Eleftheria’s POV

“Theria!” Maggie poked her head into my bedroom and found me lying on my bed with my hands intertwined and resting over my stomach. My gaze was fixed on the ceiling as my cell phone rested on my chest. “Want to go with us?”

I slowly looked over at her. Her make-up was dark and smudged unlike her usually defined eyeliner and precise color-coordination with her eye-shadows. Her eyes were dark and her eye-shadow nearly swallowed up the whites of her eyes. She was wearing a tight, blank tank top with jean shorts and bright green vans.

“Where are going dressed like that?” I asked as I sat up a bit. “I don’t understand what look you’re trying to accomplish.”

“We’re going to a concert! Pierce the Veil is playing at Soma. You know that place right down the street that we went to a few weeks ago? You should come!”

“I don’t have money for a ticket,” I lied.

“We have an extra. Megan had to cancel so now it’s just me and Jacob. Come on, please!” She jut out her bottom lip to form a pout. “Jacob will buy you drinks all night?” she tried.

“Okay, give me like twenty minutes to get ready,” I gave in. Maybe leaving the house would be nice for a change. Classes had ended and next week was finals week, but all I had to do for my finals was turn in some research essays online. Which, of course, I had already completed. So I was basically done with school now.

I headed over to my closet and dug out an outfit that I thought would fit in. It looked like we were going to see a band that was a little heavier than I was used to based off of my room-mate’s make up and interesting choice of clothing. I decided that I would go a bit out of my comfort zone tonight and try to look a little extra flashy.

I pulled on some fairly see-through black tights, then some tight jeans shorts and solid, black thigh-high socks over the tights. I pulled on a tight, maroon crop top that was covered in lace detailing. I pulled my hair out of the ponytail it was in, and instead of trying to get the crease out I just pulled a black beanie over my head. I slipped on my combat boots, left my make up minimal and grabbed my small black purse before heading into the kitchen to try and grab something to eat before leaving. I knew that if we were going to be out at a concert, and I was going to be drinking, that I would need some food or I would get sick or possibly faint.

We arrived at the venue and I ate a granola bar on the way there. It wasn’t enough to fill me up or even slightly curve my appetite, but it was better than nothing. We walked straight up to the doors and got in while the first band was playing.

“Buy me a drink,” I said to Jacob.

“They don’t serve alcohol here,” Jacob frowned, but his frown soon turned to a smile as he reached into the front of his pants.

“Jacob! What are you…”

I stopped talking when he pulled out an entire bottle of fireball. “Will this do?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

“Give me that,” I insisted as I ripped the cap open and took three, fiery gulps of the cinnamon liquid. I was already feeling good.

By the time the third band was done playing, Maggie and I had finished half of the bottle. I had the bottle shoved in my purse when we decided that we were going to crowd surf our way to the front of the crowd. The idea of crowd surfing scared the hell out of me. The people here scared the hell out of me, in fact. I didn’t listen to very much music and I felt a bit out of place when Jacob and a few other guys lifted Maggie and I up into the air. She insisted that if we held hands we would travel up the crowd together.

We made it halfway up the crowded venue before we were ripped into different directions. I held one hand on my head to make sure my beanie didn’t fall off while my other hand was out in the air to try and balance myself out. I kicked and elbowed so many people by accident and I couldn’t help but continue to say sorry as these strangers put their hands all over me and pushed me toward the front. I ended up stopping just behind the people against the barricade when panic washed over me.

I tried to get on my tippy-toes to try and see if I could find Maggie anywhere, but it was no use. There were too many people and I was too short to see over any of them. Before I knew it, the next band was already setting up for their set. The stage was dark as music began to play. The stage lit up in a bright array of black light colors and large gear-looking cut-outs began to spin on the stage. I was fascinated by the whole thing. Even if I didn’t know the band, I couldn’t help but stare intently at the stage and cheer as they began to run up onto the stage.

