"What the fuck?" Vic's voice sounded through Tony's bunk. "Meedie? Tony?"

I groaned and refused to sit up. My head was pounding and I was far too comfortable to get up yet. Tony was lying on his back and I was lying on my stomach. Half of my body was on top of Tony's with my left leg over his left and under his right that was bent with his knee sticking up off the bunk. My left arm was over his chest while his left arm was under my body while my head was rested on his chest. He had his head turned toward me so his cheek was resting against the top of my head. I had never slept so great in my entire life.

"Vic..." I groaned. "Go away. I'm tired."

Vic was about to say something but stopped when Tony's right arm lazily lifted into the air and he waved it back and forth to try and tell Vic to shut the curtain again.

Vic hesitated for a moment before slowly pulling the curtain shut. I could hear him say something to Jaime about how we were acting strange, but Jaime didn’t say anything in response.

"I don't think I'm going to be able to fall back to sleep," Tony mumbled against my head. He pushed his lips to my hair.

"Shh...my head is killing me." I let out a small groan.

"Meedie?"

"Hmm?"

"Does this mean I get to kiss you whenever I want now?"

I remembered back to last night and our conversation. Although we hadn't verbally said it, I knew that we both agreed that it was time to stop sneaking around with whatever we were doing. At least in front of the guys. Tony and I had feelings for each other, and it felt so great so finally own up to them. And I just hoped that the rest of the band and crew wouldn't be too weirded out by our sudden interest in each other. I knew that they would be accepting of it, but I was just afraid of how awkward things might become. No more lesbian jokes could be made. No more guys trying to hit on me because they knew it would never happen.

The wording of Tony's question sent nerves tickling my stomach and my mind to go fuzzy. "Well, to an extent," I finally said. "I don't know if everybody should know about this."

He smiled against my head when he understood what I said. The boys could know, because that wouldn't be a problem. But the fans...revealing information to them was worse than meeting your boyfriend's uptight parents for the first time. Judgments would be made. Hurtful words would be said. Pictures would be taken. Rumors would be spread. Interviewers wouldn't stop asking questions. It was always such a nightmare.

I still hadn't even talked about Marky's death in an interview. And this would just add to the list of reasons as to why an interview should be landed with me. I loved the fans and I know how much they love to watch our interviews and learn about us, but I just couldn't do it. Not yet.

"Meedie," Tony mumbled with concern and knowing in his voice. He was trying to tell me to relax and to stop thinking so much.

"I know," I sighed as I lifted up my head so I was resting my chin on his chest. He looked down at me and smiled. He kissed the tip of my nose and then looked at me again.

"You're beautiful," I said with a smile.

Tony blushed and laughed a bit. "I think you might be delirious. Maybe you should try to sleep some more."

"Oh shut up and just say thank you," I laughed and buried my face into his chest. "And I'm not delirious. Just hungover."

"Let me cook you some hangover eggs," Tony offered.

My stomach let out a small growl as I thought about Tony's delicious hangover eggs. He was famous for them on tour. They seriously were a lifesaver and could practically cure any hangover.

"Okay, come on," Tony said and he gently pat my butt to try and get me to let him out.

"Do that again," I joked.

Tony laughed as he started to sit up. "Maybe later."

Excitement erupted through my veins as I thought about spending time with Tony and not having to mask our feelings for each other. I sat up and let myself out of Tony's bunk. I was still fully clothed from the night before. Instead of changing entirely I just went over to my bunk, swiped on some deodorant and pulled a clean shirt over my head. I grabbed a fresh pair of underwear along with my toiletries bag and headed into the bathroom.

I decided on skipping a shower for the day, which sounded disgusting, but that's what life on tour was like. Some days you shower, some days you just don't give a shit. I brushed my teeth, ran a brush through my hair before putting in up in a loose top knot and then washed my face with soap and water before moisturizing it. I decided I would skip the make up until later that night for the show. I quickly removed my jeans to changed my underwear to a fresh pair before pulling them back on and calling it good.

I shoved my things back into my bunk and walked out to the front of the bus. Tony was hovering over the small camping stove that he had set up on the counter since the bus didn’t have an actual stove on it. I walked up behind him and wrapped my arms around his waist as he cooked some eggs. He smiled and leaned back just a bit to enjoy the feeling of my body pressed against his.

I slowly let go of him and turned around to see extremely confused looks coming from Vic, Mike, and Casey, the drum tech. Jaime was just smiling to himself since he already knew about us.

