Blood for Blood, Hearts Beating

The band members of Pink Elvira, including Grace were sitting in the tour bus. Jess’s cousin, Riley, was sitting in a comfortable single person chair. She wouldn’t stop talking about herself and how she was so excited about meeting and marrying some guy in a band. Then she would be famous.

Riley crossed her legs. “I’m thinking I could marry Kellin Quinn from Sleeping With Sirens.”

Marissa grunted. “What a shame for you. Kellin is already married and has a stupid little girl. I swear, she is the ugliest baby I’ve ever seen.”

With a lot of love, Jess put her hand around her cousin. “You wouldn’t want to marry him anyways. He’s nothing but a wannabe emo boy.”

“Emo? Do you know anything about music? Sleeping With Sirens is far from it.” Grace put her hand on top of her mouth, regretting that she had opened it.

All heads turned to her and 12 eyes were on her with a glare in each and every single one of them. Sarah just lightly smiled but had her eyes wide open. “That’s why you’re the one in a band, right? Tell me, how many musicians asked you to join them? None?”

Riley shook her head as Sarah’s eyes were still burning into Grace. “Come on Sarah. She’s just a little beggar girl.”

Sarah looked over at the other girls on the bus. “Whatever. There’s only one guy I’d ever think of sleeping with here. It’s that boy from that band. The kid’s name is,”

Before she could get another word in, Grace stepped in again. “You can’t just get any guy you want. For all you know, he could hate you.”

“Get out of the bus. No one wants you here. No one likes you. Stupid kid.”

She stormed out of the room with her little backpack dragging along her side. Really, she didn’t mind that she was out of there. It was starting to smell like smoke. It made sense since Riley was a deep smoker.

As soon as she had taken a deep breath and stepped outside, she forgot her troubles. She was at the biggest music festival in North America. It was better than being at home. Even spending time with Pink Elvira wasn’t half as bad. Most of the time, the girls just ignored her.

She just walked wherever she could and watched as the sun was raised into the sky and the shadows of buildings and tents faded away.

It was peaceful out. No one was outside but her. Birds were up and chirping. They sang along with each other.

Grace stopped at a large tree. A weeping willow that was placed alone in the corner of the park. It was fairly dark in there but it was peaceful. It was long and covered whatever it could hide inside. She stepped inside and sat at the root as a chair.

She rested her arms on her knees and admired some of her tattoos. Her favourite one was on the back of her arm and had a black rose with just one petal left. She wasn’t quite sure what it meant but she felt like it could have a very important meaning.

Another one that she got was on her back and it was a piece of a monarch butterfly. It was like her skin was peeling and her wings were trying to spread.

Once she was done looking, she laid back, resting her head on the ground and just looked up towards the sky only to see green. The tree was taller than she had thought from the outside.

She was nervous about it all. Scared about being at Warped Tour. This was her first time at the event. How would she cope with being around Sarah and her clan of clones. It’s not that they said much to her, but when they did, they dug a deep hole. Grace was one to hide it all but this, if she had to live like that for the whole Summer, she wasn’t exactly confident that she wouldn’t pop.

There was one thing she had to look forward to though, and that was something that happened the first day. Freddy the merch boy was immediately comforting and warm. Honestly, within those few hours that they worked, she had formed a little crush on him.

She was suddenly started by someone calling her name. Immediately she snapped and stood up to see that it was only Freddy.

A smile appeared on her face as she tucked her hair behind her ear. “Freddy, what are you doing here?” She bit her lip a little as she tried to hide her smile.

“Early morning walk. How bout you? You’re up early?”

“Yeah, I know. The band is always up super early and they wanted me out.”

Freddie frowned. “They wanted you out?”

Grace nodded. “I understand. It’s their tour bus and not mine.” She put her arms around her back and played with her hair that fell at the back.

They both took a seat down at the stump of the tree again. “I’ve seen the way those bitches treat you and it’s not right. You’re at Warped for God’s sake. This is supposed to be the highlight of your Summer. This is your Summer.”

“I’m on a job.”

“So am I. The thing is that I won’t let it tear me down. We’re around music. The center of it all.” He smiled lightly and spread it onto Grace’s face.

Grace moved a little closer to him. “But I don’t need to be at Warped to be around music. I’m just making some money. That’s it.”

The two of them just stared at each other. Examining. Trying to understand the other person. Grace didn’t understand Freddy much but still she was interested in him. Same for Freddy. He really didn’t understand her and it appeared to be that he liked her as much as she liked him.

“Are you going to the Warped Party tomorrow?” He was playing with his fingers, pulling at the green grass and splitting them into halves.

Grace grinned at him, showing her teeth. “No, I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone there and I’m sure I’d be the party pooper. I’m not one for being out there.”

Freddy thought about it for a few seconds. Trying to think of something that he could say that wouldn’t turn her away from going. He didn’t want to sound cliché with saying that he would be there or just make it awkward. “How about you come to the Pierce the Veil tour bus after work tonight. Then you’ll know nine new guys.”

“I don’t know. Really, I don’t want to be a pain in the ass.”

“You won’t be.” A ring from his phone came from Freddy’s pocket. He took it out for a few seconds and closed it. “I’m sorry Grace. I’ve got to go. Kellin needs some help.” He then sped off towards the speed of light.

It was exhausting to Grace. Only the second day of Warped and she was sick of hearing and being around Pink Elvira. Constantly when she wasn’t on merch business, she was forced to go from place to place. Although it was only the second day, it was bound to get worse.

Just, hopefully it wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe the guys from these bands would like her. What if they ended up being very close friends with her. Then again, there was that chance that they would hate her and hope to never see her again.