We Can Shine Like the Sun

“How come you didn’t tell me you were best friends with Caleb Turman?” Avara hollared at Holly after Kill Barbie had finished their set. Holly rolled her eyes lightly.

“Relax Avara, were on warped tour, you have plenty of time to have sex with-,” She started to say before she saw a flame of red hair in her peripheral vision. She turned around to face Caleb and her eyes grew wide. “Awkward,” she muttered, looking from Caleb to Avara's nervous face. Caleb raised his eyebrows.

“What’s awkward?” He asked, clearly not having heard the previous conversation.

“Never mind,” Holly smiled and then looked at Avara. “Have you met Avara?” Caleb shook his head and looked to the smaller girl and smiled. Avara smiled back nervously and gave him a little wave.

“Caleb,” Caleb smiled at her, holding his hand out.

“I know,” Avara squeaked, shaking his outstretched hand and then slowly backing away. She got really nervous when she was put on the spot. “So, um, I have to uh, go, and do that thing...” Holly raised an eyebrow at her friend.

“What thing is that, Vara?” Holly giggled.

“Uh you know," Avara muttered, looking at the ground, "that thing... ?” Avara nudged Holly's side.

“Oh that thing,” Holly laughed. Avara nodded and gave an awkward wave to Caleb before she rushed off in the opposite direction, towards Merch Ave. Caleb laughed and nodded his head.

“So I'm going to take a big stab in the dark and guess that she didn’t have anything to do,” Caleb said. Holly laughed and nodded her head in agreement.

The next morning, Avara was sitting in her bunk messing around on her laptop. When she dimly heard a loud knock on the front door of the bus, but being extremely lazy in the morning she immediately dismissed it and laughed when she heard Holly rushing down the bus.

“Where are my knickers?” She yelled angrily.

Avara laughed knowing that either Tadem or Harlee must have found it funny to steal Holly’s underwear and had hidden them somewhere in the bus. No, it wouldn't be Tadem, so It must have been Harlee. Avara laughed once more before she put on a girly-boy voice and yelled; “I threw them out the window bitch. Shut the fuck up!” And right after she heard someone mumble; ‘awkward’ outside her bunk so she pulled the curtain to the side and found Alex from All Time Low standing in the middle of her bus looking helpless.

Avara giggled at the awkwardness of what had just happened and at the fact that he didn’t seem to get the Medic Droid reference she'd used. She closed her curtain again and heard Holly squeal, meaning she had only just spotted Alex. Avara giggled again and hoped that she had found underwear.

The bands had the day off today, well not really off because they were driving, but they didn’t have a show to play. Avara had planned on spending the whole day on the internet looking up funny pictures on icanhascheesburger.com, but she got a little bored around lunchtime so she shut her laptop down to see what everyone else was doing. First, she walked into the kitchen to grab some food but stopped short when she saw a head of bleached hair sticking out of their bar fridge. She knew exactly who it was, but was still confused.

“Holy potatoes, Kyle Burns is in my fridge,” she muttered, cursing herself when she realized that he had heard and was turning around.

“Holy potatoes?” he laughed, raising an eyebrow. “Is that like, an Australian thing?”

“No, it’s a Harlee thing,” Avara corrected with a grin. Kyle still had a confused look on his face so Avara sighed began to explain what she was talking about. “Harlee, I assume that you've met her?" Kyle nodded and Avara continued. "Harlee likes potatoes and we're Australian so we swear a lot, not to mention the high school we went to practically taught cussing in our English class, and so we wanted to cut down on our swearing a little cause we know youse Americans are all Christians,” she told him, rambling a little due to her slight starstruckness.

“So instead of swearing you say potatoes?” Kyle questioned, tilting his head to the side.

“I guess,” Avara replied, slightly annoyed that this guy wouldn’t get his boofhead out of her fridge and move so she could get herself a drink. “Why are you in my bus anyway?” She asked, doing her best to sound polite.

“Holly invited us,” he shrugged.Us, Avara thought. Who else was here? “You’re Avara right?” Kyle asked as he moved away from the fridge. Avara nodded and grabbed a can of coke.

"And you are Kyle," she laughed, "now that we both know each other, I'm going to watch cartoons." Avara left the kitchen and went back through the bunks to the back lounge, where she realized what Kyle had meant when he had said; us. Caleb Turman and Jonathan Cook were also on the bus and were sitting in with Tadem and Harlee playing video games.

“Afternoon Avara,” Tadem called, patting the spot next to her on the floor where she was sitting. “Come play Halo.” Tadem was sitting at the foot of the couch in front of Harlee’s feet, who was sitting next to Caleb, who was sitting next to Jonathan. Avara shrugged and went over to Harlee and shoved her over so that she could sit on the couch too. “I keep kicking their asses,” Tadem laughed, pointing to everyone on the couch. A moment later Kyle joined them.

