The Homesick

The fingers ghosting over skin awake me as if I was being strangled. As I start to jump up, the cold hand latches onto my side, and the force is enough to keep me from jumping up, that and it’s sudden slide to my stomach providing reassurance.

But I reawake with a start at the sound of a screech, that is quickly forgotten when the phone starts screaming my ringtone. Running a hand through my hair, I sit up and twist to get the pains out of my back from sleeping on the futon in my room, squint at the sun pouring through the window, and then remember the hand as it snaps the elastic band of my boxers. I quickly look to the right and lying beside is a boy whose black dyed hair was fading and growing out, tangled brown roots visible and collecting copious amounts of hair gel, causing it to not lay down but to stick up in various directions and shapes like glass shards. He was closing his eyes, long, dark eye lashes jutting out, but they shook slightly and gave away the fact that he was awake.

“No.” I swear my mother’s eyes glaze over as she says this first word strong and firm. Then her voice jumps a pitch as she sniffles and looks away and says, “No, no, no, no, no! Jeff! Jeff, I can’t handle this right now! I can’t!”

I’ve already started staring though at the older boy- because it’s like a dream that I’ve awaken from but is still going on. His eyes open finally and I’m hooked on shadowy hazels and a pale smirk. The always cold hand ghosts past my hipbone before he pulls back and it causes me to shutter. His smirk doesn’t falter as he gracefully moves back onto his elbows, eyes not even glancing at the screaming doorway and letting me just take his presence in, as he knows I am. I’m just trying not to drool.

She’s shaking her head and hand at us while looking away when I finally get back to her. Chance drops his elbows, falling back on the makeshift-bed while huffing, then one of his hands sneaks under the covers and his fingers dance across my lower stomach as he smirks up at me.
“Chance!” When I turn back to my wide open bedroom doorway, Jeff, my stepfather, has replaced my mother. His arms are crossed, but his eyes aren’t glaring behind his black glasses.

“Hey, Jeff, how’s it been?” Chance sighs, pushing himself up to a sitting position and exposing his bare chest, “Long time, no see.”

Jeff nods and pauses for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, “It’s been so long I barely know what to tell you.” He opens his eyes and moves his hand, “I was hoping you two were just done for good.”

“Ha,” Chance rolls his eyes, then looks out the corner of his eye at me before throwing an arm around me, kissing me right by my ear and nearly whispering, “Why Zander would never.”

“Right,” he mutters softly and I don’t think Chance was supposed to take this as reassuring.
I’d forgotten this feeling, or so I’d thought. The feeling of his cool lips ghosting over my skin less than seconds before our skin met. The warmth his coolness brought to me. I want to take it all in, but I stay aware of Jeff standing in the door with a calculating expression on his face.

“Okay. Up, up- out,” he huffs and sounds exhausted just by the memory of this scene that’s happened so many times before. Chance is barely listening as he is texting on his phone already and pulling off covers at the same time. He’s only in boxers and I finally notice his pants strewn on the floor and his t-shirt at the foot of the bed.

“No warm welcome home, Jeff? I’ve been gone for three months- you haven’t had any hope restored in me?” He says this in a joking matter with a smile as he pulls on his pants before kissing me once more and pulling out his phone again. This time when he slides it halfway into a too-tight pants pocket, my screaming ringtone starts again and I quickly reach to silence it. Jeff watches with a look of contempt deep in his eyes and shakes his head slowly every few moments.

Though warm, I have chill bumps all over me and am trying not to be overwhelmed by…him. He’s been gone for so long, his body just going through everyday motions seems like a ghost and all I can do is watch in silence.

“Love you,” He says quietly with a smirk after pulling on his shirt. But I can’t help my face from falling when I notice the smirk because he says the thoughtful words like everything else- jokingly. And suddenly he’s not like a ghost of good times past anymore.

“Don’t come back,” Jeff glares.

“Aren’t you counting the days before he’s eighteen with me? No more statutory-" Jeff smacks him in the back of his messy hair and scowls as he wipes grease on his hand and Chance chuckles. They exit my room together and I read the text.

Love: pink palace. lie for me- ten minutes. its been too long. [3:18PM]

I smile and as I push myself out of the flimsy, uncomfortable-without-Chance futon, a sudden voice startles me. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Who do you think you’re asking? I think to myself but don’t voice it in my cloud nine state. “To Max’s,” I lie shortly, typically, while quickly grabbing a pair of pants out of an open drawer and a plain T-shirt in the same, “To pick him up for practice. I have a show tonight,” I answer his silent but inevitable question of why. I’m already slipping on Vans with one hand and grabbing keys with the other when he finally responds, as I’m turning to the door. “Forgetting something?”

My eyebrows furrow. I must be...no, I’m set for Chance’s hotel room- then…

“I still don’t like him,” Jeff says with a shake of his head and we both know damn well I’m headed for Chance just as I remember the guitar sitting in the corner. I try to hide a glare as I grab the door handle and shut it behind me, muttering, “I still don’t care,” flippantly and leaving him in front of my room.

