It's Not A Question But A Lesson Learned In Time

After waiting for half an hour for a train, wasting a forty five minute trip to Waterloo station, and waiting for another fifteen minutes on the Underground to get to Highbury and Islington station, we were finally at the ‘Relentless Garage’ where the gig was tonight. We still had to wait for at least one of the guys to meet us there so they could get us in with them.

“I should probably give you the guy’s numbers. Or Ben’s at least.” Hannah randomly stated after we had waited for a good ten to fifteen minutes. She was rapidly typing a text message to, I’m assuming, the guys.
“I don’t think there would be much point. I’m not switching my cell phone on much at the moment.” I admitted.
“You know you’re going to have to talk to him at some point,” she told me, knowing my reasoning for leaving my cell off.
“I know. I’m just not ready to yet. He’s probably angry at me for leaving.” I shrugged.
“I doubt it. He’s probably worried more than anything else.”

I sighed and looked around, trying to think of something else to say to stop myself focusing on how worried my dad must be right now. I was saved from replying when I saw Joe and Ben walking towards us.

“There they are Hannah.” I pointed them out to her, and our conversation was quickly forgotten.
As they reached us, I then saw Justin and Stoo tagging along a little way behind.
“Jeez guys. What took you so long?!”
The four guys looked at each other, and then three looked at Stoo.
“Stoo couldn’t resist taking a picture of that pub back there.” Joe grinned, pointing back in the direction of the underground station and towards a pub that Hannah and I had walked past called ‘The Famous Cock’ “Then he decided he should include it in the blog, so he had to film it, along with Ben playing Monopoly at the side of the road.”
“Ah yes. Should have known Stoo wouldn’t be able to resist that one! And I’m not even going to ask about Monopoly.”
“Shall we head inside?” Stoo managed to smile, even though he was clearly blushing slightly.

We followed the guys round to the back of the Garage where Stoo pressed a buzzer by the door.

After several checks and many repetitive acts to prove who we all were, security finally let us in. we were each given a neon orange wristband so we could easily be told apart from the public later.
 
 
“So. Did you have fun tonight?” Joe asked.
“Pardon?” I called over the loud music that was blaring through the speakers, filling the house with noise. My head was pounding for some reason, but I was trying to ignore it.
“Did you have fun tonight?!” He yelled louder this time.
“Oh right. Yeah! It was awesome! You guys were brilliant!”
I saw him laugh and nod to show he had heard me before he took another sip of his beer.
I had yet to drink anything, I hadn’t decided whether I was going to or not.

“Hey Joe! Why aren’t you plastered yet?!” a guy yelled in his ear. “Oh, hi!” He called to me when he saw me a second later. “I’m Lee. I’m Justin’s stepbrother.”
“Frankie, I’m just a friend of this lot!” I told him
“Nice to meetcha! You not drinking yet?” I shook my head. “Ah you should! Help yourself to whatever you see!” he insisted before stumbling off again.
“Do you want a drink?” Joe asked. I shook my head; I decided I didn’t want one. My head was still kind of pounding and I didn’t feel like it right now. “Are you ok?” he asked when he noticed me squeeze my eyes shut as my head pounded a little bit more.

I gave a half hearted nod.
“My head hurts.” I said. I don’t even know if I said it loudly enough for him to hear. He must have done because the next thing I knew, he had grabbed my arm and was pulling me towards the front door. As soon as I felt the cold air, and the music die down my head felt slightly better.

“Why didn’t you say something?” he laughed quietly.
“It only started to get really bad just then.” I shrugged, sitting down against the wall. Joe sat down next to me. “Why don’t you go back inside. You don’t have to sit out here with me. It’s a lot more fun inside.”
“Nah. I’m not really into these house parties. To be honest I’d rather just go home to bed right now.” He shrugged.
“Oh.” I laughed. I laid my head back against the wall and closed my eyes for a minute.
“Listen. I’ll go tell Hannah and Ben that I’ll take you home. You shouldn’t have to stay here. And god knows what time they’ll want to leave, if at all tonight.”
“As long as you honestly don’t mind leaving.” I looked up.
“It's no worries at all.” He smiled. “I’ll be right back.”
 
