Unrehearsed

Hartford, Conneticut. New England Dodge Music Center.

“I’ll deal with you in the morning young lady!” Dad had warned, pointing a finger at me. The look on his face told me he wasn’t joking at all.

So, it was now morning and I was sitting in my bunk, ipod fixed securely in my ears, on full volume.

Normally, I’d be singing along at the top of my voice, but I was waiting for my Dad to begin yelling at me. Frank had had to sleep in my bunk last night, meaning I had to sleep on the tour bus sofa, which I’ll tell you now, was amazingly uncomfortable.

As I noticed the curtain between the bunk area and the rest of the bus opening, I looked away from the screen of my ipod. It was Bob. I chose to ignore the look he shot my way. The look that said something like this, ‘Thanks very much Faye. Once again, you’ve put your father and Frank in awful moods. We’ll have another morning of shouting and screaming, we’ll have a sulking teenager refusing to come out of her bunk, we’ll have Gerard slamming around and Frank will be overly pleased with the havoc that has been reeked upon this bus, and we’re only onto the third fucking day. You’re a smart young lady.’

I wasn’t sorry for what I’d done, and I wasn’t going to apologise. Frank did stuff like that to me all the time, only he didn’t get told off for it afterwards.

The bus began to pull into a service area, probably to refuel and so we could all grab something to eat.

I escaped the confines of the bus as quickly as my feet would allow me, grabbing my black Doc Marten boots and some money on the way. Once I was outside I pulled the boots on. Now clad in my pink pyjama trousers and skinny Avenged Sevenfold hoodie, I made my way over to the McDonalds that was there. I hated McDonalds, almost as much as I hated My Chemical Romance but it would have to suffice unless I wanted to die of starvation; and that didn’t seem too appealing.

“Just a coffee please,” I smiled at the dark haired girl over the counter. I’d had a sudden loss in appetite, feeling coffee may be the only thing I could handle at the time.

“Morning sweetheart,” I heard from behind me. The smile from my face disappeared in an instant; I turned to glare at he offender.

“Fuck off.”

“Oh, you bought me a coffee? How sweet!” Frank grabbed my coffee from the counter, and ran out. The girl had her hand out, still waiting for the money; I handed it to her and forgot about the change, running after Frank. I took a while to catch up to him, my boots slowing me down.

“Frank you fucking asshole! Give me my coffee!” I yelled at him as soon as I came face to face with him again.

He frowned at me, pretending to be confused as to what I was talking about, which was when I noticed Dad standing behind him. I groaned and whacked my head against the side of the bus, then once more for good luck.

Why? Why me? Why, oh God why was my father friends with this imbecile?

“Faye.” He looked at me sternly, “Get inside the bus, now.”

I sighed and flipped Frank off, figuring that I was already in enough trouble so what more harm could that do?

Bob, Ray and Mikey all seemed to get the indication that they should leave the bus. I threw myself onto the sofa and crossed my arms in the typical ‘sulking teenager’ pose.

Dad perched himself on the small table opposite me and stared at me. I refused to make eye contact with him.

“Last night, you ruined his bunk. Today, you screamed abuse at him for no reason. Why?”

I shrugged, still looking at anything but Dad.

“That isn’t a good enough answer.” His voice was rising. I could tell he was angry. “I want some kind of coherent response from you, Faye, or so help me God I’ll take away your ipod, you can sleep on this sofa and I’ll give you no more money for the rest of the tour. The decision is completely yours.”

“I didn’t even want to come on this stupid bloody tour.” I mumbled, afterwards hoping that Dad wouldn’t have heard me.

“Excuse me?”

“I’ve done nothing wrong Dad! Frank is provoking me! He does all this crap to me, so I get my own back on him! He stole my coffee this morning and I still had to pay for it!” I exclaimed, my tone of voice making it obvious that I was at the point of desperation, “You don’t get how difficult it is to be the only girl in this bus! You don’t understand! None of you understand!”

I let out a loud, frustrated sigh and looked Dad straight in the eye, “I bet if I had Mum here, she’d understand.”

His eyes narrowed, “Don’t bring her into this. That’s a low blow, Faye, and you know it.”

“No it’s not! I want my fucking Mum. She would understand… I could talk to her. I can’t talk to you because you never listen to me. You don’t get me at all. The only person who even gets me here is Mikey! I wish he was my Dad, he’s so much cooler than you!”

Dad looked angry now, I knew I’d dealt a lot of unfair cards there, but I didn’t care. He upset me, Frank upset me, hell, even Bob upset me so why couldn’t I hurt him back?

“When’re you going to grow up and stop being such a brat? You can’t always get what you want; it’s a part of life.”

“Well whose fault do you think it is that I’m like this, huh?”

The rest of the guys began to file onto the bus so we could set off to the next venue again.

“I always thought you took after your Mum.” He glared at me. The way he looked at me kind of hurt.

“Well thank God I don’t take after my father, because then I really would’ve been screwed!” I screamed, leaving all the boys looking shocked, “I HATE YOU!”

A deathly silence fell over everyone; the only noise was the bus doors closing and bus then pulling away from the service station.

After a couple of seconds, I turned around and stormed to the bathroom, not wanting to sulk in my bunk because it probably smelt of drunken Frank in there.

I didn’t realise how long I’d locked myself away in the bathroom for. I stepped out and all of the guys were gone, including the driver. My pass to get into the back of the venue was placed neatly on the kitchen counter.

I sighed and got dressed as I hadn’t had the opportunity before, then made my way out.

The concert couldn’t have long started, or started at all yet, as people were still frantically rushing about. My suspicion about it not having started was correct as I saw Mikey peering out the side of the black curtain.

“Nervous?”

He jumped as he heard my voice, a grin spreading across my face, satisfied at what I’d just done. Mikey nodded and gave me a small smile.

“Faye, you shouldn’t have said what you did to your Dad earlier.”

“Which bit, I said a lot to him.”

“The bit about you wanting me to be your Dad. It’s hard for him you know? He’s a single parent, with a teenage daughter, a career and… Bringing your Mum into it was kind of unnecessary. He tries his best for you, but I don’t think he quite gets what girls are going through. You got to give him a little leeway here.”

I shook my head, “I don’t care Mikes. It’s not about him being crap, it’s about him not making the effort to understand, or get to know me, and he thinks he can buy my affection. It’s about him constantly siding with Frank when I’m his little girl. He never believes me.”

“You’re on in two minutes, Mikey, get your bass and get ready, okay?” Russell called to him.

“I’ll talk to you later, kiddo.”

He left me with my thoughts. He could be right, maybe. I mean, Dad was a guy (obviously) and I didn’t expect him to understand me completely because well, I was a girl and according to guys girls are complicated. There were many aspects of me he may not have understood. I mean, for starters, why I got moody when I was on my period. None of the guys got that, not even Mikey. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t get to know my personality. I thought we could’ve got on well if only he took the time out to spend some time with me, but now I was just longing to go home and spend some time baking cakes with my grandma.

More than anything, I wanted to want to be on this tour. We were three days in, three, and it’d just gone crazy. I needed to hurt Frank, get my own back. He caused this argument between my father and me.

I watched the show in silence.