This, Is Getting Over You

I had finally hit the pavement, I could still feel the mud trying to seep into my shoes. I tried to shake it off, but failed.

"Del! What the hell took you so long?!" I looked up and I saw Emma's head pop out from the big white door that lead into the back stage are. I opened my mouth to speak, but I was cut off. "Never mind, just come in." She said, her body fully coming out from behind the large door. She grabbed my arm and started to run me inside.
As she dragged me down the while hallway, I looked at the paper signs stuck up against the wall. Stage, they would say, with an arrow pointing down the hall we were rushing down.

Emma finally came to a stop, she opened a door and directed me to go in there with a point of her finger.
I looked inside and saw a chair, with a black hair women standing behind it. I slowly stepped in, I saw clean mirrors staring back at me. The room was brightly lit, it could of blinded me.

"Ah...Hi," I softly said. The women didn't reply with words, but a weak but yet sweet smile. I guessed that she was going to do my hair and make up, so I sat in the seat and I felt her hands touch my head. She began brushing my long jet black hair.

"Wow, you really have short layers," I heard the women say as she brushed my hair with her fingers. I looked at her in the mirror as she some what scanned my hair.

"Yeah, I told the hair dresser back home to make them really short, I didn't want them to connect with the long pieces...So when my hair gets messy, it looks some what, remotely, cool."

I stepped out of the room after she had finished with me. I looked down at myself, all I could see black almost on every part of my body. I had shorts on -formally pants, but they were cut off at the knee- then I had fish nets on, then thick white socks that were under my old worn out doc martin army boots. I felt the thick jet black shirt stick to my skin, I some what liked this shirt, it made me look better and it showed of my curves. I had change into my red 'freedom' shirt for no reason. I wouldn't have bothered changing into it if I knew clothes were prepared for me. And I also would have avoided the little confrontation with Gerard if I had known it.

"Wow Del," I looked up and saw Josh walking down the hallway.

"You like?"

"Hell yeah! You look...amazing," I grinned. He was now standing in front of me, scanning me up and down. I laugh and tapped his shoulder.

"Keep dreaming kiddo."

"You always ruin my daydreams," He said, forcing me to laugh. "Oh! They are finished with us guys, they just have to do you and then it's the band shots."

"Cool as, where do I go?"

"It's on the stage. You should see how fucking cool the set is! They made it just for our photo shoot!" He exclaimed. I grinned and started to walk down the hall, I could feel his eyes staring at my butt.

"Josh, quit it."

I came to a closed door, which had a sign saying STAGE on it. I could heard one of slipKnots' songs from it. I opened the door slowly and the bright lights turned into pitch dark. I looked ahead into the darkness and finally saw some source of light as I started to slowly walk forwards.

For some reason, I felt as if I changed, became a different person. I always fell that way whenever I stepped out on to a stage.

I finally came out into the light. I saw John standing on the stage, getting his pictures taken.

I looked around the stage and I felt my lips curl up into a smile, then into a grin.
Everything was covered in fake spider webs. It looked like an old haunted house you would see in movies.
The drum set was covered in spider webs and dust, it was all fallen apart and broken.
I looked at the mic that John was walking away from because he had finished.

I walked over to the mic. It was one of those old fashioned ones, it was rusty and also has spiders webs hanging down from it.
I slid my hand slowly down the poll and lifted my other hand and touched the mouth part. I had never seen anything like it before. I loved it, it was an art work in itself.

All of a sudden I heard the quick clicking sounds of the camera, I looked down and saw a guy quickly taking pictures, capturing every movement I made into history.

"Oh shit! That's great! Just tilt your head a bit to the side," the guy behind the camera instructed me. I wasn't used to it, but I did what he had said.
All of a sudden, while the flashes were almost blinding me, as song blared through the large speakers.

You're not in this alone
Let me break this awkward silence
Let me go.

The sounds of his voice sent shiver down my spine. Annoying shivers, the kind of shivers that made you want to give into all temptations.

"Hey, you got a smoke I can scab?" I asked the photographer.

