted and blinked my eyes trying to figure out what she was doing. “You were about to fall over!”

I looked past her as the lights went down on stage. Taylor and Isaac had plugged in their acoustic guitars, and sat down on two stools placed in the center of the stage. Zac walked off the stage with a bottle of water in his hand and took a small white towel from one of the roadies waiting off stage. He took a big gulp of the water, and poured some of it over his head, then shook off the excess and wiped his head over with the towel.

When he spotted me he threw the bottle and towel on the ground and walked over to me.

“Hey there sleepy smile,” he said, relating back to the night I met him. He seemed to be in a rather good mood considering the state I was in.

I smiled and waved back at him.

Once he reached me he leaned down to talk directly into my ear since Taylor and Isaac had started playing again. “Nice to see you’ve recovered. It’s about time you woke up.”

I smiled and stood up on my tippy toes to speak into his ear, “Yeah, some asshole was playing his drums way too loud.”

“Image that,” he laughed with his arms crossed over his chest, then placed his hand firmly on the small of my back to pull my closer to his mouth, as he spoke into my ear again. “ We’ve got a couple more songs, then we can head out. Isaac’s letting me take his car so we can get out of here as soon as we’re done.”

“His what?” I yelled back into his ear.

“His car!” he spoke loudly directly into my ear, then looked back at his face, with a smirk. “Have you been drinking again?”

I smiled, and tried not to look too guilty as I held up my hand, with my index figure and thumb held just slightly apart, “Just a little.”

“Just a little?” he laughed. “I’m sure. Thanks for starting without me,” he said shaking his head, but still smiling.

“You’re in a good mood,” I stated, feeling it rub off onto me. Or maybe it was just the intoxication. I don’t know, but either way I was smiling too.

“Yeah, playing my drums usually does that,” he nodded, as he took his hand off my back, then turned to the stage to watch Isaac and Taylor play. We both watched them, and clapped when they were done, then Zac turned back to me. “Gotta get back out there,” he announced, bending over to hug me. “Hold off on the drinks till I’m done,” he joked, then turned around and jogged back onto the stage.

As soon as the show was over, Zac took a bow, then ran off the stage. He grabbed my hand we ran back down to the dressing room to grab my grocery bag, the he pulled me through the halls, carefully guiding me around corners, and up the stairs. We ran toward the door, and threw it open, letting the cool air swirl into our lungs before we quickly got into Isaac’s car and started driving.

“So where are we going?” Zac asked as he drove toward the parking lot exit.

I shrugged my shoulders then suggested, “I could call Annie and see if she’s got anything good. I think we pretty much took all Isaac had to give. Let me call her first.”

I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket. I didn’t remember putting it there, but I was glad I did. “Annie!” I said cheerfully into the phone, but winced as soon as she started yelling.

“Where the fuck have you been? What the hell do you think you’re doing…” I had forgotten that I haven’t talked to her since it happened. It was obvious that she had been waiting to hear from me to yell at me for disappearing for a day.

“Not important.” I cut her off, but she cut me right back off.

“Not important my ass! Where the fuck are you?”

“We’re on the way to the hotel. Go throw everything of Lex's into the hallway. Do you have any alcohol or should I stop to get some?”

“Jovie.” she said sternly, “What is going on?”

“I’ll tell you when we get there.”

“Who? Who is ‘we’?”

“Zac.”

“Oh my god Jovie. Just get over here.”