People Got A Lotta Nerve

Oliver was right, some of these cuts needed more than water. By that following Tuesday, my shoulders and face was covered in tiny cuts from Emma’s finger nails, along with a few dark blue bruises along my jaw and lip. The worst one though, was a red and green bruise right under my left eye, outlined by little cuts in the shape of one of Emma’s rings. If I looked this bad, I couldn’t even begin to imagine how bad she looked. All I could think about was my hand finding that bottle, my grip on it tightening, and the sound it made as it crashed into her face, time standing still as the glass began shattering, and even more alcohol stained my clothes and hair. My hands and knees were also cut up, thanks to the glass of the bottle, and if the cuts on her face hurt half as much as those did, she must have been seriously hurting. I had definitely defended myself, and then some. But now, sitting alone in my house yet again, I was definitely questioning if me winning the fight was worth the price of losing Oliver, and the boys.

I hadn’t heard from any of them, and even though it had only been a few days, it had felt like an entire century. I hated being back where I was before- same old seclusion, same old clutter on my kitchen table, same old black hole occupying my living room. True, Blake was coming, but that wasn’t until that Wednesday, and each minute of the day felt like someone had put the world on pause, just to make my life more difficult.

It was like my brain had turned into a giant, broken VCR, the button stuck on rewind, the conversation Oliver and I had in the bathroom running over and over without stopping.

How could he tell you that you were wrong!? He is Oliver fucking Sykes! Like he has never gotten in a fight before, like he has never done things he isn’t proud of when drunk! What a fucking hypocrite!

There was no way for Good Christian to console me this time. True, Oliver probably was being a little hypocritical, but still, the look in his eyes as he led me out of the hotel and draped his jacket over me, how it felt like he was being extra careful not to touch me after I shook away from his hands, the simple fact that he didn’t wait around until morning, all had me remorseful as hell. All I wanted was to see his face, and for him to just understand.

In some weird, backwards kind of way, I was proving a point to myself. I didn’t need Emma’s social charity work to keep me from being a recluse, I didn’t need Jamie to tell me I was fucking pathetic, and I didn’t need Oliver coddling me and treating me like a little baby just because I got in an argument. I didn’t need anyone.

You need him right now, don’t you?

I slid down on the couch, placing the pillow over my head again, this time wary of all the cuts and bruises. If I had let Oliver hold me in that bathroom, let him take care of me that night, let him handle Emma instead of me drunkenly lashing out, I would have let him in, way more than I ever expected myself to let anyone in. And here I was now, by myself again, wondering if it was really worth it.

The idea floated around in my head some more, the pillow shielding me from reality. Maybe I was just being ridiculous when it came to Oliver. Who knows what he did when I wasn’t around. Especially on tour, when there was no way in hell for me to find out what he was doing. Yeah, a text here and there and a phone call was nice, but all those nights he had gotten drunk and partied, he could have found someone else, another girl, to spend the night with. For all I know, I could just be the San Diego Girl, the most favored companion in Southern California, just one of the many girls all over the world he had treated just a tiny bit more special than the average groupie. Yeah, we had sex, that night also replaying over in over in my head. But maybe, sex to me meant something completely different than it did to him. To me, it could have been me peeling back my layers and showing him an intimate side of me, but to him, it could have just been another night, with another girl, no different than the fuck before, or the night fuck. Another notch in his bedpost.

I was driving myself crazy. I needed to talk to him. Somehow.

---

That Wednesday, Blake moved in. All of his stuff fit in only 4 moving boxes, the majority of it just stacks and stacks of classic books.

“From the store,” He sheepishly smiled as I opened a moving box for him, seeing it stuffed with first and second editions of Twain, Maya Angelou, Shakespeare.

From what I could tell, the boy had only 2 pairs of jeans, one black, and the other blue, each pair skinny cut and hugging his legs all the way down to his one pair of shoes, a pair of beat up Chuck Taylor Converses. He also only had 10 shirts, v-necks in every color offered at American Apparel, apparently. It was clear the only thing he really valued was his books, in particular, the almost complete set of Nietzsche he had, all organized by the year they were published.

Ironically, the only welcome present Blake received was the electricity cutting off promptly at 6pm, right in time for dinner. I guess the power company wasn’t bluffing after all.

He just looked at me, the gold hue in his eyes surrounding the pupil somehow still illuminated in the darkness. A smile stretched itself across his face, and for the first time since the boys had been there almost a week earlier, laughter filled the room. His laugh, still high pitched and airy, seemed to paint the room pink as it covered everything, my spirits quickly rising.