"That's a perfect idea!" I could see his eyes twinkle as he threw me a smoke and a lighter. I lit it up after I had placed the smoke between my lips, the bright flashes of light filling the darkness once again. "Blow the smoke out slowly and looked down at the camera, kinda like you’re really evil."

After standing behind the rusty mic for about an hour, he finally said he was done. He told all of the band to come out and have a look the photo's on his laptop.

We all stood around and watched and commented on the photo's as he went through them.

"Wait, wait, wait! Go back one!" Vinnie demanded. The photographer did so and everyone stood in amazement, except myself.
We all examined the picture that was spread out on the screen.

"Shit, Del..." I was the one spread out on the screen. My eyes looking down, with smooth smoke coming from my lips and out into the once clean air. My skin looked so soft and my eyes were, as if a famous artist had painted it themselves.
I weakly smiled, "Okay, enough of perving on me."
They all laughed and the photographer when to the next picture, which was of Josh, he was dressed in all black like me, he had a metal studded belt which wrapped around his hips.
His guitar was slung over his shoulder. "Oooh, Joshie looks cute," I said in a mocking tone of voice, I looked at him and his face turn a light shade of pink.

"Ooooh! Look, there's me! Fuck, I am fucking sexy!" John yelled out, just about to have sex with the laptop. He was also dressed in black, the only white you could see was the dirty white of his converses, which could barely even be seen because his pants were covering them. John was so attractive, although I would never even think about saying he was hot.

"Awwww, look at Vinnie!" I yelled out as the picture of Vinnie came up. He had his bass on his lap while he sat on the black floor with his legs crossed. Vinnie was the only one not wearing a black shirt. His shirt was a dark purple; which I wanted.

After we had finish, Hella went off to do things that they needed to do within the venue. Being me, I had nothing to do but procrastinate and smoke my lungs away.
So I decided to step out into the parking lot, sit down and smoke away until I was blue in the face.

I sat on the ground with my legs crossed as I lent up against the brick wall behind me.
I looked down at the burning cigarette that was placed firmly in between my fingers. Every now and then I would bring it up to my lips and take drags.

"Gah, he's a fucking ass," I mumbled to myself, letting him get to me one more time.
He's an ass because of how I treated him. My mind argued back. But, he knew I was angry, I mean, come on! He pushed me in the mud! "Why the fuck am I talking to myself?!" I kicked myself and got up. I threw the smoke to the ground and also tried to throw my thoughts along with it.

My feet stumbled at first, but then I found my feet and headed towards the bus. The night sky was darker than what it was before I had went inside. I could see the stars, they weren't as bright as they were back home.

To be honest, I wish I was back home again, just so I could start all over and not have anything to fog my mind.

I'm all busted up
Broken bones and nasty cuts
Accidents will happen
But this time I can't get up.

As I started to walk in the mud, I heard loud music coming from the direction of the My Chem's and Hella's buses. The party. I reminded myself.

"Hey everyone! Del's here!" I heard Mikey yell as I got closer. There were more people than I had expected, in fact, a shit load more. Most of them were guys from other bands and other random people. Mikey had separated himself from the crowd and walked over to me, he had a beer in his hand and it looked as if that wasn't the only beer he had.

"Heeeeey! I see the party has been started," I said, laughing as I took the beer from his hands and took a sip, "Gah, VB is a shit load better," I added, handing it back to him.

"VB? What the fuzz is that?" I giggled slightly and watched him try to stand up straight.

"Australian beer, best beer in the world."

"Oooh," he said with a burp. "Y'know, Gerar-"

"-Hey Del! You have finally arrived! Vinnie and the other guys came ages ago!" Frank cut off Mikey. I watched as he ran over to us, "go and grab some booze dude! It's all in our bus."

"Don't mind if I do...Ah, I'll come talk to you later Mikey," I said, softly smiling as I began to walk to My Chem's bus.

Y'know, Gerar-? God Frank some fucking bad timing. Y'know Gerar what?!] Why the fuck do I even want to know?! I said in my mind.

I pushed through the people and found my way to the bus door. It was open, so I took a step up the stairs. The loud music was then blocked out from my hearing when I heard a voice. I stopped in my tracks and realized it was him. He either has the same problem as I do with talking to myself, or he was on the phone.

