Real Ugly(28)

“Can I make you some coffee or something?” Dax asks next, uncrossing his long legs and standing up to stretch. “Something black, bitter, and cheap?”

I groan low in my throat and lean back, letting my head fall to the cushion behind me.

“Sounds amazing. Make a big pot and don't expect to share.” I hear him laugh, but don't look up. Instead, I close my eyes and start to hum, putting my words to music. In a minute here, I'm gonna get up, grab my guitar and some headphones and fumble my way through to something epic. Works every time. It's just the way I roll.

“You gonna let us read any of that?” Blair asks as I sit up and open my eyes, glancing down at the mess of words that'll eventually turn into a song of some sort. Hopefully a good one. I shrug and spin the notebook around. All of my secrets are sitting there in code, hidden between the blue lines with cryptic phrasing and a horrible abuse of the English language that makes it nearly impossible to guess what I'm hinting at. There's enough to give people pause, to open up the idea of discussion, but nothing too personal, nothing too incriminating. And that's just the way I like it.

Blair reads the words carefully and taps her fingers on the table to get some kind of a rhythm going, and Dax steps up behind her, smelling like canned coffee and weed. The smell is oddly comforting, enough so that I shake out my hands and take my first breath in almost twenty-four hours. It hurts so much that it feels good, you know what I mean? It breaks up the tension in my chest and puts the briefest of pauses on my anxiety about tomorrow. March 15th. The six year anniversary of … that.

I made the right decision then, and I still stand by it now, but that doesn't mean I can't feel hurt about it, betrayed even. I trusted Turner, looked up to him then, and he took advantage of me and left me with a problem I wasn't ready to deal with yet. Fucking asshole. I pull out a cigarette and light up, taking small, useless puffs and blowing the smoke out in rings. Yeah, I can really do that.

“Lemme guess,” Dax begins, watching me from under a dark mop of hair that falls across one of his gray eyes. “You can tie a cherry stem into a knot, too?” I grin and blow out another ring, watching as his eyes fall to the page and move down the row of illegible phrases I've just scribbled. I don't answer his question, but in case you're wondering, that would be a big, fat yes.

I lean back again and cross my arms over my chest, trying to push Turner's face out of my mind. I want to tell him everything, or I did rather, but then he had to go and throw out that you owe me bull which just makes me want to hit him. And he kept saying our kid, our kid. There is no kid, and there's definitely no our, just a ghost of a memory that haunts me every damn day. Turner Campbell may not be the sole reason that I have trust issues, but he sure as shit didn't help. He could've cured me, I think, but instead, he dragged me backwards and left me in this state. Angry. Distrusting. Determined.

I finish my cigarette and flick it in the ashtray near my elbow.

“Jam with me?” I ask them, and get two surprised faces in response. Normally, I write songs on my own, and when I'm happy with what I've got, I show my shit to the band and let them layer in their own parts (so long as they don't fuck with my riffs). Today, I'm feeling social. Could be the death of me.

Blair and Dax exchange a look.

“Oh, come the fuck on,” I say, slapping my palms flat on the table and standing up. “I didn't ask you to join me in holy matrimony; let's just play some shit together.” I move away from the table and pause when my phone starts to buzz on the counter, shaking like an epileptic in a fit. I pick it up, glance at the number and then move over to the sink.

“Turner?” Blair guesses, and I nod as I turn on the water and drop the phone into the drain on the left – the one with the garbage disposal. A second later, I flick the switch and a horrible grinding, screeching sound emanates from down below. It's like an alley cat got in a fight with a semi-truck – and won.

The noise is enough to bring America sprinting from the back, iPhone still pressed to one ear, perfectly polished and shimmering in a nude suit and black pumps. She looks like she's on her way to a luncheon at the country club, not a rock concert.

“What in the God's name of fuck was that?” she snarls, and I smile, happy to see that our language is really rubbing off on her. I turn off the disposal and the water and step back, spinning to face her with a nasty grin.

“Just taking out the trash is all.”



The jam session with Blair and Dax goes so fucking well that I almost forget about Turner and the half-secret I shared with him. The one that I'm going to have to finish sometime in the near future. After all, if I learned one thing from trying out my new song, it was that it wasn't finished. The story that it's based on doesn't have an ending, so how can I expect the tune that's based off it to?