Warped

Chapter Five

“Rise and shine, princess.” Came a sickly sweet voice, closely followed by a vicious Fwump.

I braced for the assault but felt nothing. Confused, I sat up amidst laughter to find the rest of the bus’s inhabitants crowded around the opposite couch where Max was now lying in the fetal position with his hands cupped between his legs and Dustin wielding a pillow. It was good to know that the ambush had not been meant for me.

“Are we there, yet?” I asked with a yawn.

The boys turned to look at me, startled as if they had forgotten that I was there before Jason cleared his throat to answer, “Uh, yeah. We pulled into the bus lot a little bit ago. Max fell asleep with his shoes on.”

I resisted the urge to let my eyes drift down to where my own shoes were on my feet. I made a mental note to remove them before crashing next time. I was sure that a pillow shot to my non-existent penis wouldn’t be my punishment. I shuddered to think of the possibilities.

Before the level of awkwardness could escalate, the door to the back bedroom opened and Derrick walked out, completely show ready. He looked like he had stepped out of a Zumiez catalogue with the same flawlessly fringed hair that he had on every poster I had seen. His jeans were perfectly distressed and his T-shirt was a clean black v-neck. For a moment I wondered how he was going to avoid boiling to death in black, then I remembered that unlike the fans, we wouldn’t be standing in the ridiculously hot sun all day. We would be in the bus all day, only leaving to do meet and greets under the merchandise tents or to perform on a mostly shaded stage.

"Hey Ally, come back here. We should get a quick rehearsal in before show time." He said this as if it wasn't possibly still the most significant thing I had done. Well, it wasn't if you counted my drunken howling two nights before.

Although I was completely wired from everything new and exciting, I calmly walked into the bedroom. It was tidy and sleek inside with a bed adorned in silk bedcovers and fluffy pillows. There were no posters or pictures inside. It looked completely unlived in.

"Your room looks like a hospital room," I commented with a shudder.

"It's kind of everyone's room," he explained, "we switch off so that everyone doesn't always have to sleep in the bunks. It sucks."

"Oh," I nodded, "Cool."

"Yeah, so do you already know the song?" He asked

I head bobbled with uncertainty, "I know the verse, but not the harmonies in the chorus."

He nodded, "Alright, that isn't ideal, but it's ok. It isn't a difficult part. You're pretty much parallel to me the whole time."

We spent the next hour running the song over and over again with emphasis on the chorus. It wasn't hard, just time consuming. And nerve wracking. I could feel my legs shaking at the thought of what my day held later. I would be be forming this song in front of thousands of people crowded around the main stage in the late afternoon. Then I would be promptly exiting the stage as fast as my legs would carry me.

A few hours later, I stood in the tiny bathroom of the tour bus criticizing every detail of my appearance from my carefully applied smokey eye to my pin-straight hair that I had spent half an hour flat ironing into submission. Once I was happy with myself above the shoulders, I went out into the bus and rifled through my suitcase to find the exact outfit that I wanted to wear. As usual, I was fretting about everything down to the last button. I eventually settled on a white tank top with a tied into a  racerback and a pair of denim shorts with some canvas sneakers. Thinking about changing for the fourth time, I decided against it and figured that it was as good as it needed to get for the time being.

“Not bad,” Came a voice from behind me.

I whirled around to see Derrick finishing a nod of approval. I raised an eyebrow at him instead of giving a vocal retort. Everyone was set and ready to go. Time had apparently raced by faster than the speed of light.

“What?” He demanded, “Am I not allowed to give a compliment?”

Staring after him, I processed the previous thirty seconds in my head. It was already too weird for me to handle. I shook my head to clear the thought. Feeling far more, than a little overwhelmed I followed everyone out of the bus where we were met with security personnel. I heard someone say that the fans could get a little wild.

Wild was not the right word. Insane or terrifying would have almost done the crazed teens some justice. Someone could have also mentioned that there was nothing little about the shrieking or crying. I never understand how boys in tight jeans could do that to an airheaded girl.

Girls in Frankly, My Dear T-shirts jumped up and down and generally lost their minds through the fencing as we were escorted backstage. I heard several scream about seeing Hayley Williams only to realized that I was clearly not the redhead that they were expecting. Suddenly panic gripped the inside of my throat. What if I didn’t do a good enough job? The odds were that the fans out past the stage had heard This Fragile Heart enough times to have written a book about it.

“Mellow out. They’ll love it.” Max assured me.

“DERRICK! DERRICK! DERRICK!” The crowd chanted excitedly as sound techs readied the equipment.

Eventually Dustin was waved over and he jogged out as the crowd erupted all over again. Caleb and Jason were out next, followed shortly after by Max. Not a single member of the audience was quiet at this point. I looked to Derrick as the band struck into the intro, drowning the stage in screams. He nodded to me encouragingly, just as my legs began to shake.

Then he pushed me out onto the stage.

My head spun as I looked out into the crowd, doing my best to smile to the audience. “Give me a moment to explain myself/ You see, these words they won’t come easily/ A few things have come to my attention”

“And it looks like your intentions weren’t what they seemed.” Derrick walked out onto the stage just before the pre chorus.

“Maybe one day I’ll open my eyes/ Maybe one day you won’t take me by surprise!” We sang in harmony.

Oh my love, Oh my dear

You paint a pretty picture

But this fragile heart

Can’t take much, take much more

and I’m coming undone undone at the seams

‘Cause words are such fickle things and

I love you never felt so,

felt so meaningless.

Lyrics fell out of my mouth almost automatically and the more the crowd got into it, the more I did, too. Before I knew it, we had zipped through the next verse, another chorus, the bridge and finished the chorus into the outro. I had done it. I had gotten through my first big show.