I rush down a set of stairs and out the door to avoid a swarming of siblings. The sun immediately starts beating down on me and the ancient, rusting, and disintegrating but loved, graffitied, white van in the driveway that stared me down nearly makes me wince. This is Liz. It’s a death trap if it even grazes another tree while being driven by the inexperienced, or side swipes another car with vengeance for a disliked person. I’m sure it’s maximum limit in the back has far lowered since we used to squeeze the band instruments plus seven people in the back on ragged scrap carpet and I know that those who’ve experienced this van would never try to again in fear that it’d just give up and the floor would cave in, causing packs of teens to hit the freeway asphalt while rolling. I should put up a sign that says I am not liable, ride at your own risk. But it tries. After being left in a backyard for ten years after being driven in its 70s glory days for ten years then given to a fifteen year old me who proceeded to care for it, it pays me back by at least getting all the equipment to and from spaces and never breaking down at least on show nights.

The hot metal of the door handle stings me as I try to open it and my hand darts back. It’s most likely just as hot on the inside. I have to pull half of my shirt up to grip the handle and open the door with it to slide in onto the hot cloth and close the door carefully, but not careful enough as the entire van shakes so rapidly, I can hear bolts. I don’t close the door yet for fear of a heat stroke if being in here for over a minute without the windows down. The car starts with a gurgle and a hope, but I can’t start driving for at least five minutes while it prepares itself. In this time, I push the automatic windows button, when it gets down an inch; I have to use one hand to forcefully push the window down manually while my hand stays on the button. I get it down about three fourths of the way before giving up, at least it’s released some of the heat and stuffiness, the odor of weed pushes past me on its way out.

After the warm up, it’s good to go and I’m on my way to Rose Inn. It’s the only motel in town; actually, it’s right on the edge of town. I’m not sure if our city even claims it and I wouldn’t either because it’s the tackiest hotel I’ve ever seen. It’s in the style of a motel, including the trashiness and constant sound of sex though the paper thin walls of the cheap floral-carpet-matching-draped rooms. It looks like a two floored castle, seriously, all medieval, even the main entrance has a drawbridge- over cement, that doesn’t even draw, of course. And it’s pink, all of it- bright pink, of all colors- just throwing everything a curve ball and inspiring the name. The workers are always sketchy as fuck and probably get off to the sounds through the walls. It’s overall- interesting, to say the least. And it’s where all the kids kind of hang out. It’s the place that has been the setting for so many de-flowerings that it probably holds a record and when a party is needed, it’s the place where it’s held on short notice. Its name has been brought up at many city council meetings, seeing as how it’s definitely not beneficial to the developing minds of the teens in this town, but again, our city tries not to claim it.

Then there are its little quirks that could only fascinate the stoned. Such as how on the wall of the room is one of those “big mouth bass’” that sings ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’, which totally throws off the castle-motif. The one in the room that the boys always gets is half out of batteries, though, and it amuses the guys more than it should because it only gets though half the song correctly. The dead battery thing then kicks in and the head stops moving and the voice gets deep and finishes the song metal style, in a deep growling-like tone that causes the batteries to never be changed and fish to stay on the wall through all the party-destructing. I’m sure it’s gotten many in the mood before awkward first-times.

But anyways, the hotel is about twenty minutes from my house and currently housing it’s formerly most destructive and well-paying frequenters, before their summer tour, the metal slash hardcore band Destined for Dust. Of which Chance is the front man.

As I near the castle pink the anxiety starts. This anxiety was the good anxiety, the anxiety I get when I’m about to do something I like, something I want to do- but am still nervous. The anxiety that makes me hot instead of giving me chill bumps and brings the hint of a smile to the corners of my mouth. Like being side stage before playing a show- only intensified because I’m not sure what to expect after not seeing him for so long.

Liz growls as I pull into the cracking, pot-holed parking lot and onto the near vibrating cement from the bass I can hear from here. I smile in nostalgia with a hand on the door handle. I pull my shirt out a bit and sniff as I walk to the lobby. Today’s sleeping receptionist looks like he’s still in his teens and actually is not sleeping at all but watching the door all too closely. As if he’s anxious to see the next creep that’s to take his place or mentally record the young party guests. I nod at him in acknowledgement and while I think he’ll do the same, he doesn’t. The kid, the worker, who’s the first I’ve ever seen in business attire and without his feet propped up at the desk, cards me. “ID?” he says as if he doesn’t know that half the people in this place don’t have it, adult or not. He’s even wearing a name tag- ‘My Name Is… Raymond’. I squint in confusion, stopping mid-step. I hardly know what to say for a minute and I’m so shocked because this is the pink room. I look around with my face turned up as I’ve walked into the wrong place. The only word I can stutter out is, “Huh?”

The speckled red face of the young, dark-brown bowl-cut-sporting lame kid laughs, “Just kidding man!” He nearly squeals with the crazy high pitch of his voice.

I glare for a second, shrugging and proceed out the door to the small, square, cement courtyard secured by motel rooms. “Sorry man, just playing around,” I hear him say as the door closes on his voice. I turn right immediately to go up the stairs going to the second floor. I can tell which room is filled with black haired, black clothed, and black souled boys the second I’m brought to the floor by the heavy pounding heard from a bass breaking through the thin walls. Room 69 is the first room rented out, the door stopper in currently preventing it from closing and causing an almost obnoxious amount of noise to seep out into the hot air.

