Page 42 of More Than Scars
And now I had a new line I needed to jot down, because that felt like killer lyrics right there. I guess it was better to be sitting here puking up dessert over a dream instead of an overindulgence of substances. Before my wreck, I’d dabbled with more things than just the weed I still smoked. Struggling to get off the painkillers I’d been given after the accident had taught me a serious lesson about leaving the harder stuff alone.
Fuck!
I’d left my cart in the room. Everything was in the room, even my clothes, and I wasn’t rockstar enough yet to risk an indecent exposure charge, even if Pressley’s yard was pretty damn secluded.
I had forgotten to move toiletries, though, which was now a minor mercy, because at least I could brush my teeth once I managed to heave myself up off the floor and flush. My scars were the first thing I saw when I looked in the mirror, and they were the first thing Pressley’s parents were going to see when they opened that door.
Shit! Shit! And double shit!
I opened the medicine cabinet so I didn’t have to look at myself anymore and to get my toothbrush and toothpaste, and I left it open while I brushed because I could. It was a choice I could make.
Unlike tonight.
That…hadn’t felt much like a choice, and I was scared.
No. Scratch that. I was fucking terrified.
Down the hall I had a guy, and he was awesome. Even when I’d dated before, I couldn’t exactly call it awesome. There had been a lot of neediness involved, a lot of jealousy and stupid catfights between guys who’d pissed me off when they started fighting over me like I was the last spoonful of honey garlic shrimp at the China Buffet. Maybe it was his age, or the age of the people I’d dated before, which had always been much closer to my own, but he hadn’t hung all over me when we were out together or whined when I took a moment to talk to someone else. He also hadn’t stormed after me backstage when I’d motioned for the guy who’d hit me to come have a conversation, like I’d half feared he would do. That would probably have been a dealbreaker, which would have sucked because I’d already fallen completely in love with him.
Which was why I was going with him tonight. Because what if not going was a deal breaker for him? I didn’t wanna fuck this up before it really got rolling, and I so did not want to puke again, my side still ached from all the puking I’d already done. The scar tissue is always making the aches feel worse when the muscles bunch beneath my skin.
Tension.
I avoided it as much as I could. It made my entire body ache to the point where breathing was difficult. See, there were things they didn’t really talk about in the hospital, their focus was on the damage, not the remnants left by the damage years later, when things hurt that shouldn’t hurt when I was only twenty-four. Right now, as I shambled out of the bathroom and headed for the kitchen, my hip and shoulder throbbed from all the rocking and headbanging I’d done while I was playing. My body had yet to catch up to the way we’d been grinding in rehearsal, the studio, and onstage. It was way more than I’d been doing down in Portland, and I’d learned to expect periods of adjustment whenever I tried something new. Every day it was getting easier, so why bother mentioning it? It wasn’t that I was trying to keep anyone in the dark. It was just that I needed to prove that I could do this without anyone side-eyeing me with worry.
Like Tony did.
There was more to the story than justhe’s my best friendbehind why we’d never dated. Let’s just say he’d tried, and I hadn’t been in the right headspace for someone with a mother hen complex fussing when I pushed myself too hard. Back then I’d pushed because I’d been angry and wanted to prove to my old bandmates that they were wrong for tossing me aside. Now, I still wanted to prove that to them, but more than that, I wanted that dream I’d thought I’d lost when the accident happened, and it was right there; I was already touching it, so there could be nothing less than full speed ahead, balls to the wall, until the dream was a full-blown reality.
I should go back to bed, but I didn’t want to sleep, nor did I want to accidentally wake Pressley again. I didn’t even want to wake Tony or disturb him, not with the way his phone kept beeping like he was deeply engaged in a text conversation with someone. Not to mention having any conversation naked with him would just be awkward as hell. In just our boxers was a different story, and at the moment all of my boxers were at the other end of the hall.
Note to self, stash a spare pair somewhere along with a notebook and pen; the three would really come in handy right now. Instead, I resorted to the dry erase board after I fumbled around and found the light over the sink. On the windowsill above it, Percilla sat proudly on her new perch, where she got even more sun than she’d been getting in my old room.
“Hey girl,” I muttered as I reached up to check her soil. “It’s one of those nights.”
Sometimes I wished she could answer me, other times I was glad she couldn’t.
“You know, until tonight I never thought about how lucky plants were. You guys don’t really move unless someone moves you. You’re extra lucky; with all your prickles, someone has to be pretty determined if they’re gonna move you. Yeah, I know, the box was a bit of a thing, and the roads were a little bumpy, but we did it all without you drawing blood, thank you very much.”
Was it weird, standing bare-ass naked in the kitchen talking to a houseplant? Maybe, but at least I had the whole eccentric part down. Pretty sure that was par for the course when you were a musician.
“You don’t ever have to worry about how the whole meet-the-parents thing is gonna go either. That’s so huge. Like, I don’t think I’ve met anyone’s parents since Tony introduced me to his dad, and we both know he was never a big fan of mine, since anytime Tony left with me, it was usually with his guitar in hand. Pretty sure I was number one on the bad influence list with him. What the hell are Pressley’s folks going to think when they meet me? He’s kinda straight-laced, and I’m, well, a hell-of-a-lot of rock ‘n’ roll. Even toning it down isn’t gonna erase the vibe. And then there’s the obvious. I wonder what assumptions they’ll make. Probably that I was a juvenile delinquent and got carved up in a gang fight or some shit along those lines. How often have we heard that one girl?”
A lot.
Too many.
I hated the speculation. It was always way wilder than the truth, and for some reason that had actually left a few people disappointed, go figure.
“I kind of feel like I have a doomsday clock over my head, Percilla. I mean, what if they decide they out and out hate me? I’m not good at conversations that don’t have anything to do with music. I don’t keep up with the news, and television has never been a big deal to me. Doubt they’d appreciate discussing how difficult it is to get past the boss battle with Pyramid Head in Silent Hill. You know how much I hate facing that bastard. Hell, you know more about me than Pressley does, and now we’re doing themeet-the-parentsthing before we’re even finished working through thegetting-to-know-youparts. It’s why I was scared to say I love you. Because what if he doesn’t love me when he finishes getting to know me? What if the things he learns are a total turn-off? He’ll totally regret taking me with him tonight, especially if they’re the kind of people that like to bring up people’s bad decisions years after they happen. I’ll be a cautionary tale. Don’t date the talent. If you’re even thinking about dating a complete mess of a human being, run.”
Fuck.
This could be bad.
Like epic, next-level bad.
The kind of bad I used to jump on the back of my bike to avoid. The fresh air, the wind in my hair, the way the world looked without a car body caging me in. There were so many things I missed about it. Like the way the lyrics just flowed in my head as the highway flew past. There were rest stops that seriously deserved dedications written to them for the ambiance and tranquility they provided while I scribbled down words. As restless as I was tonight, I’d have gone out for a long ride, maybe even out to Mt. Rainier, to sit in the shadow of the mountain, a reminder that I was just a small thing in a massive universe.