Second Chance

It was quiet at the very end of the bus in the make-shift living room. I kept to myself in one of the darkened corners, perched on the arm of one of the couches with my knees drawn right up to my chest in what had long ago become my way of feeling more secure. The digital clock on the far side of the room told me that it was fast approaching half past midnight; absently, I rubbed at my eyes.

And that's when I heard a single set of footsteps. They made their way down the corridor steadily, stopping every couple of seconds as if to check something before moving on. I felt a jolt of fear shoot through me, wondering for a moment if somebody unwelcomed was on the bus. Or worse still, it could be Larry. I held my breath, grateful that I was in the shadows and not so easily seen.

When the figure finally came into my line of sight, I recognised him immediately.

Jimmy didn't see me at first, although it was obvious he was looking. It wasnt until I made a sudden movement, sitting up straighter, that his eyes flicked over to where I was. The look that crossed his face then, to my surprise, was one of immense relief. It was then that I felt the stab of guilt as I remembered I was supposed to have met the guys back at their change room after the show had finished - over an hour ago.

"Have you been here the whole time?"

Jimmy and I didn't talk much, so there was no way of telling whether he was mad at me or not. I simply nodded in answer to his question, trying to think up a suitable reason for what I'd done. As it was, I could only think of one decent excuse.

"I got lost, so I came back here instead."

At the sound of my voice, he cocked his head to the side. Even I could hear that I sounded off, as if I were coming down with a cold. An awful side-effect of having been sitting and crying for a period of time. My only relief was that in the shadows of the room he couldn't see my face. It appeared, though, that he didn't need to. He crossed the room in two quick strides and sat on the couch beside me.

"What's up?" he asked at once.

"Nothing."

"Abbey."

I turned to face him; through the semi-darkness his crystal blue eyes stared right back at me, intent and serious. I'd seen the drummer in a state of calm before, but I only ever saw this sort of focus when he was playing his instrument. It startled me to have him looking at me in such a way, even more so because the pair of us had never really spoken. Interaction between us was rare, conversation only taking place when there was a third party.

It wasn't that we didn't get along - it was that we never had a reason to speak. After Brian had made peace with me, the older man had ceased being so hostile, but he hadn't really said a word to me about it and I hadn't brought it up. Things were better that way, I thought. I felt we had an unspoken agreement between us. A sort of understanding that the past was the past. To bring it up would be to play with fire. He tolerated me. Whether he actually liked me or not I didn't know.

But here he was now, looking so sincerely curious about what was causing my discomfort. One moment I had made up my mind not to tell him a thing and the next I was telling him everything that had happened that night, from the staring fans at the start of the show to the three who had ambushed me in the corridor at the end.

He let me speak without interruption, looking thoughtful the entire time. It was my turn to watch him curiously now, wondering what was going through his head. When I was done, we fell into silence for a few moments before he decided to speak.

"It bothers you, what they said."

"Of course."

"Don't let it." Upon seeing the look on my face, he went on. "I get that it's going to bother you. You didn't know what you were getting yourself into when you came on the road with us. Thing is, when you live the life that we do, you gotta get used to people hating you and criticising you. It's just their way of making themselves feel bigger than you, because they're jealous.

"You're a new face in our crowd. It's only natural that people are going to want to know who you are and what the hell you're doing on tour with us. So of course there are going to be rumours, people trying to act like they know more than everybody else. Let them have their fun. What does it matter as long as we all know the truth, huh?"

He gave my shoulder a reassuring squeeze; a winced just a little, both caught by surprise that he could go from being somebody who didn't speak to me to somebody who comforted me, and startled that he'd squeezed right where Larry had left a painful bruise. Words of the manager's antics were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them. Better not to push my luck when Jimmy and I were making such great progress.

"If it gets too bad, we will do something about it," he assured me. "But there'll always be a hater or two around the corner."

"Does it get easier to deal with?"

"It does." His answer was instant, and this was perhaps the most reassuring thing of all. "For every hater, there's somebody who appreciates what you're doing. And that makes it worth it. Don't forget that."

"Thanks for the advice," I told him earnestly. "I'll try to keep it in mind."

"Atta girl. Now how 'bout we go find the guys before they call in an official search party, huh?"