Undeniably In Denial

Paris, France. I've always wanted to visit Paris, but I've never gotten the chance to before. My parents and I had been to Milan, Berlin, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Mexico City, Sydney, Cairo, Athens, Rome, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, Bordeaux even, but we’ve never been to Paris. I don’t know why we’ve never gone, though, but I've been hounding my parents to plan a trip to Paris since I was twelve. I’m twenty one now, so that started nine years ago. I only stopped when we found out we were doing this tour. But anyways, I've been waiting for this show before we even knew about it. Also, we’re switching things up a little bit for this one; for a couple of the songs, Ianto and I are going to switch places. So I'll be doing the lead guitar parts and he’ll be singing and backing me up on guitar. I'm almost more excited for that than I am for Paris in general.

When we arrived there earlier that day, we dropped off our stuff at our hotel and then went around town to basically sight see. When we stopped at a little café on a street corner there was this really big muscular guy with a little ballerina sized girl getting cups of coffee at the counter. Jason looked over at me and started giggling. He got really close to my ear and rubbed my upper arm, whispering;

“Heeyyy, Reeth, I like your muthculth, I really like your muthculth.” I just about fell over laughing because of how well he did the lisp. He was trying to say he liked my muscles, obviously making fun of the big guy. Then he turned to Ianto and did the same sort of thing, saying, “Oh, but Iantho, I love your muthculth. You muthculth are thuper thexy.”

“What about mine?” Ash asked, laughing slightly.

“I don’t like you muthculth, Ath,” he said, completely serious for a moment, but bursting into laughter soon after.

“Sometimes I really wonder why we’re friends with this kid,”



The venue was pitch black, excluding some little lighted objects scattered throughout the crowd, such as phones, cameras, and glow sticks. The four of us watched from backstage as four girls walked out onto the main stage and took the positions we normally do. This was another thing we were doing to switch things up a little more; we were going to screw with the audience’s minds for a bit before we got on to the actual show. Once the girls were in place, lights flashed on everywhere. Cheers grew louder as people could see again, but when everyone caught sight of four girls instead of four guys, the place got nearly silent. I smirked to myself as the “singer” took hold of the microphone and I counted to three before speaking into the headset I was wearing.

“Bonjour Paris! We are Karma and yes, we are a bitch!”

The fans seemed even more baffled by the fact that my voice was coming from a blond girl’s mouth. Murmurs sounded throughout the crowd as people started voicing their confusion. Then, as planned, four ‘gunshots; rang out, followed by screams. The girls all fell to the ground, ‘blood’ quickly soaking through their tops, as people screamed even louder, out of fear this time. Then, all at once, the four girls on the stage screamed like they were afraid for their lives and sat up, looking around at everything. And just as the lights went off, they jumped up and ran off stage. I can’t tell you how many times we practiced this skit, but we had to get it absolutely right with the least amount of faults that we could. And it was going just as planned so far. Ash, Ianto, Jason and I all grabbed our real instruments (the girls had different ones while they were on stage) and headed out onto the main stage as the lights flickered back on. The girls had the headsets on back stage, and we were right where they were at, standing by the mics. I counted to two before mouthing what we practiced.

“Sorry about that. We’re the real Karma and we’re getting ready to blast your faces off! Ya’ll ready for this?”

People were still giving us weird looks, but even with the girl’s voice seemingly coming from my mouth, they all screamed in anticipation. We launched straight into Monkey Wrench and did a total of six songs before Ianto and I did our little switcheroo thing. For that, we played To Uranis and Back parts one and two, Melody’s got the Harmony and Harmony’s got the Melody, and Turtle Soup before switching back. I think people were surprised by that, especially with To Uranis and Back, but we got a great response out of it either way. Once we were back to our normal positions, we did a couple more songs before introducing two new ones.

I’d been on the lookout all night for Camron, Jared and Rina but hadn’t seen hide-nor-hair of any of them. As soon as we got back stage I texted Rina, where r u guys? bathroom…can u meet us ther? sure, b rit there I peeled off my shirt, wiped my sweaty face with it and threw a clean one on so I at least wouldn’t be as nasty when I went to meet up with them. I got mauled probably twenty or thirty times on that short walk to the bathrooms, but that’s what’s to be expected when you’re a rock-star walking around in public at your own show. When I finally got there, I saw Rina waiting outside the men’s room for Camron and Jared, probably, seeing as how I couldn’t see them anywhere.

“Hey! How are you? I've missed you!” I yelled, throwing my arms out for a hug, which she automatically returned.

“I'm pretty good, and I miss you too, but we talk all the time,”

“I know, but we haven’t seen each other for, like, ever!”

