A Love Like War

I stared up at the ceiling of my bunk, which was also the ceiling of the bus. It was dark, since the curtain to my bunk was still drawn, hiding me away from the sounds of the guys on the bus stirring, trying to pry themselves out of their beds just like I was. I was glad it was so early in the morning for one reason only--the guys were still quiet. But I was extremely bitter about the 5-am wake up call for every other reason possible.

I was kind of hoping if I just stared at the ceiling long enough that I would get dizzy and pass out and not have to get up. I didn't see a reason for me to be awake at this ungodly hour; all we were doing this morning was checking out the concert venue the band would be playing later tonight. Since it was All Time Low's first countrywide tour, and hardly anybody knew who they were, I thought it'd be safe to assume the venue wouldn't be wildly enormous. But I got that they had to figure out how they'd set all the equipment up and how lighting would work. Still, I saw no reason for me to go along with them, since I was only to sing one bridge of a song and for that time span I was to sit on a stool next to where Alex would stand.

Unfortunately, before I could will myself into unconsciousness, Matt made his way through the bunks. I could hear him directly below me, trying to wake Jack gently, seeing as Jack wasn't exactly a morning person. The only person out of the entire band and crew on this bus who was a morning person was Rian--go figure.

I rolled over so I was lying face-down on the cheap bunk mattress before Matt could pull the curtain aside.

"Kristin, time to get up," he said, quietly but less gently than when he'd woken Jack. I assumed this was because he still wasn't extremely comfortable with the touring situation, or more specifically, my presence on the tour.

"No," I muttered into my pillow, eliciting a short laugh from Matt. Cute. He thought I was kidding.

---

It took almost an hour and a half to get everyone on the bus up, which was apparently much longer than it should've taken--Matt made that very clear. But once we were all up, we were off the bus and in the small-ish auditorium-like building pretty quickly.

Alex, Jack, Rian and Zack all climbed up onto the stage and stood where I assumed they'd be standing for the show. I thought it was kind of cute how they didn't say anything, they just looked around the room and (I guessed) imagined what it would look like full of people waiting to see them.

What I was still trying to figure out was why exactly they were headlining a tour with no opening bands. All Time Low was the only band on the tour. I thought it would be difficult for them to sell tickets when they weren't a well known band and there were no well known bands on tour with them. But apparently the marketing guy from Hopeless Records did his job well, because they'd sold plenty of tickets, and some of the smaller shows had sold out. Their EP had been released a few years ago and their first album had been out for a month or two now, so I guessed that that was plenty of time to gather up a substantial fan base.

"Okay, so Evan and Jeff, you guys stay here and figure out the sound and light systems or whatever," Matt announced, the first person to speak loudly enough that I was forced to pay attention, "and I'm gonna go with everyone back to the bus to figure out a setlist, yeah?"

Evan, the sound tech the band was given for hire by Hopeless Records, and Jeff, the lighting designer, nodded in agreement and both strayed off in opposite directions, presumably to their own little nooks where they'd work their magic at the concert tonight.

I followed Matt and the guys back outside of the venue and into the bus, even more pissed than I'd been an hour and a half ago. I had actually been woken up at five in the morning to walk out of the bus, into a building, stand there for 2 minutes, and then go back to the bus and do nothing. I bit my lip and fumed silently, wishing horrible things on Matt.

The second we got back to the bus, I climbed back up into my bus, mumbled something along the lines of, "Fuck you all," and passed out.