Running on Adrenaline

The air back stage was stuffy and I carried a single drum across the room where the rest of out instruments were kept. While walking over someone stopped me.
“You performing tonight love?” his smile was snake bitten and his hair hung loosely in his eyes. I got lost for a bit, but I regained myself.
“Yeah” I smiled and moved to the side, he moved to block me and smirked. I moved further, but he insisted on blocking me with that cocky smile.
I smiled sarcastically and let the drum in my hands fall, it collided with his foot and he winced and cussed under his breath, he flung his head down to look at his foot.
“What’s your problem, huh?” he questioned, he lifted his head quickly and it collided with my nose. I yelped and held my nose.

“Shit” I said under my breath.
“Serves you righ’ “ he said. I looked at him through narrowed eyes and took the drum off his foot while holding my nose.

“We tell yeh to get the drum, and yeh come back like this?” Hannah had a tissue held to my nose, while Tom placed an ice pack on my neck to stop the bleeding.
“Tom, your brother is a cock”

Tom laughed at this and replied with “Well yeh did drop that drum on his foot” Hannah joined in the laughter and I just sat with my arms crossed.
Jeremy came running past from side stage “5 minutes” he mentioned. Then he, Hannah and tom started setting up equipment.
I wiped the remaining blood of my nose and closed my eyes to ready myself. I could hear the unsettled, impatient crowd as our band set up. I went through the possible situations in my mind, I could faint, forget the words, or puke on stage, the list really did go on. As I thought of these hypothetical situations my breathing accelerated and my eyes shut tighter.

“You’ll be fine” someone said.
“Thanks” I said, eyes still closed, this was it. I tucked my necklace under my shirt and patted it.
“Wish me luck” I mumbled to myself.

I jumped on stage, fearless, shameless and trying my hardest to block those horrible hypothetical’s out. I grabbed the microphone, and signaled to Jeremy that i was ready. My back was turned to the crowd as Hannah counted us it, a few guitar scratches from Jeremy and a heavy dirty bass line from Tom and It was my turn.

I started, the crowd responded well, I turned to them and moved to the beat, I jumped when the music told me to and when I sang the crowd jumped and moved messily to the beat. We didn’t have the more hardcore kids on our side, we had the indie kids jumping for their lives, but I knew we still needed the approval from everyone else.
The song ended and the crowd screamed, someone asked me to take my shirt off. I rolled my eyes and waved to them, thanking them.

I walked past oli when exiting side stage; he just looked right past me.
“I told yeh, you would be fine” oli said to me, still not looking my way.
I kept walking and smiled at his comment.

The announcer took the stage and when he said Bring me the horizon it sounded like the crowd went into a fit of rage and happiness all combined in one. I looked out into the crowd and saw girls falling over themselves to get to the front. I spotted a familiar head of blonde hair, Heidi was clutched onto a guy while looking up are oli.
“So you might ‘ave caught the band before us” oli mentioned, some of the crowd screamed with delight, a response I was proud to get, but some of the crowd rolled their eyes and boo-ed at the very thought of us.

“I agree” oli laughed, obviously favorable to the boo-ing side. His voice full of mock. I turned to Hannah with outrage in my eyes and my mouth wide open. She just rolled her eyes and looked unsurprised. Tom held the same expression; they all just turned away and started carrying equipment to Jeremy’s car.
Once we were fully loaded, we all got in the car amongst the instruments. I was sitting on Tom with a guitar case in my lap, and Hannah was leaning on me with a snare on hers. Jeremy had difficulty driving with the cymbals constantly hitting his arm, but he seemed use to it.
“Your brother is a huge, hairy cock” I mumbled
They all howled with laughter.
“Get use to it” Tom scoffed “This is the usual”
“Well fuck that, im bad-mouthing him” I proposed
“No you aren’t” Hannah stopped me “The crowd would fucking trash us”
“Did you hear the response we got? We pretty much have half the kids on our side” I was optimistic.

Hannah took this into account but dismissed it quickly. We arrived at school, unloaded our equipment and all gathered in Toms room to hang out.
Hannah and I sat on the floor, while tom and Jeremy sat on his bed laughing at something on Toms camera.

“We gonna talk about tonight?” I asked
“about wha’ ? oli?” Tom asked
“nah, im talking about how awesome it was, and how we got to the next round in the comp” I was smiling.
Hannah seemed to almost be beaming, but she quickly rebutted my comment “Yeh, but we just got through, were not performing strong enough”
I knew what she was saying was true, I was definitely holding back.
“How do we get those damned scene kids on our side?” I wondered aloud
“We need edgier” Jeremy stated the facts “the music AND the look” he pointed this comment to me, and I rolled my eyes.
“yeh too cute” Hannah teased, I pushed her playfully.
“Well what am I supposed to do about that?” I asked sarcastically
“Borrow some ‘o meh clothes and let meh lose on yeh hair ?” Hannah suggested, looking hopeful.
I thought this through first, I really did hate being called cute, and this was my new home, my clean slate. Maybe a change would be good, and a new start was needed.
“Fine” I huffed “go nuts” she quickly left Toms room to get some things from hers. I sat nervously while Tom and Jeremy teased me.
“wha’ if she accidentally gets yeh bold?” Jeremy laughed, and tom joined in.
“c’mon guys” I joked, but they continued.

“yeh know, yeh nose is gettin’ worse by the second” Tom came over and held my chin to inspect my nose, then he poked at it and I hit him away playfully.
“Shut it, dipstick”
“wha’ ? Dipstick?” Tom started laughing uncontrollably and Jeremy chuckled at the sight of this.
“In Australia, it’s pretty offending” I stated joking around, we were all in laughing fits when Hannah walked in, she just smiled and headed for toms bathroom.
“Eww Tom, yeh sod, don’t yeh clean yeh bathroom” Hannah yelled and came screaming out, this sent Tom and Jeremy into more fits of giggles, but I made a disgusted face, imagining what the state of his bathroom.
Hannah sat me down in a towel and started applying a cream to my hair. I sat and make faces to Jeremy and Tom as they made faces back. The smell was so strong, I wrinkled my nose.
“Hannah, this burns and it smells like shit” I went to poke it but Hannah slapped my hand away.
“It’s supposed to” she reassured me.
After 40 torturous minutes Hannah finally started washing away the cream in my hair over the sink. After washing my hair, she cut it and straightened it. She finally handed me a mirror after what seemed like forever.

“oh shit” Tom made a face, I got worried and turned the mirror over to inspect myself “JOKING, yeh sod, it looks incredible” Tom laughed and I punched him as hard as I could.
My hair fell down even further now, because it was straightened, the hair was choppy and the layers started short. I had a straight exaggerated front fringe that fell onto my eyes. The color was a rich dark black. I loved it. And it was perfect for my onstage presence.
I smiled widely and turned to tackle Hannah in a hug, she smiled back.
“Thank god yeh like it” she was relived.

“ive always wanted to go black” I mentioned to her
“well it was supposed to be a deep purple, but it went black” she mentioned quietly
Jeremy was the last to look “Definitely edgier, now we just need to work on the music” we all agreed Monday afternoon we would meet in the basement.
I said my goodnights to everyone and crept my way with Hannah to our rooms. We hugged goodnight and I snuck into my room trying not to wake anyone, I was successful. I got into my covers after slipping off my shoes. This night was the first good night’s sleep I had in a while.