Nobody said anything, so I didn't say anything. I sat down at the table and pulled my phone out from my pocket. I scrolled around twitter and instagram but didn’t retweet anything. I liked a couple of pictures on instagram posted by some friends in other bands and then decided that I wanted to post a picture. I scrolled through my photo album to see if there was anything that I could post. I scrolled all the way to the top and saw a picture of me and Marky sitting in a Hot Topic store, doing an acoustic set.

I missed those days. The days where it felt like we were young again, just sitting around at home and jamming out to some songs. I decided it was exactly the picture that I wanted to post. It was Thursday, so I could hop on the “throwback Thursday” bandwagon, and I couldn’t think of a better way than to post a picture of Marky. I knew that this would probably send the fans on a rampage of questions, but I didn’t care. I wanted people to see how much fun Marky and I used to have. I wanted them to see how much he meant to me.

I posted the picture with the caption: I love you, brother. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you. #tbt

I hit post and within seconds I had over one hundred notifications showing up in the app. I clicked out of the app to let the notifications run its course and turned my attention back to the boys in the bus. These boys were my family now. Vic, Mike, and Jaime, hell even Casey, they were my brothers. And Tony, Tony was home to me.

-

Tony and I went through the rest of the day without hiding our feelings, but we still help back a bit when we were in front of the boys. We decided that we weren’t going to say anything about it until one of them asked, because that way things would be easier to explain rather than having an awkward gathering. Tony and I weren’t officially together so we didn’t want things to seem like too much of a big deal when they weren’t yet.

I decided to look really cute for the set, but still looked like my usual self, just…more enhanced. I decided to pull out a really old pair of black and cheetah print shorts that I had added gold studs to years ago and my thigh high socks. I pulled on a black muscle-tee cut shirt that had the arm holes go really low so you could see my bra from the side. I threw on my hi-top converse and shoved my gold plugs through my ears to match the studs on my shorts. I decided to wear some dark red lipstick with drastically winged eyeliner to finish the look. I felt different. I felt good.

When I walked off of the bus and went to go walking around the venue, I decided that I wanted to talk to some of the guys’ fans. It was risky going alone, but it was quite early so I figured not too many people would be out yet. I rounded the corner, and man was I wrong. There was a large crowd of people lined up wooden barricades that the venue had set up to keep the lines contained. I walked on the clear side of the barricade and decided to just walk toward the front and wait until someone wanted my attention.

I got maybe half-way through the line when people started to recognize me. Some people started to call my name so I walked over to them and signed a few phone cases and then took a couple of pictures.

“Meedie, where’s Tony?” a fan asked as she held up her phone, obviously videotaping me. The rumors that were flying around the internet at this point where ridiculous about me and Tony. How people knew that we had something between us still beats me, and as far as they knew I was still into girls, and I had to keep them believing that for now, at least.

“Why?” I smiled. “Are you one of those people that ‘ship’ us or whatever?” I asked putting air-quotes around the word ship.

“You guys would be so cute together!” someone else pitched in. When talking to fans, it was like talking to a blob. You never knew who was saying what, but you responded anyway. “Admit it.”

“The things you guys come up with,” I laughed as I shook my head. “How did this even start?” I asked, genuinely interested in how this had all come to be.

“There are pictures on tumblr,” one person called out.

“Here,” one girl said as she held her phone out to me. “Just scroll to the side to see more.”

I looked down at the picture on her phone. It was pictures of me and Tony just being normal. There was the one of us on the bike. One of where Tony and I were talking to fans. One of me and Tony celebrating our water gun victory. One of Tony and I back to back as he played the guitar and I sang. One of Tony kissing my cheek back when this all started. And one of me, Marky, and Tony all sitting together in a bar. My heart shattered when I saw the picture. I could remember the day perfectly, no matter how drunk I was.

I was sitting on Tony’s lap while Marky and Tony were holding their hands together with serious expressions on their faces. I remember I was trying to get out of a booth, and ended up falling into Tony’s lap and then just staying there for the night since I was too drunk to get up. Marky looked so happy. He looked healthy. And I felt weak for letting the tears slip from my eyes as I stared at the picture longer than I probably should have.

“I like this picture,” I said softly as I handed her back her phone. “Can you tweet that to me so I can save it?”

The girl’s eyes lit up quickly in excitement. “Sure, I’ll do it right now,” she said quickly. She tapped around her phone and said, “Done!” once it had uploaded.

I pulled out my own phone right away and went straight to my mentions, noticing a brand new one right on top. I opened it up and sure enough it was the picture. I saved it to my phone, retweeted it, and then followed the girl as a thank you.

“If you ever see more pictures like this one…ones that aren’t already circulating around the internet like crazy, please tweet them to me so I can save them. I followed you,” I said with a smile.

