DAYLIGHT FADING

eighteen | all the pawns you've gagged and bound

              | eighteen: all the pawns you've gagged and bound |

                                                        or

                                | i'll stick around: foo fighters |

I don't venture outside of my house for the next three days, just in case I run into Adam or anyone vaguely related to Chaos Theory. I thought that if I told him as much of the truth as I could give him then he'd understand, but apparently the fact that I don't wish to tear my heart out of my chest and serve it to him on a platter is an issue.

I'm sat in my kitchen, calming sipping a hot chocolate and attempting to make my way through a cereal bar with cherries even though I've barely felt hungry since Adam stormed away, when my letterbox clinks. Whatever's come through has to be light or I'd have heard it.

I set my mug down on the small pine table and pad out into the hallway to see whatever I've been posted. I haven't received post yet, so either more people are figuring out where I've been hiding or someone who already knows has decided there's something I need to receive.

My forehead crinkles at the brightly coloured flyer practically glowing next to the pale oak floor and pastel blue walls. I pluck it up from the ground, wondering what the hell it could be for. It won't be advertising – those types of flyers don't make the rounds in Eastfields, like they do in London.

My heart stutters at the first two words I see, dominating the top half of the flyer. I skim the smaller line of print beneath those words, wondering which member decided to put it through my letterbox. It could be Chris, maybe even Seb. I don't think it's Adam.

Chaos Theory have decided to go back to where it all started – they're playing a show tomorrow night at a small, slightly seedy nightclub in Great Yarmouth called Panic, the same place they played their first show. I don't know what prompted it but I don't think it'll be a huge turn-out. It seems to be a relatively 'secret' show. Then again, social media travels fast.

I'm recognisable to almost every single fan of Chaos Theory and the fans who'll be at this show, the ones who live here, have been fans from the start. Most of them, anyway. They know how I look when I'm not Angel, so there's no defence in turning up with curly hair and dressed in floaty, bohemian things or band t-shirts.

Fuck it, I'll just stand at the back.

It takes me until I pick up my hot chocolate again to realise that the idea of not going didn't occur to me. As much as Adam can be a bipolar, alcoholic bastard, he's still a fucking brilliant musician.

I glare at my cereal bar whilst I finish my mug, as if it is the source of all of my problems. I can't write anything, I can't fix anything with Adam and I'm not sure if Jez will ever be okay. She needs someone, I think, who will be unconditionally hers, who will sit and live and die beside her, and I'm not able to give her that. I can't be that person and I can't find them for her no matter how much I might want to.

I would smoke to make myself feel better but I'm out of cigarettes. Maybe I should try the alcohol in the cupboard, see if Adam has the right of things.

Before I can really register what I'm doing, I've tugged the door open and I'm shifting brandy bottles out of the way. Right at the back of the cupboard is the green stuff – Absinthe. Wicked strong with a stupidly high alcohol content.

I can't drink straight, the way Adam does, but my mother has a cocktail shaker and I learnt how to make this particular cocktail as the subject of a dare from Chris when we were both about fifteen. Adam wasn't impressed.