Drop Dead.

I didn’t see Melanie the next evening around supper time, but I did walk in on a bright blue sticky-note taped to the fridge. I sighed. She would be out with Oliver and his band that night and there was a TV dinner in the freezer. If I needed her, blah, blah, blah. I took the note down and threw it out and made the TV dinner, sighing at the fact that I’d be alone.

I didn’t like being alone in the apartment; it gave me too much free time to think and when I let my thoughts wander, things got ugly. Mostly, when I was alone, I thought about my home back in Michigan, about the family I’d left behind. I wasn’t welcome back in my parents’ house after refusing to attend college and become a real estate agent like my mother. It made me bitter and resentful to think of how a woman could just kick out her own daughter. But I was no longer in contact with any of my family and if they weren’t going to make an effort to change that, then neither was I.

Melanie stumbled into the apartment around three in the morning, waking me up from my slumber on the couch in doing so. There was no doubt that she was a little more than tipsy, but she wasn’t throwing her arms around me saying how much she loved me, so I knew she wasn’t quite trashed either. Her hair was a mess, but she always styled it that way, and her shirt was slightly wrinkled.

Resisting the urge to wrinkle my nose, I asked her, “Did you have fun?” Smiling and giggling stupidly, she nodded and her response was quickly followed by a long yawn. She pointed to her bedroom and I nodded, watching her as she tripped her way to her bed.

I sighed, wondering why I didn’t have a life like Melanie did.

The next morning before work, I left a glass of water and a couple aspirin on Melanie’s bedside table to cure the hangover that she was bound to have. Unlike Melanie, I had a strange immunity to hangovers and could drink as much as I wanted without having that annoying and painful throbbing in my head the next morning. Of course, I never got drunk just to rub it in her face that I had built up some sort of resistance to hangovers.

I locked Melanie in the apartment and made my way to the parking garage. I was a little more than surprised to see Oliver swaggering over to his car at quarter of six in the morning. When my car beeped unlocked, he snapped his head up and smiled a little.

“A little surprised to see yeh up this early,” I told him as he twisted his key into his door. I tried not to shake my head at the out-dated vehicle. “To each his own” was one of the major lessons my parents had taught me.

“Got called into the studio,” he excused with a half-shrug. “I wouldn’t be up this early otherwise.” We shared a chuckle and then, the awkwardness took over. I stood there biting my lip and looking anywhere but at Oliver; he was doing the same.

“Well, uh, I’ve got work. So I’ll see yeh around,” I said in one breath, wanting to escape the situation as quickly as possible. Oliver quickly stuttered out a response and simultaneously, we climbed into our cars. I waved to him as he backed out of the parking space that neighbored mine. I took a deep breath, closing my eyes for a moment, before starting my car and rolling to work.

The café was borderline dead that day; the most action the employees had seen was the new girl, Mitch – her full name was Michelle – and her dropping an entire box of coffee grounds. So we spent the next two hours of our work day sweeping up the mess. Luckily, the boss went easy on her as it was her first day. Then, as usual, Oliver strolled in and ordered his straight black coffee. After handing him his change, he stuffed it in the tip jar, winked, and turned on his heel to take his usual seat in the corner. I watched him for a while and I was pretty sure he knew I was doing it. That was the first unusual thing about today, besides the Mitch incident. He never left tips. It was probably out of pity; Melanie must have told him how shitty my paycheck was. I didn’t need sympathy, especially from my best friend/roommate’s…whatever Oliver was to her.

But it didn’t stop me from smiling slightly at the man in the corner with the tattooed knuckles. He nodded and lifted his coffee cup to me before taking a long sip, draining it. He left after throwing it out without a glance over his shoulder.

The smile rarely left my face the entire day, even when I was assisting in the closing-time clean-up. Mitch kept prodding me, asking me what had me so smiley, but I just shrugged one shoulder and continued with my work. She finally gave up after realizing that she wasn’t getting any answers out of me.

I was a little surprised to see the reason for my smiling leaning against my car in the employee parking lot smoking a cigarette. I pulled out my own pack and stood before him, lighting up and inhaling. I took my time exhaling.

