It's Not the Life It Seems

Nine drinks later Honey was well and truly drunk. She had never been one to hold her drinks well; they seemed to have an immediate effect on her. No one had dared approach her at the bar, especially since she had started talking quickly to herself and waving her arms around crazily.

Her phone had been ringing non stop for the past hour, eventually she had simply switched it off after finding ‘silent’ mode just as annoying as it had been loud.

“Drinks, give me drinks!” Honey shouted at the bartender, whose pervious content mood was disappearing as quickly as Honey’s drinks.

He approached Honey and crossed his arms.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” He rhetorically questioned her.

“No, no, no! I’ll say when I’ve had enough! Not you, not my agent, not my manager, not Gerard, not Kirstin, not the fucking paparazzi- ME!” Honey raged, her rant coming out in a jumble of words.

The bartender simply nodded and handed her a drink, knowing inwardly it would be her last and not particularly wanting Honey Meadows to pass out in his bar, although it would be good publicity for the bar.

Honey put the drink to her lips once again and felt her stomach give a surge, her hand quickly clamped over her mouth as she put the drink down. She knew If she had another sip it would come straight back up.

“Oh god,” Honey murmured to herself as she rested her head on the bar, the sick feeling she was now experiencing intensifying. She knew she should probably get going, but could simply not motivate herself to physically move.

The bar front door flung open, but Honey paid no notice to the group of people who were quickly piling into the room, clearly in a panic.

“Oh my god, there she is!” someone called. Honey could feel people around her, but it barely registered who they were until she slowly raised her head to look.

“Honey! Oh my god!”

Honey was pulled into a rough embrace, as the person holding her clawed at her skin as if they didn’t want to let her go. Honey’s head flopped back onto the person’s chest, her mind being to drunk to register anything that was happening.

Suddenly someone’s face came in front of hers, their eyes conveying the worry they so clearly had for Honey as they chewed their lip ring.

“Honey, what happened to you?” Frank asked her, gently lifting her head up so she looked at him.

“Don’t know,” Honey said dumbly through half lidded eyes.

“You don’t know?” The person who was holding Honey quickly pulled away from her, still leaving their hands around her to support her back and faced her. Gerard’s concerned face came into her view.

“You don’t know?” he repeated.

“I ran. Ran lots, down street…people were following me, so many people. Make them go! Make them go away Gerard!” Honey drunkenly rambled.

Bob came up to them. “Lets get her out of here,” he said, mostly to Gerard.

“Oh my god! It’s Bob!” Honey shrieked and giggled. “Hey that rhymes! I’m a poet and I didn’t even know it!”

Gerard nodded to Bob and put both his arms under Honey, lifting her off the stool she had been occupying for the past few hours. He wrapped both of his arms tightly around her, supporting her weight as she was unable to walk for herself.

They walked towards the door, following Frank, Mikey, Ray and Bob, not to mention several other body guards and personnel who had been with the band at the concert. Bob held the door open for them, and Gerard pulled the wasted woman out into the bright flashes of the camera.

Honey instantly put a hand up to shield her eyes, stumbling slightly on her heels but being caught by the strong man supporting her. Oh how she hated going through this, knowing it would be splashed across all possible media outlets first thing tomorrow morning.

“Fuck off” Honey screeched at them. “Why can’t you all just leave me alone?! “ Tears started coming down her cheeks, but she barely noticed them. Honey stumbled once more and almost fell to the ground, had it not been for Bob who noticed her falling and caught her. Gerard had been too consumed in trying to steer them through the paparazzi gathered to notice how she was barely holding herself up.

“Sorry Hon,” Gerard said to her, bending down to where Honey was crouching on the ground trying to gather the strength to move again. Bob also bent over them, acting as a human shield, protecting Honey from the photographers.

Honey felt her stomach lurch once more, knowing that whatever was down there wasn’t going stay there much longer.

