You Mustn't Give Your Heart To A Wild Thing

“I’ll ‘av a packet o’ Marlboro reds, an’ these” I mumbled, dropping the Peanut M&M’s on the counter and taking a deep, laboured breath. “ And uh, one o’themCosmopolitans”

The young guy froze; dragging his eyes up to meet me as his fingertip hovered over the cash register. “A Cosmo?” He questioned, raising an eyebrow at me sceptically. “You want a…”

“ ‘s for my uh, my… girlfriend” I bustled quickly, hoping that the dim morning light would keep my scarlet cheeks a secret. “She’s sick, an’ apparently this shit makes ‘er feel better”

He nodded, but I could tell he was still having trouble believing me. “I should uh, should probably get ‘er some tampons too” I choked, “Ye know, ‘s the cramps she’s…”

“Fifteen ninety eight” He interrupted loudly, reaching for a box of Tampax on the shelf behind him. “Please buddy”

I shoved my hand deep into my back pocket and pulled out a handful of crumpled bills; flattening them out on the counter in front of me whilst he bagged everything up. “Fifteen…what was it?”

“Ninety eight” He answered, “Do you want the smokes now? You look like you could use one?”

I nodded and reached out for them, smiling appreciatively as the carton was dropped into my palm. “Cheers. Ye’ve no idea”

He chuckled softly and scooped the pile of money across the shiny surface, counting it in a hushed whisper before throwing it into the cash register. “I’ve got a wife man, we’ve been married for three years now, trust me, I know how you feel”

I barely heard him through my heartbeat pounding in my ears as my eyes fell to the remaining bills; or more importantly the piece of scrunched paper hidden amongst them. ‘Verity’ was scrawled messily at the top, and eleven digits lay beneath in the same messy hand. I recognised my brothers writing from Birthday cards, the post its in the office, the sarcastic notes he scribbled all over my lyric books. I thought the piece of paper, her number, had been in my blue jeans.

Like Rosa in the diner, this was a push. If I believed in such things, I’d say it was a sign.

I snatched the paper back into my hand before pushing the rest of the money back across the counter. “Buy ‘er something’ nice”

At home sunrises were witnessed through bloodshot, drunken eyes and because I hadn’t quite made it home to bed yet. In California they were different. I could list the colours in the order in which they appeared across the horizon; and I always made a point of staying awake after leaving the diner so that I could catch each one of them. In those moments I believed anything could happen and I was hopeful that if I watched closely enough it just might. I didn’t’t think the same when staring up at the powder blue sky that had greeted us every day; from hangover to pass out, since we’d arrived. Nothing seemed possible in blinding sunlight and at the hands of my brother.

Daylight was harsh and real, whereas sunrise could be anything I wanted. The world was blurred at the edges, there were no sharp corners to catch me out or hurt me. It was as though everyone baring witness was drunk; not pissed or puking drunk, but drunk, just drunk, warm, fuzzy drunk.
Sunrises were serving as a beautiful difference in my days that had all become the same.

“Are you in love or forcing it?” I mumbled to myself, my legs folded on the bench beneath me and the Cosmopolitan lying open in my lap. The question had leapt out at me from the front cover; so it was all that I could see, the instant I’d arrived at the kiosk and it was all I had been asking myself since, and on the short walk to my usual ‘spot‘. I’d watched from a soft violent through Amber, but I couldn’t concentrate any further, my curiosity was getting the best of me. I was using any distraction I could to keep myself from picking up the phone and calling Verity.
‘What bums you out more: being alone or dating a guy you don’t totally click with?’ I read slowly, my eyes flicking over the answers ‘dating the dude’ or ‘being alone’.

“What kind of bullshit is this?” I muttered, taking a long deep drag of my cigarette before placing it gently to the glossy page; marking ‘dating the dude’ with a small burn, and continuing on to the next question. “Blush and get the warm fuzzies?” I guffawed to myself, instantly picking the alternative answer before even reading the question.

‘Quick- would you feel the same way about your guy if he suddenly lost his job or hair?’ I chuckled softly to myself, recalling all of the questions I’d been asked about my hair over the years. “’d love Verity if she were bald as fuckin’ John Locke and never ‘ad a job. If she didn’t ‘av a job, ‘d get t’ see ‘er more” I answered to no one bar myself, marking the page again with the tip of my cigarette.

