We all want to tell Mitch Simmons. We're actually all itching to do it now. But as the news rolls around social media and newspapers and talk shows that Parker Watts has left Dawn Senate, we can't help but keep our mouths shut.

Parker needs this. This is his time.

It's only been a day or two, only a few more days until our Las Vegas show. I'm in the recording studio non-stop with Demi and Oliver and Luke because I've just got so many ideas, so much noise going on in my head that we need to get it out; all of us, together.

We write and play and sing and every time Oliver hits a note right I want to kiss him. I don't. I don't ever.

But what we write and play and sing is so different. The words, the words come from our mouths, sung as if we were speaking them ourselves. I don't sing about girls, I sing about feeling trapped, about having no control, about feeling tired. We all write, Demi about feeling like an outsider, about feeling crazy, about people adoring him when people like him are arrested and spat on and refused jobs. Sometimes Demitri draws and paints what he feels, and none of us bothered to ask to look at it. Now we do, and some of it could sell for a couple of thousand if he stuck them on Society6. Luke writes about never stopping, about going over the edge, about the monster that'll chew you up and spit you out when it's done with you. He's still hooked; it's all he can do to stop himself from losing it. Just a few more days, he tells himself, and then it's an L.A rehab centre for as long as he needs.

Oliver, Oliver struggles at first. How can you write about something you can't even understand either? He doesn't want to come out, he doesn't want the farce that I went through when he doesn't know what category he may fall into, if any.

We write together, and for now, we are all the talent.

And when we play, we use instruments that aren't computers; electric guitars, drums, tambourines, pianos and keyboards. The sounds are all coming from our hands and our souls. It's all us, everything is us, and it feels fucking fantastic.

None of us see Mitch in the shadows, watching us from a dark corner of the studio. If we were recording this, would his breath even make it on the track?

We all stop suddenly as he steps out, arms folded.

"Play these on the night." He says. "Screw the other shit. I never liked it in the first place." And he kicks the door open and walks out of the studio and sits at the recording deck. He puts his chunky boots on the desk, and turns a few nozzles and dials, and hits record. He leans into the microphone. "I wanna see the sound sweat out of your skin boys. Play it like you mean it."

.....

Parker answers on the first ring.

"First you don't answer my call, then you barely give me chance to tap in your number."

"Tap in my number? Put me on speed dial you dinosaur." His laugh could send me off to space. But I don't let it, I don't let anyone do that to me so quickly anymore.

"Congratulations," I say, blowing cigarette smoke from between my lips. I'm stood on my balcony. Down below, there are new protesters. Not many, not enough to need to police. We don't plan to leave this hotel; I don't plan on going anywhere. "I wanted to tell you before but you know, you wouldn't answer."

"I know, shit's getting real man." It sounds quiet on his end, the first time in a few days probably. "I'm gunna miss that house. I feel like I'm going through a divorce, I'm talking to the other guys through our lawyers."

"It's for the best."

"How are you?"

I stare at the sun for too long. "Tired, but a good tired. A non-stressful tired, sorry to boast."

"Don't be, you need it."

"I was only outed to the public. You were outed to the public and then shunned by your band...sorry...again..."

"Fuck, I miss you." I hear him sit down. I don't know where he is, can't imagine where he is right now, it's weird. He won't be at the house, at a studio, at a show, where is he? "I dare say it, but how's Oliver? How're you and Oliver?"

"It's good, it's really good, actually; all platonic though. That's what we've decided."

"Right. I mean, right yeah, that's good, isn't it?"

I smile. "Yeah, definitely. Although, the other day he did call you hot."

"Oh shit!" He yells, and I burst out laughing. "So that's it then? Threesome? Is that why you're calling? Because I'm not gonna lie, there's a reason they hired him to be your eye-can-..."

"Fuck off, you twat." There's a reason I told Oliver to never say that again, and its shit like this. "No threesomes."

I hear him take a drag of his own cigarette. "Aww. You're no fun."

