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When Roses Grow Black Chapter 34 I rubbed my eyes tiredly as the two gradually and carefully brought Nick into the tour bus. I looked up at the stars above me and sighed. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight, I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight. Well, the wish is a little bit different than the other one. Although I would like to thank you for making it finally come true for me. I wish tonight, to find answers to my questions and get out of this safely." I sighed once more as I remembered how many other nights I would repeat the same phrase and wish. I could always look at the stars for hours on end without realizing how much time had passed me by. I tended to shut out the world around me and generate my own perfect world. I learned to do this at a young age. It came in handy when the tension between my family became too high to withstand. For as far back as I could remember there was always tension, anger, awkwardness, or hate bouncing around my household. It came to a point where I viewed it as normal. If the walls of my house were living things, they would have bled 24/7 due to the atmosphere they absorbed. Life was too harsh, it hurt too bad if you couldn't escape into your own world. The stars helped me create my world, and how it would be. "Hey, Rose?" I jumped as I felt some one tug on my sleeve and pull me out of my thoughts. I turned to face AJ who was looking at me as if I would break at any second. Did that much pain really radiate off me? 'No,' I decided, 'I'm just paranoid." "Yeah, AJ?" I asked as I wrapped my arms around me as a chill went down my spine. The night air was dense and humid, but I was suddenly cold and felt a shiver coming on. I held it to myself, too stubborn to show any more weakness than I already had. "Are you coming inside any time soon? You've been out here for and hour just staring up at the sky," he asked as he wearily approached me. An hour? I had spaced out into my own world unwillingly for an hour? Wow, I hadn't even realized. "Um, yeah, I'll be right in," I stuttered, "Um, how long were you watching me?" I fidgeted nervously under his sad gaze. He didn't give me a direct answer, and I still try and figure out what was going through his mind. Perhaps at the time he just felt like being comforted by his own voice. Or maybe it really was for my benefit, in some weird way. "Every time I look at you, I'm not sure what to think. True, I just met you, but some people are one way, one personality most of the time. Every time I talk with you, you're a different person. It's like your battling yourself for who is going to be in control. At times you're sweet, others you're weak, and then a minute later you're strong. I just don't know what to expect. I guess I'm trying to figure you out. Like if I figure you out, I'll figure out why all this is happening. You're the key to this dungeon we're in now and we have to solve you before anything else." He stated as he shrugged. I was speechless. Totally and utterly speechless. I had nothing I could say to that. I was too tired to think, but wowed at the same time. One sentence came out of my mouth before I went and fell asleep out of exhaustion and shock of the previous day in the bunk above Nick was, "We'll figure this out in the morning."I woke up to the smell of coffee tickling my nostrils, and a gentle hand shaking me awake. I rolled over with a moan of protest and covered my face with the blankets. As far as I was concerned it was still time to sleep. "Time to wake up, Rose. Gee, why do I feel like I've said this before?" I heard Brian complain sarcastically. "Cause you always get suckered into waking her!" I then heard AJ yell from some other part of the bus. I couldn't help but smile as I realized that every time someone woke me, it was Brian. "Hey! I see that smile! You're awake!" Brian exclaimed before I rolled onto my stomach. "Hmm, lets find out if you're ticklish. That works on Leighanne." I froze in my place. I was one of the most ticklish people in the world and my back and sides were the worst. In other words I was in the wrong position to stay asleep. If my eyes were open they would have bulged out of my head at the mention of being tickled. I braced myself for the tickling and I could almost feel Brian's evil smile radiate on to my back. I stayed like that for a minute, but the tickling never came. In fact, there was no sound behind me at all. I sighed out of relief and prepared to go back to sleep. The worst thing I could have done. The second I calmed down, Brian was tickling up and down my sides. I screamed out as I laughed almost too hard to breathe. "Oh My God!!! AHHHHH!!! HELP!!! Please, stop!!" I didn't get any other words out as I couldn't stop laughing. As quick as he began, he stopped and looked at me. I gave him a mock glare as I attempted to catch my breath. He smiled innocently, "You up now?" "Get out of the way, I want my coffee," I grumbled while attempting to keep my fake glare fixed on him. He raised his hands up like I was holding him at gun point and started backing out of the bunk. Thunk! His face twisted into a look of mixed shock and pain, "OW!" He had hit his head on the top of the bunk, and hard at that. I felt bad, but I couldn't help but not keep a straight face. I began laughing at him. "It's not funny!" he whined as he held the back of his head. Did you ever notice that whenever some one gets hurt, you can't help but laugh at them? Someone could fall off a house and people would laugh at it. When some one gets hurt, their face is almost always comical. Even the most serious situations some one will laugh. People live for reactions. Everything in life is cause and effect. That's the way it goes. People subconsciously understand this and everything they do is to see how it effects others. Subconsciously, the girl who steals her friends' boyfriend wants to see what her friend would do. Sadly enough, that is how the human mind works. I was laughing for the first time in weeks, but the whole time the laughter was coming out I was screaming and crying inside to stop. As I laughed painful memories