Page 43 of The Sound Between Us (Vinyl Hearts #1)

glasto baby

Harrison

The van rolls over churned-up earth, and the whole chassis shudders.

We’re crawling past steel fencing, lanyard-only checkpoints, and more bucket-hat-wearing security guards than you can shake a backstage pass at.

The windows are tinted, but you can still feel the stares. Phones raised. Mouths half-open.

Welcome to Glastonbury.

I’ve been dreading this moment for months. Last show. Last time the three of us will stand on a stage together.

Dex is slouched in the corner, sunglasses on despite the thick cloud cover that’s been following us since we left London. He’s tapping his fingers against his leg, rhythm too precise, too manic.

Jamie’s opposite me, holding Belle to his chest in one of those wraparound baby slings. Three months of fatherhood and he’s still treating every sound she makes like a potential emergency. He’s got baby puke on his cuff and panic in his eyes.

“Fucking mad, innit?” Dex mutters, peering out the window at the sprawling chaos beyond. “Last one. Feels like we should be in a hearse, not a van. ”

“We’re not dying.” Jamie says, though he sounds like he half-wishes we were. “We’re retiring. Gracefully. Like Elton.”

Dex snorts, the sound sharp and bitter. “Elton didn’t retire. He just put more feathers on his jackets and charged extra.”

I stare out the window at the tents instead.

Rows of them, endless, like someone took a paper punch to the horizon.

People are dragging crates of cider and collapsing camping chairs.

Flags on poles. Glitter in beards. It’s alive in that way only Glasto is—loud, chaotic, full of strangers looking for religion in a bass drop.

My chest tightens.

I haven’t seen her since Tokyo. Haven’t spoken to her since she walked out of that hotel room with my name on her lips like a curse. Three months of checking her social media, of writing texts I never send.

The van lurches over a particularly deep rut, and Belle makes a small sound of protest. Jamie immediately shifts into crisis mode, checking her temperature, adjusting the sling, making soft shushing noises.

“She’s fine.” I tell him, though I’m not sure he hears me over his own anxiety.

“Course she is.” He mutters, but his grip tightens anyway. “Just don’t want her first festival to traumatise her for life.”

Dex laughs, the sound edged with something pharmaceutical. “Mate, she’s six months old. She won’t remember any of this.”

“That’s not the point.”

The van rolls to a stop outside the artist compound, and through the windscreen I can see the main stage in the distance, massive and waiting. Tonight, fifty thousand people will watch us say goodbye to fourteen years of our lives.

My phone buzzes. Text from Henry: Break a leg. You know what this means for your solo prospects.

I switch the phone off without reading the rest .

We’re ushered through to Artist Parking, past barriers and checkpoints where our names on a list mean everything and nothing all at once.

It’s a tangle of tour buses, Land Rovers, and crew vans.

Roadies hauling equipment. Assistants with clipboards and stressed expressions.

The organised chaos that happens behind the scenes whilst forty thousand people wait for magic.

The Revelry are already here—their people are everywhere.

I clock their pyramid-shaped dressing room marquee immediately, impossible to miss with its professional staging, flashing name in lights, and small crowd of industry types loitering nearby.

Damon’s got the Sunday Legend Slot, the one reserved for artists who’ve transcended their original genre and become institutions.

We’re Saturday night headliners, but no one calls us legends yet. Just over.

Jamie shifts Belle to one arm and grabs the baby bag with the other. “Soundcheck in two hours. You lot better be sober by then.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Dex grins, but there’s no real humour in it. “I’ll only lick the inside of a gin bottle. That doesn’t count.”

I sling my bag over my shoulder and don’t reply because there’s nothing left to say.

The ground squelches beneath my boots as we climb out, Somerset mud that’s been churned by thousands of feet into something that’s more soup than earth.

The air smells of wet grass, fried food, and sweat that’s been fermenting in tents since Tuesday.

Belle starts fussing against Jamie’s chest, the sound cutting through the festival noise like a siren. He adjusts the sling, trying to find the position that’ll keep her settled.

“Nine forty-five tomorrow night.” Dex says to no one in particular, checking his phone. “Twenty-four hours and counting until we become has-beens.”

“Speak for yourself.” Jamie mutters, but there’s no heat in it. “Some of us have other priorities now. ”

“What about you, H?” Dex asks, that manic glint still dancing in his pupils. “Back to Manchester? Write songs for other people? Heard that’s what you’ve been doing the past few months.”

My jaw tightens. “Something like that.”

“Very mysterious.” Dex takes another swig from his bottle. “Very tortured artist.”

“Shut it.”

“So do you reckon they will love us?” Dex asks, his tone dropping, quieter. I guess deep down we are all still the twenty-year-old lads who want to be adored.

“They will.” I mutter, because they always do. Because even if we’re ending, even if this is goodbye, there are still forty thousand people who bought tickets to hear us play.

We’re still Elementary. Until tonight ends, anyway.

As we head toward the dressing rooms, navigating through puddles and around cables thick as pythons, Dex’s phone buzzes. He checks it, then laughs—a sound that has nothing to do with humour.

“Oh, get this.” His voice is pitched with malicious glee. “Radio One just played Seren’s new single. Said she’s BBC Introducing’s wildcard pick of the year. Performing this evening.”

Her name hits me like a fist to the chest. My breathing stops.

She’s here. Not just in the general vicinity, but here-here. On the schedule. Part of the same weekend that’s supposed to mark my exit from everything.