‘You look really good together’ My eyes jumped to the second answer and a sigh escaped my lips. “No-one ever told us that we was good together” I mumbled quietly, as if explaining myself…to myself. “But we were, we were so good together. Jus’ no-one knew, no-one understood”

I answered truthfully though, and burnt the first answer. ‘Do you ever edit yourself when you talk to friends about your guy?’ My stomach twisted uncomfortably as the lies I’d fabricated over the years raced through my head, the truth was there was really no reason to make her sound better than she already was, so that’s what I chose.

My cigarette dropped from between my fingers as I read the next question and the pains I’d been feeling deep within my stomach intensified tenfold. ‘If your man was to dump you tomorrow, what would your biggest regret be?’ ‘You’ll never be able to smell him, be held by him, or hear his laugh again’

“You’ll never be able to smell her, be held by her, or hear her laugh again” I corrected in a soft whisper, closing the magazine and tossing it into the trash can to the right of the bench. I didn’t need to do a dumb quiz to work out whether or not I was in love with Verity. The feeling that tore through me when I thought of never smelling her, never holding her, never hearing her laugh again was enough. More than enough.

I was in love with her. I’d always been fucking in love with her.

My hand was shaking as I plunged it deep into my jean pocket and foraged around for the piece of paper I’d put in there but ten minutes before; it was still there and it still held the weight of the world. I pulled it out and placed it gently on my leg, pressing a fingertip to its corner to keep it in place whilst I smoothed my palm over; ridding it of its creases. It was a piece of paper, just a piece of paper, but it would change everything. It would change everything.

I scrambled to pull my phone from the pocket of my pastel coloured hoodie, knowing full well that if I was to think about what I was about to do; really think about it, for even a second, I would chicken out. I wouldn’t make the call, I wouldn’t tell Verity what I wanted to and needed to, and I wouldn’t change the fucking world. My world, her world, any world. We would still be in the same city but seem thousands of miles apart, we would still be on the same planet but feel light years away.

It was ringing, her goddamn phone was ringing; and I hadn’t even managed to form a full, coherent sentence in my head yet. I squeezed my eyes shut; tightening them with each ring. Rosa had told me to wait until ‘the rest of the world was awake’ but I couldn’t. A million and one things could happen before eight AM; a billion and one before noon, Veritys usual wake up time, I couldn’t let that happen. I couldn’t let the world throw us another curve ball and knock us right back to square one.

“I need t’ see ye”

It had slipped from me before I had a chance to object; and just a split second after the ringing had stopped. “I need t’see ye Verity. I love ye, I always have, an’ I never meant that…”

“Oliver”

It wasn’t a question, my name had become a statement and in that second those six letters held more weight that any other combination in the English language. I felt their weight atop my head, across my shoulders and deep within my gut. The six letters had been spoken in a voice my ears weren’t expecting to hear.

“Hi” It was small and feeble and barely above a whisper; and in all honesty I wanted to hang up, I wanted to give up. But my voice had been heard and there was no going back. “Uh Hi, I…”

“Do you know what time it is?”

“Mornin’” I mumbled, trying to ignore the thoughts ripping and roaring through my tired mind. The questions; all of which began with why.

“It’s six fifteen Oli, six fifteen in the morning”

“I woke ye” I enquired hesitantly, chewing on the corner of my bottom lip.

“You woke me”

The silence that followed was heavy and uncomfortable. It was the sort that you found in the waiting rooms of doctors surgeries and dentists offices; the silence that occurred when people were forced together with common ground that was too awkward or inappropriate to discuss.

“I didn’ mean t’ mate” I apologised after a few minutes, noting the sweat gathering across my brow and in my palms. If I wasn’t careful I was pretty sure my phone would slip from my hand and smash against the floor; maybe that was the best thing that could happen, maybe I should will it to. “Tom must’ve written the number done wrong or some shit, although, the fact that ye…this’d be a massive coinciden…”

“Give me a second, okay dude”

“What, are ye gonna put me on hold?” I answered cattily, instantly ashamed that I’d let my childish side get the better of me.

“I’m going somewhere I can talk Oli” He sighed with a hint of agitation. “Without waking everyone”

“Without wakin’ Verity?” There it was again, only this time a little more choked and pinning a whole lot on his answer.

I felt the silence threaten again, looming over us briefly; the only noise being that of a door opening and muffled shuffling. But he broke it with a sigh and I let the breath I’d been holding slip slowly from between my chapped lips.

