Chapter fourteen

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Liz's POV

A few hours later, I returned to the bus to find Ash, CC and Jake. Andy had taken Xavi and Jinxx to buy food.

I walked In and CC noticed the bandages over my wrists.

"What happened? Are you really that miserable? What can I do?" CC asked, panicking.

"Whoa, I got some tattoos, I stopped self-harming three years ago. Look" I said, taking off the bandages. Over the self harm scars, I had tattooed a song sheet.

"What's that?" CC asked.

"It's the song sheet for the electric guitar. The song is 'In The End'. The lyrics are on the other side"

"Wow! That's awesome! Any other tats I should know about?"

"Yeah. Look" I said. I took my shirt off and turned around, revealing my back.

"Wow! Lightbulbs and a straight edge cross. Why those though?"

"Story time. Ages ago, at the old adoption centre, I was abused. I had anxiety and regular panic attacks. Remember that I was nine and I couldn't defend myself. The kids learned how to trigger my panic attacks. One day, they triggered one and took me to the basement where the carers couldn't hear. One kid found my razors and another smoked. They also found my guitar. I used it to calm myself down. They smashed it in front of me. They decided that it would be a good idea to stub out a cigarette on my back, hence the lightbulbs over the scars. The other kid decided to carve 'emo fag' between my shoulder blades. It was diagonal so I got a straight edge cross over it. They also dragged the razor down my leg. It wasn't straight so I turned that into a vine going from my hip to my ankle. I learned self defence and started to deal with my anxiety so they couldn't do it again. Don't bring it up, don't give me sympathy and don't be angry"

"Jesus, I had no idea. The tattoos are amazing, do you like them?"

"Heck yeah! Pierce The Veil know as well, they helped me decide"

"Nice! So, we are performing in an hour, let's get ready"

"Yeah! Just, don't tell the others"

The others were in the lounge and hadn't heard me.

I touched up my makeup and we set off to the main stage, meeting Andy, Jinxx and Xavi there.

"Right, let's do this shit! Ashes, you've got Xavi. Have fun!" I yelled before running away. The crew came over to me like a cloud of locusts and started sorting out my bass, giving me a headset and barking instructions at me.

"Alright, I've got it, cool off!" I shouted, banishing the crew.

I strode over to the stage entrance and waited for the guys. They all turned up eventually and we walked on to the stage, staying focused on the task ahead.

We set off playing and were halfway through knives and pens before Andy's microphone cut out.

I took over singing and managed to continue the song before it finished. I quickly removed my headset and gave it to Andy, taking his and messing around with it.

I got it working again halfway through the next song and I started to sing backup again.

I threw my arms up into the air in celebration, making the crown scream in joy.

The performance carried on before we had to cut it short for technical reasons.

I ran off the stage and danced in joy with the fact that I had fixed the headset.

"How did you do that? You've saved at least three shows at this point" Ash said, addressing my headset feat.

"Lemme explain my education. I was home educated until I was thirteen, when I finished my education. I got accepted into college so young because of my science shit. Anyway, I majored in psychology and minored in show business, such as how to put up lights, budgeting, microphoney shit. The usual"

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