With Jake’s arm around my shoulders, we walk into the SBE stage door entrance and as soon as the door slammed shut, Ben’s head poked out from Conor’s dressing room and he walked out, arms crossed.

“You alright?” He asked. He didn’t care though, you could tell in his voice, he’d only said it because everyone was in that room for his ‘pep talk’.

“No, I’m not actually.” I spit back. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have walked off.” Jake’s arm remains around me and he squeezes my shoulder to tell me to calm down.

“What’s the issue then?” Ben asks, shrugging his shoulders.

“Something we should discuss in private.” Jake answers for me as he feels me tense up, ready to hit Ben.

“You missed the pep talk.” Ben says blankly.

“I don’t give a shit about your pep talk. I have more important things to do with my day than be here since 5 fucking am for no reason just because you are anal!” I shout and he is taken aback.

“Excuse me?” He says, frowning.

“You’re too much! Conor has a gig tonight, he is singing and dancing to a huge crowd for 2 hours and you want him to be here days before the actual gig just for pep talks? We couldn’t even eat! What are you gonna do if he passes out on stage from exhaustion, dehydration or hunger? How am I meant to do my job if I can barely stay awake and can only think about food because I’ve eaten nothing today?” I shout, flinging my arms about as I talk. Conor slowly emerges from the room, into the hallway.

“Conor, your security woman has a bad attitude…” Ben turns round and stares at Conor. For a second, I fear that Conor will stick up for him like he did with Mike and I’d be dropped from the job again.

“Her name is Ella, and she’s right!” A voice says from the dressing room. Jack emerges, holding his doggy bag from Nando’s. He nods at me.

“But… I…” Ben stutters.

“Ben, you just need to calm down. Don’t think about everything too much, ok?” Conor said, calmly.

“I need to go.” Ben said as he stormed out of the stage door.

“Ella, you have a mouth on you!” Jack says, applauding me.

“It’s not clever!” Conor says, frustrated. “We’re probably gonna have a new manager again now!” He crosses his arms and I look to the floor.

“Conor, mate, it’s not her fault. It’s a difficult day and…” Jake begins, and I look up at him admiringly for helping me out.

“It’s a difficult day for all of us! We’ve been up since 4am or whatever, fine, but we all just deal with it! If Management call me up and say I’ve had two managers in the space of like a year, they’re gonna wonder what the hell is going on! And what am I meant to say? He’s gonna relay that conversation to them and I’ll have to make up an excuse as to why you bit his head off!” Conor shook his head.

“Cos he’s a dick?” Jack says, shrugging as he took a bite out of his chicken. “I’m eating cold Nando’s from a bag cos of that idiot!” Conor shot him a look.

“You’re supposed to be on my side!” He mumbled through gritted teeth.

“You don’t need to make up an excuse!” Jake says, jumping into the conversation. “But none of you had the decency to ask what was wrong?!” Conor and Jack exchanged glances.

“Jake, it’s alright.” I mumble, raising my hand to stop him. “Just leave it.” I walk away from Jake, past Conor and Jack into the room next to Conor’s dressing room. Seconds later, the three guys emerge in the doorway and I look up at them through teary eyes.

“Ella? What’s wrong?” Conor says. I can see Jake roll his eyes behind him and mouth ‘You should have asked that a long time ago.’.

“Nothing. We need to get ready, the gig is starting like now…” I say, wiping the few tears that drop from my eyes.

“Ella?” I knew Conor wouldn’t give up now Jake had said that, cos he wanted to look like the good boyfriend. I know he’s under a lot of stress from today anyway, that’s why I snapped at Ben! I just shook my head as a response.

“Today’s the three year anniversary of… you know…” Jake said to him, with widened eyes. Conor’s face drops.

“Holy Shit! Ella, I’m so sorry! I should have remembered… I just completely forgot what day it was!” I shook my head.

“Conor, don’t apologise, its fine. I just have my one down day and I’m fine again…” I smile a weak smile. Jack looks confused. “You’ll hear about it one way or the other, Jack, don’t worry!” He nods. A massive slam of the stage door makes us all jump and Ben appears behind everyone.

“What are you waiting for? The gig’s gonna start! Jack get out there!” He says, flinging a pointed finger in the direction of the stage. “Conor, get ready and warm up your vocals. Ella, get out there and check no-one is trying to climb on stage. And you can do whatever!” He says pointing at Jake, who sits down in the room and puts his feet on the table.

“Where are tweedledee and tweedledum?” I say, referring to Conor’s bodyguards.

“They’re already out there, checking no-one is climbing onto the stage.” Ben smirks.

