The Fall of the Fainthearts

Track Thirteen: Someone Pull Over, I Need To Scream

Axel: Figgy and I didn't speak for a solid few hours and the journey was almost silent. After a while the itch to find out more had gotten to her. She knew she couldn't get mad at me for going to rehab but she had so many conflicting feelings about what that meant for our dynamic that she was desperately trying to clutch back.

She calculated how she went about things very, very carefully. Just like the manipulator I always knew. Some things - some people - never change.

Figgy: The awkward tension in the room had everyone splitting off to different places to get away from it. Bentley up front with Romeo, Vince and Dahlia out back to practice. Which left me with Axel in the main room.

If you could even call it a room. The bus was tiny; how it looked from the outside was so deceiving. It was stuffy and there were empty cans and boxes everywhere. You could barely squeeze past the table in front of the sofa - which made it a kind of cozy booth - and that's where me and Axel were stuck.

The questions were burning inside my head. What happened that made him want to go to rehab? Back then, I couldn't think of anything worse. Why would you willingly give up the one thing that got us through such boring times in our lives? I thought he enjoyed it, I thought we used to have fun together.

Axel: After a long, dead awkward silence, she asked me "Why did you do it?" I replied just as blunt. "Because I nearly died."

Figgy: The thought of Axel going through something that traumatic without me by his side really put a dagger through my heart. It made me realise how short life is, and it's so fragile. I was grateful in that moment that I'd decided to come back. And I was grateful that he was still here.

Another long, long pause went by and I tried to ask him what happened. It came out in a squeak, it was a difficult conversation to have. He looked at me and 'hmm'd, so I asked again.

Axel: I really didn't want to relive it all, especially for her sake. But she was here and she seemed human so I thought the least I could do was show her some kind of human emotion back. I told her about the overdose and what the doctor had told me. She first looked as though she'd never even considered that as an outcome, secondly she looked like she was weighing up how likely I was to be a liar.

I wanted to pretend that I didn't care what she thought, but I'd be lying to myself. Somewhere deep down there will always be a part of me that cares about her, and it's not a part I can trust. It's the younger me holding out hope that one day she'll change back and she'll be the person I used to know again. She'll be funny and quirky and miserable about her exams. But the Figgy I knew is never coming back, and I've accepted that now.

It was so dumb to care, but I challenged her. I asked, "What, you think I'm lying to you?"

Figgy: I did. In an awful way, I wanted him to be lying. I wanted him to be pulling my leg and then we'd laugh and he'd throw his arm around me. I let myself live in the fantasy in my head for a moment while I thought of a response. I couldn't be confrontational, it wasn't the time.

So I chose to believe him, even though I didn't. It wasn't so much a matter of not trusting him, but my brain wouldn't let myself think of it. I couldn't picture him in such a state, so I told myself if I couldn't imagine it, there was nothing to convince myself to believe. I'd just have to play along.

Axel: I knew at some point, I had to shut down what was going through her head. She was looking at me so longingly, like she was trying to create a moment between us. She'd come all this way to make things right, and it wasn't going to happen.

I took a deep breath, tried to think of the right words, because I wasn't always good with them. I turned away from her and said, "I know why you've come here and I need to tell you that I've moved on."

Figgy: As if my heart couldn't have been broken any more.

Axel: She just kind of stared at me. She was so far away with the fairies, so out of touch with the reality of what was going on. She stared and it turned into a glare and the look she gave me was menacing. Every part of me wanted to edge away like I used to but I knew I had to stand my ground. She couldn't control me any longer, I made my own choices, and this was one I was sticking with.

Figgy: I was so sad. I didn't even want to know, but I did. I asked who she was. Where she was. Was it Dahlia? She was always so close with him, you see, so it was a valid question.

Bentley: Her screaming rang throughout the bus and within a moment we were all cramped into the main room, watching Figgy crying and pointing in Axel's face.

Dahlia: She was shouting, "I knew it! I knew it all along!" She called me a slut. She was screaming the bus down so badly that Romeo had to pull over because he couldn't concentrate. My head throbs just thinking about it, still, after all this time.

Romeo North: I've had my fair share of tantrums on my buses. I'd never, ever seen something like this before. She was on another planet.

Figgy: I was calm, I collected myself. I knew it wasn't right to cause a scene. If he wanted to move on, at least I knew where I stood. I wouldn't keep pining over him any longer, and I remember feeling grateful that it happened sooner rather than later. I excused myself, and called myself a taxi. I needed to get home.

Romeo North: I had to kick her off the bus. She was borderline abusive and I couldn't risk taking her to another show, let alone three. She didn't go without a fight, either, let me tell you.

We had to escort her off and the whole time she was kicking and screaming, shouting about how Axel would never get away from her - come to think of it, that song was kind of like a prophecy, wasn't it? Life imitates art, and all that.

Axel: There she was, in all of her glory. Screaming, hollering, crying. I realised then in that moment why I had done everything I did. Why I got myself sober, why I left her in the first place and why I was so attracted to a girl like Flo. I'd sorted my life out, and Figgy was everything I was glad to leave behind.

Florence: Of course I was concerned when Axel had rang me to tell me that Figgy had turned up, but I had no idea what it would turn into. She was just a girl, at the end of the day. I didn't realise what we were getting ourselves in for.