Suicide Season

Winter is a harsh season in Yorkshire, but nobody complains about it because they expect it. It is an order of events that they are used to, some things are just meant to have an order and a set rhythm that everyone swears by. The ticking of the clock, or the regular beating of a human heart as it pumps blood around an active and, seemingly, perfect body.

It was this blood rush which coloured her cheeks a delicate shade of pink as she stood outside some grotty venue in some dead beat part of a Yorkshire town, that made Jezebel realise she had in fact not frozen to death.

Order was a thing that Jez craved, but on tour there was very little of this. The present situation was another example of chaos.

"This is precisely why I did not want to come on tour with you!" Jez shrieked at Matt and Oli who were standing next to her rather meekly. "It's called organisation! Organisation!" She cried as she stamped her foot at the word organisation, hammering home her unhappiness and grouchiness, appearing rather like a small toddler, but her feelings and emotions were in fact justified.

That evening there had been a changed of venue, of which the band had only been informed an hour before they were due on stage. Half an hour had been spent attempting to find the new venue that in Jez's eyes looked like a haven for ever sexually transmitted disease you could think of. The rest of the hour that was left was spent lugging sound equipment back and forth from the bus, whilst the local support band attempted to keep the sold out crowd entertained with their wailing songs.

Jez was stood outside the venue watching Tom Sykes and other crew members scuttle back and forth from bus to the back stage door, carrying leads, cords, guitars and amps. She was shivering in her beige trench coat and designer jumper and was well aware of the glares that some young girls, only a few months younger than her, were sending her.

It was something that Jez had never gotten used to, the envious and jealous glares from girls who loitered around the back of the venue in some vane hope of luring a band member over and to work their charms. It didn't help that Jez was very much the opposite of the girls who tried it on with the band members. Either the girls were the kind of girls with black straight hair that went on forever and whose entire outfit could be found again on Audrey Kitching, or the other girls were those in little tea dresses from little big city boutiques and heels, they would stand at the bar during the set, sipping on their bright alcohol infusions and the minute a band member came outside they would flip their hair around and charm an after party invitation from the band boy.

Jez was neither of those groups of girls; she chose expensive clothes and prided herself on good manners, as well as holding back and acting rather more reserve, which was far more appealing to the boys.

"Oli I'm going inside," Jez said to him in a low voice, turning her head away from the group of five girls who had never once softened their glares that they sent to Jez.

"Why?" Oli asked genuinely bemused as he sorted out the rainbow nest of cables that were lying on the damp tarmac.

"I can't stand the way those girls are looking at me, I feel like I'm under attack."

She was then rescued from the evil glares by the members of the support band who smirked wildly when they saw that the glares from the girls which grew even more hurtful as they saw Jez get dragged away by two equally good looking boys who were most defiantly in a band.

"If looks could kill eh?" The bleached blonde entity that was Sean Smith said with a grin, with his ever-faithful sidekick Matthew Davies stood next to him, the exact same grin on his face.

Just as Sean and Matt were about to grab a hold of her elbows Oli actually realised what was going on.

"Hey, where are you taking her?" He asked with some indignation.

"Don't worry Sykes, you'll have her back in one piece," Sean said with a wicked grin before him and Matt steered Jez away.

Jez turned her head to watch Oil as she was being dragged away, on his face there was a look of slight loss, but Jez pushed it out of her mind. After all Oli only really showed true emotions when it mattered, this might have been a trivial situation but Oli only ever spoke out when he had to, at least when it concerned her personally.

She couldn't help but think that Alex would have handled the situation differently.

The rest of the night was spent at the bar with various members from the support band The Blackout. They noisily graced Jez with their presence right until the last moment when they had to go on stage. She watched their set perched on a high bar stool, nursing a glass of water. She knew better than to drink around Oli and his band. Far better.

After The Blackout had finished thrilling the crowd, Jez elegantly slipped off the bar stool and walked back outside past the chain smokers, to a near by bench where she then sat down and took her phone out of her trench coat pocket,

She pressed the number one button, a speed dial assigned to Alex, a sweet irony being that the second speed dial was designated to Oli.

It took two rings for Alex to pick up. It took exactly two seconds for Alex to realise how homesick Jez was. He knew how much she hated being on tour, exposed to jealous girls, uncomfortable and unstable surroundings that never had any real routine to them.

Without meaning to Jez shed a few tears during the phone call, she knew that there was nothing that Alex could really do except make her laugh and promise that once Bring Me The Horizon's tour was over he'd take her somewhere nice on holiday, just the two of them. Maybe Paris maybe Rome or Milan, wherever she wanted to go he would take her.

Alex would have talked to her for hours more but it was the sound of the smoke alarm in their apartment, that even Jez could hear down the phone line, which held him back. Alex had burned his own dinner once again; Jez couldn’t help but smile at this thought. A hasty goodbye was said but even so Alex managed to take the time and say 'I love you' and wait for the response from Jez.

After Alex had to leave Jez stayed sat on the bench. Every now and then some young kid would ask her if she had any smokes or a lighter but she would just shake her head. They then ignored her, but it didn't stay like this for long. About an hour later, Jez felt a presence beside her and she turned to see Oli sat next to her, in a new change of clothes but still distinctively sweaty. Suddenly all eager eyes of the chain smokers were upon them.

"You missed our set," Oli said, disappointment and maybe even hurt, clearly evident in his voice.

"Oli I've seen hundreds of your sets," Jez said with a sigh of resignation. "I don't think this one was any different to all the ones before it." She replaced her phone and pulled her coat tighter around herself.

"Come on, let's go to the after party. You look like you could do with a drink," Oli said heaving him self off from the bench and holding his hand out towards Jez.

Jez ignored his helping hand and stood up by her self, she knew she was being stubborn and silly but phone calls home always left that sinking feeling in her stomach. It was written all over her face as well, so it was only natural that Oli picked up on those emotions.

He chose to ignore them and not ask after her well being, he hated the way Alex's name dropped so lovingly from her lips, the jealousy would flame up in his eyes every time Jez would talk about Alex. So instead Oli tried to make every moment existing about him self and her, he wanted to show Jez how much fun she could have without her boyfriend and how easily Alex could be made redundant.

But for all his planning and scheming, Oli couldn't help but notice certain emotions in relation to Jez growing and growing inside of him, and it drove him insane. How he was going to get through two weeks without saying anything was beyond him.

Something was going to have to give.