Read The Saving of Benjamin Chambers (The Uni Files) for Free Online

as well.
    So we do. Well, we start the ball rolling with some of Trav’s dodgy cocktails until much, much later, and we are running low on tequila, champagne, and cigarettes when a flustered Ball organiser comes looking for his headline act.
    Five songs down and it is hot, hot, hot on stage, and I am not talking about the partially dressed girls bouncing around in the front of the crowd, although there are busload of them, all half cut.
    Or maybe it is me who is half cut.
    The room is spinning and the bass from the drums is making my stomach roll.
    I keep thinking I can see something, something I recognise, but every time I focus on the crowd, my vision gives a little spin and I have to look back up at the ceiling.
    I need some water bad. Otherwise there is little chance of me finishing this gig. I will just become known as the singer guy who threw up all over the crowd, and that would not be cool at all.
    I turn and give a wave to Dave, trying to mime that I need to get a drink. He reads my sign language easily. Ten years on a stage together will do that, and he nods at me. At the end of the song I swing my guitar back and reach for the bottle of water at my feet. Dave keeps the crowd pumped with a drum solo, which does weird things to my stomach. I turn my head to the side as I gulp my water down and look at Trav. I could throw something at him for doing this to me. I don’t need to. He is green and hanging on to his microphone stand.
    Ha! Suck it up.
    The water helps. The moment it starts to settle, my vision becomes clearer and for the first time I can focus on what is in front of me. I gulp down some more, hoping to wash away the hideous mix of alcohol swishing about inside me.
    Then I see it. A flash of white.
    Something about the white burns like a brand inside my mind and I try to focus.
    A girl in white walking away from the dance floor.
    I am not sure what it is about the girl in white but I have to stand there and stare for a moment. I anchor myself to the edge of the stage and watch the swish of white move in a fluid motion.
    Dave starts getting agitated. He wants me to jump back in, so I do, a renewed vigour coursing through my veins from the hit of H20.
    While I play and sing, the words of one of our oldest covers ‘Dakota,’ fall easily from my lips. I can’t take my eyes of the swish of white moving further and further away.
    Then she turns and I see her.
    Her. Her. Her.
    Lilah. Lilah. Lilah.
    I recognise her straight away, like I always knew I would.
    She leans back against the wall clutching a bottle of water and even from this distance I can see that she is clearly looking through one eye, her lips curved in a smile as she thinks some amusing thought that I will probably never know.
    I carry on watching, waiting to see what will happen, then I remember the banker wanker who has been tormenting my nightmares for the last nine months so I risk taking my eyes off her for a moment.
    There is no sign of him, and I breathe a sigh of relief and allow a smile to colour my lyrics.
    Before I can lose her again, I cast my eyes back to her spot against the wall.
    For fuck’s sake, she is gone again.
    Nope, there she is, walking towards the exit. As if in slow motion, I catch a glimpse of some tall blond guy watching her leave and start to walk after her.
    Fuck no. Not again.
    I don’t think, I don’t hesitate, I don’t really even register what I am doing but before I know it my guitar is down and I am leaping off the stage like my sanity depends on it, which I guess depending on which way you look at it, it does.
    I chase through the shocked crowd, ignoring their glances, as I race to get to the woman in white first.
    I do.
    She is at the bar. I can hear her, clipped tones asking, “How much?” to a bottle of water. I start to laugh because even though I don’t know anything about her, I know that is exactly what I expect her to do.
    I plant myself behind her so that when she turns from the bar I am the