Pleasure of the Pain

It started a few days away from one of our tours, everyone was too busy concentrating on their music, instruments, packing... None of us really did say ‘hey, lets have a break and eat’ we just went into the kitchen to eat ourselves if we wanted to. I remember not eating, I never can have a break whilst working hard, I feel like I should do the job first then do something else. I thought that was the same with Laurence. I thought he was going to have something later, but talking to Drew now, well he didn’t even look at food.

I was busy trying to work out how many guitar picks I would need, even though I don’t really think I’m that good at guitar. I could hear Barrone in the other room with his guitar, tuning it, then I remember hearing the string break and him rummage through his draws. I knew he was stressed, he always was before we started a tour, he would always break strings when he was stressed. I just didn’t know then how stressed he really did get.

Drew and Luke had suggested we go out somewhere as a celebration for going on tour. Barrone went, and I would have too but Laurence was too tired so he stayed back, so I did too, making the same excuse. I could hear Laurence upstairs in the bathroom, but I never quite knew what he was doing. I could probably guess now.

He had come downstairs, pale and definitely looking tired. “Are you alright?” I asked him.

“Yeah” he answered, sitting next to me. I didn’t know that he actually wasn’t okay then.

I s’pose nothing else really happened, maybe the biggest event was Drew, Luke and Barrone coming back, Drew and Luke drunk and Barrone trying to drag one in without losing the other. If that did happen, I knew I would have watched and let him suffer.

-

It was the next day and we had nothing to do...As it was the day before the tour I think it was 20th June? I’m not so sure. But anyway, we had nothing to do as we had done everything yesterday. Three out of five where sitting in the front room, whilst the other two were recovering from their hangover. Barrone was practicing again, a new bandage round his wrist, but I thought that was from the broken string yesterday. I was never right.

“By the end of this tour you’ll be sick of it” I said, flicking through the pages of a magazine. I wasn’t looking for us, even though I was in there. I was just looking. Laurence was writing, although he used to always let me read, because ‘more eyes spot more mistakes’ as he would say. He never did let me read it, so I assumed it was one he was experimenting with.

I saw our tour dates listed in the magazine and checked where we were going. I guess I forgot things quite a lot.

As Laurence walked past he saw what I was doing and chuckled to himself, before heading upstairs.

Drew walked downstairs, rubbing his eyes
.
“I’m awake” He mumbled, collapsing onto the sofa next to me.

“No! Really?” I gasped.

“Shut up” he muttered. “At least I know where we’re going for our tour”

I flicked to the poster bit, staying quiet. I noticed Shane was watching us, but he soon went back to his guitar.

I was pretending to read an article about something when Barrone had broken another string. I looked up to see his finger was bleeding, so Drew decided to go and get the plasters. I never knew until now that he may have done it on purpose. It has ways hurt me to think that maybe he did start to break them on purpose, for that short, sharp pain that was so easily passed off from the rest of us as an accident when he knew it wasn’t.

But this is a story about Laurence, even though Barrone too had ended up the same sort of way.

Laurence was upstairs, and had spent a lot of time doing so, so I remember going upstairs to his room where I expected him to be. However, he was not there. Instead his laptop was left on his cluttered desk, open. I assumed he had left his story there, and let curiosity get the better of me. I sat down on his chair and looked at the screen, reading his story. It was more like a diary, however it read things like 'we have our tour tomorrow, maybe people will notice a difference.' and 'I did that again today, but it never seems to make a difference.'

“Kier?” I fell off the seat in surprise, banging my head on the corner of the desk.

“What’re you doing?” Laurence asked, a frown forming on his face.

“I...uh..” I looked to him then up to the computer screen and laughed sheepishly. I couldn’t lie to Laurence, we made a promise in year six, when I dyed my hair blue (of all the colours) and he lied that it looked nice, which it didn’t and I went to school to find myself getting picked on, which resulted in Laurence getting suspended for a week for punching someone.

Laurence sighed, walking over. “Did you hurt yourself? You know you should really look after yourself more” hypocrite.

“I’m okay” I said, despite feeling a lump start to form on the back of my head. “What do you mean by That?”


“I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist. It’s a small story for the whole Grandomina thing, The Prince does something but no one knows” he lied. “I’m not sure what yet”

“Oh, okay” I nodded, stupid to have believed him. He sighed again and helped me up. It was then when I noticed how much thinner his hands were, and come to think of it he had lost some weight. I can’t remember wether I asked him about it or not.