I slowly opened my eyes, feeling extremely tired, and not wanting to get up. I stayed in my bunk, laying and enjoying the comfort for a bit. I could not muster up the strength to get up yet.
After a few minutes of laying down, I hear the bus door open, "What was that?" I hear papas voice ask in an angry tone.
"What do you mean?" I hear dad reply in a defensive tone.
"I mean, you and Jack on stage like that!" He accuses.
"We always do that!" Dad defends, "You know this, you've been on that stage with us for years."
"It seems different now." Papa defends his own stance.
"Wait, hush." Dad says suddenly.
"What- Alex?" Papa says.
"No, no, I just don't know if Stella is still in here." He says.
"Could she still be asleep?" Papa wonders quietly.
I heard footsteps approaching the bunk area so I pretend to be fast asleep. "She must have been tired." Dad says after opening my curtain.
"Should we wake her?" Papa asks.
"No, let her sleep, she has the next few months to get caught up on all the bands." Dad replies.
I hear nothing but receding footsteps. After a minute I hear papa sigh, "Alex?" He asks.
"Yeah?" Dad replies.
"Did you..." He pauses, "Did you cheat on me?" He asks sounding sad.
"What?" Dad says in shock.
"Did you?" Papa asks suddenly more emotional sounding.
"No!" Dad defends, "I would never cheat on you, I love you."
"I just..." He trails off, "I don't know, somethings just felt off lately, you've been spending so much time with Jack, and then seeing you two on stage like that has just really been messing with my head." Papa admits.
"I would never cheat on you." Dad admits, "I love you, I married you because I love you and only you." He explains.
"You promise nothing has been going on?" Papa asks.
"Of course." Dad replies.
Papa lets out a sigh, "Okay, I believe you."
The room falls silent again. I wait for a few minutes, unsure of what to do. When I feel like the appropriate amount of time has passed I finally get out of my bunk. I stay as quiet as possible as I make my way to the bathroom. The air was tense and I did not want to let on that I knew anything.
I brushed my hair and teeth and put on a fresh change of clothes. I took a deep breath before exiting the bathroom. My parents were sitting at the dinette table, papa had his face in his hands and dad had a guilty look on his face.
"Hey, good morning." Dad greets me softly when he notices that I entered the area.
Papa looks up at me, "Oh, good morning." He forces a smile at me, "How long have you been awake?" He asks.
I shrug in response, "Just woke up." I reply.
"We just got done preforming." Dad informs me.
"I really need to wake up sooner and see one of your sets at some point." I reply.
"Do you want us to wake you up tomorrow before we leave?" Dad asks.
"Sure." I shrug.
"Okay." Dad replies.
"Well, I'm going to try to find Johnnie and the others." I inform him.
"Okay, call or text us if you need anything." Dad says as I make my way to the door.
"Will do." I say as I open the door.
I am immediately met with the humid hot texas air. "Gross." I mutter as I shut the door behind me. I look back at the bus and sigh before walking away.
I do not want my parents to fight, I just wish they could be happy. This is so stressful, I just want us all to be happy. I decide that I don't want to find my new friends yet so I find a quiet spot far away from people. I pull out my phone and call Lydia, the phone rings a few times before sending me to voicemail. I sigh and call Dakota instead, after two rings she picks up.
"Hey, Stella!" She answers cheerfully, "How's your family vacation going?" She asks.
"Well, u, can I talk to you about that?" I ask.
"Yeah, of course, what's wrong?" She asks, immediately picking up on my tone.
"I woke up to my parents fighting." I admit.
"Oh, what happened?" She asks.
"One of my dads was accusing my other dad of cheating on him and they got in this big argument and now they're sad and I hate it when they fight, I just want us to all be happy." I explain.
"Oh, right you have two dads, I almost forgot," She replies, "What caused the argument though, like what raised the suspicions?" She asks curiously.
"Well one of my dads was spending a lot of time at his friend's house, like a lot of time, and our family friends came with us and I guess my dad and the friend were a bit too close this morning and it caused my other dad to get suspicious and actually confront him." I try to explain in the least confusing way I can.
"Oh, wow." She says, "I'm so sorry."
"It's just so stressful." I admit.
"I get the feeling." The admits.
"I just don't know what to do." I sigh.
"Well, there's nothing you can do aside from staying out of it and try to not being present during their fights." She replies.
"It's difficult we're all in close quarters." I reply.
"I'm sorry." She admits.
"It's okay, I just kind of needed to vent." I reply, "How have you been?" I ask.
"I've been pretty good." She admits, "Although it's really boring without you." She informs me.
"I miss you, we need to hang out as soon as I'm back." I explain.
"You did take the worlds longest vacation." She reminds.
"Yeah, you aren't wrong." I inform.
"Hey, my mom's calling, I got to go." She informs.
"Okay, I'll talk to you later." I reply.
"Yeah, later." She says before hanging up.
I sigh before putting my phone back in my pocket. I guess it's time to find everyone.
I make my way over to the merch table to see Johnnie and Jayden are the only two there. "Hey guys!" I greet.
"Hey!" Johnnie replies as I approach them.
"Wat are you guys up to?" I ask them.
"Nothing much." Jayden shugs.
"Just hanging out." Johnnie adds.
"Mind if I hang out with you guys?" I ask.
"Of course not!" Johnnie replies happily.
"Got any plans for today?" I ask.
"Nothing specific, probably catch a few sets, hang out, nothing huge I guess." Johnnie shrugs.
