Page 86 of Hamartia

My head is loud. So fucking loud. Like an ocean loud. She tenses as she looks round at me, indecision and anxiety warring on her face. But there’s something else there too. I don’t recognize it straight away. But then I do. Pity. She glances back at the road.

“Rapha, it’s not really my place to say this. You and Mason need to talk, work things out.”

“Work what out?”

“Look, don’t put this on me. This isn’t fair, okay.” She looks nervous now. “This has been going on so long and you’re so fucking clueless sometimes—like a fucking puppy—I’ve told them that.”

Some noise goes off inside my head.

“Them? You mean the others?” My head is starting to pound now, narcotics and alcohol being washed away by the building confusion and anxiety. “Cleo, just spit it out. I don’t know what the fuck is going on here, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d enlighten me.”

She looks at me again, pitiful like. Then closes her eyes and curses something in Spanish.

“Mase and Camille. They were like…together, they fucked I mean. Before you guys got together,” she clarifies quickly. “But he’s like, fuck Rapha, he’s in love with her or something.”

Or something.

He’s in love with her or something.

“I don’t…what?” I’m not even sure which part of it I’m not getting. All of it. Any of it. I break each part down: Mase and Camille were together. They fucked. Before we got together. Mason’s in love with Camille. With the woman I was going to marry. They fucked. And I didn’t know. Didn’t even suspect. Mason is in love with Camille.

“I’m sorry Rapha, I know this is weird…it’s something we all said you—.”

“Pull over,” I cut her off.

Cleo glances at me first, concerned, then checks her mirror and pulls over. The street isn’t as deserted as I’d like as I throw open the door, stumble out of the Cherokee and empty my guts out onto Hyperion Avenue.

Cleo hands me two white tablets and a glass of water and sits down on the rug in front of me. She crosses her legs and temples her hands under her chin as she studies me, careful, like I’m about to breakdown or something

“I shouldn’t have said anything,” she says.

I give her a look at that. “Yeah, you should have.”

“You were in love with her Rapha, and happy. We didn’t want to ruin that.”

“You mean you didn’t want to ruin this band. Like any of you give a shit about who I am in love with.”

She looks hurt as she curls her toes into the carpet. “I wanted to tell you—I told them we should tell you. But then…I stopped. I saw their argument. And like, would you really have wanted to know about this back then? When you saw fucking stars when you looked at her?”

“Yes! I fucking would have! To know you all lied to me, to my face—all this time. How do you think that makes me feel, C?”

She says nothing. Looks down.

“It makes me feel like you care about this band a hell of a lot more than you care about me.”

“I care about you, Raphael. I love you. You’re one of my best friends.” She looks up at me. “But Mase is too. And he was hurting. Watching you together was torture for him.”

“Wow, so now I’m to feelsorryfor him?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying but just like…try and see it from our perspective. It was hard for us to watch. To be torn between you two like that.”

“My heart fucking bleeds for you, Cleo, it does. All of you. How fucking sad for you all. Watching me be a clueless fucking idiot all this time must have been real hard for you, yeah, totally. What was it you said, a clueless fucking puppy? That’s right.”

I stand, storming through to the kitchen to the freezer to fish out the bottle of Grey Goose I keep in there. I don’t bother with a glass, twisting the cap off and slugging a large mouthful back. The burn feels nice as it scorches its way down my throat into the bitter heat of my stomach.

Cleo stays where she is on the carpet, watching me with big sad eyes, round with pity.

I hate it.