No Regrets - Chapter 3
good god, i overdosed on 'high school musical' yesterday.
and just so you know .. lucas grabeel > zac efron!
aaaaaaaaaaaaand .. does anyone have townbike's song 'dougie'?
if so .. sendspace, yousendit, megaupload????
and now .. update!!!!
Title: No Regrets
Author: me
Rating: R (some stuff is just not very nice)
Chapter: 3/7
Genre: Drama methinks
Pairing: PoynterJudd in one way or another
Summary: Welcome to the world of Danny Jones …
Disclaimer: we all know that I always write the truth so where’s the point in me denying? Oh, McFly aren’t over? Well, I guess I’m a liar then.
Dedication: everyone who read and commented on the previous chapter … theellibu, syphilisparade, juddpoynter, orpheous87, the_first_chibi, armillarysphere, juuanna, stfoosa, beckystark06, samzxx, 12bear_hugs, roguecharmedone, laurenfoxy, livwickedd, dictionary1, clampin, bffimagine, star55 and jedisnickers
Author’s note: I liked writing this chapter. Because, for some scary reasons, pretending to be Danny Jones is awfully easy for me.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2
Part 3 - Danny
Let me tell you one thing. When Tom asked me to come down to London, that’s surely not what I expected us to be doing. I thought we were going to the pub and maybe hang around at his house afterwards, writing some or just playing music, that he had called me to come because he had some idea for a song that needed to be put down. I most definitely didn’t see us sitting in the audience of some telly-talkshow, Harry fidgeting inbetween us. And not in a million years I would have seen us in the audience of some telly-talkshow which had Dougie Poynter as a guest who would be talking about the biography he wrote.
But between that and the beginning of this very story lies a year so go get comfy and let me rewind this story for you.
As you surely know, there was this band, McFly. That was Tom, Harry, Dougie and myself, Danny. The four of us really were the luckiest chaps on the planet, lemme tell you. Tom was this songwriting kid, aged 17, had been a member of this band, Busted, for the record amount of a few hours but something with him must have stuck because Busted’s management gave him the chance to put together an own band.
Him and me had met in Manchester where I had auditioned for some other boyband. Thank god I didn’t get in cause the poor sods lasted shorter than their name was. And their name was V, yeah exactly, their bandname was one simple letter. And the music they were supposed to be making wasn’t really my cup of tea either, not that I would ever have said it at the audition. I wanted to make music which was the only reason I auditioned in the first place.
Anyway, Tom and me instantly clicked so I went down south to write with him and James from Busted. We came up with some proper good tunes and played a few showcases even. But our sound wasn’t really complete. So now all we needed was an actual band for me and Tom. We put some ads in the papers and on the second day of the auditions in London we met two guys, Dougie and Harry. They had both met on the day too which no one would have believed cause they already seemed like they had been friends, or even more than that, for years.
So yeah, McFly was born on that day and what followed were years of pure happiness, amazingness and everything good one could think of. We recorded albums which sold like crazy, toured the country up and down, met people we had been looking up to and became people other kids looked up to even.
But years down the drain, and I suddenly got that weird feeling in my stomach. It’s really hard to explain, especially to someone who’s never did the things I did. But let me try.
All of a sudden, everything seemed to have lost its magic. It’s really weird saying that but everything became a routine of some sort. Which is strange when you think of the fact that over years, no day we had was like the other. But then at one point, it was.
I’m not gonna lie to you, when I’ve actually realised that, it was proper scary. I really thought my mind was playing tricks on me or something. I mean, it couldn’t be, right? I always gave everything I had on stage, always put everything of me in every song and suddenly it was all so … normal. Days just blended into each other and sometimes I felt like on auto-pilot. The things I used to do with so much passion, now I suddenly just did them automatically. They never got through to my insides anymore, didn’t reach my heart and soul.
It really freaked me out. For weeks I was really on the edge. I kept paying attention to the behaviour of the others, trying to find out if that was just something I felt or if it was something that went on with them too, that went on within the band. And you know what? I think I felt something from Tom, he seemed to feel the same way as I did.
But we’re talking about Tom here. Even if he had felt the same way as I did, he never would have said it out loud, never would make it real. McFly was his little thing from the beginning and he’d rather cut his legs off with a rusty knife than seeing something he created fall into pieces. But I figured it just wouldn’t be bad for him but for all of us if we just kept the band going because we didn’t know better or different instead of wanting to keep going. So I did the only thing I thought was right.
I confronted Tom with what I thought and felt.
It sounds easy now but believe me, it really wasn’t. I mean, from what I knew, it still could’ve been just me seeing things, you know. What if I went to Tom, saying, “Hey Tom, I think the band is going to die.” and he wouldn’t have felt the same way? I could’ve killed him on the spot and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
But I needed to know for sure so after days of arguing with myself, I mustered up the courage and went over to Tom’s house. It was a Saturday night, usually a night of partying and that stuff but a party was the last thing on my mind when I knocked on Tom’s door.
So he opened and nothing more than a short “Hey Dan.” could pass his lips cause I immediately blurted out what I had been thinking.
“Tom, is it just me or is the band really starting to fade out?”
He stared at me for a good minute or two and suddenly his features started to fall. I already saw my worst fears coming true when he asked me to come inside.
The night was surprising to say the least. As it turned out, Tom had really been feeling just like me, for weeks too.
We had stayed up all night, sitting in his living room, talking. It was weird. We really had been feeling the exact same things over the same time, just both thought it wasn’t really true, that exhaustion was finally taking its toll on our minds. And we both were scared of what would happen if those strange feelings turned out to be more real than we thought they were.
The talking sure did us good but what wasn’t good was what resulted in the end.
Tom and me decided it was time to end McFly.
We both figured it just wasn’t right to keep going when we both did it for the wrong reasons which were no reasons at all. And that’s what it really was. There was no real reason for us to continue. We weren’t in it anymore and doing it just for the money would just have been absolutely wrong, it would have been a betrayal to us, to the fans, to music in general. Because if we loved one thing, it was music, something we always treasured and cherished, something that should be done with love and passion and nothing else, most definitely not need for money.
The thing was just … how to tell Harry and Dougie? I mean, Tom and me were sure, nothing anyone could do could save the band. If we kept going, it would just get worse and one day, god forbid, we might just ended up absolutely hating each other and the band and everything else. So, also for the sake of our friendship, we had to end the band. But how do you tell your friends, your best friends, that you have to end the very thing that made you friends to begin with, the thing that brought you together?
Tom and me knew that if someone would understand our motives, it’d be Harry. So we thought of just telling him about it first. Plus, he and Dougie, what was going on between those two, it was something to deep and loving, it was something I never had seen before. They were a couple but also so much more than that. Up to this day I really can’t explain it. Sometimes I found myself just wanting to be near them because the feelings they had for each other were strong enough to fill the hearts of a thousand people at the same time with happiness. And because of all that, Harry was the only one who would know how Dougie would take the split of the band which was why we wanted to tell just him at first.
