Dear Austin...

*Austin's POV*

"Yesterday's recording session was intense." Alan commented from the kitchen. I sat at the island, a bottle of water tantalizingly out of reach. My arms ached from the energy spent recording for the album yesterday. It didn't matter though, because I loved what I did.

"Tell me about it. Did you see Tino and Phil?" I laughed at the thought. Sun peeked through the blinds in the kitchen window. The California sun eavesdropped in on our conversation at the moment, but it wasn't all that interesting.

"Why was Tino throwing drumsticks in the tuba again?" Alan questioned.

Yesterday during a break, Tino was jamming out on the drums, just fooling around with some beats, nothing for recording when his stick leaped out of his hand and landed perfectly in a tuba.

"GOOOOAAAALLLL!!!" Phil held up his hands like a soccer player and ran in circles until his head spun. Tino took a bow as the wooden stick let out a metallic thunk when it landed at the bottom of the brass instrument. Between Tino and Phil, for the next twenty minutes, they shot random objects into the tuba, scoring points for each successful hit. Alan and I were the judges.

Between drumsticks, old paper, shoes, gloves, a random junk objects, a football, and a pair of shorts, nothing escaped their grasp.

"Why was there a tuba in the room?" Alan asked again. Scratching my head, I tried to recall the reason.

"Something about it being a junk tuba. Maybe it was a prop, or just badly out of tune." I shrugged. Leaning over, I grasped the water bottle with a grunt and unscrewed it. My hand ached from gripping the mic stand yesterday during an intense part of a song, but I put thirst over tiny aches.

Alan held a box of Cheez-Its in his left hand and a glass of water in his left. The beanie perched precariously on his head tilted to one side. The ginger hair underneath was ruffled. Dark bags underlined his eyes. He had probably stayed up watching cat videos again.

"Hey, i'm crashing on your couch." He told me. It wasn't so much of a question as a declaration of, 'hey, i'm tired and i'm either falling asleep on the floor or the couch. Don't trip over my body or sit on me.'

"Okay. I'm going to finish up reading the letters." I called over my shoulder to him. I almost hear his eyes roll to the back of his head from the living room.

"Dude, take a break. You're dead tired. You fell asleep during the car ride home, remember?" He yelled back. A yawn interrupted his tirade against my sleeping habits.

"I don't remember that!" I protested. No matter how much searching I did through the relaxing car ride home through the cities and suburbs of California, I didn't remember falling asleep.

"Exactly! Case closed." He finished. I shook out my hair. Alan drove yesterday. He was probably right.

Envelopes of all sizes sat on the counter. I counted thirty in total. This would be long reading session, but well worth it to hear from fans about OM&M! Taking up one worn envelope, I opened it up and started on the pile.

Three hours later, I had a stack of notes to my left, envelopes tossed into a lazy pile, and to my right, I had a stack of Squidgy's, kind gifts, and other assortment of items from fans. People liked to draw Squidgy at the bottom of their letters. I liked to keep all of them if I could.

There was only one letter left. Alan's snores could be heard from half way across the house. He was out dead cold. Just this last letter, then I'll go to sleep like the ginger princess. I chuckled this thought to myself as I unsealed the envelope.

First things first, I read the name of the sender. The girl had an interesting name. My eyes skimmed across the mailing address and found the actual body of the paragraph.

"I heard that in 2012 you underwent heart surgery, and although I’ve never been through that experience, I can sympathize with you." The last five words caught my eye. I knew I still had a lot of fans and friends that asked how I was doing even though my heart surgery was two years ago, but I had only a few fans that wrote about sympathizing with me. I kept reading on through the letter.

As soon as I was done, I put down the paper and cut out the Squidgy. I'd put that one in my wallet. It was a wallet Squidgy.

Now that I was done with the drawing, I thought about what she had said. The girl talked about her mother with Breast Cancer. My thoughts returned to my own mom. A tiny remembrance tear came to my eye with the thought of my rock leaving my life. The day that this was hurting her was one of the worst days of my life. I could only imagine what she was going through.

"All I’d like to ask for, if it is no trouble at all, is just a letter back with some words of encouragement. Honestly, I’ve never had a pen-pal before, and I’d absolutely love it if we could talk sometime! I understand if you are too busy and cannot meet this because you’re on tour all the time and I feel lucky just being able for you to read this letter!" I read these lines over and over.

All she wanted was someone who understands what it's like to go through this. I wiped the small tear from my eye as I skimmed through the paragraphs again.

I paused half a second as I realized that the snoring had stopped. Looking up, I saw Alan leaning in the doorway. His eyebrows were raised in curiosity.

"What's up, ginger princess?" I gently teased him. He smirked and stared at the stack of papers, and then glanced at the wall clock.

"I was asleep for three hours, and you were up this entire time?" He asked warily. I nodded, still looking at the letter clutched in my hands.

"And you nag me for the cat videos." He grumbled before pulling up the chair next to me. He looked at the Squidgy that I had cut out of the letter.

"I like this Squidgy." He commented. It had a black top hat and cane. It was a classy Squidgy.

"Me to." I replied mindlessly.

"Austin, you've been staring at that letter for five minutes." Alan commented. I handed him the paper. It took him a minute to read, then reread some of the lines.

"Whoa. This girl's going through major mom...stuff." Alan cautiously tried to tiptoe around the subject. I lifted one eyebrow as he took the letter back. My friend helped clean up the mess by arranging the Squidgy cut outs in a neat stack upon a cabinet, along with placing the letters in there. He left out the letter I had and the Squidgy that came with it.

"She just wants someone to understand what she's going through." I told him. Alan kept silent, but nodded a response.

"Well, what are you going to do?" He asked. I took a sip of water and set the bottle down next to the envelope with the mailing address.

"Can you get me a pen and paper?" I asked him.

Notes