"That sounds fun." I say with a smile.
"Any set you want to see?" Johnnie asks.
"Do you have a warped tour map?" I ask.
"Uh," Johnnie reaches into his back pocket, "Yeah." He says as he pulls out a folded up piece of paper and hands it to me.
"Thanks." I say as I take the map from his hands and unfold it.
I scan all the names for a moment, "What time is it?" I ask.
"Uh," Jayden pulls out his phone, "one thirty." He replies.
"Perfect!" I say happily.
"Why?" Johnnie asks.
"Set It Off is about to preform on the monster energy stage!" I say excitedly, "I love Set It Off."
"Oh cool," Johnnie says, "Lets go see them." He suggests.
"Hell, yeah." I say happily.
"I'm down." Jayden adds.
We make our way over to the monster energy stage just as they are entering the stage. We try our best to push to the front, gently elbowing people to get through the crowd. I was one person away from being at the very front but his very tall woman was standing in front of me. I could barley see the stage.
"I can't see!" I try jumping to see the stage better.
"You can't?" Johnnie asks before bending down to my height, "Oh, yeah you can't." He says.
"This is my favorite band!" I whine, sadly.
"Here, get on my back." Johnie suggests.
"What?" I ask.
"Get on my back, you'll be able to see better." He replies.
"Are you sure?" I ask.
"I'm not going to let you not be able to see your favorite band preform." He replies.
"Thank you!" I say happily.
Johnnie crouches down and allows me to get on his back. I was now able to see over this very tall woman head. A huge smile crossed my face as I watched my favorite band play live, just a few feet in front of me. I have never been to a concert, this is amazing.
The music was fantastic live, the performance was as amazing as I had anticipated. "You can put me down now." I suggest once the set has ended.
Instead of responding Johnnie runs off carrying me on his back, "Johnnie!" I squeal in surprise.
He just laughs in response as we ran back towards the merch tent. I looked over my shoulder to see that Jayden did not bother to run after us. When we make it back to the tent he finally puts me down. Everyone but Jayden and Shannon was now standing under the tent.
"Hey." Johnnie says, completely out of breath.
"What were you doing?" Alex asks.
"Oh," Johnnie pants, "We were watching," He breathes, "Set It Off," He catches his breath, "and Stella couldn't see, so I put her on my back, and then I ran over here when the set ended." He explains.
Alex doesn't say anything she just scrunches her brow at us before walking away.
"Wait," Johnnie tries to stop her, "Alex!" He calls before chasing after her.
Now it's just me, Jordan, Kyle, Bryan, and Austin. I was confused about what was going on, and kind of uncomfortable since I was most comfortable around Johnnie.
"Set It Off is a good band." Austin comments, breaking the awkward silence.
"Oh, they're my favorite band." I smile at him.
"I think I'm more into Panic At The Disco." He replies, keeping the conversation.
"They're definitely good, I haven't really listened to them in a while though." I admit with a shrug.
"No way," He replies, "They're great, I've done a few covers of their songs." He replies.
"Oh, really?" I ask.
"Really." He confirms.
'that's so cool." I reply.
"if you want to go back to our bus I could show you some of my videos." He suggests.
I think for a moment, "Sure, I'm not doing much." I reply.
"Okay coo-" Before he could finish he was interrupted.
"Wait, Stella." Kyle interrupts.
"Yeah?" I ask.
"Oh," He pauses for a moment to think, "I, uh-' He stumbles over his words, "Do you want to hang out?" he asks.
"Oh, uh, sure, when" I reply.
"Like, now?" He asks.
"Oh, well, I was going to watch some videos with Austin." I reply, very confused since he was close enough to hear the exchange.
"Well, like, you could watch videos anytime really." He says nervously,
"are you saying this is the only time you will ever hang out with me?" I ask.
"What?" He sounded shocked, "No!" He defends.
"Okay, well, I'm going to go." I gesture behind me.
Kyle sighs, "Okay."
Austin leads me over to the My Digital Escape tour bus, he opens the door and the bus is completely empty. The inside was the same lay out as our bus, except for the fact that theirs was so much more messy.
"Looks like our tour bus." I inform.
"I think most do," He shuts the door behind him, "That reminds me," He starts, "I've been meaning to ask you."
"Oh?" I respond as we take a seat on the couch.
"Yeah, well, I wondering why you are even on this tour, if you don't mind my asking." He mentions.
"Oh," I was not exactly expecting this sort of question, "Well, uh," I did not know what to say.
"Is this like, some sort of secret?" He asks, "It's okay, you can tell me, it'll just stay between us." He explains.
I wanted to tell him but something about this whole situation was telling me not to trust him. "Oh, I-" I cut my self off, "Ya know, It's not really important." I shrug it off.
"Oh, okay." He replies, "Well, do you want to check out those videos?" He asks.
"Yeah, 'course." I say as he pulls out his phone.
I scoot closer so that I can get a better view of the screen. He pulls up his channel and scrolls through his videos until he finds the one he was seeking, "I was really proud of this one." He informs me.
He was not just singing the song he was doing full acapella, the video sounded amazing. We watched I ll the way through and when it ended I spoke, "That was amazing!" I say enthusiastically.
"I'm glad you think so!" He says happily.
"Those must take you forever to make!" I reply.
"I got used to it, kinda got a rhythm down."
"It all still sounds so tedious." I respond.
"Yeah, but its really rewarding." He shrugs.