Reading Festival was going to be epic, the boys assured us. It would fix everything. Live music was everything that mattered in life. But, apart from the fact we were sleeping in tents, in an endless field of fields, and trying to hold in our poos whenever we dared use the gross Portaloos, I couldn’t help but wonder what the difference really was between our life at home and this music festival. Everyone was too wasted most of the time to see many bands, only managing to stagger into the arena once a day, around evening-time to see the headliners. And everyone there appeared exactly the same as us, as if we’d all been cloned from the same guitar plectrum necklace. Whenever I flip-flopped toward the arena, I passed group after group of seventeen-year-olds—girls with hair dyed a rainbow of colors, mooning over a group of boys wearing black, strumming their guitars and getting everyone around them to sing “Tribute” by Tenacious D. At least once an hour, somebody, somewhere far away, would shout the word “bollocks” long and loud, and it would start a giant Mexican wave of people shouting “bollocks” too, and it wasn’t appearing to get tiresome anytime soon. And, at that moment, in the distance, someone yelled the word, “booooooollllllllllooooooccccckkkkkss” and we heard the wave of it come crashing toward us. We all grinned through the flames, waiting in anticipation ’til it hit us, and then we threw our heads back to the moon like wolves and screamed “bollocks” ’til our lungs hurt. Dave, who’d been lying quietly up against his tent in a k-hole, lifted his heavy head for a second, and whispered, “Bollocks,” before crashing his head back down. Mike got up and checked on him. “You OK, dude?” he said, casually taking his pulse.

“Where am I? Can’t talk...”

“Shh, dude. It’s OK. You’re safe. You’re just in the hole. It will pass. We’re right over here. We won’t leave you. You’re going to see Metallica tomorrow, remember?”

His head lifted briefly again. “Metallica,” he whispered, before his neck released his head to his chest.

There had been a significant change in our group over the Easter holidays. Mainly that all the boys had moved on to much harder drugs, with ketamine and cocaine and indiscriminate “pills” now being the source of hedonism at gigs and parties. I’d been shocked when I’d returned to college for our summer term, hearing them all talk about “lines” and “gurning gummies to chew on,” and even more shocked to learn Jessica apparently was taking everything the boys were. Anything Liam took, she did. They were very much modeling themselves on Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love.

The drinking game continued.

“Reverend Lovejoy,” I said, relieved not to have to do a shot, as I was a bit worried about the state of Jade.

“Smithers.”