First, the drummer. Then the bassist. Then the guitarist. Then…

My cheering stopped and my breathing hitched in my throat. I closed my eyes shut as tightly as I possibly could. There was no way. I had to just be envisioning things. Maybe I just missed him so much that I thought it looked like him.

I opened my eyes just as he screamed “GO!” into the microphone and they began to jump around their stage and move their bodies to the beat of the music that they created. It was him.

The same brown hair that curled at the ends. The same height. The same muscle definition in his arms. The same perfectly defined jaw-line. The same naturally brown skin.

He wore tight jeans that were rolled up once at the bottom with red vans and a black t-shirt with the sleeves cuffed. He wore a denim vest and a snap-back flipped backward on his head.

I watched the way he moved his body with his guitar. A smile never leaving his face. He walked up to the microphone and began to pour his soul to the entire crowd. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I didn’t understand. Why did he lie to me about something so huge in his life? How could I have not seen through his lie? I felt stupid. I felt betrayed. I felt used.

But I still wanted to kiss his jaw and tangle my fingers into his hair.

“What the fuck is up San Diego! Man, it feels so good to be home!”

The crowd cheered louder than they had for any other band. They were the headliners. They were most of the reason these people were here.

“We’re Pierce the Veil and we’re nothing but a bunch of Mexicans from right here in San Diego.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at the words. He always joked about being Mexican.

Man, I missed him.

When they started playing again, the crowd went insane, and I couldn’t fight the way my body was being tossed around with the others in the crowd. The fans around me seemed to be fairly young. Most of them probably weren’t in their twenties yet, but they screamed out every single word as if it those lyrics were their native tongue.

Songs passed and I mostly couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I would still try to pinch my eyes shut and open them, expecting to see someone different jumping around and singing on the stage in front of me. But it was Vic. There was no doubt that it was Vic.

He came dangerously close to where I was and scanned the crowd as he sang – reaching out and touching hands and making the fans scream. Part of me wanted him to see me. But the other part of me didn’t want anything to do with him. How could he have so easily lied about what he did for a living? But then again, I guess that’s what I got for picking up a guy at a random bar.

I looked up and he looked right over at me. Our eyes locked and I saw his expression change. His demeanor changed when he saw me. But he didn’t look away. The next thing I knew, he was motioning for the security guard to pick me up out of the crowd. I reached out to him and I was pulled onto the stage and just as quickly as it all happened I was ushered to the side of the stage by a guy that seemed to be a friend of Vic’s. I stood at the side of the stage, closest to the bassist and watched.

I kept getting odd looks from every band member. They would all look over to me every chance they got, but Vic never turned to look at me again. I pulled the fireball from my purse and drank the rest of it before thinking twice. There was no way I was going to be able to handle this while sober.

-

Just before the set was finished, I was guided through the venue and out of the back to where a bunch of busses sat. I was brought onto a bus and told to wait there. I looked around and realized that this was where Vic had been living for the past couple months.

I started to think about it as I helped myself to some liquor they had sitting on the counter, and Vic’s lie wasn’t so bad. Maybe it was the alcohol clouding my judgment or the severity of the situation. Or maybe the alcohol was helping me to realize things in a more rational matter – either way, his lie wasn’t so far-off. He was in a band. He played guitar. Those things he had told me. He also told me that he traveled a lot, which was evidently true.

Instead of a boat, he traveled on a bus. Instead of traveling by sea, he traveled by land. Instead of being in a lousy jazz band, he was the lead singer of what seems to be a fairly large rock band. That part was quite the lie.

The bus door flung open as I sat on the couch with my legs crossed and a bottle of alcohol in my left hand. My right hand was holding my phone as I was trying to text Maggie to let her know that I was fine and to not worry about me. She wasn’t replying, and I really hoped that she wasn’t freaking out. Knowing her, she probably was.

I expected to see Vic walk in, but instead a tall, heavily tattooed guy walked on the bus. He stopped for a second to look me over. His eyes traveled over my crossed legs. He gently licked his lips.

“Hello,” he said with a charming smile.