“I could slam every door in the house and blast fucking Rammstein at eleven on the stereo, and still not wake Verity”

“She‘s a heavy sleeper” I admitted. My heart had sank when he hadn’t denied that it was her he was frightened of waking. It had joined the Titanic; it had joined that mental looking fish that hides at the bottom of the ocean with the wee light out front to ensnare its prey. It had previously been skipping beats that echoed throughout my ribcage, it was now lifeless and silent and somewhere in my beat up slip-ons. “I know that, ye probably best t’….”

“She’s not here Oliver”

“Where’s she gone at seven in the mornin’?”

“It’s six fifteen Oliver” He repeated sharply, “And she went last night”

“She ‘asnt come back? ‘av ye rang people? D’ye…she wouldn’ go out without ‘er phone”

His chuckle was soft, but painfully hollow. It matched the one I’d started using when people asked about Curtis’ whereabouts; it was the one I’d used when interviewers asked what happened with SJ. It was my ‘this is none of your fucking business’ laugh, I could only assume it was Alexs too.

“ ‘s not like her t’ not ‘av ‘er phone, or not tell someone where she’s…”

“She has her cell Oli; this is my phone, that’s why I’ve answered, and we both know that last part’s a lie. Verity always takes off without telling anyone where she’s going. How many times has she left you now? Twice? Three times?”

Scarlet flashed across my vision and I felt every nerve within my withered body tense. If there were a line, it was now just a dot on Alex Gaskarths horizon.

“ Twice“ I spat, “‘s never left me ‘angin after I asked ‘er t’ marry me though”

“No she left you after you cheated on her, and then again when you over-reacted about the whole ‘pregnancy’ thing”

I was a word or two; a second or five, away from exploding completely. I couldn’t believe his audacity, his impudence, his nerve. “The whole pregnancy thing?” I seethed; quoting him word for word. “What the fuck would ye know about that?!”

I was completely livid. The trembling that had been brought on by anxiety had now transcended into those of anger. I could feel the bench shaking beneath my hunched frame, I swore if I were to stand up the entire Earth would move.

“I know everything about it Oliver” He sliced, “We were together for a year and a half, we had no secrets, she told me…”

“Did she tell ye she came t’ meet me at Warped Tour?”

The line went dead. I thought it was just another silence that we’d share, but it was dead, and then there was the dial tone. I took that as a ‘no’.

&&

It seemed Alex had switched his phone off the second he’d hung up. I’d called a dozen or so times on my slow walk across town, and I’d even ducked into a telephone booth and called from there to check he hadn’t somehow blocked my number, but every call ended the same way. With the same sixteen words and the same apologetic tone.

“The person you are calling is not available at this current time, please try again later” I recited along with the recorded womans voice, my final attempt before slinging my phone back into my sweater pocket.
In all of the scenarios I had dreamt up in my head after leaving the diner; and before braving the phone call, there was Verity, and there was me. There hadn’t even been thought of Alex Gaskarth; he hadn’t even been a blip on my radar. I had the perfect line to follow up an inevitable ‘Why now?’ question, I also had my opening well rehearsed and clear in my mind. I had just assumed she would be there, I had expected her to be there. Furthermore, I had; maybe rather naively, expected her to be alone.

My legs were heavy and each step was painful, but I had to make it back to the room before Tom began to stir, even if I was about to collapse and even if it meant accepting defeat on the whole Verity and I issue; for now at least.

My watch read seven twenty one as I passed through the revolving doors and caught my breath after the sucker punch of intense air conditioning; I had a handful of minutes to get upstairs.

“I don’t understand you and your brother”

I stopped dead, my slip-ons squeaking obscenely loud on the heavily polished floor as I turned to face the front desk. There was a girl peering at me from behind small, thin framed glasses that reflected the glare of the computer screen in front of her. She could’ve had blue eyes, green eyes, brown eyes…no eyes. I could no more see the colour of her eyes that I could see what business of hers Tom and I were. The nervous demeanour her oversized, tailored suit was giving off didn’t match the brash confidence of her words. Whilst she looked like a child playing dress up, she wasn’t acting with the shyness a child does when talking to a stranger.

“He is your brother, right?” She asked after a few stolen minutes of silence. “Like you’re not…”

I could imagine the ‘face’ I made as my whole body curled in on itself beneath the shudder running the length of my spine. “e’s my brother, yeah. Tommy” I answered quickly, shoving my hands deep into the front pockets of my tight black jeans. “Um, why don’t ye understand us?”

“Aside from the way you guys talk?”

“The way we talk?” I felt myself moving toward the desk as if it were magnetised, it was obviously lit with ambience in mind, a soft, subtle mix of purples and pinks; and from that it was inviting, in a ‘safe haven’ sorta way.

