Devin’s POV

When I woke up the next morning, I felt like utter shit. But what more could I expect when I did not take my pills the night before. Everything felt off. Running a hand through my hair, I thought about what we were doing today before eventually getting out of my bunk. Once I was dressed and ready to deal with everyone, I made my way to the front of the bus. We were moving, and let me tell you, it takes a while to get used to sleeping and moving around as the bus is moving, the first few days of tour. Balz, Ryan, and Vinny sat at the table playing on their phones while Chris was nowhere to be seen and Ricky was on the couch playing on the Xbox.

Grabbing a cup, I made myself a cup of coffee before going to get my pills. As I got to my bunk, I pulled out my bag that usually held my pills. The bag was empty when I opened it. All four bottles were gone, not a trace of them once existing. I started to panic. Going through every single bag I had, I did not find my pills anywhere. They were gone, as in I must have left them somewhere. Without them, I would be off balance and if I didn’t have them for a while, I would face the side effects of going off them sharply instead of slowly backing off the dosage and that would be bad, really bad.

The guys would ask me if I took my meds, and I didn’t. They would know that I lost them. Breathe Dev; it’s not the end of the world. Grabbing some tic tacs. I went to the front and “took” the tic tacs as my pills with the coffee. It tasted nasty but at least if they saw me take something, they wouldn’t freak out too bad. One time I missed two days of pills and Ricky and Ryan about had a heart attack. Chris doesn’t say anything, but I know he’s thinking something. After we broke up, he doesn’t check to make sure I took my pills and shit. He said it was best he just distanced us that way we could still be in the same band and not be awkward.

Googling the effects of not taking my meds, I figured out what the side effects would be, from not taking my pills for my mild schizophrenia. I would face possible hallucinations like back when I was in high school. It wasn’t the worst thing but it would not be fun to experience again. From not taking my anti-depression pills, I would face mood swings and some other side effects.

The guys and me spent most of the time on the bus, since we were driving to a new venue, and I spent my time in my bunk. If for some reason I started to experience something, I would be alone and not cause a scene among my band mates, and no one could question me about it.

Unfortunately, since we’re always moving, I don’t always get sleep. I start to fall asleep but then I wake up. The entire tour is a semi awake-semi asleep experience. However, this time, I actually get sleep for once. I was out for maybe three hours when I had a few nightmares that scared me more than they should have.

My nightmares were of monsters coming and eating me alive. They would rip me apart and I would watch as they ate me. I also watched as they ate my family and my friends, and anyone else that I cared about. The monster would then become Liam and he would say at the end of the dream, “I’m back baby.”

The entire time, I did not wake up. When I thought I woke up, I thought I had a conversation with Ricky but I didn’t. It was all a dream, and that scared me. What finally woke me up was Balz shaking me awake saying that we were outside the venue, and everyone was already rushing to set up since we were behind schedule. Not being able to tell reality from dreams scared me, it meant that things were about to get real interesting, real fast and that was not going to be good.

Getting ready, I put on my show clothes and makeup and got ready for the quick sound check we would have in an hour or two. While we waited, we all talked about the previous show and what went well and what we could do better, in order to improve our show.

We then had lunch or an early dinner you could say. I wasn’t too hungry because of my nightmare and how gross it was, but with my history, I knew I couldn’t skip or say I wasn’t hungry. Instead, I took a smaller amount but still quite a bit so they wouldn’t notice. Once it was announced that house was open, meaning the fans were entering the venue, we all began to get pumped. Vinny and Ryan did push-ups while I sat and watched and bet on who could do more. Vinny did more pushups, much to my approval (I bet on him, Balz bet on Ryan).

By the time we took the stage, I could feel the effects of not taking my pills since yesterday morning. Part of me was tripping out at the crowd, but the other half was desperately trying to hold everything together and not let the guys figure out what was happening to me. At the end of the set, we handed our instruments over to be packed away and boarded our bus to go to the next venue to do it all over again. After cleaning up and taking off the makeup, I crawled into my bunk and played with my phone. Without the help of my pills, I was afraid of the nightmares to come. Fear coursed through my veins as sleep felt more and more eminent.

Notes