I looked over his face and he looked a lot like Vic. They were very different in many ways, but something about his smile and his jawline told me that he could be brothers with him. “Are you Vic’s brother?” I asked.

He gave me a somewhat confused look before sitting down next to me and gently taking the bottle from my hands. “You’re funny,” he commented with a laugh before taking a quick swig from the whiskey.

“Okay…?” I responded, somewhat confused and annoyed.

“Wait, was that a serious question?” he asked as he handed the bottle back to me. “Shit, I feel like a dick. I just thought that you would know who I was since you’re on my bus and all. Shit, I’m sorry. Let me start over. My name’s Mike Fuentes, drummer of Pierce the Veil. And yes, Vic is my big brother.”

“Big brother? Interesting, you look like you’d be the older one,” I commented as he held out his hand for me to shake. I set my phone down in my lap and grabbed his hand lightly. “Eleftheria.”

Mike suddenly froze and gently brought his hand back. His eyes went wide and he took a few scoots over so there was a decent amount of space between us. He looked over my body again and smiled. “So you’re the girl Vic won’t shut up about,” Mike said as more of a statement than a question.

“What won’t I shut up about?” Vic suddenly pushed open the bus door with the bassist and guitarist of his band following close behind. He gave me a smile as he immediately walked over to the alcohol to pour himself a drink. His hair was damp and he had already changed his clothes. He looked more like the normal Vic that I was used to. The Vic that I knew. Or thought I knew.

“This is Elefairy,” Mike said.

I snapped my head over at him and gave him a confusing look.

“A leaf-ia,” he tried again, joking this time. “Leaf fairy.”

I reached up to hit him but stopped when he coiled back. I put my hand down and he went back to normal. I quickly lifted my hand up and pushed his face away from me. “Pantera!” I said forcefully.

I remembered back to the Pantera thing that Vic had told me about once when he had playfully pushed me and then shouted Pantera. He explained the home videos to me and how he would do this with his friends. I should have known right then that he wasn’t in a jazz band. Especially because I knew that Pantera was far from something I would imagine a jazz musician would listen to.

Vic began to crack up as he bent forward a bit with laughter.

“I like her,” the bassist said as he walked over to me. “Jaime,” he said as he stuck his hand out.

“Tony,” the guitarist said as he, too came up to me.

“Eleftheria,” I said as I shook each of their hands.

They froze and their eyes lit up in wonder. I tried to understand what they were looking at me like that for, but then I realized that my accent probably caught them off guard. My accent was always prominent in my English, but when I said my name, my accent took over completely. I couldn’t help it, and it caught a lot of people off guard.

“Damn,” Jaime chuckled a bit.

“Right?” Vic said under his breath with a smile.

“I suppose we have some things to talk about, Vic,” I commented before taking a solid drink from the whiskey bottle.

“You didn’t even flinch,” Tony said as he watched me pull the bottle from my lips.

I rolled my eyes as I reached into my purse and pulled out the empty bottle of fireball. “I’m passed that point,” I said as I stood up and set the bottle down on the counter beside Vic.

“Yeah, I definitely like her,” Jaime laughed again as he took advantage of the open spot on the couch to sit down.

I stood next to Vic. The proximity was driving me crazy. I could feel the heat radiating from his body. I could feel his adrenaline that was still coursing through his veins from the show pouring off of him. I reached up and gently placed my hand on his shoulder.

He pulled his red cup to his lips and closed his eyes as he bit on the end of the cup. I let my hand gently slide down his bicep before removing it completely.

“I missed you,” he whispered into the cup.

“We need to talk,” I replied.

Notes

Eleftheria's Outfit

I'm sorry it took me so long to update this....
Because....this happened:

I got to hang out with Tony and Jaxin (he's photo-bomnbing in the back) for an hour at the Key Street store. And it was awesome. They were such sweet-hearts and it was so cool to just hang out with them like normal people do. If you want to read about my experience, click here.

I decided that I want to alternate between Vic and Eleftheria's points of views that way you get more perspective on the situation. Let me know what you think! More should be coming soon.