But in the end, we couldn’t. It just wouldn’t have been right. If I had been Dougie in the situation, I would have been beyond pissed off if I found out that my best mates and my boyfriend had been talking about ending something that all of us had been in without even including me in it. So we decided to tell them both at the same time, hoping and praying to god they would take it well.
So after a night of thinking, talking, crying and one very unwanted decision, Tom and me had a good strong coffee and then marched right over to Harry and Dougie’s house, just down the road. The sooner we got it over with the better, we figured.
Harry had already been up, despite it being quite early. He opened the door and from the look on his face I could tell he knew that whatever we had come over for, it wasn’t good.
We sat down in the living room while Harry went upstairs to get Dougie out of bed. A few minutes later Dougie came trudging downstairs and suddenly Tom next to me was a weeping mess. Really, I hadn’t seen him cry this hard ever since I had known him. Harry just looked worried but when his eyes landed on me, I couldn’t look back at him, stared at some point on the wall instead. Dougie just went over to Tom, straddled his lap and hugged him, telling him everything would be alright. But of course that didn’t calm Tom down at all, after all he knew what was about to happen. So he cried and cried and Dougie tried comforting him.
Suddenly I felt Harry nugding my arm. “Come on Dan, I’ll get you a coffee.” he said.
I stood up to follow him into the kitchen but before that I patted Tom on the arm saying, “I’ll tell Harry, you’ll tell him.” That was the only way we could be doing it now.
So I followed Harry into the kitchen. He poured me a coffee and passed the mug to me in silence but once I had taken the first sip and stared into the dark liquid, Harry’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.
“What’s going on, Dan?”
I sighed. “God, I dunno how to say this Harry, but … it’s … the band … Tom and me … we …”
And even though what I said didn’t make much sense, Harry seemed to understand.
“McFly’s over, isn’t it?”
I just nodded. “I’m sorry Harry, it’s just …”
I couldn’t explain anything else, explain further, because in that moment, Dougie had stormed into the kitchen. Harry and I both looked at him and suddenly understanding also dawned on Dougie’s still childlike features.
“So it’s true?” he whispered, looking at me and I nodded.
And then, just like Tom before, Dougie broke down. He just managed to throw himself in Harry’s waiting arms and then he was crying into Harry’s chest, sobs escaping his lungs and violently shaking his body.
A few moments later and Tom was in the kitchen too. He wasn’t crying anymore but he was close to start again when he saw Dougie crying in Harry’s arms. I could see on his face that he wanted to go over and join in the hug but something held him on the spot, just looking at Dougie and Harry. In the end he just mouthed a ‘Sorry’ at Harry who nodded and then motioned for us to leave. Tom stayed rooted on his spot, still staring at Dougie and Harry, and it took me a few strong tugs on his arm to get him to move.
We went back to Tom’s house and stayed there the whole day. We didn’t do much, barely spoke to each other actually, but we were with each other and not by ourselves at each of our places and that was all that mattered at that point. We weren’t alone.
Two days later Harry came over to Tom’s where I was still staying. He gave us a chance to explain and when we did he reacted like we knew he would. He understood and not only respected but also accepted our decision. He wasn’t mad or anything, knowing that we did what would be the best for all of us.
From what Harry said, Dougie was feeling horrible though. He barely said a word, didn’t eat much, slept really bad, if he slept at all, and cried most of the time. When Tom heard that he was out of the door in a flash and seconds later you could hear his screams from down the road, begging Dougie to let him in to explain. Apparently, Dougie didn’t open the door because after a while, Tom was back in, his knuckles a deep red from his banging at the door.
The next time we saw Dougie it was percisely a week after we had decided to split the band up. I don’t know how but Harry got him out of the house over to Tom’s. So we all tried explaining our reasons to him but it was a really one-sided conversation with Dougie maybe saying the total of two sentences. I think he had now realised that he couldn’t really change what was going on and that he also wouldn’t and couldn’t try anymore.
The next day I was proven wrong though. We had all slept in Tom’s living room, our goodbye-thing to the band I think, and the next morning we were off to a press-conference that had been arranged to announce the split of McFly to the, at this point clueless, public.
And then, right before we were to face the journalists, Dougie suddenly found his voice. I’ve known the little guy for years but I had never heard him talk that much in one go. He was firing off reason after reason as to why we couldn’t split up, suggested that we just take a long break but not really break up for good. He talked for half an hour and even though it made us feel absolutely horrible, we stuck to our point. And in the end Dougie gave in. I could tell he didn’t want to, that he just did it because we, his friends, had asked him to.
So we looked at each other for one more time before we opened the door to the conference room and Tom took the lead in walking out. Thinking of that one moment still makes me smile in pride, despite the reason we had for walking into that room. But really, at that moment I was so proud of Tom. There it was, the end of his band, and he stood out there like a true soldier. We had never asked him to be the one to announce the end or anything, but he just did it, unasked.
So we sat down, waited until the room fell silent and then, with a voice so calm and settled it probably surprised Tom himself, Tom read aloud from a paper in his hand.
“As a band we have decided to close the chapter that was McFly and turn the page to start other, new, chapters in our lives.” A pause to let it settle in. “We had the best time of our lives, don’t regret a second of it. But it’s time for all of us to move on. The reason of that is personal to each and every one of us and we would like to keep it that way, but we can assure you that there have been no fights. I think I speak for all of us when I say that the time in the band will always connect us to each other and we will always be friends. We’d like to apologise to our fans, thank them for their support over the years. They’ve always been more than amazing from the very beginning on and I am sure that they’ll hear about us for a long time to come, just not as the band McFly. Finally I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who we ever got to work with, our management and record company for always sticking with us through thick and thin. And most of all my thank you goes out to the guys sitting here with me, Danny, Harry and Dougie. They’ve been more than bandmates to me, they’ve been my friends, my brothers. I’m glad I could share this experience with them and, even though I’m sure I won’t stop talking to them for as long as I live, I wish them the best of luck in the future.”
And then it was over. McFly were no more. Just like that. We weren’t a band anymore.
I didn’t really have time to let that thought settle. And to be honest, I’m glad I didn’t. I thought about the whole thing so much before it happened, I didn’t want to think about it anymore. But as I said, I didn’t have to.
It took the total amount of three days and I already had five offers for a solo-album on my doorstep. I contemplated whether to accept or not. On one hand I thought I’d look like such a hypocrite if I accepted, like I just waited for the end of the band to come out with an own album. I mean, I took part in ending the band because I didn’t feel quite as happy as I should be and then I go and do the same thing all over again, just not with the band? But then I remembered what brought me into the whole scene in the first place, my pure and utter love for music. And I wanted to keep going because I simply couldn’t live without it. I couldn’t be without music, without writing, recording and touring. And a solo-career would be something completely different than being in the band. The songs would be different to begin with and so would everything else be.
So in the end I accepted one of the contracts, making it clear from the first second on that I wouldn’t allow anyone butting in and that I needed time to come up with stuff. This would have to be my thing. I would be writing and producing and if I needed or wanted someone along the way, I would approach who I felt was right. It was downright arrogant of me, looking back on it now, but the big bosses seemed to have enough confidence in me because they accepted it right away. But not officially. It had been agreed that nothing of my plans was gonna be made public until a single and album was done and about to be released. That would take the pressure off me and also, it didn’t seem like I had waited for the end of McFly to go solo.