“Oh my god,” the girl began to freak out a bit. “Wow. I…thank you. I love you so much,” she blurted out all at once.

“I love you, too,” I laughed and pulled her into a soft embrace. “It kind of worries me as to why you have those pictures saved to your phone though,” I admitted with a laugh. “But it’s cool. I understand what it’s like to follow the bands you listen to.”

The crowd was so happy. So insane. I almost felt like I was at my own concert. Like these people were here to see me. And that’s when a pain shot through my chest. A pain almost worse than missing my brother. I missed making music. I missed performing. I missed my fans.

I almost started to cry, but my phone began to ring from within my hands. I noticed that the girl was still videotaping me so I held my iPhone up to let the camera see that Tony was calling me. No number was displayed on the screen, just his name and a goofy picture of him.

“Hello?” I answered.

“Where are you?” Tony asked.

“I’m out front with some of your fans. They are shipping us again,” I laughed.

Tony let out a laugh as well. “I ship us, too,” Tony said softly. Before I could reply, he spoke up again. “I’m rounding the corner. Do you see me?”

I heard screaming from end of the line that was toward the end of the building, and then heard the screaming coming through the phone because of the delay. I took a step back and saw Tony walking straight toward me with his phone pressed to his ear and a huge smile on his face.

“I see you,” I laughed as he stopped to take a couple of pictures.

“Okay, I’m hanging up now,” he said as he turned to look at me.

“Okay, bye,” I said as I pulled my phone away from my ear.

The crowd went insane as Tony approached me. I pointed to the girl with the camera. “She ships us,” I said as if I were telling on her to a parent.

Tony laughed and rested his hand on my shoulder. “The entire internet ships us,” he laughed and I couldn’t help but notice how he stared at my face as he did so. I could feel myself heating up. His gaze was starting to make me blush, and that was not good. We were supposed to be acting like nothing was going on between us, but it was just too hard.

I looked up to him really quickly but looked away when we heard our names being called from the front of the venue. Screams then erupted from the front of the line. We looked to the front to see Vic just barely peeking his head out of the doors. That was a bold move for him, seeing as the fans usually went to craziest when they saw him.

“Uh oh, Mommy is calling,” I said to the fans. “See you guys later.”

“Bye,” Tony smiled as the crowd groaned and whined and called out to us. As we walked toward the front of the venue, I felt Tony slip his hand into mine and gently push his fingers between mine so they were laced in between us.

“They are going to catch on,” I said. “We’re so obvious.”

“They’ll just keep posting pictures and spreading rumors. They know nothing until we confirm it,” he responded.

“There you guys are,” Vic said as we pushed through the doors, flashing our All Access badges to the security at the door. Vic looked down at our hands and then back up at us. “We’ll talk about that later,” he said as he pointed at our laced fingers. I immediately let go of Tony’s hand. “But right now, I need to talk to you guys about a little something after the show.”

“Okay,” Tony said with a shrug as he waited for Vic to continue on.

“Okay, so tonight the local Hot Topic is having some sort of midnight grand-reopening, and they aren’t expecting the biggest turn out, so they asked if we could do an acoustic set there for the few people who actually show up. We’re not allowed to post anything about it or talk about it or anything. It’s supposed to be a surprise show.”

“So where do I fit in all of this?” I asked.

“Well, I wanted you to help me out with the singing. My throat is bothering me today, and I know that after the show tonight my voice is going to be shot and I’ll need to rest it.”

I blinked a bit, confused and scared. He wanted me to sing all of his songs while they played the guitar? That was huge, and I was scared of what people would think of me singing their songs. Surely, I knew all the words to their songs, but I was still terrified. But then again, what was I even doing on this tour? Singing a couple of lines for the guys every night, having sex with Tony Perry, and getting drunk nearly every night. Oh, and crying. A lot of crying. I owed it to them to do something for them. I needed to help them out since they had brought me on this tour to help me out.

“Okay, but what songs?” I asked, still a bit hesitant.

Vic shrugged. “We’re only doing like three songs. So we’ll do Hold on ‘Til May, I’m Low on Gas and You Need a Jacket, and then one that pretty much everyone knows. Probably Bulletproof Love. Plus, we hardly do that one acoustic and I know you like that song, Meedie.”

I shrugged because he was right. Those were three of my favorite songs and their acoustic renditions were phenomenal as well. I couldn’t say no. “Okay, sounds good,” I smiled.

“Really?” Vic asked with a smile spread across his face. “We need to go practice then since we’re not going to have time after the show.”

We all walked back over to the bus, this time cutting through the venue to avoid being side-tracked by fans.

