I Just Wanted to be Edgy Too

Chapter Fifty-Five

Van

The bar was busier than when we arrived. People lined the walls and bumped into us often. The majority of them were girls, girls who knew who we were, trying to get familiar with each of us. I traded glances with Bob often, and he looked just as uncomfortable as me. The only person I wanted around me was thousands of miles and several countries away.

I dodged the masses around me for a fag break with Larry. He met us in the bar about an hour after we arrived, and that brought a whole new wave of fans and people in. I didn't want to seem ungrateful. I loved our fans more than anything, but the older I got, the harder it was to sort through. Most of the girls in the bar were barely legal, and there wasn't enough of me to spread thin enough to talk to all of them. It felt weird sitting at a table with your mates, only to find a girl nearly a decade younger than you, listening in and all the sudden commenting on your conversation like she was a part of it all along.

People wanted to be near us for whatever reason. In the early days, we all reveled in it. I loved the attention at first, and we all seemed to smile at the attention and the fact that everyone wanted pictures with us. We'd trade glances with each other from across crowded rooms, smile and laugh at how different things were from the days when we played pubs to a dozen people. But those moments became dreary. People wanted pieces of us. Pictures, autographs, videos, messages to friends, some people just wanted to touch us. We'd all learned that there are only so many pieces of yourself that you can give to others before you start to feel empty, desolate even. I'd been empty for a long time, just going through the motions and looking for pieces of myself I'd scattered along the way.

There wasn't much of me left to give to fans. A quick smile here and there, a comment on their shirt or a thank you when warranted. My responses were robotic at times, and I hated myself for that.

Right now though, now it was even harder. I was proper buzzed up from the pints we'd tossed back, and I wasn't good at hiding my feelings when I was like this. I knew my eyes were likely giving me away. I knew my expression was less than pleasant. I could see it in the reactions I was getting from the people we passed on the way to the door. They all had their phones clutched in their hands, some held it to the side as they took videos of Larry and I and thought we couldn't see it. I shook my head on a laugh as we stepped into the evening air.

Manchester was just as much alive outside the bar, as it was inside. The sounds of the city muted the sounds inside the bar, and I was grateful for that. I needed to get out of my head for a minute.

"Proper packed in there." Larry mumbled as he hit his fag and shivered against the chill in the air.

"It's getting harder and harder to go out here. Makes me wish we were still in Scotland."

Larry smiled and leaned against the building. "Probably for more reasons than one."

"Obviously." Ellie's face flooded my mind quickly, and I brought the fag to my lips for another deep inhale.

"How is she?"

I shrugged. "Haven't heard from her today. She knew we were meeting with the label, too."

Larry stood up straighter and looked in through the glass at the small group of girls who now gathered by the window. "Maybe she wanted to give you some space. Days like these you always get lost inside that head of yours. You're in it right now, aren't you?"

I shrugged.

"I know that look, McCann. Even though you signed, even though number four is good to go, you're still in it, thinking of what you could have done differently."