Next thing I did was moving. Up to Bolton it was, back to the roots and all that. My mum was delighted, believe me. I got me a nice little house, a short walk to the Reebok Stadium, a lovely pub just at the corner. I hadn’t even moved in properly but my studio was already set up in the attic. So I really had everything I needed within reach.
Don’t get me wrong here but going away was really good for me. I had time to clear my head. Sure, I was missing having the boys around but I spoke to Tom pretty much every day and every other day to Harry too. And after a month and a bit, I was actually alright. Breathing easy and all that.
Then Tom came up to visit me. Sure did him good since he had just split up with Gi too. How he managed those weeks, always being so strong, I have no idea. First his band split up and then, only weeks later, the girl he pretty much loved all his life left him and started seeing some airheaded Rugby-player only days after. Everyone else would have been devastated, a depressed wreck, but not Tom. He only came out stronger than ever.
He stayed at mine for two weeks and all we did was write. We stayed up nights, listened to music and wrote until our fingers bled. Apart from the band, it was the best time in my life. It reminded me of the good old days, it just saddened me a bit when I realised that we were writing for me and not for McFly. But that also had been what I had been missing when the band had reached the end. The excitement, the magic of creating music.
After those two weeks we went back to London, wanting to catch up with Harry and Dougie. And what a catch-up that was. It wasn’t us catching up to their reality though, it was their reality catching up to us in the worst way.
I had known from Tom’s stories and several phone calls with Harry that it had been going downhill with Dougie. Apparently, he had been starting to drink really heavily. And I have to say, whenever I heard that I played it down. Blame it on my nothern roots but I never saw drinking as a bad thing. But I realised how bad it really was when Tom and me got a call from a very helpless Harry when we had just gotten back into London. Apparently Dougie had been pretty much drinking all day and now was about to hit the clubs to drink even more. Harry had always tried reasoning with him, ever since Dougie had started drinking so much, but now Harry was at the end too and he hoped that what he couldn’t do, Tom and me could. And what made it all the more urgent was the fact that Harry had reached the end. Because we are talking about Harry Judd here, the man who always had the full control of his feelings, who always knew a way out. Helpless and Harry Judd did not mix.
When we got to their place, still just down the road from Tom’s, Dougie was upstairs, just about to get ready for his night out. We heard him rummage about upstairs while Harry, looking worn out and exhausted, tried explaining how bad it really was. He only didn’t get far because there was Dougie, staggering down the stairs. Even from my spot on the sofa I could see his glazed eyes, a sign that he was already drunk. He looked at us, then at Harry, letting out a sarastic laugh, while he came down the remaining steps.
“Did you get them here?” he asked Harry.
“I thought that, if I can’t keep you from going out, maybe they can.” Harry responded.
Dougie only snorted, like making fun of Harry in a very mean way. Seeing that really hurt me. Between Harry and Dougie there always was so much love and respect for each other and now nothing seemed to be left from that, at least not on Dougie’s part. It hurt me when I thought that this was what Harry now had to go through each and every day and mentally kicked myself for not taking Dougie’s behaviour serious before.
“Stop thinking Harry, it’s doing you no good.” Dougie said.
Dougie was turning to leave but if he thought he could get away that easily, boy, he was wrong. I jumped off the sofa and blocked his way. And despite wanting to smack him hard upside the head, scolding him for talking to Harry liked that, I tried the nice way. “Oh come on Dougs, don’t go. Why don’t you just stay and we have some fun with the Xbox, just like in the good old days, eh?”
I have no clue if it was what I said or how I said it or if it was because someone said something in general, but all of a sudden, Dougie completely exploded in our faces.
“Fuck off Danny!” He violently shook my arm off and looked back and forth between Tom, Harry and me, anger now visible in all his features, his hands balled to fists at his sides. “I don’t need to be saved alright? I don’t need to be saved by you, Danny.” he yelled in my face before turning to face the others, “And I surely don’t need to be saved by you, Tom, or you, Harry. Maybe, before trying to fucking save me, try to get into your heads what made me do this in the first place. I wouldn’t even needed to be saved if the three of you hadn’t decided to split up the band, something that was our thing. I mean, look at this for fuck’s sake, you lot are sitting here trying to make me come to my senses when you should have been in your senses to begin with. You guys decided to end the band even though I didn’t want to so now let me bloody do whatever the fuck I wanna do. You didn’t care about me when you ended the band so don’t fucking dare to care about me now!”
Then he just walked past me like I wasn’t even there and a moment later the walls shook from the door slamming close.
I never would have thought that this was the one of the last times I saw Dougie. That this night was the last time I had spoken to him, looked in his eyes up close.
Because the next time I saw him, it was weeks later. And he wasn’t really there, to say it like that. He was laying in a bed in a hospital after he had crashed his car into a lamppost because the idiot had been driving while on drugs. Yes, you’ve got me right there. Dougie got into drugs. The kid that even was too scared to take an aspirin after he had watched ‘Trainspotting’ for the first time, he had gotten into drugs.
When Tom, Harry and me saw him in hospital he was in some sort of a coma that the doctors had put him in after his overdose. He looked like dead though. Really, he was pale and skinnier than ever, his chest barely moved while breathing. After seeing him, spending the night by his bed, we were advised to not come see him again while he was in hospital since it was more than likely that we could be fuelling the one thing inside him that had turned him towards the drugs.
And I’m gonna tell you a secret here. It was the morning right after. While Tom and Harry were in Dougie’s room, I wanted to go get us some coffee from the cafeteria since we had’t slept all night. I was stopped by a policeman on my way though. He asked me all this questions, if I could give him a name of the person who sold the drugs to Dougie. Of course I couldn’t and when I asked him why he was asking me all this when I was the one who wasn’t even in London most of the time, that’s when the surprise came.
When they had found Dougie in his car after the crash, he held something in his hand. It was the day’s newspaper. Apparently, Dougie had held it while driving and when he crashed it flipped open to the page he held bookmarked with his finger. And on the page was an article about me, saying that I had just signed a deal with a record company and was about to release my first single and album, with a picture of me smiling wide into the camera, showing my signature on a piece of paper.
Being told that was like a punch in the stomach with a slegdehammer. Guilt immediately rose in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. Dougie had read about me officially going solo. And being the sensitive guy he’s always been, that broke him and he overdosed.
When that thought settled, I ran into the nearest bathroom I could find and threw up the second I was in the cubicle. Dougie had overdosed, because of me. He could have died, because of me. And looking further back, it was me and the weird feeling in my tummy that had started the whole splitting McFly up-thing. It was me that was to blame for the state that Dougie was in.
I never told Tom and Harry about this. And I don’t know if they picked up on that but ever since then my whole behaviour changed when it came to Dougie. I never went back into his hospital room and from then on I found it hard speaking about him even. I know he wasn’t dead but it still seemed to me that I have killed him. To an extend I think I did kill him cos no matter what, he would never be the same after this.