“Yeah cos they’ve done such great jobs throughout their time here…” I say as I exit the room. Walking round to the front of the stage I see the amount of people eagerly waiting for someone to walk on stage and I push through the small gap between the end of the stage and the beginning of the audience, the whole bottom floor being people who are standing. I tune my radio and press on my earpiece, speaking into the microphone and smiling to myself as I think I look like a call operator or something.

“Hey, guys, how’s everything looking from where you are?” I say.

“The ground floor is heaving! Gotta watch out!” Tweedledee said. Any time I ask this, they always answer with things I can observe and work out; and people wonder why I call them that?!

“Alright, thanks! I’m gonna make my way round to the wings of the stage then, yeah?” I say and walk back out and round to the stage where Jack is waiting in the wings.

“Good Luck!” I smile at him. “There’s a lot of people!”

“Yeah thanks for that!” He laughs. “I’m not that fussed, my job isn’t as hard!” Ben runs up to me, out of breath.

“The announcer guy, he’s ill!” He shouts at me.

“My radio isn’t on, you don’t need to shout!” I say, and he looks embarrassed.

“I need someone to do the announcement for Jack!” He said, staring at the two of us.

“Why don’t you?” Jack said, “Or don’t have one?”

“Hah!” I blurt out. “Ben never goes without an introduction!” I smile.

“Ella, please?” He looked at me, attempting puppy dog eyes, but he just widened his already blood-shot stressed and tired eyes at me.

“Fine, if you get out of my face!” I say, and with a little cheer Ben runs off again shouting out that it’s been sorted. One of the assistants hands me a microphone.

“What the fuck do I say?” I said to Jack and the assistant. Jack shrugs.

“Just introduce him!” The assistant said. “Now!” He pointed and the ‘ON’ light of the microphone came on.

“Ladies and Gentlemen…” I begin, looking at Jack preparing himself to go on stage. It gives me an idea, as cheesy as it sounds. “Jack Maynard has been preparing to come and DJ for you, so I hope you’re preparing yourself to go crazy, dance like there’s no tomorrow and give him a huge welcome! Heeeerrreeessss JACK!” The microphone light goes off and Jack runs out, being greeted with the loudest screams from the audience I think I’ve ever heard! He begins playing FloRida’s newest song and everyone begins singing and dancing along. Ben sneaks back in behind me and touches my shoulder, I spin round fists ready.

“Jesus! Ben, I was about to punch you! Don’t sneak up on me!” I said having to talk directly into his ear for him to hear me.

“Sorry! I just wanted to apologise, I spoke with Conor and Jake… I don’t know what to say! I shouldn’t have acted out.”

“Don’t worry, you weren’t to know. I hate people knowing my business usually. I’m sorry for being rude…” Ben began talking back put I put a finger up to silence him as an urgent radio call came in from one of the Bodyguards.

“Attention. Guys there’s a woman down in the middle of the right standing section. She passed out I think, but she’s not got up!”

“I got it!” I say and immediately run down and into the entrance to the arena. I push through the crowds and listen in to my radio as best I can as they try to direct me. I kept going, pushing past the people knocking into me as they danced. It felt like ages trying to find her, I must have been at least half way through the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for partying hard with me, but now I want you to all go crazy for… CONOR!!” Jack shouted and everyone screams and jumps around. Yeah thanks Jack! Knocking past everyone, I keep pushing through and finally come across a girl, passed out on the floor.

“I found her!” I say into my microphone, holding my earpiece. “What’s the quickest way out?”

“Keep going forward!” One shouts. I bend down and push everyone around her out the way. I tap her on the shoulder, but she doesn’t move. I shake her shoulder but again she doesn’t move. Great! Pushing everyone around away to stand back, I pick her up and carry her, and her dropped bag, out to the main entrance while radioing in for an ambulance. I put her down on a sofa near a meeting room and radio in for Leon. Within seconds he runs round to where I am.

“I dunno how you do it; you’re quick!” I say to him and he grins.

“What have we got here?” he says, looking down at the unconscious girl.

“Dunno. She passed out, radioed in and I carried her out. Probably been out for a good minute or two…” As I talk, Leon begins to search through her bag.

“You call an ambulance?” He said quickly.

“Err, yeah.”

“Good. She’s diabetic.” He said, pulling out an insulin injection. He ran off, shortly running back with some sugar gel stuff I had never seen before. He pulled on a glove and stuck a load of it onto his finger, rubbing it on her gums and under her tongue. My face looked grossed out as he did it. “You need to do this, so stop pulling faces at me!” He smiled at me. I laughed back, I didn’t mean for it to be so obvious! I see the paramedics run into the main entrance and I wave them over.

“Can I leave you guys to it? Kinda got a gig to watch over…” I say to Leon, who nods and gestures for me to leave.