-

After the show, Tony marched right up to where I was standing at the side of the stage and pulled me deeper into the side where nobody was or could see. We ended up in this tiny corner that had wires hanging all around it – it clearly wasn’t a place where people were supposed to be.

Tony placed his hands under my bottom and lifted me up. I wrapped my legs around his waist as he shoved me up against the dark wall of the corner we were in. His shoved his mouth against mine and not even a second later, our tongues were already deepening the kiss. My hands were wrapped tightly around his neck as he continued to kiss me so much force. I wasn’t expecting this from him, but I wasn’t going to object. I’d been dying to kiss him all day long, and although we were able to sneak a few innocent kisses in here and there, we hadn’t been able to kiss like this.

“What has gotten into you?” I murmured against his lips as he let my legs fall. My feet hit the ground and I steadied myself. Tony placed his hands on both of my breasts, just squeezing them and staring at me.

“You look so fucking sexy tonight,” Tony said as he looked at me with his hands sitting on my chest. “And I noticed that you make a lot of faces while you sing that look like your sex faces.”

I blushed immensely as Tony bent down and began to attack my neck with kisses. He was sucking and biting at the skin and I couldn’t help but let out a very small moan at the feeling of his lips and teeth on my body. “Right here, seriously?” I asked as Tony’s hands began to fumble with his belt buckle.

“Yes,” Tony groaned. “We have to be quick, Vic will be looking for us soon.”

“Okay,” I breathed out as Tony pulled my shorts down to my knees. He unzipped his own pants and pulled them down just enough before pulling me onto him. I couldn’t help but let out a slight moan and shriek, both at the pleasure and the pain. After a couple of rough motions, there was no pain, and Tony had to clasp his hand over my mouth to keep my screams quiet from the rest of the arena.

We finished quickly and got ourselves together before heading to the bus. Mike and Jaime were in the back and Vic was standing in the front on his cell phone. When we walked back onto the bus, he dropped his phone from his ear and gave us a strange smile.

“Where were you guys?” Vic asked with confusion. He looked between us for a second and then his eyes changed. “Um…nevermind. Come on, let’s go.”

-

There were maybe thirty people that showed up to the Hot Topic for the midnight grand re-opening. Each person who attended got a ten dollar gift card to Hot Topic and a mini meet and greet with each one of us. Mike and Jaime came, too, just for support since they weren’t actually going to be playing.

It wasn’t set up like the meet and greets that I had done before, though. It was much more relaxed. We all just hung out for like thirty minutes, signing things, taking pictures, and just talking while the employees set up a small area for us to play.

I was in the middle of the two guys sitting on a wooden stool while they were on both ends of the set up with their own stools. There were no microphones. Not for their instruments and not for our singing. It was completely unplugged, and I had never done anything so raw like this before. I was actually started to get really nervous. Vic noticed the way I was awkwardly tugging on the bottom of my shirt as we sat down and reached over the place his hand on my head.

“Hey,” he said softly. “Relax, killer.”

I laughed a little bit and gave him a smile as I bit my lip. I really didn’t have too much to worry about. We had practiced the set, and I knew that it was all going to come easily to us. But something felt different. My emotions were running wild, and I almost felt like I wasn’t suitable to be singing.

“So, unfortunately I have a bit of a sore throat, so I have asked the lovely Meedie MontClair to help out with singing tonight. Um, so, here we go,” Vic smiled over to me as he counted off for us to immediately start playing Bulletproof Love.

I closed my eyes as I sang out the words with Vic chiming in on occasion, but for the most part it was all me doing the singing. It felt weird to be performing one of their songs, but at the same time, I loved it. I missed performing. I missed singing. I missed this feeling that I got when the kids were singing along with me. Even if it wasn’t my song to sing and I couldn’t take pride in the fact that these kids knew the words, but it still felt amazing to hear them singing along.

Hold on Till May was a joy to sing, as always. Vic and I alternated the verses like we usually did when I would help him sing the song on acoustic. The kids always loved that song because of the meaning.

But when our final song came on, I felt extremely nervous. I had never sang the song before today, and performing it for this intimate group of people made me feel awkward and like I was intruding on Pierce the Veil’s limelight.

But, I kept my word to Vic, and sang the song out for him no matter how I felt.

“As I choke, tried to wash you down with something strong
Dry but the taste of blood remains
Cold, empty mattresses and falling stars
My, how they start to look the same.
So keep in happiness
And torture me while I tell you,
‘Let's go in style’
A million hooks around
A million ways to die
Darling, it's cold outside.”