"But, fuck man...I can't fucking stand her, she's a bitch. From the first day I saw her, I knew she would be a complete and utter disgusting fucker. She drives me insane." I froze. What else could I do? My hero, the guy I have looked up to for years was saying stuff about me as if he knew every fucking aspect of who I am, or, who I was. If he wants a bitch, fine. He'll be getting more than just 'bitch'.

I stepped up and looked at his back, which was facing me. He was wearing a leather jacket, covered cheap after shave which I could smell. And, unfortunately that was something that made me go crazy for guys.
I cleared my throat sarcastically and gave an unhappy smile. He turned around and froze just as I did before. I raised my eyebrow, his faces burned with read.

Although I was angry, I could feeling my eyes becoming hot. Just hold the tears in, who cares if the person you look up to says things no one has ever said about you before?I looked at the table next to him. A full bottle of vodka perched upon it, it had caught my fancy and it called for me. Just take it, beer won't be enough.

"I gotta go," he hung up his phone and tried to speak, "I-I, Um ah..." I rolled my eyes and took the bottle of vodka. I didn't say anything, what could I possibly say? "Look," he said, trying to stop me from walking away. I turned around and glared at him, then I took a beer from the table.

"Fuck off."

Before I knew it, I was drinking ever part of my mind away. I couldn't take it anymore, I had no idea what was wrong with me and I had no idea of how to fix it. My body felt heavy, I had no idea where I was, who I was with or what i was doing. All I kept doing was drinking from the clear bottle.

I just wished everything inside my head would explode and let me live my life properly. Everything began to scare me. Tomorrow was our first ever show in front of an American crowd, and I was scared shitless as to what they would think of us, especially me.

The bitch. The utter disgusting fuck.

As the night turned into early morning, I found myself sitting on the wet grass/mud with Frank, drinking beer and singing dirty songs.

"I was alone, I was all by myself...No one was looking, I was thinking of you, oh yeah did I mentioooon, I was all by myself, all by myself, all by myself! I went to your house, but no one was there . I went in your room, I was all by myself you and me haaaad such wonderful times,when I'm all by myself!" We both sang together. Frank, now Franiedo, was laughing so hard that he was laying on the ground.

"Fuck I love that song!" he laughed. I took another sip of my beer, which was my seventh one, and I began to feel sick. My head was spinning, I stood up and fell back down. "Shit, are you okay?" he asked with concern. I couldn't say anything, my eyes just felt so heavy that my brain dead brain had to force them to shut up shop for the rest of the night. But, I forced myself to stay awake, but my eyes kept closing. I fell to the ground and my eyes closed. My head began to spin in pain, it forced me to roll over and bring up everything I had forced down.

Then, I just blacked out. And I was glad.

”Oh yummy.” I squealed excitedly at the contents of my lunchbox my mother had packed. Inside the small purple container, she had packed a fruitbox –tropical, my favourite-, a roll up and a vegemite sandwich made with classic wonder white bread neatly wrapped in gladwrap with the crust cut off.

I plunged my small chubby hand inside the box and grabbed the sandwich greedily as I sat on a wooden log from an old gum tree by the edge of the kindergarten playground. Unwrapping the plastic from the soft white bread I raised it to my mouth and took a bite, the familiar salty taste of the spread filling my mouth, which I loved so much.
I went to take another bite from the sandwich, when it was ripped from my hands by a boy with messy brown hair. He had dirt on his pink cheeks and bright emerald coloured eyes.

“That was mine!” I pleaded, small tears filling my delicate eyes as the little boy stood in front of me with a mischievous grin and took a bit from the sandwich.

“Not anymore!” He laughed with a mouthful of half digested bread, his little eyes catching the light from the bright sun.

“But…my mummy made that for me.” The tears began to escape my eyes when another little boy ventured over and kicked the other in the leg.

“Give it back Josh. Or I’ll tell mum!” The other told the boy with the sandwich, who was obviously named Josh. Both the boys looked amazingly similar, same eye colour, same face except the one who had stolen my sandwich had brown hair while the other was a much darker, almost black kind of brown. Josh turned to the other boy with a look of horror and dropped the sandwich into the red dirt below.