“Can I ask why yeh standing beside my car?” I asked him, a little bit of my American accent showing through. He took a long, finishing drag off his cigarette and threw it to the ground, stomped it out with the toe of his sneaker.

“’Cause Bring Me’s got a gig and yeh comin’. No if’s, and’s, or but’s.” He nodded once to prove his point and held his hand out for my keys. “Mel’s gonna meet us there.” Reluctantly, I handed over the keys to my SUV and he beeped it unlocked. Then, without letting me decide if I actually wanted to go, he climbed into the driver’s seat and turned the engine over. I finished my cigarette and stomped it out, rushed around the SUV to climb into the passenger seat.

“I coulda driven, yeh know,” I told him as I buckled my seat belt. He turned the radio on.

“I guarantee yeh woulda gotten lost,” he responded before any chance of conversation was drowned out by whatever rock song was playing through the stereo. I simply rolled my eyes and trained my vision on the world outside my window. People were walking along the sidewalk in their pea coats, since it was nearly November, and November in England was cold as hell.

The ride to the venue wasn’t very long and Oliver easily found a parking space close to the building. There was an enormous line of fans waiting outside the doors, but Oliver snuck us through a side door after nodding curtly to one of the burly security guards. Inside, it was warm and practically empty except for a few technicians who were running around preparing for the show.

Melanie and the rest of the band, including Tom, were standing side-stage and when she saw us, a smile lit up her face and she ran over. She leaped into Oliver’s arms, who chuckled and stumbled backwards under her weight.

“Hey Char. How was work?” she asked briefly, not removing herself from Oliver’s embrace. My stomach bubbled, but I blamed it on the Pepsi I’d had earlier.

“Boring, as usual,” I said, keeping it short seeing as Melanie was only paying half-attention anyways. I suppressed a sigh as Oliver and Melanie cuddled up with each other as the rest of the band made their way over. Tom smiled brightly at me and opened his arms for a hug, which I gladly accepted – anything to rid me of the awkwardness of watching Melanie and Oliver.

“Work was borin’, eh?” he asked, brushing his hair down. I couldn’t help but admit how cute he looked doing it. I pursed my lips and avoided glancing at Oliver, nodding.

“Yeah, except the new girl dropped an entire box of coffee grounds, so we all spent two hours cleanin’ it up,” I mused, feeling less awkward now that Oliver and Melanie had moseyed on over to the bar. My stomach settled and I blew out the breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

Tom laughed. “Sounds interesting enough. So this is yeh first Bring Me show.” I nodded and he smirked.

“It’s my first concert in general,” I told him honestly, blushing slightly. But he just laughed and patted my shoulder.

“Yeh in fer a show then, love.” I blushed at the nickname although he meant nothing by it. Little did I know that Tom was absolutely not joking.

Oliver was one of the quietest people I’d ever met. On stage, it was as if he were an entirely different person. He was loud, cursed excessively, and that was just before I’d heard his screaming. His growls and shrieks could shatter glass, but that wasn’t the major thing I’d noticed. He belonged on a stage. Some people were destined to be lawyers, doctors. But Oliver was destined to be a rock star, to scream his angry lyrics at world as if it would pull all the weight off his shoulders. And maybe it did. Maybe screaming at his fans about his hate let him release his anger without injuring someone or himself.

The fans, I’d noticed, were just as outrageous as Oliver was. They were thrashing around in the pit, throwing punches and shoving each other. I cringed when I saw, from the side of the stage, someone get kicked in the jaw by a nearby crowd-surfer. I cringed again when the same guy was decked in the face.

After the show, the boys came back all sweaty. That didn’t stop Melanie from planting her lips firmly on Oliver’s, taking the boy by surprise. He didn’t protest though like I’d hoped. I mentally slapped myself and congratulated the rest of the band on the successful show.

“What’d yeh think?” Oliver asked once he managed to tear his mouth away from Melanie’s. He was handed a towel and he swiped his face and ruffled his hair with it. I bit my lip, debating if I should lie or not. Melanie was staring at me with that pleading look again.

“I enjoyed it.” And I wasn’t lying.