While I waited I decided to check my phone. I pulled it out of my pocket and waited for it to switch on and register any signal.
Seventeen missed calls, one new voicemail message and twenty six new messages.
I flicked through the missed calls list, same as ever, most were from my dad, three or four from James, one from Mike, another from Tre and one from my home landline. The same came from the messages. They didn’t say much new. Only Tre saying that he wanted his swimming buddy back and that my dad was being a stroppy, moody sod so I should talk to him.
I checked the voicemail message, it was from my home landline.

“Frankie.” I froze as I heard Joey’s small voice talk into the phone. “Frankie, please come home. I really miss you. And I’m scared. Daddy won’t tell me where you are and he keeps crying and shouting all the time.” He sniffed “Please…”
“Joey? What are you doing buddy?” I heard my dad’s voice, it sounded quite distant, meaning he was probably quite a way from the phone.
“Nothing…” Was all I heard before the message cut out.
Before I knew it, tears had started to drip down my cheeks.

“Ok. You ready? Oh hey what’s wrong?” Joe asked. I shook my head as I quickly wiped my eyes. He raised his eyebrow and put out his hand to help me up. I saw Lee swaying behind him. “Err. He insisted on coming with us, sorry. I couldn’t stop him.”
“It’s fine.” I shrugged. Neither of the guys said anything as we walked towards his car.

Around half way back to the house I had finally stopped crying, my cheeks were still damp from the tears which I hadn’t wiped away, and I knew my eyes would be red, but there was nothing I could do to change that. For most of the journey Lee sat in the back mumbling to himself, occasionally directing comments in our direction.

“You know. You’re really cute.” Lee blurted after around fifteen minutes. I saw a small smirk form on Joe’s face, but he didn’t say anything.
“You know. You’re really drunk.” I turned to Lee.
“I’m not that drunk!” he laughed. Barely five seconds later he was slumped out across the back seat, out cold.

“Sorry about him.” Joe apologized.
“It’s fine.” I smiled.
“You feeling better now?” he asked, his tone changing back to the concerned one he had held earlier, I nodded. “What happened? Or do you not want to talk about it?”
“It’s nothing really I guess. It’s just, my brother left me a message and it kind of got to me a bit.”
“What did he say?”
“Basically just that he misses me.”
“You’re close to him huh?”
“I guess. He’s only seven, so it’s not like we have a lot in common, but it’s like, when our mom died it was obviously really hard on all of us, but with our dad trying to work out what to do it kind of left me to look after Joey. He’s worried that I’ve left and I’m not going to come back, just like our mom.”
“Oh. Are you planning to go back?”
I thought for a second and shrugged.
“Probably at some point. I’m still not ready to just yet though.”

Joe seemed fairly set on that and left me to my own thoughts for the last bit of the journey. I barely noticed when Joe pulled to a stop outside the house; it was only when he had cut the engine and undone his safety belt that I finally snapped out of my daze.

“I don’t suppose you could give me a hand bringing him into the house could you?” Joe asked, glancing back at Lee, who was still passed out on the back seat. I nodded and we both climbed out. I walked around to Joe’s side of the car and helped him drag Lee out. We put one of his arms around each of our shoulders and stumbled to the front door. He was slightly heavier than I thought he was going to be. Then again, he did look quite… muscular. Joe handed me the keys and took the full weight of Lee while I unlocked the door.

I took half of his weight again as I pushed the door fully open with my foot and we dragged Lee into the front room, dropping him on the couch.
“I think I’m just going to go up to bed. Thanks for bringing me home.” I told Joe who nodded.
“Ok no worries kid. If you ever just need to talk, cry, drop all emotions on someone, you know where I am.” He smiled.
“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I managed a smile back. As I went to walk past him Joe grabbed my arm and pulled me into a hug. It was just a friendly hug. But it definitely made me feel a bit better.