“Don’t John!” He cried, dropping to his knees and picking the now dirt and dust covered sandwich off the ground and handing it over. “Sowwy.” He mumbled, waving the sandwich under my face making me giggle, the tears had now dried up.

“It’s ok.” I replied, taking the sandwich and shoving its remainder back inside the purple lunchbox. “I’m Del! And I’m 4 years old!” I told them proudly, holding out my hand in front to show my age on my fingers.

“I’m Josh, and this is my brother John….” The little boy replied, pushing his brother into the red dirt. “I don’t like your name.” He told me boldly. His brother got up from the dirt and muttered something about going to play with Vinnie, and then ran away.

“I’m going to call you Delilah!” He said proudly, placing his small arms on his hips just like Peter Pan, only dressed in dirtier clothing.

“Delilah!” The voice triggered me from my dream along with a sharp pain in my back.

“Ow…” I mumbled angrily, rugging my eyes. My head was throbbing, it felt like someone had dropped a ton of bricks onto me. Forcing my eyes open, I was laying in one of the bunks inside our bus, with no idea how I got there, and I smelt terrible.

“Get up.” Josh’s voice floated into my ears from his place where he’d jumped on top of me. My stomach did a back flip as a sudden rush of bile ran through my system and I pushed him off me and sped towards the bathroom, one hand covering my mouth.

The foul smelling bile spilt from my mouth into the porcelain toilet bowl as my head throbbed harder. I pulled away from the bowl and pressed the flush then leant my body against the wall, tightly gripping my stomach.

“Uh Del…?” Josh’s head appeared from behind the black painted door, concern in his eyes. “You ok?”

I lifted my head weakly to look at him, forcing a smile but too tired to speak or move. I had no idea how I got back into the bus, the last thing I remembered was puking into the grass with Frank by my side before everything went black. Josh removed himself from behind the door and walked into the bathroom, and squatted down in front of me, his green eyes sitting at the same level as my own as he took hold of my hands and rested them in his own.

The sudden image of that young boy with the dirt coloured face and eyes which sparkled under the suns rays flashed in my mind, causing me to moan in pain. Thinking was proving to be too hard.

“Del.” He continued, standing me up and pulling me with him. “We have a show soon, you gotta get ready y’know.”

I groaned again, not the show. I’d completely forgotten, to swept up in the disturbing words which replayed themselves in my head.

The bitch. The utter disgusting fuck.

Pushing myself from Josh’s grips I leant my sweaty palms on the surface of the basin and forced my heavy head to stare into the mirror, Now I looked worse then I had when we landed yesterday. My black locks where stuck together in clumps while the TV makeup which had been applied for the photo shoot was still visible on my face, except it was now smeared all over my face. Another painful moan escaped from the depths of my chest as I lazily pushed Josh out the door and slammed it shut.

I would have to force myself to get ready to play. After all, maybe I would feel better on stage. The people, the music, the rhythm and the adrenaline took over when I was onstage. I was another person. I wasn’t Del, the bitch from Australia. I was Del, the rock star.

The show came and past. I had forced myself to perform. I had to, for the sake of my band. They were my best friends and they had been ever since that day when Josh had stolen my sandwich. My mind forced out the thought of him and his words as the music filled my aching body. Taking away the pain and filling it with adrenaline as the fans heard our music for the first time, their heads bopping to the guitars as the mosh jumped in perfect unison, responding to the music and to the words. The music was like ecstasy.

I was feeling better after the show, my head still felt as if someone was hitting it repeatedly with a hammer, but my stomach had since settled and now I was hungry. The other members of Hella had hung back to watch from the side of the stage as My Chem performed, and the fans went wild. Their screams, mixed with the sound of Gerard’s voice had made me felt worse, even though I had begun to feel better. All I could do was leave.

“Del.” Emma’s voice called from behind me as the sounds of Helena filled the air. I turned myself in her direction, my arms wrapped tightly around my chest as beads of sweat which had gathered at my forehead began to fall down the sides of my face.

Long ago,
Just like the hearse you die to get in again,
We are so far from you.