Jamie looks over, baby still fussing against his chest. “You alright?”

“Fine.” I lie.

Dex keeps going. “Mad, innit? One minute she’s ghosting your texts, next she’s playing the same festival. Wonder if she’ll come watch us crash and burn.”

My hands clench at my sides .

I don’t answer. I just head inside, leaving Dex’s laughter and Jamie’s anxious shushing behind me.

The Pyramid Stage is a beast. Bigger than I remember from when we played the Other Stage three years ago. We’re up there now, under grey skies and floodlights that cast everything in harsh artificial daylight, the crew tuning guitars and checking levels.

The stage is empty except for us and the tech crew, but I can feel tomorrow night’s crowd. Forty thousand people pressed together, phones raised, voices lifted.

I strap on my guitar—the same Fender I’ve been playing since our first album—and try to find something that feels like home in the familiar weight of it. But my fingers feel disconnected from my brain.

I can’t focus. Every chord I strum sounds wrong, discordant. Every lyric gets caught somewhere in my throat before it can reach the microphone.

Behind me, Dex fumbles the synth line on “Weightless.” It’s a song I could play in my sleep, but today it feels foreign.

Jamie drops a beat during the bridge of “Static Heart,” his rhythm faltering just enough to throw off the entire foundation of the song. Belle is with one of the venue childminders, but he keeps glancing stage left.

We’re all off. Disconnected.

The sound engineer—a woman with purple hair—adjusts levels and nods professionally. But I can see it in her eyes: something’s wrong.

“We’re not ready.” I mutter into my mic, wiping my face with my sleeve. The words echo back through the monitors.

Jamie shoots me a look from behind his kit, sticks suspended mid-air. “We’ve been ready for ten years. This is just us giving it a funeral.”

I look out at the empty field that will be packed with people in twenty-four hours. Somewhere in that crowd, she might be watching.

My chest tightens. I want to walk off stage and keep walking until I reach the car park.

We run through three more songs before I call it. The crew starts breaking down equipment with efficient indifference, and we shuffle off stage.

Tomorrow night, this will all matter. Tomorrow night, we’ll find whatever magic we’ve temporarily misplaced and give forty thousand people the goodbye they deserve.

At least, that’s what I keep telling myself.

Back in the dressing tent, the air’s thick with leftover smoke and stale crisps. It’s not much—white walls, folding chairs, a table covered in rider items we don’t really want. But it’s ours for the next twenty-four hours, the last temporary home Elementary will ever share.

Jamie’s trying to get Belle to sleep in a makeshift cot he’s fashioned from a guitar case and a hoodie. She’s fighting it, making small sounds of protest that have become the soundtrack to his new life.

Dex is already halfway through a bottle of something golden and expensive, probably lifted from someone else’s rider. His pupils are dilated, that manic energy coming off him in waves.

I want to say something about his habits. We’ve been having the same conversation for three years now, and it never goes anywhere except toward resentment and empty promises.

Instead, I say: “I’m going to get lost.”

Jamie doesn’t even look up from trying to coax Belle into sleep. “Don’t get recognised.”

Dex smirks from his corner, bottle tilted at a dangerous angle. “Tell Glasto I said hi.”

I yank my hoodie up, pull the baseball cap low over my face, and slip past security before anyone can stop me.

The festival at night thrums with bass you feel in your chest cavity. Strangers pressed together under fairy lights and tarp canopies. Music bleeds from every direction: the distant thump of the dance tent, acoustic guitars around campfires, someone’s portable speaker playing old Oasis songs.

I let it swallow me. Feet squelching through mud that’s been churned by thousands of boots. Hands deep in pockets. Hood up, head down.

It feels good to be anonymous again. To walk past food stalls without someone asking for a selfie or shouting Elementary lyrics at me. To be just another person navigating the maze of tents and stages.

I wander past the acoustic tent, where some singer-songwriter is playing to a crowd of maybe fifty people who are all singing along like she’s the most important person in the world.

I keep walking, past the comedy tent where someone’s doing a set about camping with your ex-girlfriend, past the late-night food vendors with their diesel generators. The air smells like fried onions and spilt beer and excitement and exhaustion.

Everywhere I look, people are living their best lives. Couples sharing chips from cardboard containers. Friends taking photos they’ll never look at again. Solo travellers striking up conversations with strangers who’ll be gone by Monday .

My chest aches. I’m so lost in thought that I almost miss the collision entirely.

Cold. Sticky. Sweet.

Strawberry milkshake.

All over my chest, soaking through my hoodie.

I look up, ready to apologise or laugh it off.

And there she is.

Seren.

Her eyes go wide like she’s seeing a ghost. Her mouth opens but no sound comes out. She’s holding the empty cup, pink residue dripping from her fingers onto the muddy ground between us.

For one long, breathless moment, neither of us says a word.

She looks different. Smaller somehow. Her hair is shorter, framing her face in a way that makes her cheekbones look sharper. She’s wearing a denim jacket over a vintage band t-shirt, boots that have seen better days.

But her eyes are the same. Dark and intelligent and currently staring at me like I’m something dangerous.

The strawberry milkshake drips off my hoodie and onto the ground, marking time in pink drops whilst my brain tries to process this moment.

“Seren.” I say finally, her name feeling foreign and familiar all at once.

She blinks, like she’s just remembered how to process sound.

“Harrison.” She says back, and my name in her voice is the best and worst thing I’ve heard in three months.