After he had to stay in hospital, Dougie was sent straight to a rehab-centre. The best in the country, I’ve heard. I’ve been there once too, to see Dougie. Every fibre in my body refused going there but Tom, of course, had talked me into it, saying that Harry wanted to go see Dougie but that there was no way in hell he would go alone. Harry had never asked for it but Tom and me both knew he needed us there.
So we all went to the centre. And it looked nice. It was in the middle of nowhere, reminded me of that place in Ireland where the band once recorded. The only difference was that the coast was right there and you could wander to the beach.
We were brought to the visitors’ room and were told to wait while some nurse was going to get Dougie. We had wanted to surprise him so we asked to not tell him it was us who were visiting. So we waited a bit until we heard footsteps in the hallway outside and our heads jerked up and towards the little window in the door. And there was Dougie.
His hair was dyed dark again and falling into his face. Head down he walked down the hallway, a nurse by his side. In that moment he looked so much like when he was around 17, no one would’ve thought he was eight years older now. I think even in 50 years he still will look like teenage-Dougie, the boy from McFly.
When he was at the door, it was the first time he looked up. You couldn’t hear a thing through the still closed door but you could literally see the breath hitching in his throat before coming out in a shocked gasp. And why could you? Because Tom, Harry and me, we did it too.
But then it happened. After a short moment of eye contact between Dougie and each one of us, he turned on his heel and we saw him walking back the way he came.
A few minutes later what we assumed was his therapist came in, saying that Dougie didn’t want to see us. Not now and not at all.
That day was hard, so very hard. For all of us, but most of all for Harry. The second Dougie’s therapist had left the room, he broke down. Not literally though, he didn’t shed a single tear. But you could see in his eyes that he had just lost everything that he had been living for. I told you, what him and Dougie had was way beyond everything else, and Dougie not wanting to see him, it was more than Harry was able to take.
I hadn’t heard from Harry for a while after that day. A part of me just couldn’t talk to or face him. So I was literally throwing myself into my career. I didn’t want to think about what I had done to Dougie, and inevitably to Harry, anymore so I kept myself busy with work. Thank god my career was just starting, it gave me plenty of chances to be all over the country, promoting my music and myself. I worked more than I ever did while being in the band and I had no time to think about anything other than interviews, photoshoots or gigs I had to play. And at night I was so exhausted that I was out cold the second my head hit the pillow. Not really the best thing to do but to me it was better than thinking about what I had done to Dougie and Harry.
Tom told me after some time that Harry struggled back onto his feet which really was a huge relief for me. I called him up one day and as luck would have it, the next week he was about to be in Cardiff to record something for TV on the same day as I was there for a gig. I got him a pass for my gig and afterwards we went out for a few drinks.
And really, it was Tom who made me proud while the whole split of the band. But now it was Harry who made me proud. There he was, being his joking and sarcastic self, like nothing bad had ever happened to him. The only thing that told me he wasn’t over Dougie, and probably never would get over him, was his eyes. They had lost their sparkle. But everything else told me that Harry was fine. He had his own TV-show by now. He travelled around the planet, interviewed people, talked about music and sports and every two weeks it was shown on TV.
He now shared a flat with Ann whatever-her-name-is. He still had the house him and Dougie shared but he never properly stayed there, only came there for a few hours every now and then, making sure everything was still in its place. His girl, Ann, was one of those soap-actresses. My mum knew her, I didn’t have time for soaps. To be fair, it surprised me a bit to see Harry in a relationship but at the same time it didn’t. Harry just couldn’t be without someone and something about that girl must have been right apart from the fact that she wasn’t Dougie.
I had invited Harry up to Bolton too. I had this track in my studio that needed some better drumming because my studio drummer just couldn’t get it right, no matter how long and hard he tried. And then came the shock. Harry told me he didn’t drum anymore, had stopped it the day the band ended. He tried explaining it to me because I couldn’t understand how he could just stop something that he had loved with all his heart for years. He said that without the band, drumming made no sense to him anymore. If he played drums alone, without Tom, Dougie and me, that’s what he would have felt … alone. And if Harry hated one thing, it was being alone.
And he didn’t talk about Dougie anymore. Not because he didn’t want to, it was because he couldn’t. If you mentioned Dougie’s name around him or if his eyes accidentally landed on a picture of him, you could actually see him falling apart, like that day so many months ago at the rehab-centre.
And that whole thing brings me here, to that telly-studio I told you about. Tom had called me last week, saying that I needed to take some days off to come down to London. He wouldn’t get into details but told me if one thing on the planet was important, it was that I came to see him. I didn’t think twice and cancelled everything for a week around the date Tom had given me.
When I arrived at his place, I barely had time to take my shoes off and throw my suitcase in the corner when Tom had shoved a newspaper into my face. My eyes nearly popped out of my skull when I read the headline. ‘Former McFly-member Dougie Poynter to release biography’. Believe me, I’ve never read anything faster than I’ve read that article. What was awaiting us was a ‘future bestseller, so honest and forward that it makes the reader’s head spin’.
As soon as I had finished reading, Tom had the next surprise for me in form of an email he had gotten. He still had his connections and what he showed me was a personal invite for Tom Fletcher plus two people to some talkshow. Special guest: Dougie Poynter who would be ‘making his first public appearance after the split of platinum-awarded band McFly to talk about his biography’.
“Plus two?” I asked after reading the printed email, “Who you’ll be going with then?”
He looked at me like I had just stepped out of a spaceship. “You and Harry, who do you think?”
I shook my head. “No! No fucking way, Tom, forget it. Are you insane? Dougie will lose it when he sees us there. Either that or he’s going to break down completely. And both isn’t too appealing on national telly.”
Of course that was just an excuse for myself. I didn’t want to go there. Hell, I couldn’t go there. For almost a year I have managed to not think about what I have done to Dougie and I rather for it to stay that way. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him, I just felt that I couldn’t. Plus, did Tom think about Harry? If I couldn’t see Dougie, Harry couldn’t see him a million times more. If a picture broke him into pieces, what would seeing Dougie for real do to him?
But you know Tom, talking doesn’t help when he’s got an idea stuck in his head. In the end, which means after a discussion of fifteen minutes, I gave in and agreed to go to that bloody show with him.
Making Harry go was quite easy though. How? Well, Tom point blank lied to his face. He had called him, saying I was in town and that he wanted to go out to dinner with us. Of course that was the day of the TV-show. So we picked Harry up from Ann’s flat. Tom told him he had to go bring some demo to someone and we would go to the restaurant straight after. And you guessed it, the demo-thing was a whole load of rubbish and before Harry could even take a breath to protest, we were led into the TV-studio and a wall-sized image of Dougie on his book-cover stared back at us.
And it’s now that I notice the book’s title for the first time and it makes me smile, laugh a little actually, for the first time today too.
The book is titled ‘No Regrets’ and really, the title fits perfectly for the whole past year. Because honestly, no matter how tough everything was for me in that past year, I don’t regret anything. Because I truly believe that everything you’ve been through, good and bad, makes you the person you are, that’s something I learnt while being in the band. And how can you regret being who you are?
