No Regrets

"C'mon Val! Get the fuck up!" I heard Ian yell from outside my bunk. He opened the curtain and tried to wake me up. Well, I was awake but I didn't want to get up. "No, leave me alone" I mumbled into my pillow. "You stayed in bed like a day now. It's time to get up and enjoy the life" Ian tried again. "There's nothing to enjoy" I complained. Suddenly he got serious. "Val, you know that we just want to help you. So please move your lazy ass out off this bunk!" he said. I moaned and moved my legs out of the bunk. Ian smiled at me and then walked to the front of the bus. I've always hated mornings but at this time I hated it more than ever. My life just sucked. I had actually no idea what I could do with it. I had no idea who I was and how I feel. In my family it was wrong to show any emotions or be yourself. It was just wrong. It was hard to find yourself in a family like that. I sometimes have still no idea who the fuck I am. I think about myself many times and then I stay for like hours in my bed or bunk and don't talk to somebody. Just like this week. I'm on tour right now with my band No Regrets and we're traveling from Cleveland to New York to play our 3rd last show at this tour. We're actually just the supporting act of All Time Low but it's still pretty awesome. We started the band in hope from the guys, that it'll help me to find myself and get better. I have to admit that it really helped me a lot. Because I could write everything down and I'm better at writing lyrics than talk to somebody about it. And it's actually better staying in a bunk of a bus with people in it than being weeks alone in a small apartment. I really liked the guys, they're like my family. Well, they ARE kinda my family since my real family sucked. Ian is my brother, so he's the only good person in my family. We're really close since we're children. He was the one who always was against that, what our parents taught us. He was the only one who believed in me, so I began to let myself free. And since I started to find and being myself, my parents begun to stop talking to me anymore. They ignore my calls and messages. But I don't really care, this family harmed myself more than it helped me. "How are you?" Steve, our bassist took me out of my thoughts. "It could be better" I answered and took one of the cups filled with coffee. I took a sip and noticed that everyone was looking at me. "What?" I asked them. "Oh, we....w-we are just a bit worried about you" Ian, my brother and our guitarist and backvolcalist explained. "Guys, there's really no reason to worry about me. I'll get better, I promise" I tried to calm them down. But it seemed like they didn't really believe me. "Seriously guys, I can do that. I...I just need some time" I tried to explain. "We are always here for you" Bob, our drummer let me know. I smiled at them before I walked to the back of the bus. There was a big TV and all the DVD's and DVD-player. I took a random DVD which was supposed to be a love story. Before I could begin to watch the movie our tour manager Tim yelled from the front: "We're at a truck stop! 30 minutes to do what the fuck you want to do." I laughed and quickly got up from the couch. The other guys were already out of the bus and sat with some chairs next to the bus. "Where're you going?" Jerry, our rhythm guitarist asked me. "I'm gonna walk around a bit" I said and walked towards a little picnic place. There was also a little lake. It looked really cute and romantic. If I would have a boyfriend I would totally take him here and make out with him. But yeah, I don't have one so I'll just be there sitting alone and thinking. I sat on the table and looked to the lake. It was pretty small and cute, I like that. The lake is kinda like me. Small and nothing special. I heard some steps behind me. I turned around to see who it was. It was Jack, the guitarist from All Time Low. "Hey, what are you doing here alone?" he asked and sat next to me. "Nothing special. Just sitting around and thinking" I said. "Thinking about what?" he asked and looked at me. "About me. I'm just like this little lake here. Small and nothing special" I explained. He lifted his arms in the air and seemed to be a bit shocked. "What? You ARE something special! And you're not really tall but that doesn't matter. I mean I just know you for some weeks but you're pretty cool" Jack admitted. "How are you supposed to know that? You know nothing about me. And believe me, you never wanna know me" I said angrily. I got up from the bench and walked away. "Valentine, wait..!" I heard Jack yell behind me. But I didn't stop, I walked straight to the bus. My band mates looked a bit confused at me when I got into the bus. I walked to the bunk area and grabbed my bag. The razor blade in my hand. I wanted to harm myself so bad, but then I remembered what I said to the guys earlier today. I wanted to get better, I really wanted. But I needed some pain. Fuck, what am I supposed to do now? The tears were running down my cheeks. "Val, put the razor down" I heard Ian slowly say behind me. I turned around and he looked worried. I could swear that he had some tears in his eyes, too. "Val, please put that fucking razor down" he requested. My whole body was shaking and I was sobbing so bad. I dropped the razor and broke down. Ian came to me and hugged me. "Everything will be okay. Don't worry, we're all here for you" he tried to calm me down.

