Oxygen (Catfish And The Bottlemen/1975)

Fliss

"Ugh mate I feel wrong," groaned Saffron beside me where we lay on the sofa spooning one another, watching mighty boosh. Up until half an hour before we had been fine, but the comedown had hit us both a little harder than we were expecting and with no weed to help ease the pain we were stuck drinking lucazade sport, simpering in our own self pity.

"Me too," I agreed smiling softly at noel fielding dressed as a peppermint nightmare.

"This isn't fair," she wined but we both knew that if anything it was completely the opposite. You can't have a high without the cone down.

"Just focus on noel, noel will make everything alright," I breathed as Katie entered, the telephone pressed to her ear as she placed a mug of tea in front of me. I smiled softly smirking at the tint in her cheeks and her lips as she sucked then in and laughed at something Benji had said to her.

"Fuck off," she smiled eyes sparkling as she flopped down on the beanbag at our feet, eyes on the television screen too, almost distracted but not quite.

Usually when people see a girl like Katie they say things like, "she needs a nice confident young man with great prospects to really show her her worth and potential, that will bring her out of her shell," but they were wrong.

Katie was quiet, she was shy and she wasn't much for crowds and attention, but being quiet and avoiding the limelight aren't necessarily the symptoms of a lack of self worth. Katie knew exactly what she was worth, she had that quiet kind of confidence, the kind that lingers in the subtleties of her expression. She didn't need a confident young man to teach her to love herself because katie loved everyone and everything if she believed that they deserved it. She was soft and gentle but she wasn't fragile, she didn't need someone to bring her out of her shell, she just needed someone who understood her. Someone she could resonate with.

"You should be a bit more careful Blakes," she teased twirling her hair around her finger.

We probably wouldn't see the lads until the summer on the festival circuit now, not with them busy preparing for a tour, and us busy preparing for a tour, none of us were going to have the free time or the evenings off to waste them getting high and dancing to indie rock on the kitchen table.

"You know," I yawned squeezing my eyes shut as Katie put the phone down.

"I think im gonna cut down," sighed Saffron dramatically, I turned to her eyes wide with a confused smile.

"Thats what I was bout say," she just laughed and shook her head.

"Yeah but I mean it!" She teased, "no more pills, no more more powders and I mean it, theres no way I could do a tour if I felt like this every morning," she yawned and she was right. I nodded my head in agreement and winced at the thought of a full on comedown, but if we were going to do it we were going to have to do it properly.

"Well if you two are going to, I will too," sighed Katie, "the thought of tourings already overwhelming enough," she smirked drawing  laugh from my lips. She was right there.

For a little while longer we lay there, feeling sorry for ourselves, Katie laughing whenever me or Saff winced and moaned.

"Yous two winge like hell dont yous," she giggled, "I'm gonna need earplugs get through the next few days," she teased, her eyes sparkling all mischievous and bright.

"Fuck off will yous," I smiled sticking my middle finger up as I pushed myself up from the sofa and announced my departure before disappearing up to my room to collapse in bed and bury my head under the duvet.

I knew the next few days were going to be hell to get through, my mother and sister were dragging me out dress shopping again, we were going to have to meet with our manager and talk through the plan for the next few months. Since appearing on bbc and embarassing myself in front of well, anyone who was listening, Honeymoons had become a lot more popular, with people asking to interview us, people asking us to play gigs for them, rather than us begging on our knees for a look in.
It was incredible quite how quickly things were moving and I was beginning to get the feeling that things were going to change for us that summer, that things were going to fall into place and push us over the edge.

My head spun with it all as I tried to think through the songs I wanted us to finish for our setlist, as I tried to think of a running order, which songs would go down better and where. It was too much for me on a good day, but my mind felt like it had been shot to pieces and thought I tried to keep a clear head, I ended up saying to hell with it all, closing my eyes and going back to sleep.

By the time I'd woken up the sun that had been blazing through my curtains was beginning to set, the incense I'd left to burn nothing but a line of ash in the burner. I'd woken up with my head burried in Vans hoodie, the hoodie he'd thrown at me the night before and never thought to take home with him. It smelt of cigarettes and Van, or rather to say Van smelt of nothing but cigarettes. It was a kind of home comfort of a smell, if I closed my eyes I knew he wasn't there, but he felt a little closer, and I could trick myself into believing that we'd ever be that close.

In reality I knew that all that hoodie would ever mean for either of us, was an ebay sale later down the line whilst he was headlining Glastonbury and dating the next Kate Moss, and I was at home, selling "Van Mccanns old hoodie," to some fan that wanted to do the same thing.
Pretend they had a connection to him.
It made me wonder what I was to him, why he was spending all his free time hanging round a throwaway child prodigy and her university pals,when he could have been leading a much more glamorous life with super models and actresses his own age.

When you're up its easy to convince yourself and other people that you're Lyla, that you're the queen of everything. Its easy to shrug your shoulders and say "fuck it," as you swallow another pill and flash a stranger a smile, because if they don't smile back its their problem. Its their fault. However, In the cold of the "morning after" I struggled to see any reasons at all as to why someone like Van would want anything to do with someone like me.