To be continued …
Comments are appreciated.
and just so you know .. lucas grabeel > zac efron!
aaaaaaaaaaaaand .. does anyone have townbike's song 'dougie'?
if so .. sendspace, yousendit, megaupload????
and now .. update!!!!
Title: No Regrets
Author: me
Rating: R (some stuff is just not very nice)
Chapter: 3/7
Genre: Drama methinks
Pairing: PoynterJudd in one way or another
Summary: Welcome to the world of Danny Jones …
Disclaimer: we all know that I always write the truth so where’s the point in me denying? Oh, McFly aren’t over? Well, I guess I’m a liar then.
Dedication: everyone who read and commented on the previous chapter … theellibu, syphilisparade, juddpoynter, orpheous87, the_first_chibi, armillarysphere, juuanna, stfoosa, beckystark06, samzxx, 12bear_hugs, roguecharmedone, laurenfoxy, livwickedd, dictionary1, clampin, bffimagine, star55 and jedisnickers
Author’s note: I liked writing this chapter. Because, for some scary reasons, pretending to be Danny Jones is awfully easy for me.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2
Part 3 - Danny
Let me tell you one thing. When Tom asked me to come down to London, that’s surely not what I expected us to be doing. I thought we were going to the pub and maybe hang around at his house afterwards, writing some or just playing music, that he had called me to come because he had some idea for a song that needed to be put down. I most definitely didn’t see us sitting in the audience of some telly-talkshow, Harry fidgeting inbetween us. And not in a million years I would have seen us in the audience of some telly-talkshow which had Dougie Poynter as a guest who would be talking about the biography he wrote.
But between that and the beginning of this very story lies a year so go get comfy and let me rewind this story for you.
As you surely know, there was this band, McFly. That was Tom, Harry, Dougie and myself, Danny. The four of us really were the luckiest chaps on the planet, lemme tell you. Tom was this songwriting kid, aged 17, had been a member of this band, Busted, for the record amount of a few hours but something with him must have stuck because Busted’s management gave him the chance to put together an own band.
Him and me had met in Manchester where I had auditioned for some other boyband. Thank god I didn’t get in cause the poor sods lasted shorter than their name was. And their name was V, yeah exactly, their bandname was one simple letter. And the music they were supposed to be making wasn’t really my cup of tea either, not that I would ever have said it at the audition. I wanted to make music which was the only reason I auditioned in the first place.
Anyway, Tom and me instantly clicked so I went down south to write with him and James from Busted. We came up with some proper good tunes and played a few showcases even. But our sound wasn’t really complete. So now all we needed was an actual band for me and Tom. We put some ads in the papers and on the second day of the auditions in London we met two guys, Dougie and Harry. They had both met on the day too which no one would have believed cause they already seemed like they had been friends, or even more than that, for years.
So yeah, McFly was born on that day and what followed were years of pure happiness, amazingness and everything good one could think of. We recorded albums which sold like crazy, toured the country up and down, met people we had been looking up to and became people other kids looked up to even.
But years down the drain, and I suddenly got that weird feeling in my stomach. It’s really hard to explain, especially to someone who’s never did the things I did. But let me try.
All of a sudden, everything seemed to have lost its magic. It’s really weird saying that but everything became a routine of some sort. Which is strange when you think of the fact that over years, no day we had was like the other. But then at one point, it was.
I’m not gonna lie to you, when I’ve actually realised that, it was proper scary. I really thought my mind was playing tricks on me or something. I mean, it couldn’t be, right? I always gave everything I had on stage, always put everything of me in every song and suddenly it was all so … normal. Days just blended into each other and sometimes I felt like on auto-pilot. The things I used to do with so much passion, now I suddenly just did them automatically. They never got through to my insides anymore, didn’t reach my heart and soul.
It really freaked me out. For weeks I was really on the edge. I kept paying attention to the behaviour of the others, trying to find out if that was just something I felt or if it was something that went on with them too, that went on within the band. And you know what? I think I felt something from Tom, he seemed to feel the same way as I did.
But we’re talking about Tom here. Even if he had felt the same way as I did, he never would have said it out loud, never would make it real. McFly was his little thing from the beginning and he’d rather cut his legs off with a rusty knife than seeing something he created fall into pieces. But I figured it just wouldn’t be bad for him but for all of us if we just kept the band going because we didn’t know better or different instead of wanting to keep going. So I did the only thing I thought was right.
I confronted Tom with what I thought and felt.
It sounds easy now but believe me, it really wasn’t. I mean, from what I knew, it still could’ve been just me seeing things, you know. What if I went to Tom, saying, “Hey Tom, I think the band is going to die.” and he wouldn’t have felt the same way? I could’ve killed him on the spot and it wouldn’t have made a difference.
But I needed to know for sure so after days of arguing with myself, I mustered up the courage and went over to Tom’s house. It was a Saturday night, usually a night of partying and that stuff but a party was the last thing on my mind when I knocked on Tom’s door.
So he opened and nothing more than a short “Hey Dan.” could pass his lips cause I immediately blurted out what I had been thinking.
“Tom, is it just me or is the band really starting to fade out?”
He stared at me for a good minute or two and suddenly his features started to fall. I already saw my worst fears coming true when he asked me to come inside.
The night was surprising to say the least. As it turned out, Tom had really been feeling just like me, for weeks too.
We had stayed up all night, sitting in his living room, talking. It was weird. We really had been feeling the exact same things over the same time, just both thought it wasn’t really true, that exhaustion was finally taking its toll on our minds. And we both were scared of what would happen if those strange feelings turned out to be more real than we thought they were.
The talking sure did us good but what wasn’t good was what resulted in the end.
Tom and me decided it was time to end McFly.
We both figured it just wasn’t right to keep going when we both did it for the wrong reasons which were no reasons at all. And that’s what it really was. There was no real reason for us to continue. We weren’t in it anymore and doing it just for the money would just have been absolutely wrong, it would have been a betrayal to us, to the fans, to music in general. Because if we loved one thing, it was music, something we always treasured and cherished, something that should be done with love and passion and nothing else, most definitely not need for money.
The thing was just … how to tell Harry and Dougie? I mean, Tom and me were sure, nothing anyone could do could save the band. If we kept going, it would just get worse and one day, god forbid, we might just ended up absolutely hating each other and the band and everything else. So, also for the sake of our friendship, we had to end the band. But how do you tell your friends, your best friends, that you have to end the very thing that made you friends to begin with, the thing that brought you together?
Tom and me knew that if someone would understand our motives, it’d be Harry. So we thought of just telling him about it first. Plus, he and Dougie, what was going on between those two, it was something to deep and loving, it was something I never had seen before. They were a couple but also so much more than that. Up to this day I really can’t explain it. Sometimes I found myself just wanting to be near them because the feelings they had for each other were strong enough to fill the hearts of a thousand people at the same time with happiness. And because of all that, Harry was the only one who would know how Dougie would take the split of the band which was why we wanted to tell just him at first.
But in the end, we couldn’t. It just wouldn’t have been right. If I had been Dougie in the situation, I would have been beyond pissed off if I found out that my best mates and my boyfriend had been talking about ending something that all of us had been in without even including me in it. So we decided to tell them both at the same time, hoping and praying to god they would take it well.