"Okay guys, just 2 more minutes" Tim informed us. I took a deep breath and tried not to be so nervous. "We're gonna rock this fucking city!" Jerry screamed and held his arms in the air. I smiled before they all walked on stage and began to play the intro to our first song. I walked to the side of the stage and waited until it was my turn to run out. I took the mic and began to jump around. "New York city! Are you fucking ready?" I screamed into the mic. The crowd screamed and jumped. Through the whole set the crowd danced and jumped like we're the main act. I was incredible. I tried to make some silly jokes with Ian even if I didn't feel like joking. But I'm a musician, I have to be "professional" all the time. But it felt awesome to sang my feelings to the people out there. "I really have to say, you guys are fucking incredible!" I complimented the crowd. They screamed pretty loud. "Really! I mean we are just the supporting act and you guys are jumping and screaming like we're the main act!" Ian complimented them, too. "Okay, New York city, this is our last song. And it means a lot to me, it's maybe the most honest song I've ever written. So, I hope you like it. It's called 'Myself'" I said and the song began, which was about my family. It was about all that things my parents said to me and taught me. In the chorus I sing '"Being yourself is wrong" is what my Mom said. But don't listen to her like I did!". During singing I realized that I cried. I was really crying. But I tried to hide that from the crowd and my band mates but I think it didn't work. "Thank you all so fucking much for this incredible night! All Time Low is next! Enjoy!" I screamed into the mic and walked off stage. "That was fucking awesome!" Bob said and sat down at the couch. "Val, you okay?" Steve worried as I whipped my tears away. "Yeah, I okay. It was just the song" I explained and tried to smile again. I took one of the water bottles on the table and drank the whole bottle. I was really thirsty after this show. "Hey guys, this show was amazing!" Alex, the singer of All Time Low complimented us. "Thanks, dude" Jerry thanked. "Are you okay, Val? I saw you were crying during the last song" Alex worried. "Yes, I'm okay. It's just a pretty personal song" I explained and smiled at him. "Okay. We gotta go now and play our show" Alex said and waved us. Jack looked all the time at the floor and looked pretty ashamed. It seems like he's sorry for what he said to me at the lake. But he never looked at me or said anything. So, the band walked on stage and the crowd went crazy. Me and my band mates sat backstage and listened to them. Sometimes Bob and Jerry talked about how awesome they are. After the 3rd song they paused a bit and the crowd cheered like hell. "Did you enjoy No Regrets? They're pretty awesome, aren't they?" Alex said into the mic. "Valentine was really emotional in the last song because this song means a lot to her. It tells her story. And I have to admit that she's a really strong person and she's going through a tough time right now. But I want to tell you Val, you can fucking do that!" Alex said and turned around to look backstage. I couldn't believe what Alex just said. My band mates smiled at me and it seems like they kinda knew that. "C'mon Val! Come on stage!" Alex yelled. I slowly got up from the couch and walked on stage. Rian came down from his drums and hugged me. Then Zack put his bass down and hugged me, too. They both still hugged me when Alex and Jack run over to me and wrapped their arms around me. So 4 guys were hugging me right then. After some minutes they let me go again. The crowd cheered as I walked backstage again. And backstage I got another group hug from my band mates."Guys, is today kinda the hug-Valentine-day or something like that?" I asked confused even though the hugs felt awesome. "We just want you to know that we're here for you, all the time" Ian explained when they let me go again. "You're all so cute, seriously" I said and could feel how the tears run down my cheeks. But this time those were tears of happiness and not sadness. "Don't cry, sugar!" Bob yelled and hugged me again quickly. As Bob let me go again I heard how my stomach was making weird sounds. "Can we go and get some food? I'm pretty hungry" I asked and they had to laugh. "Okay, you're really gettin' better" Ian said and put an arm around my shoulders. We drove to a restaurant and ordered our food. I know why Ian said that I'm really getting better when I said I was hungry. Because I didn't eat for days on tour. I just never had appetite and felt like eating something and of course they were all pretty worried about me, because I clearly lost much weight. But all those words from Alex and all the hugs cheered me a bit up. And I really wanted to get better. Anyway, our food came and I finally could eat something. The guys looked very happy that I was eating something and if I'm honest, I'm happy, too about that. After an hour the guys from All Time Low joined us. "Hey Alex. Thanks about that what you said on stage" I thanked him as he sat next to me. "You're welcome" he said and smiled at me. "Hey Val, can I talk to you quickly?" Jack asked me. I nodded and got up from my chair. I followed him outside and then he turned around. "I'm really sorry what happened earlier today. I shouldn't say that" he apologized. "No Jack, I overreacted. It's my fault, I was just in a bad mood. I'M sorry" I explained. "Well okay, it's our both fault. Are we okay again?" he asked. I smiled and hugged him. "Yes, we're okay" I added. He kissed my cheek before we went inside again. He never kissed my cheek before and it felt amazing. I couldn't really describe the feeling, it's like butterflies in my stomach. I never felt like this before.