“Del. After this show we are going to be moving onto the next venue, ok? So make sure you guys are ready.” She said in a rush as a crew member appeared from the stage and called her name. “Look, I’ve got to go. Just be ready ok?” She pointed towards me and I responded with a nod.

Trudging through the mud towards Hella’s bus, I could feel the mud squelch under my shoes. This tour had started out terribly, and already I’d managed to turn my hero against me, have half my clothes covered in disgusting mud and gain the worst hangover this side of the sun. It was like someone had set off fireworks inside my head, and then kicked me in the stomach all at once. Why do you have to be such a stubborn bitch sometimes?

Reaching the bus, I ran straight to the cupboards. Apparently, the boys had gone with Mikey and Ray earlier in the morning to gather travelling supplies while I was passed out –dead as a door knob- in the bunks, after John has rescued me from my demolition drinking in the early hours of the morning.

“Fuck you Vinnie!” I screamed angrily after opening a cupboard door only to be greeted by dozens of packets of salted peanuts. Slamming it shut I moved onto the next cupboard in our small bus kitchen, again filled with the blue shiny packaging of a peanut brand. Why the fuck did they have to take Vinnie with them?

I searched through the rest of the cupboards but found nothing else, except for the few random packets of flour, sugar and a jar of some American brand of peanut butter, I’d never seen a day in my life.

Settling on my cigarettes, I wandered down the steps of the bus and sat down, pulling a cancer stick from the packet a lighting it. The poison filled out my lungs before escaping through my lips, relaxing every muscle in my body and softening the headache. I rested back on the stairs and hung my head back, closing my eyes as the faint noises of drums and guitars filled my ears.

It felt like I’d sat there forever in the peace when a voice brought me back to reality. The noise of the guitars and drums had stopped and Frank was running towards my direction, waving his arms in the air and calling my name.

“Delilah!”

“Yeah-“ I paused and scrunched up my face. He just called me Delilah. “-Where the fuck did you here that?”

“Oh...Josh told me.” Frank smiled innocently, flashing his pearly whites as his damp hair clung to his face. Fucking Josh…

“You didn’t see us perform! What was that about?”

“I was hungry…” I mumbled, reaching to my side for the packet of cigarettes and lighting another one, letting out an annoyed laugh.

“Did you find food?” He questioned, titling his head to one side.

“No. All they bought were peanuts.” This comment caused Frank to burst out in laughter and I glared at him. “I fucking hate peanuts.”

“Aw Del..” He said through laughter, clutching his rib cage and trying not to cry. I ignored him and looked away, taking another drag of the cigarette and filling the air above me with thick smoke.

“I’ll tell you what,” Frank finally settled, trying to be serious. “We have food on our bus-”

I glanced back at him, my eyes lighting up at the though of food. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since we ate at Hungry Jacks in Melbourne airport before boarding the plane.

“-but, in order to gain it,.” An evil grin crawled across his face. “You must ride with us to the next venue.”

Of course there had to be a catch. I rolled my eyes and looked away from him. I think there is a packet of half eaten tim tams left over in my hand luggage from the plane trip, I’d go in search of them later. Even if they had been eaten, anything would be better than having to ride the bus with the jerk who thought I was a disgusting bitch.

“Please Del!” Frank pleaded, realising that I wasn’t going to give in. “We have potato chips! And soda! And, and…we can watch movies.” He was now kneeling on the last step on the bus, his hands placed awkwardly on my knees and staring up with puppy dog eyes.

“…Please?”

“Fine.” I gave up, those eyes were too cute. “Anything is better than peanuts.”

“Greeat” Frank cooed and took me by the hand, forcefully leading me to their bus, passing Vinnie and Josh on the way past.

“Where you going?” Vinnie asked, mid way through chewing...you guessed it, peanuts.

“Those fucking peanuts…I swear I’ll get them one day Vinnie, and I’ll-“

“-Del is going to ride with us!” Frank happily yelled, cutting me off mid threat and dragging me further away from the two Australian’s who seemed extremely surprised, except for Vinnie, who seemed more afraid and shoved the bag of peanuts he was holding behind his back.

“Have fun!” I heard Josh laugh sarcastically,

Ha! Fun was an understatement.