So after a night of thinking, talking, crying and one very unwanted decision, Tom and me had a good strong coffee and then marched right over to Harry and Dougie’s house, just down the road. The sooner we got it over with the better, we figured.
Harry had already been up, despite it being quite early. He opened the door and from the look on his face I could tell he knew that whatever we had come over for, it wasn’t good.
We sat down in the living room while Harry went upstairs to get Dougie out of bed. A few minutes later Dougie came trudging downstairs and suddenly Tom next to me was a weeping mess. Really, I hadn’t seen him cry this hard ever since I had known him. Harry just looked worried but when his eyes landed on me, I couldn’t look back at him, stared at some point on the wall instead. Dougie just went over to Tom, straddled his lap and hugged him, telling him everything would be alright. But of course that didn’t calm Tom down at all, after all he knew what was about to happen. So he cried and cried and Dougie tried comforting him.
Suddenly I felt Harry nugding my arm. “Come on Dan, I’ll get you a coffee.” he said.
I stood up to follow him into the kitchen but before that I patted Tom on the arm saying, “I’ll tell Harry, you’ll tell him.” That was the only way we could be doing it now.
So I followed Harry into the kitchen. He poured me a coffee and passed the mug to me in silence but once I had taken the first sip and stared into the dark liquid, Harry’s voice pulled me out of my reverie.
“What’s going on, Dan?”
I sighed. “God, I dunno how to say this Harry, but … it’s … the band … Tom and me … we …”
And even though what I said didn’t make much sense, Harry seemed to understand.
“McFly’s over, isn’t it?”
I just nodded. “I’m sorry Harry, it’s just …”
I couldn’t explain anything else, explain further, because in that moment, Dougie had stormed into the kitchen. Harry and I both looked at him and suddenly understanding also dawned on Dougie’s still childlike features.
“So it’s true?” he whispered, looking at me and I nodded.
And then, just like Tom before, Dougie broke down. He just managed to throw himself in Harry’s waiting arms and then he was crying into Harry’s chest, sobs escaping his lungs and violently shaking his body.
A few moments later and Tom was in the kitchen too. He wasn’t crying anymore but he was close to start again when he saw Dougie crying in Harry’s arms. I could see on his face that he wanted to go over and join in the hug but something held him on the spot, just looking at Dougie and Harry. In the end he just mouthed a ‘Sorry’ at Harry who nodded and then motioned for us to leave. Tom stayed rooted on his spot, still staring at Dougie and Harry, and it took me a few strong tugs on his arm to get him to move.
We went back to Tom’s house and stayed there the whole day. We didn’t do much, barely spoke to each other actually, but we were with each other and not by ourselves at each of our places and that was all that mattered at that point. We weren’t alone.
Two days later Harry came over to Tom’s where I was still staying. He gave us a chance to explain and when we did he reacted like we knew he would. He understood and not only respected but also accepted our decision. He wasn’t mad or anything, knowing that we did what would be the best for all of us.
From what Harry said, Dougie was feeling horrible though. He barely said a word, didn’t eat much, slept really bad, if he slept at all, and cried most of the time. When Tom heard that he was out of the door in a flash and seconds later you could hear his screams from down the road, begging Dougie to let him in to explain. Apparently, Dougie didn’t open the door because after a while, Tom was back in, his knuckles a deep red from his banging at the door.
The next time we saw Dougie it was percisely a week after we had decided to split the band up. I don’t know how but Harry got him out of the house over to Tom’s. So we all tried explaining our reasons to him but it was a really one-sided conversation with Dougie maybe saying the total of two sentences. I think he had now realised that he couldn’t really change what was going on and that he also wouldn’t and couldn’t try anymore.
The next day I was proven wrong though. We had all slept in Tom’s living room, our goodbye-thing to the band I think, and the next morning we were off to a press-conference that had been arranged to announce the split of McFly to the, at this point clueless, public.
And then, right before we were to face the journalists, Dougie suddenly found his voice. I’ve known the little guy for years but I had never heard him talk that much in one go. He was firing off reason after reason as to why we couldn’t split up, suggested that we just take a long break but not really break up for good. He talked for half an hour and even though it made us feel absolutely horrible, we stuck to our point. And in the end Dougie gave in. I could tell he didn’t want to, that he just did it because we, his friends, had asked him to.
So we looked at each other for one more time before we opened the door to the conference room and Tom took the lead in walking out. Thinking of that one moment still makes me smile in pride, despite the reason we had for walking into that room. But really, at that moment I was so proud of Tom. There it was, the end of his band, and he stood out there like a true soldier. We had never asked him to be the one to announce the end or anything, but he just did it, unasked.
So we sat down, waited until the room fell silent and then, with a voice so calm and settled it probably surprised Tom himself, Tom read aloud from a paper in his hand.
“As a band we have decided to close the chapter that was McFly and turn the page to start other, new, chapters in our lives.” A pause to let it settle in. “We had the best time of our lives, don’t regret a second of it. But it’s time for all of us to move on. The reason of that is personal to each and every one of us and we would like to keep it that way, but we can assure you that there have been no fights. I think I speak for all of us when I say that the time in the band will always connect us to each other and we will always be friends. We’d like to apologise to our fans, thank them for their support over the years. They’ve always been more than amazing from the very beginning on and I am sure that they’ll hear about us for a long time to come, just not as the band McFly. Finally I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who we ever got to work with, our management and record company for always sticking with us through thick and thin. And most of all my thank you goes out to the guys sitting here with me, Danny, Harry and Dougie. They’ve been more than bandmates to me, they’ve been my friends, my brothers. I’m glad I could share this experience with them and, even though I’m sure I won’t stop talking to them for as long as I live, I wish them the best of luck in the future.”
And then it was over. McFly were no more. Just like that. We weren’t a band anymore.
I didn’t really have time to let that thought settle. And to be honest, I’m glad I didn’t. I thought about the whole thing so much before it happened, I didn’t want to think about it anymore. But as I said, I didn’t have to.
It took the total amount of three days and I already had five offers for a solo-album on my doorstep. I contemplated whether to accept or not. On one hand I thought I’d look like such a hypocrite if I accepted, like I just waited for the end of the band to come out with an own album. I mean, I took part in ending the band because I didn’t feel quite as happy as I should be and then I go and do the same thing all over again, just not with the band? But then I remembered what brought me into the whole scene in the first place, my pure and utter love for music. And I wanted to keep going because I simply couldn’t live without it. I couldn’t be without music, without writing, recording and touring. And a solo-career would be something completely different than being in the band. The songs would be different to begin with and so would everything else be.
So in the end I accepted one of the contracts, making it clear from the first second on that I wouldn’t allow anyone butting in and that I needed time to come up with stuff. This would have to be my thing. I would be writing and producing and if I needed or wanted someone along the way, I would approach who I felt was right. It was downright arrogant of me, looking back on it now, but the big bosses seemed to have enough confidence in me because they accepted it right away. But not officially. It had been agreed that nothing of my plans was gonna be made public until a single and album was done and about to be released. That would take the pressure off me and also, it didn’t seem like I had waited for the end of McFly to go solo.
