Everything Sucks (Book 2 of It's Not Over)

The First Night

Warning: mention of self harm, mention of bullying, mention is assault

—

"Virge!" Remus pounced on my as we stood outside the tour bus. I grunted and stumbled a bit, but remained standing. I looked over my shoulder at the mustached drummer and chuckled. We had just arrived at the location of our first performance. The first stop on our tour.

We were all excited. And the energy was high.

"Get off my boyfriend, Re," Roman pulled Remus off of me and pulled me close to him, wrapping a possessive arm around my waist. The other Wulf and I both chuckled.

"Calm down, Princey."

"You boys ready?" Our manager walked off of the bus behind Logan and De.

"As we'll ever be," Remus replied with a wide grin on his face.

De supervised as the roadies that were hired unloaded our instruments and took them inside to set up.

"Good. We all know what songs are going to be played tonight?" We all nodded in response. "Okay. I'll make sure everything is set up. You guys go and get something to eat and then get changed to go on at eight o'clock sharp."

We nodded and made our way towards the shops, looking for some place casual to eat.

***

"I can't do this," I said, staring at the stage in fear.

"We've got this, V. You've got this," De said, grabbing my shoulders and looking in my eyes. "You've done this a million times before. On stage. On camera. In the garage. In the studio. You've got this."

I swallowed hard and nodded my head. I had this. I could do this. It wasn't like I was going to be onstage by myself. I was going up there with my band. With my friends. With my boyfriend. I could do this.

We went out on stage and to my surprise the audience actually seemed excited to see us.

I took a few deep breaths as Roman started playing the opening notes to Anxiety. The song is written. The song that told my story. Why did we agree to start with this song? Why couldn't we start with Change My Mind? Or Deceit? Or I'm Not a Prince? Or I'm Sorry? Why my song? Ugh!

Licking my lips I took a deep breath and started singing.

Halfway through the first verse Logan and I started playing out guitars. De joined in on his bass.  Remus started drumming at the beginning of the chorus.

Next we played Change My Mind. The song didn't really make much sense to me, but that was only because unlike Remus I didn't deal with intrusive thoughts or OCD.

That was the best thing about our songs. We were each telling our own story through lyrics. Saying the things we couldn't bring ourselves to say any other time. The things we felt we couldn't talk about. We learned more about each other through these lyrics. And the people who listened to them knew they weren't alone. Our first album was aptly titled Thoughts in My Head. And I think that fit the theme. We all knew that these were not much more than thought in our minds even if they did effect us.

Anxiety was about my anxiety attacks. About my fears of being in social situations. About that nagging voice that won't shut up. About how it hurt me physically and emotionally. About how even though it was a lot to deal with it still wasn't completely useless.

Change My Mind discusses Remus' intrusive thoughts. The thoughts that kept popping into his head and the urge to speak them for fear of something happening. About how it felt to push people away because of the thoughts. And about how it felt when he finally found people who accepted him. He still wanted to change his thoughts though.

I'm not a Prince was the song Roman wrote. It was about the mask he puts on to make everyone think he was cool and confident and perfect. But, in reality he cared about what everyone thought. He wasn't as confident or perfect as they thought. About his insecurity.

De's song, Deceit, was about hiding who he was from his family. About hiding the bullying he'd gone through from them. About coming out and being accepted and finding his voice. When we worked on his song I learned that he was blind in his left eye because a jock in middle school took a baseball bat to the side of his head and shattered his eye socket, a piece of bone shifted and severed the ocular nerve.

I'm Sorry was basically Logan rapping about his relationship with his dad. It was him apologizing to his dad that he couldn't be a better father. I have to admit it was my favorite song on our album because he admitted to his depression and his self harm, while telling off the friggin jack ass that had done a shit job of being a parent.

We also played a few of our other original songs that we'd written during the school year. As well as songs that Dark Sides has written before me.

When we finally got off the stage I felt calmer. I leaned against Roman and sighed heavily. A smile rugged at my lips as I felt his arms wrap around me and hold me closer.

—

Another chapter that's under 1,000 words. I'm sorry. I wanted to get something posted and if I waited until I had written the songs this would never have gotten out.