I decide not to tell him about our news of going on hiatus, of getting ourselves right before presenting ourselves back into the world. He talks and talks about his plans after Dawn Senate and I drink it all in, let his words wash over me. I love listening, I didn't realise how much I loved it, especially when it's him with his stupid accent and his slang words that I didn't actually think Americans said, just the shit they said in films.

He says swaggy a few times, I consider hanging up on him.

"Anyway," Parker, finishes, catching his breath, like he hasn't inhaled the whole time he's been talking. I find I haven't lost interest, my attention not wandering off. It's great, it's fantastic actually. "I meant it when I said I miss you, you know."

"I miss you too." I say quietly. "I want to come to L.A. I even miss Fifa."

"Fuck off do you miss Fifa! You just had your own fucking pride parade in the middle of Las Vegas and you're telling me you miss fucking Fifa? Dude, you need to check your priorities."

"When you release your first single, I hope it buries Dawn Senate's album into the ground."

"Yeah, well I gotta learn to sing first. You can help me with that, right?"

"I guess. I kind of have a singing tutoring business going on, apparently."

We hang up on each other when I call him a douche and he calls me the 'gayest of all the gays'. I just stare at my silent phone for a while, revel in hearing the birds in the sky and the cars on the road. I think of how I can take in a deep breath and let it out again, deep breath in, deep breath out. My shoulders relax, and I smile.

.....

Stage fright is not something I can have anymore. But, without Oliver's hands pressed against my shoulders, or his fingers running through my hair, everything just seems so much worse. I can see a keyboard on the other end of the stage, where I can play until my fingers bleed, and I'm going to.

The stadium is just beginning to fill up, with red seats reaching the heavens, and banners and flags already marching their way into general admission where our lovely fans, the ones who love me even more now that I'm myself, are going to stand through two support acts before screaming at us.

It's all a bit mental, every single time I do this.

I can feel my breakfast wanting to come back up, and so I go back to the green room, where I can't hear anything but the pinballs in a giant arcade game that Demi's playing on. It's lights are flashing and fluorescent, and I can already see it's bugging the shit out of Mitch.

"Aren't you supposed to be doing last minute practice?" He claps as if it might make Demi move.

"I know what I'm doing; bang some drums, shout during the shouty bits. Jobs a good'un." He's not wrong; the songs we've written are more shouty, more banging of the drums, more everything. My muscles buzz with the thought of saying everything we want to say on stage, feeling the vibrations from the crowd as they, hopefully, get lost in what we're playing.

"I just thought," Says Oliver, who's been nervously doing vocal warm ups for the past half hour. "They're not going to sing along; they don't know the words."

"They'll learn 'em. They learnt the shitty ones, they'll get to know these ones." Mitch has had enough with saying our songs, now dubbed 'old stuff', were any good.

"I know but, I don't want to disappoint them." Nervous Oliver is like a strange person who only comes out at times when we all really ought to be nervous. Interviews, other gigs, appearances, he's charming and charismatic and making everyone laugh and fall in love with him. He reassures me constantly.

But this Oliver makes me feel worse, makes me want to throw up because he's right; what if they're disappointed? They're bound to be. We've created a new sound, one that sounds like almost a whole different genre to what they love.

We'll lose fans, but we'll gain some. I chant it in my head; lose some, gain some, lose some, gain some.

I wish Francis were here on behalf of the fans to tell me that they all still love us.

I look for her Twitter account, where she's live tweeting her commute to the stadium, already in the queue that spirals around for ages. I scroll through her feed to see if there's any mention of me. There's loads, pictures of me and tweets directly sent to me, but none of them about that night at the bus stop.

I like a couple of her tweets and watch her follows come up by ten each minute.

"We've got 45 minutes." Someone calls from the door, but I don't really listen, and start laughing to myself.

"I'm glad you're happy about it Scottie. I might blow chunks." Oliver comes over, blonde hair light and fluffy as he looks over my shoulder at my phone. "What are you looking at?"

I give him a better look at the screen. "I just hit 50 million followers."