chapter 14: pinball machines

we were sitting on the stage, and i was still pumped. the concert was ending soon, they were going to play 'obviously,' and then finish off with five colours. the rest of the girls were pretty tired, especially isabelle, not like at the other concert, where we were pumped all night, but this felt like a once-in-a-lifetime thing. not like a, we'll-be-doing-this-again-tomorrow thing.
we all clapped among the screaming girls and i smiled. i knew vanessa wanted this. the fame, and all of these people wanting to be you, or hang out with you.
then i had a briliant idea. we had started a band a long time ago, with our friend julia, yet we never got a deal. we were pretty good, we had won battle of the bands in our town once, yet nothing happened after that. eventually, we gave up on it. now, i had an amazing idea that we could possibly be famous. i just needed tom, harry, danny and dougie's take on the whole thing. hopefully it would work.
i sighed when the songs ended, tired from dancing, finally, when the sugar rush had stoped, i sat down in the backstage and danny gave me a cold rag. i was soaking. i dabbed it on my head. "good workout," i managed to mumble.
"haha, yeah," he laughed. he seemed to be used to it, and he took my hand and dragged me into their tourbus for what seemed like forever. i looked at my watch it was only 11:45 and i was this tired. gosh. i was so tired. i guess i'd never actually been on a stage at a concert before with a sugar rush. it's fun at the time, but later, it feels like you're hungover.

the following moring, i was still tired. we were going to take this day to chill out, and then head over to another state.
"where do you guys wanna go?" tom looked around on a map, yet he didn't seem to be looking for something.
"i think isabelle should choose, because she was the one who pushed through the whole concert without complaining or messing up," harry said. vanessa and dougie rolled their eyes.
isabelle beamed. "i messed up a lot, harry. i don't think i should choose."
"you should," tom, kathryn, and danny said.
"chuckie cheese!" vanessa looked excited. dougie laughed. "no, seriously. it's good to get your inner kid out once in a while."
"is that what your therapist told you?" kathryn asked, sarcastic.
"um, yeah." we all laughed. i was the only one who didn't, my head hurt so bad.
"fine then, i guess it's chuckie cheese!" isabelle hopped up, and she scuffled over to the driver who nodded.
"yayy!" vanessa cried, and danny shushed her.
"her head hurts."
"that's what you get for having five beers before a concert," tom smiled at me.
"what?!" i cried as i stood up, harry and danny motioned me back down.
"tom, shut up," harry mumbled.
"oh..." tom looked as if he had said something bad.
"fine, now that you've said it might as well tell her," danny sighed and pulled me back down. those weren't red bulls, those were beers."
"well, i think she's got that part cleared up," dougie said his eyes focoused on the tv screen.
"what do you mean? they were red bulls, right? they sure looked like them to me. or did vanessa... or kathryn... or isabelle..."
"yep," tom said. kathryn blushed.
"katy!" i cried and put my hands up to my face.
"sorry, i told tom so he wouldn't worry about giving you a beer, i know you'd reject it, and you're so fun when you're drunk.. so..."
i rolled my eyes and sighed. danny put his arm around me.
"well you didn't have to tell them about my beer problem." when i drink more than three beers, i get pretty wasted.
"you could have told me they were beers." i said to danny.
"i didn't want you mad," he looked at dougie. "it was his idea anyways."
"are you mad at me?" dougie looked at me with a puppy dog face, and danny scoffed and rolled his eyes.
"no, i'm not mad, i'm just sad that you didn't tell me." i rubbed my head. "no i'm hungover."
and i wondered why they only drank one "red bull."
i sighed, yet again, to be face with a rush of pain.
"do you remember anything?" vanessa asked me.
"nah, just the cold rag and the tour bus. and the screaming. lots of screaming."
yes, this was going to be a long day.