CHAPTER 30
Cory
“Let’s run through it one more time.”
More groans come from behind me, and I shoot the band a look. They’ve complained all afternoon like a bunch of whining second graders mad about a pop quiz. When you’re the star of the show, you can make the rules. For now, play your instruments and shut up. I would say it out loud, except I wouldn’t mean any of it. I might have a bit of an ego, but I’m not a douchebag and I’ve never talked to any of them that way. They’re tired and I can’t blame them. We’ve attempted to record this same song a dozen times already, and every botched attempt has been my fault. A cracked note. A flubbed lyric. A forgotten word. My list of mess-ups has grown with each effort, and if I don’t get a grip soon we’ll have to start all over tomorrow.
I wrote this stupid song, and I’m already sick of it.
“Sorry, guys. I’ll get it right this time.” Even I don’t believe myself, because how many times have I made that statement already? I adjust my headphones and wait for the technician’s signal to begin. He adjusts the soundboard and gives me a nod, then the music starts.
Three-and-a-half minutes later, we have our song.
“That’s a wrap.” David shuts off his microphone next to the soundboard and stands up. The room is soundproof, but I can almost hear his sigh of relief. I slip off my headphones and hang them on the stand in front of me, listening to the hum of musical instruments as they clang and settle into their individual resting places. The sound makes me anxious, adds to my already pounding headache. I love my job. Lately I can’t escape it fast enough.
“What are you doing tonight?” Mark, my bassist, ask as he zips his guitar into a bag and drapes it over his shoulder. We’ll be back in the studio tomorrow, but Mark never leaves an instrument behind. We used to make fun of him for it; now it’s just a quirk of the job. In every other aspect of life, he’s as laid back as they come—talks slow, walks slow, laughs slow, easy going. But he protects his guitars like a firstborn child, and even the guitar might win in that scenario.
I shrug. “Nothing. Going back to my house, watching television, falling asleep early.” Good lord, I’m ninety and I don’t even care.
He gives me a look. “You and my grandpa should hang out.”
Touché.
I can’t help a grin as I fish car keys from my pocket. They slip to the floor and I bend to retrieve them, all at once hit with the memory of the day Sam dropped hers in the parking lot outside the restaurant that first day. I picked them up, handed them over, purposefully skimmed my fingers across hers in the process.
Inwardly, I curse. It’s over. Done. I left and I haven’t looked back.
Not once.
Except always.
I’m always thinking about Sam. All the time.
Except when I’m asleep. Then I’m dreaming about her. Something tells me thinking and dreaming are the same thing.
“Come on, man,” Mark says, interrupting my depressing thoughts. “You’ve gone home every night now for two weeks. You’re getting boring in your old age. Let’s go out and do something fun. Maybe we’ll get recognized, mauled by single women if we’re lucky.”
I can’t help but smile at his logic. One, of course we’ll get recognized. Two, of course we’ll get mauled. I’ve lived out this routine too many times for there to be any variables. But the thought of looking for women turns my stomach, especially now that Sam has buried herself so far underneath my skin. It’s almost uncomfortable having the memory of her all over me. Still…
“Sorry, not interested. But you’re handsome enough. Someone’s bound to attack you, even without me around.” I slap him on the arm and head for the door.
“What’s with you?” He’s angry. Laid back Mark is never angry.
I stop walking and turn to face him. “Nothing’s with me. I’m tired. Just want to go home.” It’s a lie and we both know it. A million things are with me except the one thing I’m wishing for, and she’s a thousand miles away in Missouri of all places. The gods of perfect irony keep laughing at me.
Still, I’m not in the mood for Mark’s sarcastic laugh. “Knock it off. There’s nothing wrong with being tired.”
“True,” he says. “But you’re not tired. You’re depressed and everyone knows it.” He gestures to the band. Like cowards, they all make themselves busy doing a lot of nothing. I swear Eddie is putting sheet music in alphabetical order. “Even work isn’t motivating you lately. It’s like you’re afraid of something…like something is chasing you…like you don’t want to stand still or you might get caught.”
Sam. Angela. Crimes I may or may not have committed. He’s right on all counts. I’ve been running for a decade and I’ve never told a soul. Denial has been an invisible best friend.
“I’m not running from anything.”
“Good to hear. And since we always go out after we record, we’ll let you pick the place. No arguing.” He crosses his arms, triumphant. “So what is it? Where are we going?”