Marky was on my mind as I sang. More specifically, Marky’s death. I felt selfish for relating the words to my own life when they had their own significance, but I couldn’t help it. Tears were forming behind my closed eyelids, and my voice became shakier and shakier as I tried to sing.

“No, no more eyes to see the sun
You slide into bed while I get drunk.”

Marky would never see the sunrise again. And while he’s off in an eternal sleep, peaceful and resting, I’m forever continuing to drink away my problems.

“Slow conversations with a gun
Mean more than I've ever said to anyone
So keep in happiness
And torture me while I tell you,
‘Let's go in style’
A million hooks around
A million ways to die
Darling, let's go inside
It'll be alright.”

It won’t be alright, I thought to myself. It’s not alright. There are a million ways to die, and a million different hooks that could have brought him to his death. And it just had to be this specific hook that brought his life to an end. A hook that I could have prevented.

“But last night, you said you ended up in Palm Springs dancing on tables
Almost fought some bitch at the club
Got kicked out of your hotel and lost your shoes
Well, fuck, what am I supposed to be, impressed?
You're just another set of bones to lay to rest
So I’ll say say goodnight, hope you had a really good time.”

I hoped that Marky enjoyed his life. And I really hoped than in his last moments before he over-dosed, he felt happy. I really hoped that he didn’t suffer. I really hoped that his life was something he didn’t mind looking back at, even with the family abuse and having me being the tough big sister. I just wanted him to have lived a happy life. We never talked about our home-life situations much. We tried not to dwell on the past, but now I wish we could have talked about it. I wanted to know what Marky thought. I would do anything to hear him tell me, ‘Don’t worry, Miranda, my life was great because you helped me through it. Music helped us through it together. I had a great time.’

The tears were coming out in a steady stream. My voice was shaky, and my eyes remained shut tight as I tried to just feel the rest of the song. I opened my mouth, but the words wouldn’t come out.

There was no way I could continue on. I could hardly breathe. I took in a deep, shaky breath as a loud sob accidentally escaped my lips.

Tony and Vic had stopped playing entirely. Now that I actually thought about, they stopped playing about half-way through. Right when I started crying. I could feel everybody staring at me as I completely broke down in front of them. Nobody said anything. Nobody clapped. Nobody had even sung along. I let out another audible sob. I wanted to explain myself. I wanted to apologize to these poor fans that came here to be surprised with a depressing set that wasn’t even sung by the original band members. And I couldn’t even finish the damn song because I was crying and thinking about Marky again.

I suddenly heard a voice from in the crowd. She started off the verse, and as she continued to sing the final verse of the song, more of the people began to join in. Tony’s guitar chimed back in to accompany the voices as the entire crowd softly sang. I let my eyes flutter open as I watched the crowd sing the verse that I couldn’t finish. They had tears in their eyes and their voices were soft.


“So keep in happiness
And torture me while I tell you,
‘Let's go in style’
A million hooks around
A million ways to die
Let's go outside
It'll be alright.
But last night, you said you ended up in Palm Springs dancing on tables.”

My body was shaking as my sobs were now loud and consuming my body. Cameras were still on us, recording the entire thing as they usually were. Pictures were being taken, but all was silent.

I heard the sound of Tony’s guitar gently touching the floor and the next thing I knew Tony had my face held in both of his hands and his lips were pressed up against mine in a strong, passionate kiss. I sighed into the kiss as I tried to settle my sobs.

I heard gasps from the crowd and the faint click of cameras and whispers as Tony gently moved his lips, just once, against my own in front of all of these people and all of their cameras to see.

Notes

Meedie's Outfit

So, I have to admit thta I was crying like a baby as I wrote the last part of this chapter. It came to me the other day while I was singing the alternate version of this song (the acoustc like one that's last one the Collide with the Sky album) and I was getting really into it even though I can't sing worth a shit. But I just, started crying really hard. And for some reason I just knew it would fit perfectly into Meedie's life.

I'm sorry that this chapter is extremely long, but it all needed to be in there.

And also, I know a lot of you read my other stories and I have posted this on my other stories that I have updated, but I'm still fangirling over it, honestly. So yeah, here's this:


I got to hang out with Tony and Jaxin at the Key Street store on Saturday and it was freaking amazing. They are so fun and so awesome. I wrote about my experience here, so you can read about my day with them. It was so perfect. Jaxin is the homie now. I love living so close to where PTV lives. (I live right in between San Diego and LA).

Anyway, let me know what you think about this chapter. A lot is starting to unravel now. How do you think the fans are going to react? And do you think Meedie will ever be able to get some closure on Marky's death? I love to hear your reactions and predictions.

Thank you all for reading and sorry for the essay of an author's note. Love you all! xoxoxo