“Well, there goes that movie marathon, right Chris?”

I smiled, plopping onto the couch. “We’ll just have to entertain ourselves then, won’t we?”

The gold in his eyes was covered for a second by his bleached hair as it flopped in his face. He flipped the hair instantly though, before running into his room. I could hear boxes and other things being rummaged around, before he returned, a plastic zip lock bag in his hand.

“What’s that?” I couldn’t see the contents due to the lack of light.

He scoffed, his cheeks turning a slight pink color. “Don’t tell me you’re straight edge or something, please Christian.” He opened the plastic bag, and brought it up to my nose. Instantly, the thick, sweet smell of marijuana filled my nostrils.

I hadn’t done that stuff since high school, when I somehow made friends with a girl who seemed to supply me whenever I needed it. We weren’t really ‘friends’ per say, more like convenient smoking buddies, letting the drug build our friendship for us. It did help with my anxiety for a while there, my nerves seeming to lose their grip on my life with every puff I took of a blunt. To be honest, the only reason I had really quick is because my friend got busted, and my source was immediately cut off.

Blake stared at me inquisitively, waiting for my response. I shrugged, and smiled at him. “I don’t see anything else to do, I just don’t have any lighters.”

“No worries, Chrissy-Bear!” Blake set the bag down next to me, and walked into the kitchen. After more rummaging noises, he came out, with something in his hand.

“….A candle?” I looked at him skeptically. Back during that Mardi Gras season with my boss’ ordering mistake, he had let me take home some of those religious candles, the one that were figures of The Virgin Mary or of Jesus himself.

Blake grinned, and held up the candle, The Virgin Mary’s picture now visible to me. “I think it’ll be ironic, wont you?”

And that’s where I found myself, sitting on the linoleum with Blake in the middle of the kitchen, the lit candle in between us. We didn’t do it in the living room, in fear of us somehow catching the carpet on fire with our makeshift fire source. Although the linoleum was cold, it did provide the perfect surface for what we needed to do. Blake held it first, the plant packed tightly in the pipe he had carried from Vegas, a scratched black thing he affectionately named Maria. In his sitting position, he bent down over the flame, the shadows dancing over his face as he brought the pipe to his lips and inhaled over the flame, my steady counting keeping his pace set. 10 seconds, and pass it. Hold your breath for 15 seconds, and exhale. Repeat as necessary.

Before I could even really wrap my head around it, I was in the clouds, laying stomach up on the floor, the ceiling tiles creating patterns I had never seen before. Blake’s laugh seemed like it was a million miles away, echoing in my head over and over. It was a euphoric noise, filling up the space as always, his hands playing with the laces of my shoes. I looked up at him, and he smiled back, my shoelaces now tied together in about 50 knots. We laughed together, and I kicked the shoes off, my pink socks now exposed to Blake. He blew the flame of the candle out, and set it far away from us. He crawled across the floor, until his body was parallel to mine, and he laid down, on his back, just like I was.

I turned onto my side, away from him, and made a makeshift pillow with my hands. I rolled over again, this time facing him, meeting his eyes.

“Blake, why’s Oliver so mad?” I whined under my breath.

“Cause, well fuck I don’t know!” He laughed again. “You gotta talk to the boy, Chris!”

---

More days later, more days without power. We had adapted pretty well, Blake’s leftover money from Vegas enough to cover the rent this month so I could get back on my feet. According to the electric company, we would have our power again by 10pm, so we were not freaking out too bad.

Well, I was.

Blake and Good Christian had both persuaded me to call Oliver first, even though I was pretty adamant about him making the first move. If I talked first, I would have to reveal myself to him, and possibly let him see more of me than I wanted him to see, which wasn’t really at the top of my list of things to do.

I sat there for a good 15 minutes before I had actually dialed his number. It rung 4 times, almost as if it was taunting me, before it finally went to voice mail. His fucking voice mail.

Feeling completely defeated, I threw the phone across the room, and tried to retreat into the couch all over again. Blake walked in the room, and gave me a discontented sigh, seeing my phone thrown against the wall and my face in the pillows.

“He’ll come around, Chrissy.”

I didn’t respond, just shifted on the couch.

“I have work, be home around 10.” He silently slid his shoes on, and out the door, leaving me alone once again.

Only 20 minutes had passed before my doorbell rung, unexpectedly. It’s not like I cared though. Even though I was in my raggedy old boxers and some t shirt I didn’t even know I had, I got up, my legs pushing me towards the door.

And there was Oliver, looking down at his shoes, and I instantly felt the blush on my cheeks.