You're So Pretty On the Outside

A month into the tour. That’s how long it took. I kept an eye on Venita as much as I could, remarking that her strength was slowly depleting the longer we toured. Mathieu was noticing too. He was slowly fading away from everyone the sicker Venita got. He was sick with worry and was barely able to give a performance because he was so distracted. I knew it was a bad idea to have her tag along but then again its better she be with him when this happens than him to come home and find her in the hospital or worse; dead.

We were standing backstage again like always, waiting for the Mathieu to get off. He kept glancing over to make sure she was okay. I had my arm around her to help keep her standing, most of her weight on me.

I closed my eyes and tried to push the worries to the back of my mind until I felt her jerk away from me and make a desperate break for the bathroom. I gasped and chased after her, knowing exactly what was going on. She dropped to her knees before the toilet, throwing up everything she ate for supper. I winced and pulled back her hair, rubbing her back.

I heard a soft gasp escape her lips and her hand shot up to flush but I caught it and pushed her to the side to see what was wrong. I screamed the second I saw it.

“Shit!” I screamed. “Oh, my God, someone call 9-1-1! Now!”

Danny appeared in the doorway to the bathroom and ran in. “What happened?”

“Look!” I cried, pointing to the toilet.

He did as instructed and gasped. “Fuck!”

With that he ran out of the room, pulling out his phone and dialling. I looked back down at the toilet, crouching down and hugging Venita as tightly as I could, letting her flush the bloody vomit down the drain. She wiped her mouth, crying.

We heard frantic footsteps outside the bathroom and soon enough Mathieu was crouched down right next to me, tears pouring from his eyes.

“Please tell me he’s lying,” he begged as Venita hugged him tightly. I closed my eyes, tears escaping as well.

“I really wish I could,” I replied weakly.

Mathieu nodded, picking his girlfriend up and carrying her out of the bathroom. Lee stood in the doorway watching. He let Mathieu pass by, looking at Venita worriedly before coming to me and pulling me up, hugging me as I started to cry harder.

“Hey, hey,” he murmured. “Sh... we’ll get her to a hospital. An ambulance is on the way now.”

I sobbed and shook my head. “She’s almost done. She’s not going to last much longer.”

“Hey, don’t you dare say that,” he refused. “Don’t think that way or else she definitely won’t. You have to be positive. She’ll make it through.”

I sniffled nodding my head though I knew his words meant nothing. They were just to try and calm me down. I already knew she only had about a month left. Less, even, by the looks of it.

He pulled me out of the bathroom and I felt my tears come on harder when I found my best friend strapped to a gurney with some kind of oxygen mask on her face. Everyone in the bands and crew were surrounding the workers as they got her set up, moving aside when they walked away. Mathieu followed after, having received permission to ride with them to the hospital.

The bands had a little talk. Beheading of a King decided to cut their set short because their vocalist was gone and they wanted to be with him. Bring Me the Horizon and Asking Alexandria, on the other hand, settled on continuing the show. The fans paid for it and they didn’t want to ruin it for them even though this happened. Sarah and I settled on going with the Beheading of a King to the hospital. I couldn’t stay here while my best friend was so sick.

One of the crew members offered to take us to the hospital since we had no idea how to get around. We agreed and followed him out after saying goodbye to the other bands, leaving them grim and worried.

*Lee*

I watched them leave, worried. Jennifer looked about ready to break, leaning on Sarah as they made their way out the back door. I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find myself looking at Ben.

“You okay?” he asked. I sighed, nodding.

“As okay as I can be after finding out one of my friends is dying,” I replied grimly. He nodded.

“Well let’s not look at it that way,” he sighed. “Keep ourselves positive! We’ve still got a show to give too so come on! Everyone cheer up and let’s go!”

Everyone around him chuckled, including me.

“Leave it to Ben to cheer up an entire room of pessimists,” Cameron smiled weakly before grabbing his guitar and putting it on. “He has a point. Let’s go.”

The rest of his band nodded and the crew members went out to set up. We went back to side stage and waited for it to be ready for the band. They kicked it off with Alerion and moved into The Final Episode(Let’s Change the Channel) before Danny motioned for the guys to stop playing. He looked across the crowd as they all cheered, smiling softly as he raised his hand, silencing them all.

“Alright, first of all thank you all for coming,” he smiled. The crowd cheered again. “And also we’re sorry for that little delay.”

The crowd fell silent, immediately remembering Danny running out onstage earlier and telling Matt about his girlfriend and Mathieu leaving in a panic followed by his band. Danny motioned his band together toward the drum set. They had a quick talk and everyone in the little circle nodded, leaving Danny to return to center stage with the microphone up to his lips.

“I guess we owe you a bit of an explanation as to why,” he sighed. “Alright, Beheading of a King was obviously cut short. The vocalist’s girlfriend who came along... has cancer. She was just taken to a hospital which caused the delay and why I ran out to get him. Sorry. Anyway, the point of this little speech, though, is please... pray for her. I’m not a crazy Christian although I have my beliefs but anyone here who is or has a belief in a higher power, please. She needs the support. Mathieu needs it too.”

The crowd was quiet when he trailed off. He looked at them sadly. “I’m sorry if I bummed all of you out but I had to get it out. They need as much help as they can get.”

Again the crowd was quiet until someone finally decided to speak up. “She’ll make it!”

Danny chuckled. “Thanks, we appreciate that.”

The entire crowd erupted with cheers and shouts similar to the first one. Everyone onstage and back stage was smiling. I had tears running down my cheeks as I stared at him. Finally Danny smiled a bit and stepped up again.

“Alright, so let’s get this show going!” he shouted and James immediately started up the intro to Not the American Average.

The crowd got into it immediately, shouting and cheering as he sang the first part of the song. I smiled and went along with it, allowing myself to forget about what happened for a little bit. An hour or so later we went on and played our set. The crowd was just as hyped as they were for Asking Alexandria, screaming along with Oli.

“Alright!” Oli shouted, waving to the crowd. “Thanks for coming out you guys! We’ll be out front for a little bit! Come and hang!”

The crowd cheered as we got off stage. Asking Alexandria was ready to go see the fans, looking somewhat decent. They smiled at us telling us we gave a good show. I looked over at Oli.

“How long are we staying out there?” I asked.

“Twenty minutes tops and then we’re going to that hospital,” he replied. “I want to know what’s going on.”

The rest of the guys agreed and we got cleaned up quickly before heading out to meet the fans. I was immediately bombarded by fans asking for pictures as well as some saying sorry about Venita or asking me to tell Mathieu they hope she makes it through. A lot of them were saying that to us and it was actually meaningful for the most part. Some just said it to say it which is worse than not saying it at all.

After twenty minutes we said goodbye to the fans and went back in, finding the crew member who’d driven the others. He gave us directions and we chose to walk, it was only a few minutes away anyway. I followed Curtis out with Sam at my side, talking to me. I replied, needing the distraction. Sadly, that distraction didn’t last long.

My phone rang in my pocket and I pulled it out, checking the I.D. It was Jennifer. I answered quickly.

“Hey, what’s-” I was cut off by a sob. “Jen? Jen?! What’s wrong?!”

“C-come qu-quick,” she sobbed.