Next thing I did was moving. Up to Bolton it was, back to the roots and all that. My mum was delighted, believe me. I got me a nice little house, a short walk to the Reebok Stadium, a lovely pub just at the corner. I hadn’t even moved in properly but my studio was already set up in the attic. So I really had everything I needed within reach.
Don’t get me wrong here but going away was really good for me. I had time to clear my head. Sure, I was missing having the boys around but I spoke to Tom pretty much every day and every other day to Harry too. And after a month and a bit, I was actually alright. Breathing easy and all that.
Then Tom came up to visit me. Sure did him good since he had just split up with Gi too. How he managed those weeks, always being so strong, I have no idea. First his band split up and then, only weeks later, the girl he pretty much loved all his life left him and started seeing some airheaded Rugby-player only days after. Everyone else would have been devastated, a depressed wreck, but not Tom. He only came out stronger than ever.
He stayed at mine for two weeks and all we did was write. We stayed up nights, listened to music and wrote until our fingers bled. Apart from the band, it was the best time in my life. It reminded me of the good old days, it just saddened me a bit when I realised that we were writing for me and not for McFly. But that also had been what I had been missing when the band had reached the end. The excitement, the magic of creating music.
After those two weeks we went back to London, wanting to catch up with Harry and Dougie. And what a catch-up that was. It wasn’t us catching up to their reality though, it was their reality catching up to us in the worst way.
I had known from Tom’s stories and several phone calls with Harry that it had been going downhill with Dougie. Apparently, he had been starting to drink really heavily. And I have to say, whenever I heard that I played it down. Blame it on my nothern roots but I never saw drinking as a bad thing. But I realised how bad it really was when Tom and me got a call from a very helpless Harry when we had just gotten back into London. Apparently Dougie had been pretty much drinking all day and now was about to hit the clubs to drink even more. Harry had always tried reasoning with him, ever since Dougie had started drinking so much, but now Harry was at the end too and he hoped that what he couldn’t do, Tom and me could. And what made it all the more urgent was the fact that Harry had reached the end. Because we are talking about Harry Judd here, the man who always had the full control of his feelings, who always knew a way out. Helpless and Harry Judd did not mix.
When we got to their place, still just down the road from Tom’s, Dougie was upstairs, just about to get ready for his night out. We heard him rummage about upstairs while Harry, looking worn out and exhausted, tried explaining how bad it really was. He only didn’t get far because there was Dougie, staggering down the stairs. Even from my spot on the sofa I could see his glazed eyes, a sign that he was already drunk. He looked at us, then at Harry, letting out a sarastic laugh, while he came down the remaining steps.
“Did you get them here?” he asked Harry.
“I thought that, if I can’t keep you from going out, maybe they can.” Harry responded.
Dougie only snorted, like making fun of Harry in a very mean way. Seeing that really hurt me. Between Harry and Dougie there always was so much love and respect for each other and now nothing seemed to be left from that, at least not on Dougie’s part. It hurt me when I thought that this was what Harry now had to go through each and every day and mentally kicked myself for not taking Dougie’s behaviour serious before.
“Stop thinking Harry, it’s doing you no good.” Dougie said.
Dougie was turning to leave but if he thought he could get away that easily, boy, he was wrong. I jumped off the sofa and blocked his way. And despite wanting to smack him hard upside the head, scolding him for talking to Harry liked that, I tried the nice way. “Oh come on Dougs, don’t go. Why don’t you just stay and we have some fun with the Xbox, just like in the good old days, eh?”
I have no clue if it was what I said or how I said it or if it was because someone said something in general, but all of a sudden, Dougie completely exploded in our faces.
“Fuck off Danny!” He violently shook my arm off and looked back and forth between Tom, Harry and me, anger now visible in all his features, his hands balled to fists at his sides. “I don’t need to be saved alright? I don’t need to be saved by you, Danny.” he yelled in my face before turning to face the others, “And I surely don’t need to be saved by you, Tom, or you, Harry. Maybe, before trying to fucking save me, try to get into your heads what made me do this in the first place. I wouldn’t even needed to be saved if the three of you hadn’t decided to split up the band, something that was our thing. I mean, look at this for fuck’s sake, you lot are sitting here trying to make me come to my senses when you should have been in your senses to begin with. You guys decided to end the band even though I didn’t want to so now let me bloody do whatever the fuck I wanna do. You didn’t care about me when you ended the band so don’t fucking dare to care about me now!”
Then he just walked past me like I wasn’t even there and a moment later the walls shook from the door slamming close.
I never would have thought that this was the one of the last times I saw Dougie. That this night was the last time I had spoken to him, looked in his eyes up close.
Because the next time I saw him, it was weeks later. And he wasn’t really there, to say it like that. He was laying in a bed in a hospital after he had crashed his car into a lamppost because the idiot had been driving while on drugs. Yes, you’ve got me right there. Dougie got into drugs. The kid that even was too scared to take an aspirin after he had watched ‘Trainspotting’ for the first time, he had gotten into drugs.
When Tom, Harry and me saw him in hospital he was in some sort of a coma that the doctors had put him in after his overdose. He looked like dead though. Really, he was pale and skinnier than ever, his chest barely moved while breathing. After seeing him, spending the night by his bed, we were advised to not come see him again while he was in hospital since it was more than likely that we could be fuelling the one thing inside him that had turned him towards the drugs.
And I’m gonna tell you a secret here. It was the morning right after. While Tom and Harry were in Dougie’s room, I wanted to go get us some coffee from the cafeteria since we had’t slept all night. I was stopped by a policeman on my way though. He asked me all this questions, if I could give him a name of the person who sold the drugs to Dougie. Of course I couldn’t and when I asked him why he was asking me all this when I was the one who wasn’t even in London most of the time, that’s when the surprise came.
When they had found Dougie in his car after the crash, he held something in his hand. It was the day’s newspaper. Apparently, Dougie had held it while driving and when he crashed it flipped open to the page he held bookmarked with his finger. And on the page was an article about me, saying that I had just signed a deal with a record company and was about to release my first single and album, with a picture of me smiling wide into the camera, showing my signature on a piece of paper.
Being told that was like a punch in the stomach with a slegdehammer. Guilt immediately rose in the pit of my stomach. It didn’t take much to put two and two together. Dougie had read about me officially going solo. And being the sensitive guy he’s always been, that broke him and he overdosed.
When that thought settled, I ran into the nearest bathroom I could find and threw up the second I was in the cubicle. Dougie had overdosed, because of me. He could have died, because of me. And looking further back, it was me and the weird feeling in my tummy that had started the whole splitting McFly up-thing. It was me that was to blame for the state that Dougie was in.
I never told Tom and Harry about this. And I don’t know if they picked up on that but ever since then my whole behaviour changed when it came to Dougie. I never went back into his hospital room and from then on I found it hard speaking about him even. I know he wasn’t dead but it still seemed to me that I have killed him. To an extend I think I did kill him cos no matter what, he would never be the same after this.