After half an hour of Avara kicking and re-kicking Tadem’s ass on Halo, the six of them decided to play co-operative missions and while Tadem was setting it up, Avara slung her feet up over Harlee's legs.

“Ew, Vara, your feet stink," Harlee joked. Avara whacked her and then they both giggled.

“Where’s Holly?” She asked, noticing that Holly was MIA.

“You only just noticed she wasn’t here?” Harlee laughed. “She’s passed out in her bunk.”

“Oh,” Avara nodded, “and she found her knickers?” The three girls laughed while Jonathan, Kyle and Caleb all looked awkwardly away at the ceiling or out the window.

“Way to make things awkward,” Jonathan said.

“Anytime,” Avara laughed. "So she brought people onto our bus and then pissed off back to her bunk, huh? That sounds like her." Harlee and Tadem laughed and agreed.

"We can leave if you want," Caleb said, kicking his dirty moccasins off. Avara looked over at him and laughed.

"I'd like to see you try. I don't think were stopping any time soon. And you've already taken your shoes off and made yourself at home." Everyone laughed and fell quiet again as they went back to their game. After a few moments of silence, Tadem let out an angry groan.

“Harlee, can you please smack Avara in the head,” she growled. “She keeps getting ahead of me!” They all laughed and Avara looked at Harlee and grinned.

“You wouldn’t do that to me would you,” she said, and evil glint in her eye. Harlee glared at Avara and then looked at Tadem and shook her head.

"I'm not fucking hitting her, she'll get me back with her cockroach!" Tadem and Avara laughed while the three guys gave them weird and confused looks.

"What the heck is Avara's cockroach?" Jonathan asked. The three girls looked at each other and laughed. Harlee was about to answer when Holly stumbled in to the room, still dressed in her Pajamas.

"Afternoon sleepyhead," Avara called cheerfully. Holly gave her the finger and sat down beside Caleb who wrapped a warm arm around her shoulders.

"Avara's cockroach," she started hoarsely, "is when she gets into a fight with someone and she flips out and shin-kicks them. Believe me, I've been on the receiving end of the cockroach far too many times to count."

"I see," Jonathan said at the same time as Avara muttered something.

"What the fuck is wrong with your voice?" Holly sighed.

"Fucks knows."

The next day Avara and Tadem were on the verge of starving, so they decided to head out and go check what the catering tent had to offer. Tadem was in the middle of telling Avara about how she needed various drum parts when they saw Jack Barakat run past squealing.

“Wow, he runs so fast he doesn’t appear to be moving,” Avara said as she watched Jack randomly stop in his tracks.

“And did he just squeal?” asked Tadem. The girls watched him for a few more moments as he grinned and shoved something into his mouth, making a whole lot of weird noises as he ate.

“You are so weird,” Avara informed him quite seriously. Jack's eyes shot up and bulged out of their sockets when he noticed her. Apparently he hadn't seen that they were watching him.

“Don’t tell Alex I stole his cookie,” he gasped before running off in another direction. Tadem and Avara exchanged amused glances before they spotted Alex running up behind them.

“Hey ladies, have you seen Jack?” He asked breathlessly.

“Yeah, he ran that way with your cookie,” Avara replied monotonously pointing in the direction that Jack had run off in.

“You weren’t supposed to tell him!” Tadem said, playfully hitting Avara in the arm.

“Oh,” Avara frowned, but she didn’t let her arm drop, “He didn’t run that way with your cookie.” Much to Avara’s disappointment, Alex didn’t run after Jack, instead he straightened up and sauntered over to them.

“So I was talking to Harlee…” He started.

“Oh yeah? That’s always fun,” Avara grinned and Tadem laughed. When she realized that he wasn’t going to say anything else, she urged him on, “About… ?”

“Uh, I talked to her about Holly,” he mumbled nervously, scratching the back of his head.

“And…?” Tadem urged. Both girls were suddenly interested in what Alex had to say about their best friend, and so the unknowingly moved closer to him.

“Well I was wondering if she'd be able to ask Holly… If she... If she maybe likes me?” Alex managed to get out after a lot of hesitation, even though it sounded like a question Avara nodded. Tadem however, burst out laughing so Avara scowled at her and smack her arm.

“What did Harlee tell you?” She asked him, crossing her arms. Alex looked at his feet and shrugged awkwardly. “Honestly Alex,” Avara said, “You should probably ask her that yourself, what sort of friends would we be if we told you something like that?” She didn’t mean for it to come out harsh, but it did. She’d never really liked Alex that much, even before she’d met him. He mumbled an ‘ok’ and walked off, probably to find Jack and his missing cookie.Avara and Tadem waved and continued on towards the catering tent.