I boil in the soupy heat of the dark crowd, unable to see anything clearly but the stage and feeling nothing save the earthquakes of sound rippling down my spine and into the pit of my stomach. In a gesture representing the lyrics to his song, Martin’s hand is less than a foot from my face. I reach forward to touch it when a sudden blow to the back of my head sloshes the fluids of my brain and lurches my face forward. The cartilage of my nose connects sharply with the skull of the girl in front of me, blinding me for several seconds.

The disgusted and worried stares of the people around me tell me I am bleeding before the bitter, metallic tang on my lips does. The crowd parts as if I were leading an exodus and several people in front of me help to lift me over the barricade separating the crowd from the stage and into a bouncer’s arms to be carried backstage.

In the distance, my sister hears whispers of a girl getting kicked in the face by a crowd surfer. She exclaims excitedly and stands on the tips of her toes to get a better view, only to burst into tears when she recognizes the face behind the blood.