escaped out of their carefully locked chests and flashed before my eyes. So many happy times that were gone too fast, and to never return. Memories of my family when I was too naïve to see the truth. To see the pain filled in everyone's eyes. I was too young. Even now I still consider myself too young to be aware of these horrible facts. Nobody should be aware of them. Were they what took away innocence? Memories of me and Krystal sneaking out at night and walking to the elementary school top play on the playground. Just me and her, it was our little thing. But, she doesn't need me for that anymore. She found someone else to walk there with. And she tells me of their adventures. The whole magic of it is now gone because she turned it into a normal thing. Memories of me and Gerry laughing, and laughing, and laughing. It would be the dumbest thing and we'd crack up laughing. And finally, amusement parks. Some while friends others with my family. Every happy moment with anyone who was ever in my life I saw at least once. I was no longer on the tour bus laughing at Brian. I was now trapped in my own mind surrounded by the memories that would haunt me until I was dead. There was no escape from the tears that were in danger of falling, no route to take to flee them. They flooded over with out the slightest movement from me, and stained my cheeks as they trailed their way to the ground. Sobs racked at my body until I physically hurt from the mental anguish inside of me. Everything was hitting me hard now. Very hard. The realization was sinking into my mind that never again would it be possible for any of those things to happen. Through my life I always lived for certain things in life. At one point I was living for the past because the future didn't hold any happiness as far as I was concerned. I would sit awake at night and reminisce about the times past. After that stage, I learned to live for tomorrow. I learned the hard way not to cling to the past and that everything changed. The past couldn't be relied on because it wasn't like that any more. I thought that if everything sucked in life at the moment, tomorrow had to be better. I then sat awake and contemplated how wonderful my life was going to be when I grew up. Sure this point of view did wonders for my grades, but not my mental health. Throughout these depressing years of my life I learned to love the pop group Backstreet Boys. Their music gave me the strength to go on. It made me happy, and emotion I nearly almost forgot about. I started out a rabid teenybopper demanding they were mine, and no one else's. Hey, I was only 12, what could you expect? Any time I was set on mutilating myself to the point of death, their music brought me out of it. There were no big messages in their music, but that's not the point. I didn't need anything greater than to hear I was loved. Even though they were just songs that millions upon millions heard, I still felt they were for me. I made it my mission in life to become a famous singer as I always wanted and to meet them. I just had to accomplish these missions. I would have never guessed then that I would be in this unrealistic situation with them. I suppose every moment I lived with them I'd blink and expect to wake up. Then I'd stop and think, 'Maybe this is my "happily ever after"'. I was crying for the past, I was crying for the future. It hurt so bad to think of both of them. I wished the past was blank like the future, but wished the future was full like the past. Yet, I was crying tears of joy for the present. Everything was so unreal, and scary, but I was happy for it. It allowed me to accomplish one of my major missions in life. After completing one mission I was bound to achieve the other. Through my sobs I never felt the arms wrap around me. I never heard the soothing words whispered in my ear. I never felt the foreign tears mix with my own as they collided on my cheeks. I couldn't feel the warmth of the other body next to mine as I slowly became numb. Gradually, I came back to the dream/nightmare world I had learned to think of as reality. I became aware of the strong arms engulfing me and I relaxed into them. At a snail's pace, the tears stopped their race, and stayed in my tear ducts. The memories were locked back in their chests to be viewed at a later date, and my mind cleared. At the sound of a sniffle other than my own I looked up into Brian's tear stained face. I looked down ashamed, but he just held me tighter. "I'm so sorry," I whispered shakily. My voice was hoarse and scratchy, and I winced at how horrible I sounded, at how bad I felt. "Don't be," he whispered gently and I noted his voice sounded just as bad as mine did. I slowly looked around and Brian answered my question before I verbalized it, "I told the others to just stay out of it for now." He chuckled lightly before continuing," AJ's dead set on figuring you out. When you first began crying, I began panicking. I didn't know what to do. Kevin was the one to first try and calm you down, then when he failed, he had me do it. You seemed to warm up to me more than him. He then ushered Howie and AJ out of the bus to give us privacy." He smiled weakly at me. "Why were you crying?" I asked as pure curiosity ran through me. I looked up at him awaiting an answer, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. Finally, he looked at me thoughtfully, "I don't know. For the past, maybe for the future. Perhaps even the present. No real reason." That, I found scary. A loud groan heard from the bunk above us answered my next question, and broke the moment. Brian pulled away from me and rolled out of the bunk backwards. He held out a hand and helped me out of the bunk. When we were both standing, he opened the curtain to Nick's bunk. "You okay, buddy?" Brian asked his friend. "No," Nick moaned as he tried to roll out of his bunk. Brian and I quickly moved before Nick tumbled out onto us. Surprisingly, he landed on his feet and gave us a strange look, "I’m hurt, I'm not handicapped. I can still do normal things." "K, let's go find the others. I think it's time for a group meeting," I said as the two followed me out of the bus. Next: Chapter 35 |