“Well, that sure is true. Now, Camron is in there,” she said, pointing in the door of the men’s room, “and he needs some comforting right now. Seeing as how that’s the men’s loo, and I'm a lady, I can’t quite go in there and do that. So you, mister, get in there!”

“No chance you’re telling me what’s wrong with him?’

“I'll let him tell you,”

“Alright, I'll be right back, hopefully with a calmed down Camron,”

“Good luck…it’s pretty bad,”

I went in there expecting a bunch of people, but found only a few, which was definitely odd for right after a concert. Camron was leaning over the sink as it continuously ran hot water, the steam flying into his face and fogging up the mirror. I came up behind him and gave him a hug, sort of petting his hair soothingly. He jumped a little bit, so I whispered, “Shh, it’s just me. It’s Reese. The steam helping?”

“Not really, but it is kind of calming, so I guess a little,” he shrugged, hugging me back, not letting go for a bit. When he did, I asked him was I was wondering since Rina told me to come help him.

“What’s going on, Cam?”

“Jared,” he said, his voice cracking halfway through the word.

“What about him?”

“We broke up because he lied to me. He told me he was clean and then I find out that he’s been HIV positive since he was seventeen. So I broke up with him and he went for a walk and about a half hour later I got a phone call. I…he…he’s dead, Reese. He got shot because of a photo shoot we did. It was a same sex marriage thing, and some assholes saw it, and him, and then…when he was on his walk, they, he got shot. He died on the way to the emergency room. It was only yesterday,”

“Oh my God, Camron. I'm so sorry. I can’t begin to tell you how bad I feel. Why did you even come tonight? You didn’t have to; I would have understood if you didn’t. All you had to do was call and warn me. And then…oh my God; the show! Oh that had to be torture in the beginning with the girls and all that. I'm so sorry,”

“No, no, don’t be. And, yea, that was scary as shit, because for a second I thought it was happening all over again, but don’t feel so bad. It was nothing that you could help. And I came because I needed to talk to you. You’ve always cheered me up and I just – God, I've missed you!” he exclaimed, throwing his arms around me in a huge hug. Truth be told, I really missed the feeling of his hugs. I don’t know what’s so different about them from other hugs, but there’s something, and I sure as hell did miss it.

“I've missed you too, now come on, and let’s get out of the bathroom,” I said, laying a quick kiss on his neck, since his head was nuzzled into mine. He pulled away and I kept an arm around his shoulder as we walked out the door. When we came across Rina, she was giving Camron a sympathetic look and I put my other arm around her shoulder, leading them both backstage. She was immediately engulfed in hugs and Jason did one of those man-hug-chest-bump things with Camron, telling him it was good to see him again. I could tell Jason was about to say something about Jared, so I sent him a look that told him if he said anything of the sorts, I would personally cut off his balls and feed them to a big snapper turtle. He seemed to get the idea, so he walked back over to Rina after telling Camron that they’d talk later.

“Want something to drink?” I asked, walking over to the mini-fridge and scoping out its contents.

“What’cha got?”

“Coke, Dr. Pepper, water, Sprite, some fancy French beer, some fancy light French beer, wine coolers…seriously? Who stocks this thing? Ah, here are some Budweiser and some Corona; light and regular,”

“Throw me some kind of beer, preferably not French, please,”

I pulled out two Bud Lights and handed him one, kicking the door of the fridge shut with my foot. He was sitting on the smaller of the two couches and I sat down across from him as he opened the bottle I gave him, taking a swig of it. Then he just looked over at me and smirked.

“Brings back memories, huh?”

“What does?”

“Sitting on a couch, drinking beer, just talking,”

“Oh, Halloween you mean,” I laughed, remembering that night as if it were yesterday, even though it took place almost six years ago. “Yea, it does bring back memories. Of course, that was under way different circumstances and what happened that night was the start of something that’s over now.”

“I know, I'm just pointing out the irony,”

“Yea…” I started, getting all reminiscent all of a sudden. “So, uh, Jared. Did things end on a bad note or something? I know a lot of people who have said the wrong thing to a person before they died and regretted it for the rest of their lives. Don’t tell me that’s what happened to you.”

“No, no, that didn’t happen. The last thing I told him was that I loved him, but I can’t marry someone who lies about things like that. So, no, I'm not going to regret it, because it’s true. I just wish he didn’t have to die minutes after we broke up,”

“I know what you mean,” I nodded, taking a sip of my beer and then realizing something. “Actually, I don’t know what you mean. I've never had this happen to me and I hope it never does happen to me. But I'm trying to be helpful here and comfort you, so I guess, in a way, I wish I knew what it felt like so that I could help you get through this.”

“You’re helping me whether you understand it or not. It doesn’t matter what you say to make me feel better; just the fact that you’re trying to say the right thing helps me more than anything else ever will,”