pyromaniac ; Ethan Torchio

no more turning back

"Look, there are two more cables. We'll pack them just in case, could you roll them up?"

I do as Victoria tells me.

"Is that it?" I ask after putting the box with cables in the van.

"Yup, we're ready to go!" Damiano answers.

We wait until Ethan and Thomas have finished smoking and get all into the van. Damiano is driving. I lean my head against the window and look outside.

We are on our way to Pomezia where we have a gig. Well maybe not we but Måneskin has the gig and well, I'm on stage with them for the first time . It's just a few songs we play in a club but I am still very excited, for the others it's nothing.

I'm sitting behind Ethan, Thomas and Victoria to my left watch Netflix with AirPods. I look into the right mirror of the van to see what Ethan is doing, that's when our eyes meet for split second before he hastily looks down at his phone.

I press my lips against each other to prevent a smile. Was he checking me out? It is so weird being single again, I was so used to being in a relationship that I'm not entirely out of my shell yet.

It's 3pm and we still have an hour and a half in front of us. I connect my cable headphones to my phone and start listening to some oldies. The shaking of the van is making tired and I slowly drift away into the land of my dreams.

...........
A chilly breeze strikes my skin and blows my hair away. I feel the sand beneath my feet, turn around and run toward the ocean.  In the distant water someone is waving at me and I wave back. From my distance I don't see his face but as he turns around and dives under water a naked butt turns up on the surface which causes me to laugh. I realise I'm naked too, I look down at my bony hips and small breasts. I feel the waves hitting my skin as I go in furthers. By now the water is covering my chest.
I look around but the person isn't anywhere to be found. Nobody ist around, I'm all by myself. All of a sudden, I feel a pair of hands gripping my ankles tightly and pulling me into the sand of the ocean and with that my head under water before I could take another breath. I'm knee-deep in the sand by now, holding my breath for what feels like forever long. I flail my arms around in the water, in that moment the water around me goes up in flames. For some reason this feels better than the water. I fall in a trance as I watch the flames do their dance. They are soo close but it is as if they cannot touch me. As if the fire-
..........

There is a bump and I fall forward but my chest gets stopped painfully by the seatbelt. I look up, my eyes are burning as I open them.

"Fuck you!" Damiano shouts and honks his horn at the car in front of us which apperantly stopped to let the passenger out.

I roll my eyes but we all stay quiet knowing we should just let Damiano alone. He rolls down the window and takes a cigarette from his pocket.

"You've got a lighter Ethan?" he mumbles with the cigarette between his lips.

Ethan takes a his lighter, holds it up to the tip of the cigarette and switches it on. The flame that illuminates from his lighter hypnotizes me for a few seconds and I think about how

The car ride goes on mostly silent with a little music playing from the car speakers. Shortly before we arrive I roll a cigarette for myself. In my teenage years I used to smoke and that was the cheapest way. Now after moving out and the others smoking as well, I picked up the unhealthy habit again.

-2 hours later-

I release the smoke from my lungs and let my cigarette fall to the ground, then I go back inside through the heavy metal door of the backstage area to the others.