The Fall of the Fainthearts

Track Twelve: Sometimes All You Need Is A Bacon Butty

Dahlia: The next morning, Axel was gone. We didn't realise until everyone had finally woken up and we realised it was oddly quiet. Romeo said he was meant to be back hours ago. We questioned Figgy, but she had no idea where he'd gone either.

Axel: I needed to clear my head. I convinced Romeo to stop driving for a while so I could go out for a jog for half an hour, but I couldn't face coming back. I'd had about an hours sleep all night, tossing and turning and thinking too much.

When I started jogging I felt so free. It turned into a run, then a sprint. It felt like I was escaping all of my problems, leaving them so far behind in the dust I kicked up with my feet. I wore myself out quickly, but not quick enough to not get lost. When I realised I had no clue where I was anymore, I considered it a blessing and carried on walking.

Romeo North: Musicians went wandering all the time. They always say it's to do with feeling trapped in the bus, but it's nearly every time just a trip to the corner to get their next high.

I told him I didn't think it was a good idea, but he insisted he needed the space to think. I couldn't tell a grown man where to go, I had no authority. I just had to hope he'd be back in one piece to carry on the drive. We had about five hours to be in Sheffield and depending on traffic, we were cutting it fine.

Figgy: When Romeo explained to us that he sees this all the time, I instantly relaxed. Axel would be fine, he'd come drifting back soon enough and I'd just take a share of whatever he had on him, because I only had a couple of pills left on me and I was starting to get withdrawal. Then Dahlia opened her mouth.

Dahlia: I said, "Romeo, Axel's been clean for months now. This isn't like him, he hasn't broke once since rehab." I knew something was wrong, but it wasn't what everyone else thought. I was the only one that gave him any credit that day.

Figgy: I'd missed so much of his life. So much had happened in so little time.

Vince: Part of me did think that it was possible Axel could've relapsed, yeah. Especially having Figgy back, and the state he was in about it last night. There was a very real possibility that he was right, and he wasn't ready to face her yet.

Figgy: It was wrong, but I was angry. In a horrible, irrational way, I was angry that he'd changed himself. I'd lost my grip on him. Looking back I kick myself for it, but I wasn't thinking clearly. I'd had this idea in my head that we'd get back together and everything would go back to how it used to - except it wouldn't, because Axel was clean and I was more hooked than ever. And I didn't want to change. I found myself hoping he'd relapsed.

Of course, I'm over the moon for him now! What kind of question is that? We're both clean, have families, careers. We both turned out okay in the end, not just him.

Bentley: Figgy turned sour almost instantly when she found out that Axel was sober. I remember just thinking, what sort of despicable person have we let on this bus? I found myself so angry, I had to just leave and try to find him myself. We couldn't go to Sheffield without him, anyway. The quicker we found him, the quicker I'd check into a hotel room and as far away from her as I could.

Axel: I walked until I found a diner. I was starving, and if there was one thing I could safely drown my sorrows in it was a big full English breakfast. I ordered everything I could: toast, sausages, bacon, eggs, hash browns, mushrooms, grilled tomatoes - you name it, it was dished up in front of me on a plate bigger than my head.

It was nice to be on my own. I watched cars whizz past from the window, sipped coffee and ate tasty food. I chatted to the waitress, who was old enough to be my grandmother and didn't have the faintest clue who I was, which made it all the better. She refilled my coffee and told me that it was on the house, that I looked like I could use some extra energy. That was an understatement, I felt like I could pass out face down in my food any second.

I forced myself not to wonder what was happening back in the bus. Any time I felt my mind drift back, I'd count flowers on the bush outside the window or look for something in the diner I hadn't noticed before, like the old jukebox tucked away in the corner or the fact you could just about see the chef's head through the little circle window on the door to the kitchen. Grounding techniques, they're no joke.

Bentley: It didn't take long to find him, he hadn't gone far. I was too relieved to be angry when I saw him sat there with three people's worth of food on his plate.

Axel: I was happy that it was Bentley who found me. I knew he wouldn't throw questions at me and demand answers. I invited him to sit, halved my breakfast onto the extra plate that came with my side of toast, and we ate in comfortable silence.

Bentley: Axel didn't owe me anything. He was here, and he was sober. That was all I needed to know. I was proud of him.

Axel: I knew we'd have to go back to the other's eventually, but I could've sat in that diner all day. I'd put money in the jukebox, drink coffee until my head throbbed and eat as many scrambled eggs as I could stomach.

Sometimes in life, you have to do things for yourself. You have to allow yourself to leave bad situations, treat yourself and take a load off. But you also have to know when it's time to push yourself back into the real world.

Bentley: After a while, Axel told me he was ready to head back. We got the bill and took a slow walk back to the van. I knew Romeo would be stressed and we had a deadline to hit, but things would work out in the end. They always do. Right now, my friend's mental state was the most important thing to consider and we still had about four hours of driving to get through, crammed into a little tour bus with Figgy.

Axel: I didn't reach the tour bus before they all came swarming out asking me where I'd been. Romeo was mad, Dahlia and Vince were concerned and Figgy was... reserved. She hung back, hugged her arms and avoided my face.

We all clambered back into the tour bus and I settled onto the sofa. I didn't wonder why Figgy was upset or what may have been said while I was gone, I just counted blue cars on the highway as we drove.