“Those weird little English accents you guys have got going on” She smiled, with a dismissive wave of her hand and a flick of her sun-kissed, sandy blonde hair from her face. “Does everyone in the UK talk the same, because I have a girlfriend and she talks in the exact same way you…”

“Ye said aside from tha’ though?” I asked, barely listening, eager to retire to my room and crawl into my bed; part through tiredness and part because I knew Tom would begin stirring in an hour or so. “What were the other…”

“You’re spending one hundred and eighty two dollars a night on a room that neither of you seem to sleep in” She noted my sceptical look and gave me a small shrug. “Well at night, anyway. You stumble down here and disappear to wherever you disappear to for a few hours at four AM, and he comes down about a half hour later and drinks in the bar with some chick. Every night. At first I thought you might be vampires or some shit, but you’re in no way sparkl…”

“Ye’ve got my brother mistaken love. Tom don’t come down ‘ere f’ drinks wi’ some bird, ‘e sleeps like a fuckin’ log. ‘e’ll be up there right now, snoring away like a fuckin’ train” I guffawed softly, my lack of sleep catching up to me and making everything mildly amusing. “I’ll put money on it if ye like”

“He goes back upstairs at seven thirty; he must set an alarm or something because I’ve never once seen him go up a minute sooner or a minute later”

“Ye mistaken love, Tommys dead t’ut world from about midnight” I chuckled, “Besides, kids only nineteen, ‘e canae drink over ‘ere anyway. What business would ‘e ‘av hangin’ out in the bar?”

“Black messy hair, really reallyblue eyes? Wears the same type of clothes as you? He was with you when you checked in” She smiled, “He’s your brother, Sir”

“D’ye live ‘ere or summat…Lau?” I marvelled, second checking her name badge and trying to keep the smirk from creasing across my lips.

“I’m working every hour I can to put myself through school” She smiled curtly, “What’s your excuse for becoming a permanent fixture?”

“’m tryin’ to find the girl ‘m in love with” I said honestly, unflinchingly and with every ounce of conviction my exhausted body had.

She sucked her lips back against her teeth and for the first time I caught a flash of blue eyes behind her glasses. “You came all the way here for a girl? Like from the UK, you…”

“I were here already, on tour I…”

“You’re in a band?”

“Ye the second person tha’s asked that; that way, today” I smiled awkwardly, “I thought we were bigger than it seems we are in America”

“I’m not really big on music and, well, I like listening to the radio in my car, but I don’t think…are you on the radio? Over here? I mean, not that you’re not good enough to be on there, that’s not what I’m saying, I just mean…”

“We’ not particularly radio friendly, no” I interrupted, cutting her nervous babble short.

She giggled softly and shuffled sideways; escaping the glare of the computer screen for the first time since we’d started talking. She appeared to be the epitome of Californian; well what I’d come to expect from shows like ‘The Hills’ and ‘The OC’. She looked sun kissed in every way; trapped in a rampant, all consuming affair with the sunshine. Her blonde hair was feathered and glossy and perfect as it cascaded in perfect waves over her petite shoulders, and her eyes were the exact colour of the sea at Venice Beach that me and Tom had splashed around in just a few days previous. “So you came all the way from somewhere else in the states, for a girl?” She grinned appreciatively, editing her question a little to fit the new information.

“I’d go all the way t’ the fuckin’ moon for this girl” I proclaimed, “And I might just ‘av t, seein’ as she’s tried t’ get as far away from me as is humanly possible, an’ yeah, there’s this other guy sniffin’ around, ‘e even asked ‘er t’ marry ‘im…”

“And you think going to the moon will help with that?”

“It can’t ‘urt, right? Shows my dedication an’ shit”

“Do you know where she is?”

“I thought I did” I admitted sullenly, “I still might, ‘e won’t answer ‘is phone though. I hate that ‘es the only person in the world tha’ knows where she is, ‘s not fair, now ‘e can ask ‘er to marry ‘im till his ‘earts content, an’ I’m fuckin’ powerless”

“Does she have enough money to get the moon?”

I cocked my eyebrow at her briefly, before noticing the small smirk hidden in the corner of her peach coloured lips. “She don’t” I mumbled, “But ‘s got determination enough, an‘ tha‘s all she needs really. If Verity wants something she usually gets it, an’ right now it seems she wants absolutely nowt to do wi’…”

“Verity?”

“Ol, what are ye doing ‘ere?”