Thirty
Molly sat frozen on the edge of her bunk, her bare feet dangling over. Her hands were shaking. Her heart was hammering.
Dog food.
Why did she say that? Why was her default setting when she felt cornered to throw petrol on everything and strike a match? She could still see the hurt look on Ashley’s face.
This was unsustainable. Being on this bus, pretending to be the adoring girlfriend while every single word out of her mouth stripped away another layer of her own skin?
She couldn’t do it. The audition was in London tomorrow.
She was supposed to stay on the tour through tonight’s show in Birmingham, but the thought of watching her perform tonight, or worse, having to smile for a fan photo made her feel physically sick.
She needed to leave. Today. Now.
Molly dragged her battered leather holdall out from a storage cupboard and unzipped it with a vicious shhhk. She didn’t pack so much as shove—her spare jeans, three crumpled T-shirts, her charger, and her toothbrush from the tiny bathroom.
She opened maps on her phone to find out where the fuck she was.
They were parked off the M6, about twenty miles outside the city of Birmingham, but a quick search showed a regional bus stop on the secondary road just beyond the service station’s rear service lane.
A local bus ran every thirty minutes straight into Birmingham city centre, dropping off right outside Birmingham New Street station.
New Street was a massive hub with direct trains to London Euston every twenty minutes.
If she played her cards right, she could be on a train southbound before Ashley’s tour bus even rolled into the venue’s loading bay.
She’d go home, sleep in her own bed, and rehearse the breakdown of Clare and Gary in a room where Ashley Malone wasn’t feet away.
Slinging the holdall over her shoulder, Molly dragged her script off the bed, rolling it tight in her fist. The bus was completely silent—Jax, Toby, and Elena were still off in the service station food court, probably mid-meltdown, and the driver was fast asleep in the front berth.
Molly pushed the heavy bus door open and stepped out into the crisp, biting morning air.
The service station car park was grey and vast, filled with idling lorries and wet tarmac. She kept her head down, avoiding the main concourse. She circled the back, past the smelly dumpsters and the staff loading bays, until she found the pedestrian gap in the perimeter fence.
Ten minutes later, she was standing at a rusted metal bus shelter beside a busy A-road, shivering in her jacket.
She got out her phone and composed something to Ashley.
I’m going home. Sorry. For everything.
But she couldn’t let herself send it. She was too ashamed.
She shoved the phone into her pocket just as a double-decker bus rumbled over the crest of the hill, its destination sign reading: BIRMINGHAM CITY CENTRE VIA NEW STREET.
Molly stepped aboard, paid, and climbed the spiral stairs to the top deck. As the bus hauled itself onto the road, she looked out the back window. In the distance, parked under the looming sign of the Welcome Break, the sleek tour coach looked tiny and isolated.
Molly unrolled the wrinkled A4 paper and tried to read Clare’s lines again. But as the industrial estates of the West Midlands blurred past, all she could hear was her own mean voice comparing Ashley to dog food.