I roll my eyes. There’s no getting out of this one, not with all these witnesses. I glance at my band members and throw a hand in the air, resigned. “Well, what do you guys want? Apparently we’re going out.”
Marks laughs while the others head for the door. I follow them, trying not to let resentment build. Who knows. Maybe a night out will be good for me. Maybe it will help me loosen up. Maybe it will help me forget.
Maybe it will be the worst decision I’ve ever made.
* * *
From my vantage point on the bed, the room swirls and sways like I’m on a raft. Or maybe a yacht. I’ve been on a few yachts before, and this feels similar. Except the room is brighter than I ever remembered it being out in the ocean and my head feels heavy and oh by the way…did someone shoot me? I think I’ve been shot. Or maybe someone hit me with a hammer right in the center of my forehead. Or maybe I fell?
I don’t remember falling. But maybe I did.
So many things to remember. It hurts too much to try.
I roll onto my stomach and stretch my arms over my head, trying to get the swaying to stop because I’m in my bed and my bed should not be moving. I laugh at that. Because sometimes my bed does move in the best possible way.
I stop laughing.
Now I’m certain I got hit with a hammer.
When I open one eye and see the bathroom light shining back at me, I think I also got hit with someone else’s very bad nightmare. An all-too-familiar feeling crashes into me like a bus.
I remember dancing. I remember drinking. I remember a woman laughing in my ear and the very vivid scent of her perfume. I remember kissing. At least I think I do.
I don’t remember anything else.
Is someone here?
Did I bring a woman home with me?
If I brought someone home with me, I’ll kill myself.
Swear it.
I sit up and call out while knives stab me behind the eye. I ignore the pain. Wait a minute. Then call again.
Hello?
When no one answers, I sink back into the pillows. I’m alone. A wave of relief washes down my spine, until the reality of my situation hits me full force.
I’m alone.
I’ve never felt so alone in my life.
I miss Sam. I miss eating McDonald’s and playing guitar in that tiny, musty apartment. I miss watching television and fighting over which blanket belongs to whom. I even miss the nursing home and that large lady who couldn’t look my direction without giving me a suffocating hug.
I miss Sam. Her hair. Her scent. Her smile. Even her tears.
Walking away from her was the biggest mistake I’ve ever made, and I’ve made enough to know.
I keep a trash can beside my bed. I lunge for it, the contents of last night’s lack of self-control landing at the bottom with a splash, a searing reminder of how far I’ve stumbled.
What would Sam think of me now?
A drunken mess who can’t remember who he danced with. Who can’t remember if he actually kissed someone. Who can’t even piece together enough of last night to make a single memory that makes sense.
What would Sam think of me? I have no right to think of her at all.
Instead, all I think are the words that play through my head on repeat.
I’m a failure. A coward. A cheat. A murderer.
If she knew everything about me, that’s what she would think.
Failure…coward…cheat…murderer.
I’m so tired of those words.
Will they ever go away?
* * *
I scan the bedroom, my chest heavy with the throb of self-loathing. Hatred for myself walks a death march up to my head and won’t let up. I’ve dealt with the feeling before; today I know it will just get worse and I’ll have to function in spite of it.
My bedside table is broken and I have no idea why. Did I hit it? Fall against it in an attempt to make the bed? I lean over and try to right it when I’m hit with another wave of nausea and reach for the trash can. It smells sour—like tequila shots, whiskey, and regret. I try not to breathe as more comes up and out, emptying my stomach of all but my own guilt. Remorse won’t digest no matter how I try to rid myself of the feeling.
How much did I have to drink?
Apparently rock bottom is ringed in salt and topped off with extra rounds of tequila.
I’ve never felt this bad before. I’ve never broken a piece of furniture before. Ashamed of both, I pick up my alarm clock off the floor and set it on the bed, then watch as it slides toward the edge. Tomorrow I’ll buy a new table. If only it were that easy to buy a new life.
I give up on that idea and head downstairs in search of coffee.
Trudging like an old man into the kitchen, each step hurts. I reach for the coffee beans and run them through a grinder, immediately cursing my preference for whole beans. A sledgehammer to the head might have been less painful. When I finally have enough grounds to make a whole pot, I scoop them into the machine and pray it brews at an otherworldly pace. Coffee. Now. Downing a few cups is the only thing that might curb this irrational desire to chop off my head and live with the consequences.
Still, thoughts of Sam crowd through the pain.
