Party 'til you pass out / When the party's over

Oliver

It had been a blazing hot day once again, and we were all a little dusty from walking on the dry venue, so when a thunderstorm struck and it started raining, we all welcomed the coolness gladly. Nicholls and Alison sat at the table in the kitchen, plotting whether to go out and dance in the rain or not.

Suddenly, Alison got up and went into the bunk area, then locked herself into the bathroom. Soon enough she came out in only her bikini, throwing Nicholls' swim shorts at him.

'Get up, we're going out,' she said. Nicholls grinned and got changed quickly, and they stormed outside laughing. I shook my head an watched them run after each other through the rain, kicking water out of the forming puddles and dancing around like nothing on earth was bothering them. I wished I could feel that carefree for once, and I sighed in envy.

'Guys!,' Alison yelled into the bus. 'Come out!'

'Are you crazy, woman?,' Lee shouted back. He shook his head and looked back at his phone. 'Children...' I chuckled and stared back through the window, staring at Alison. She yelled when Nicholls kicked water at her, and I noticed a scar running across her lower belly, just above her bikini bottom. I knew I had seen it before, weeks ago when she stretched in the plane, and that one day at the lake, but I had never taken a note of it again until now.

I was daydreaming away a little, wishing I'd had some ketamine right now, because I felt like shit. I had been scrolling through Twitter and some music pages, and had come across some not so positive reviews about my stage presence lately, and it made me more insecure and craving something to forget about it.

Alison and Nicholls came back in, dripping and shivering from being soaked to their bones because of the heavy rain, but still laughing carefree. They dried themselves and changed into something dry and comfortable, and Nicholls joined the rest of the band in the back lounge for a gaming session. I laid stretched out over the couch in the front of the bus when Alison came in, looking down at me while pulling her wet hair into a bun.

'Eh, do you mind if I work here?,' she asked a little hesitantly. I shook my head and pulled my feet closer, making some room for her. 'Thanks,' she muttered as she poured herself some tea and grabbed her laptop, starting to edit some photos she had made on Warped today. My eyes were glued to her face, her grey eyes piercing through her glasses while she sipped from her tea and erased some photos that were out of focus. The question was wandering through my head, and I decided to just ask her about her scar.

'Alison?'

'Hmm?' She didn't look up, too focused on her screen. I noticed she was going through a set of photos of me, screaming my lungs out on stage, sweating like an idiot in the blazing sun of this afternoon. 'I like that photo,' I said, sitting up straight and looking at it closely. Alison really had an eye for photography; she had shot many of our shows now, and most pictures were really good, showing the emotion and energy of the show and songs.

'Thanks.' She smiled up at me and I stared at her eyes, which were the same steel grey colour as the sky outside.

'Hey, Al?'

'Yeah?' I hesitated. Should I?

'How did you get that scar running over your lower belly?' She froze in her movements and her fingers gripped a little tighter around her mug. Her eyes didn't meet mine but stayed looking at her screen, but she wasn't scrolling through photos anymore. After a moment, she inhaled deeply and scraped her throat.

'Appendicitis,' she muttered, taking a sip from her tea and flicking photos again.

'Ah,' I just said. Bullshit. I'd had appendicitis as a kid once too, and I didn't have such a huge scar on my belly, and not in the spot she had it either. Alison had tensed up and I sighed and let her be, getting up to walk up to the lads to see why they were shouting so loudly.