"Is it okay for you when you would stay with ATL in their bus until Philadelphia? I think you need to be around with some other guys. I already talked to them and they're okay with that" Ian suggested. "You just want to be dudes for one day at least, right?" I asked. "That and we think it would be good for you to be around with some other guys" he said. I got up from the couch I was lying on. "Well okay, so see y'all in Philadelphia and don't party too hard!" I warned. Ian laughed and shook his head. I smiled at him before I went to the bunk area and grapped my bag. I packed all the stuff I would need for a night and said goodbye to the guys. ATL welcomed me as I opened the tour bus door and walked inside it. "Okay, now when everyone is on board, we can drive!" Matt, the tour manager of All Time Low, said and gained some bored "Weehoo"'s from the guys. "I'm gonna show you your bunk" Matt said to me. I nodded and followed him to the bunk area. "This one is your bunk" he said and showed me the bunk at the bottom. "And this is my bunk!" Jack screamed and pointed at the bunk opposite to my bunk. I smiled at Jack and said thanks to Matt. Then I placed my bag in my bunk and took my laptop out. I walked to the front and sat down on the table. I opened up Twitter and checked my account. I got a half heart attack when I saw how many followers I gained. I've got over 15.000 followers! "Holy shit" I whispered to myself. Jack and Alex turned around and asked "What?" Still surprised I looked at them. "I've got over 15 thousand followers on Twitter!" I explained. They raised an eyebrow and seemed a bit impressed. "Go and check your band's account" Jack suggested. I quickly typed in the name of my band and almost fell of the chair. "20 thousand fucking followers!" I squeaked. "That's really incedible!" Alex admitted. "Holy shit, yes it is! We had like 5 thousand before and now we have like the 3 times more!" I still squeaked. "4 times" Rian corrected. "Whatever" I said and focused again on the Twitter account. I desided to tweet something on my personal and on my band's account.

@NoRegrets: Val here. Just checked the account for the first time since we're on tour. Hello to our new followers!

@ValNoRegrets: Played some incredible shows at this tour. I wanted to thanks all of you! Y'all are incredible :*

Just as I tweeted the one ony my personal, my interactions exploded. Like every each of my followers replied me or retweeted or/and favourited my tweet. Loads of them tweeted, that they bought our actual album 'On Fire' and that they wanna see us live again soon. As I scrolled down, I saw that Jack replied me.

@JackAllTimeLow: @ValNoRegrets Hell yeah! Hope we can tour again together soon! ;)

@ValNoRegrets: @JackAllTimeLow yes, hopefully! ;)

I smiled and looked at Jack who was writing something with his iPhone. As he saw me smiling at him, he smiled back. As I focused back to Twitter, I decided to reply to some of the tweets.

[those names are invented by me, I don't think that they really exist. if they do, sorry that I used your name]

@HolyFuckKelly: @ValNoRegrets what are you gonna do after touring???

@ValNoRegrets: @HolyFuckKelly don't really know yet, maybe writing new songs ;)

@AllWendyLow: @ValNoRegrets are you something like together with Jack???

@ValNoRegrets: @AllWendyLow what makes you think like that?

I was a bit confused because of the tweet. Do people really think that Jack and I are together? We just tweeted us and I think no one saw us together somewhere. Before I could think more about that, I saw that Jack again tweeted me something.

@JackAllTimeLow: @ValNoRegrets @AllWendyLow she thinks that, because no one can resist my pornstar body

I began to laugh and the guys stared confused at me. "Jack you're so funny" I said and still laughed. Now they were more confused than before. I retweeted and favourited Jack's tweet and replied some more fans, after I calmed down.

I spended like an hour on Twitter. My interactions were exploding more and more. It was funny to see all the girls and boys freak out when I replied them. Like I'm pretty famous or something like that. I think Jack stalked me on Twitter. He was all the time on his phone and I think he was on Twitter. I checked the clock and saw that it already was midnight. After a long yawn I took my clothes to change. I got into the bathroom and changed. Then I said goodnight to everyone and lay in my bunk. It was more comfortable than my bunk in our tour bus. Maybe this tour bus is at all better, because they had more money to rent a better bus than we could. After I rolled around until it was really comfortable, I realized that Jack was lying in his bunk, too. The curtain was open so I could see him. "What are you doing?" I asked him as I saw his phone in his hands. "Oh, I'm just checking Twitter again. People are asking so many things. It's incredible" he explained. "What are they asking?" I wondered. "Some are asking if I want a penis shaped water pistol" he explained and raised an eyebrow. "That really exists?!" I asked. I rolled on my side and held my head in my hand. "Hell yeah!" he said and laughed. "Well, I'm pretty tired. I'm gonna sleep now. Goodnight Jack" I said and rolled on my back again. "Goodnight Valy" he wished. I closed the curtain and switched the light off.

Notes