Keep Me On My Toes

Reading festival. A festival I'd always wanted to go to; a festival all my favourite bands played. And the first time I was going, I got VIP, because I was 'dating' Alex Gaskarth of All Time Low... What even?

I'd not seen him since he was back in London, I mean, I'd hinted at it but I didn't want to be desperate and clingy. Josh hadn't answered the few texts I’d sent him after the argument, and I wasn’t about to keep trying. I didn't have any answers to any of my questions I’d asked him and had been thinking about the whole time, but I wasn't going to let that ruin my day.

'Fuck it,' I thought to myself. Josh would be there playing, so I was going to be talking to him. I missed him a ridiculous amount and I have this horrible thing where I can't leave people alone- I have to know why. I just needed the right moment.

You Me At Six played on the Friday, All Time Low on the Sunday. Alex was going to be with me the whole weekend, pretending we were a real normal couple enjoying a festival together. Or so I hoped. The only difference between normal festival goers and us being that I was sleeping on a tour bus, whereas everyone else was camping. I'd wanted to camp, but Alex had said no. I wasn't about to complain thought, he'd gotten me backstage passes!

I'm not going to bore you with the details, but we watched some bands from side stage, and some from in front of the barriers, and some actually in the crowd. It was a bit of a shame Alex kept getting noticed, but it was expected. He seemed a little distant sometimes, but I guessed he was just thinking about his band being up there in a few days.

I absolutely demanded we watch YMAS from the crowd, because Francesca wanted to see her boyfriend in action properly. Did I forget to mention Max got her VIP too? But anyway, Alex didn't really want to be in the crowd at the point, and generally wasn't feeling too great so just stayed behind in the bus. I wasn't going to let that stop me! Chess and I managed to get right to the front, we still aren't too sure how but whatever, we managed it.

Josh started out with a lot of energy, but soon that dwindled away and he was left looking sort of sad... And then came the moment I will always remember.

'I want to dedicate this song, to someone I lost through my own stupidity, and because of my dumb male pride I can’t do anything about it. This is to everyone who has ever done something similar, and for anyone who finds this happening, don’t let them slip through your fingers,’ Josh said with such fierce emotion that some girls I saw round me actually had tears in their eyes.

‘Siana… that was to you,’ Chess said quietly from beside me.

I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I was with Alex and Josh didn’t want to be my friend. That’s how it is now. He’d made up his mind. I wanted my answers and that was it. He’d made it clear he didn’t want friendship or anything else, and if he says things like that in anger, I wasn’t sure I even wanted to be his friend.

‘No... I have to go,’ I said and left the crowd. I wanted Alex, just to show myself that Josh had been wrong, and I shouldn’t forgive him. I was bad at holding grudges, but I desperately wanted to hold this one.

I got to the bus, and Flyzik was up the front. I pushed past him to get to the bunks but he grabbed my arms, ‘Siana, are you looking for Alex?’ he asked quite carefully.

‘Yeah, why?’ He didn’t answer me, and I could see conflict in his eyes. ‘Why, Matt?’

‘Don’t worry, I was just thinking about something,’ He said and left the bus.

God knows why he was being weird, but I just wanted to be with Alex at that point. I was on the verge of getting upset.

I walked to the part of the bus where the bunks were, pulling back the curtain of Alex’s, fully expecting him to be asleep or playing on his phone as I knew he usually did when he was ill. But no, that’s not at all what I found.

Well, it sort of was. He was asleep alright... just not quite in the state I’d expected. I’m making it sound like he was dead, but it wasn’t quite as dramatic as that. There was a girl in the bed, a girl he’d said he had nothing to do with numerous times to numerous people. Lisa. He was in bed with Lisa. I couldn’t even think of anything to say, so I drew the curtain and walked to the main stage, standing right the back. I wanted Chess but my phone was on All Time Low’s bus, and I knew she’d be on You Me At Six’s drinking with the guys. I didn’t want to see Josh in this state, I wouldn’t get my answers. I had literally nowhere to go, so I stood there for what felt like hours, until Chess
somehow found me and took me to the YMAS bus rambling on about how everyone was asleep so I could crash there if I wanted.

Let’s just say this wasn’t how I imagined the start of my first Reading Festival to be.