“Gonna puke,” she muttered to Gerard. His eyes instantly widened and he heaved her up, pulling her over to the gutter to which she was promptly sick in. This was of course captured by every camera there as they swarmed her, not caring that she was on her knee’s throwing up.

Gerard softly rubbed her back as she emptied the night’s drinks into the gutter. When she was done, she shakily stood up, helped by Gerard, and leant against him.

“Don’t want to be famous anymore,” she mumbled, tears slowly leaking out as the flashes continued to go off around them.

Frank turned around behind to see what was taking so long, feeling his heart break when he saw Honey and Gerard, completely surrounded by photographers who stood in a semi circle around them. The bright flashes lighting up the night sky. Honey was sobbing quietly, her own sick laying in the gutter next to her as she clutched Gerard’s jacket. Gerard simply looked at a loss of what to do.

Frank took charge, moving towards the weeping Honey and swept her out of Gerard’s grasp and into his own arms, so that he was carrying her bridal style. With one of his hands he reached down and grabbed Gerard’s hand, quickly replacing where his arm had been supporting Honey but this time they had the adaptation of Gerard’s arm and hand being there as well, holding onto Frank’s hand. He carried Honey and led Gerard through the crowd to were two waiting SUV’s were parked. Bob came and lifted Honey from Frank’s arms, which wasn’t that difficult considering now she was completely passed out, and placed her gently into the car. He stepped back, allowing Gerard to enter the car next and then Frank.

They drove on in silence, not really knowing what had happened that night, but knew that something was changing.

Honey woke up in a daze, concerned at where she was and how she got there. She turned to see herself in the middle of Gerard and Frank.

“What’s going on?” she asked them, putting a hand to her sweaty forehead.

“We’re taking you back to a hotel,” Frank told her, patting her back.

Something in Honey’s brain snapped at his words, no one told her what to do anymore.

“No.”

“No?” Gerard asked, a confused look on his face.

“I don’t want to go to any shitty hotel, I want to go to the bus,” she told them firmly.

“Honey, I think we should go to a hotel,” Gerard told her gently, placing his hand on her leg.

She pushed his hand off and screamed, “I DON’T WANT TO GO TO A FUCKING HOTEL!”

Silence filled the car after her outburst, everyone being far too afraid to speak in fear of setting the fragile women off again.

“Take us to the bus,” Gerard eventually said quietly to the driver and looked at his window, ignoring the tension that filled the car.

Honey crossed her arms and put her head on her knees, drawing them up to the hide, shielding herself from the paparazzi that were currently trying to drive next to their car, at the same speed. It was completely illegal, they were driving on the other side of the road, but they didn’t care, preferring instead to capture every moment of Honey’s meltdown.

“Leave me alone,” Honey muttered under breath, tugging at her hair with her hands. Soft tears began spilling down her cheeks once more, bringing the nights mascara with them. Gerard lifted an arm and placed it around her, shifting his body so that it blocked the window.

“I hate this, I want it to be over, I want to be normal,” Honey sobbed into her knees, the sick feeling she was feeling from the amount of alcohol she had consumed not helping her pain.

“I know, Honey, I know,” Gerard told her, being the only one in the car game enough to speak to her.

“You don’t know,” she whimpered,” you have some idea, but you’ll never know what its like to be me. It fucking sucks, and I am so over it.”

Frank and Gerard exchanged worried glances, each thinking the same thing. Honey was so unstable at the moment, anything could happen. Frank took a deep breath in and let it out again. This was easily one of the most stressful tours he had ever been on, although he did not regret it because he did enjoy Honey’s company a lot when she wasn’t so miserable. He felt terrible that it was their fans that had sparked off Honey’s sudden mental torment.

“It’s okay, it will be okay,” Gerard comforted her, making shushing noises in an attempt to get her to calm down.

Honey laughed through her tears, even though there was nothing remotely funny about what Gerard had just said.

“It will never be okay. I’m surrounded by people, and yet somehow, I have never felt more alone.”