After he had to stay in hospital, Dougie was sent straight to a rehab-centre. The best in the country, I’ve heard. I’ve been there once too, to see Dougie. Every fibre in my body refused going there but Tom, of course, had talked me into it, saying that Harry wanted to go see Dougie but that there was no way in hell he would go alone. Harry had never asked for it but Tom and me both knew he needed us there.
So we all went to the centre. And it looked nice. It was in the middle of nowhere, reminded me of that place in Ireland where the band once recorded. The only difference was that the coast was right there and you could wander to the beach.
We were brought to the visitors’ room and were told to wait while some nurse was going to get Dougie. We had wanted to surprise him so we asked to not tell him it was us who were visiting. So we waited a bit until we heard footsteps in the hallway outside and our heads jerked up and towards the little window in the door. And there was Dougie.
His hair was dyed dark again and falling into his face. Head down he walked down the hallway, a nurse by his side. In that moment he looked so much like when he was around 17, no one would’ve thought he was eight years older now. I think even in 50 years he still will look like teenage-Dougie, the boy from McFly.
When he was at the door, it was the first time he looked up. You couldn’t hear a thing through the still closed door but you could literally see the breath hitching in his throat before coming out in a shocked gasp. And why could you? Because Tom, Harry and me, we did it too.
But then it happened. After a short moment of eye contact between Dougie and each one of us, he turned on his heel and we saw him walking back the way he came.
A few minutes later what we assumed was his therapist came in, saying that Dougie didn’t want to see us. Not now and not at all.
That day was hard, so very hard. For all of us, but most of all for Harry. The second Dougie’s therapist had left the room, he broke down. Not literally though, he didn’t shed a single tear. But you could see in his eyes that he had just lost everything that he had been living for. I told you, what him and Dougie had was way beyond everything else, and Dougie not wanting to see him, it was more than Harry was able to take.
I hadn’t heard from Harry for a while after that day. A part of me just couldn’t talk to or face him. So I was literally throwing myself into my career. I didn’t want to think about what I had done to Dougie, and inevitably to Harry, anymore so I kept myself busy with work. Thank god my career was just starting, it gave me plenty of chances to be all over the country, promoting my music and myself. I worked more than I ever did while being in the band and I had no time to think about anything other than interviews, photoshoots or gigs I had to play. And at night I was so exhausted that I was out cold the second my head hit the pillow. Not really the best thing to do but to me it was better than thinking about what I had done to Dougie and Harry.
Tom told me after some time that Harry struggled back onto his feet which really was a huge relief for me. I called him up one day and as luck would have it, the next week he was about to be in Cardiff to record something for TV on the same day as I was there for a gig. I got him a pass for my gig and afterwards we went out for a few drinks.
And really, it was Tom who made me proud while the whole split of the band. But now it was Harry who made me proud. There he was, being his joking and sarcastic self, like nothing bad had ever happened to him. The only thing that told me he wasn’t over Dougie, and probably never would get over him, was his eyes. They had lost their sparkle. But everything else told me that Harry was fine. He had his own TV-show by now. He travelled around the planet, interviewed people, talked about music and sports and every two weeks it was shown on TV.
He now shared a flat with Ann whatever-her-name-is. He still had the house him and Dougie shared but he never properly stayed there, only came there for a few hours every now and then, making sure everything was still in its place. His girl, Ann, was one of those soap-actresses. My mum knew her, I didn’t have time for soaps. To be fair, it surprised me a bit to see Harry in a relationship but at the same time it didn’t. Harry just couldn’t be without someone and something about that girl must have been right apart from the fact that she wasn’t Dougie.
I had invited Harry up to Bolton too. I had this track in my studio that needed some better drumming because my studio drummer just couldn’t get it right, no matter how long and hard he tried. And then came the shock. Harry told me he didn’t drum anymore, had stopped it the day the band ended. He tried explaining it to me because I couldn’t understand how he could just stop something that he had loved with all his heart for years. He said that without the band, drumming made no sense to him anymore. If he played drums alone, without Tom, Dougie and me, that’s what he would have felt … alone. And if Harry hated one thing, it was being alone.
And he didn’t talk about Dougie anymore. Not because he didn’t want to, it was because he couldn’t. If you mentioned Dougie’s name around him or if his eyes accidentally landed on a picture of him, you could actually see him falling apart, like that day so many months ago at the rehab-centre.
And that whole thing brings me here, to that telly-studio I told you about. Tom had called me last week, saying that I needed to take some days off to come down to London. He wouldn’t get into details but told me if one thing on the planet was important, it was that I came to see him. I didn’t think twice and cancelled everything for a week around the date Tom had given me.
When I arrived at his place, I barely had time to take my shoes off and throw my suitcase in the corner when Tom had shoved a newspaper into my face. My eyes nearly popped out of my skull when I read the headline. ‘Former McFly-member Dougie Poynter to release biography’. Believe me, I’ve never read anything faster than I’ve read that article. What was awaiting us was a ‘future bestseller, so honest and forward that it makes the reader’s head spin’.
As soon as I had finished reading, Tom had the next surprise for me in form of an email he had gotten. He still had his connections and what he showed me was a personal invite for Tom Fletcher plus two people to some talkshow. Special guest: Dougie Poynter who would be ‘making his first public appearance after the split of platinum-awarded band McFly to talk about his biography’.
“Plus two?” I asked after reading the printed email, “Who you’ll be going with then?”
He looked at me like I had just stepped out of a spaceship. “You and Harry, who do you think?”
I shook my head. “No! No fucking way, Tom, forget it. Are you insane? Dougie will lose it when he sees us there. Either that or he’s going to break down completely. And both isn’t too appealing on national telly.”
Of course that was just an excuse for myself. I didn’t want to go there. Hell, I couldn’t go there. For almost a year I have managed to not think about what I have done to Dougie and I rather for it to stay that way. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see him, I just felt that I couldn’t. Plus, did Tom think about Harry? If I couldn’t see Dougie, Harry couldn’t see him a million times more. If a picture broke him into pieces, what would seeing Dougie for real do to him?
But you know Tom, talking doesn’t help when he’s got an idea stuck in his head. In the end, which means after a discussion of fifteen minutes, I gave in and agreed to go to that bloody show with him.
Making Harry go was quite easy though. How? Well, Tom point blank lied to his face. He had called him, saying I was in town and that he wanted to go out to dinner with us. Of course that was the day of the TV-show. So we picked Harry up from Ann’s flat. Tom told him he had to go bring some demo to someone and we would go to the restaurant straight after. And you guessed it, the demo-thing was a whole load of rubbish and before Harry could even take a breath to protest, we were led into the TV-studio and a wall-sized image of Dougie on his book-cover stared back at us.
And it’s now that I notice the book’s title for the first time and it makes me smile, laugh a little actually, for the first time today too.
The book is titled ‘No Regrets’ and really, the title fits perfectly for the whole past year. Because honestly, no matter how tough everything was for me in that past year, I don’t regret anything. Because I truly believe that everything you’ve been through, good and bad, makes you the person you are, that’s something I learnt while being in the band. And how can you regret being who you are?
To be continued …
Comments are appreciated.