I wonder where she is…what she’s doing…who she’s with.
Pushing that thought away, I study the space around me.
It isn’t often that I’m in my house alone. When I built the place a few years ago, I bought into the idea that celebrities need mansions. I live in Brentwood, after all, and I had an image to uphold. Now this place seems ridiculous for one man. Eight thousand square feet of marble, granite, mahogany floors and beams, and every top-of-the-line stainless appliance I could find are packed into this expansive house. I felt more at home in Sam’s tiny apartment. Maybe it was her old white refrigerator that hummed non-stop. Maybe it was the cheap mini-blinds that reminded me of the ones hanging in my old bedroom at my parent’s house. Maybe it was the frozen TV dinners that no one in Hollywood would dream of buying.
Or maybe it was just Sam.
I sigh, weary of my own thoughts. They aren’t productive, so why do they keep circling back on the same pointless route?
I answer my own question. I already know why.
I miss her. Everything about her. No one has ever made me laugh or dared to put me in my place the way Sam did. And I want her. I want her more than I’ve ever wanted anyone before.
I carry my coffee to the sofa and settle into it, draping an arm over my head.
Remembering.
During those last minutes with Sam, I had made plans in my mind, plans I hadn’t yet shared with her. We would date. I would fly to Springfield two, maybe three times a month. I would arrange for Sam to come to California on the off-weekends, spare no expense. First class flights, stretch limo with her own personal driver, only the best for her. We would get to know each other inside our real worlds—especially Sam inside of mine. We would hit my favorite restaurants, she would meet my band, come to the studio, watch me record. I wanted her to see all the private parts of my career. Because this woman. After a life of dating all the wrong women in all the wrong places—most I’m not proud of—I had no plans to ever let her get away.
But then she started talking.
Word by excruciating word, I watched all those plans fizzle in front of me. There would be no traveling from state to state to see each other. There would be no restaurants. No band. No limo. Life was a cruel joke, a crass punch line, and I kept winding up on the receiving end. Angela was a classmate. Sam mourned her, even from a distance. If she ever found out I caused her death…
How much pain can one man cause?
She’s better off without me.
I know it, but that doesn’t stop the missing.
I stand from the sofa and head for more coffee, the pain in my mind easing a bit, the pain in my heart doubling in size. That’s the thing about heart pain: you can sip coffee, put on a smile, sing in front of thousands, and hook up with groupies, yet it won’t alleviate the suffering. I’ve lived with the ache for years, and it hasn’t eased up. But other than Kyle and Sam, no one has ever been the wiser. I’ve fooled everyone. Fans. Family. Friends. Probably even God.
Most of all me.
Until now.
I lean against the kitchen counter and nurse my second cup of coffee. Eyes closed, I can almost pretend there is no hangover. No accident. No death. No Sam. No me. No God.
When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is my grandfather’s old Bible. I haven’t seen it in years, haven’t thought about it in even longer. But it’s there, lying inside the same glass cabinet I placed it in when I moved into this house. I intended to find a different home for it back then, but days turned into weeks until I forgot about it altogether. With a sigh, I open the door and pull it down, then thumb through the first few pages. Maps, a bunch of lists I don’t understand, my grandfather’s very poor handwriting—these are the only things I see. Nothing makes sense, and once again my head hurts. I move to close it when something my grandfather wrote in the margin catches my eyes.
I am free from any condemnation brought against me and I cannot be separated from the love of God.
I breathe a bitter laugh and stare at the wall in front of me. A nice thought, but some people can be separated plenty. Some people have seen too much, done too much, hidden too much. Some people are too far gone, and I happen to be one of them.
I toss the Bible onto the counter and head back into the living room feeling more depressed than ever, though I’m not sure why. I’ve felt low before. I’ve felt self-hatred. But this is different. This is different because I’ve never felt so much loss. I’ve never felt so defeated.
It isn’t until I lower myself to the sofa once again that tears come in earnest.
I haven’t cried since that night ten years ago. Not once.
It could be the hangover or the tequila that still burns in my throat. It could be the accidents that claimed two lives at my hands, the Bible that burned lies into my wary eyes, the woman I left in Springfield that I’ll probably never see again.
There’s so much condemnation. It’s coming at me from all sides.
The tears won’t stop.
They’ll never stop.
Condemnation.
I’m buried under layers of it.
I wake two hours later, startled by the sound of a doorbell.