The Eleventh Hour

TWO

  Van

It was the hiss of the engine, and the feel of Paul our tour bus driver shifting over to the side of the road that alerted the lads, and I two hours ago. We hadn't moved since. It was a situation we had been in loads of times in the beginning of our careers, but never our tour bus. This was new.

I pulled the cig from between my lips, disregarding it to the ground beneath me, then using the bottom of my boot to crush it into the earth.
"How much longer?" I questioned Steve with a loud groan. We hadn't even managed to get out of California yet. We had hours of travel before we reached Oregon.

He put his pointer finger up. Telling me he needed a minute to finish the phonecall he was currently having.

"This is complete rubbish. We coulda been there already had we just flown." John spoke bitterly. The most fed up out of the lot of us. We had been through this during our Early Days tour, back when all we had to travel in was that God awful white van that ended up broken down more times than it wasn't.

John wasn't with us then.

This was all a first for him.

Rob let his eyes fall closed, his lips pulled together in annoyance. John's words struck something within him. It was difficult to get Rob worked up over anything, but I could see it festering at the surface. Just like it had been for months, festering.

"You weren't with us back then." He spoke with some asperity. His tone harsh, something I wasn't used to hearing from him in the slightest. "We used to be stranded on the side of the road for hours on end, but we used that time to grow as a band. We'd find vacant car parks to play football in. Van would write. We never complained about anything back then, because everything was a step forward. I think we've forgotten who we used to be."

We were all looking at him then, even Steve who's phone was still glued to his ear. His words hit hard- mostly because I knew they were nothing but truthful. I think we've forgotten who we used to be. He had said everything I had felt these last few months. Something had changed. We all knew it, but none of us wanted to be the one to say it. Every time one of us stormed off after an argument I only felt the distance between us increasing. We argued plenty back then, the only difference was now there was never a resolution.

"All I'm saying." Rob said with a sigh. "Is that maybe we should be making the most of things."

"Things... they haven't been right." It was Benji who spoke. His voice almost inaudible over the sound of the cars coming and going, but I had heard him. We all had heard him. I tried to focus on the traffic, and not on the conservation they were all having around me. A conversation I had been dreading.

I had spent the last several months convincing myself that this rough patch would pass as quickly as it came, but the more I listened, the more I began to worry. It would seem the one thing keeping us above water was being on stage. We all loved it too much to ever want to quit, but no one could deny something wasn't right between us. Not me. Not Steve. Not our management. Not even my parents, who have always been some of our biggest supporters. 

We were so far off from who we used to be I barely remembered who those people were anymore.

Steve removed his phone from his ear, his eyes were troubled, and filled with stress. Two things that made him appear as if he hadn't had a proper night's sleep in days. "They can't get us a tow truck till morning." I hadn't expected anything more than that really, it was mid afternoon now. The chances of us finding a towing service willing to tow a tour bus was slim. I'm quite surprised Steve managed to find one at all.