Inside, two connected doors to room 68 and 70 are always cracked open for easy roaming for the bands, fans, and groupies. I push open 69. A look of belonging has to stretch over my face as hazy, lazy eyes turn to me and I stand in the doorway. It’s a chaos revealed that I’m fond of. A mess I- us, everyone here, finds a strange comfort in. It can be hard for others to understand how being smacked in the face with the sticky fragrance of weed, booze, and sex can give a needy feeling of nostalgia. A girl runs from the connecting door of one room, topless, and out the other without a glance at me. Another girl is passed out just a foot from a twin bed. All the shades are closed and the lights are dimmed by thick smoke. I swallow smoke and my eyes attach to the only boy who looks like he’s not totally doped (though he is) and watch him toss aside a game controller, crashing his Mario Kart but not detaching his eyes from me.

“What’s up, Luke?” I run my hand through my hair and close the door partially, as it was, and then walk a few steps forward to see the misty look in his blue eyes.

He shrugs and looking up at me from the floor, “How’s it going, Alex?” Luke, the guitarist, he’s trying to hide his awkwardness under his cool though it’s being compromised by his obvious nervousness and guilt.
I’m at a loss for words for a moment. “Like hell- I didn’t get to go on the tour.” A smile only comes across his face after mines does. We don’t do some kind of tough hug or even handshake though. We’re not close enough for that anymore despite forced small talk. With every passing moment I remember why we can’t be friends. His guilt is etched into his face and it makes me sick. That look of pity I just don’t need staring me in my grinning face. My smile slowly drops.

“How many?” I ask casually, though my eyes wander to where I can see though one of the connecting doors and two girls making out with liquor bottles in hand. It’s the middle of the day for god sakes.

“It’s been three months, who can count?” Luke responds seriously.

“Just girls?” I continue.

Luke’s concern wins the battle with his awkwardness and he answers, “I-I don’t think so. But it’s not like I really can keep track of his sex life, Zander. Sorry.”

I hold back a roll of eyes and nod before walking through an opened connected door. I strut across the length of the room as if I’m wearing blinders. When I knock on the next connected door though, the noise quiets a bit for just a moment, eyes straining to look over at me but resisting. I glace around the room as I wait for the door to unlock.

“Go…a…way…” I hear a slurring voice mutter through the wood only with my ear to the door. The partying continues and the noise gets almost louder as I squint at the door. I bang on the door harder and hear someone from the party tell me to give it up.

“Chance!” I attempt to yell above the music and I suppose it works as I hear the door unlocking with manic laughter. The door only opens enough for me to squeeze in sideways before it’s closed a little too hard by a shirtless boyfriend. He’s got a handful of something, but he whips around, turning his back to me, before tilting his head back a bit and taking it. He whips back around with a wince and hard swallow. “Hey, Zander!” His arms latch around my neck and I furrow my eyebrows at first before the hairs on the back of my neck are suddenly cold and sticking up. I almost forget the handful of poison he just munched down. As his mouth latches on to mines, I almost think he’ll transfer them to me and grip his sides. But they’re gone and all that’s in his mouth is his teeth because his tongue is inside mines.

“I’ve missed you,” I mutter as he tries to walk to the rock-solid motel bed backwards.

“I know you have,” he breathes. It’s only when he lashes around as the back of his knees hit the bed and topples onto me that I notice the girl sitting in the corner. I immediately detach my lips but Chance is too fast as his lips just gravitate to my neck and he tugs on my shirt. “What the fuck are you doing here, Marilyn?”

The girl smirks with full red lips and it works up to her brown eyes. Without that look, my mind wouldn’t scream SLUT ALERT when I saw her because she looks decent. She looks clean by the slick legs and slicked back fake blonde hair with long brown roots up into a high bun. She’s wearing Chance’s shirt. I know this because the sleeves are cut off along with the sides to create long holes, I can see her bright red bra peeking. His shirt is tucked into her short-shorts. I almost want to close my eyes and remember her from seventh grade.

“Gah home, Merlin,” Chance slurs into my neck and she looks somewhat offended, I’m somewhat out of it. Chance notices and bites my collar bone.

“Ah!” I wince. Marilyn rolls her eyes and stands up. It’s hard to separate her friend from foe because I hate her sometimes and other times I love her like a sister because I remember when we used to be friends, hell, I remember when we were in second grade together.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you too,” she sighs, “Or I guess someone else is already going to do that.” Chance is blocking her out as he works my shirt off.

Her nose ring glows in the light ray casted from the only clean segment of the windows in the room that are probably older than me. She wiggles her fingers at me in a wave after grabbing a big bag from the ancient chair she sat in in the corner. I flip her off for no reason.

The door slamming sends Chance up and he’s over to a duffle bag half opened across the room. As he throws things around, panting, I try not to seem like I care too much. “How was the tour?”
He nods, “Fine.”

I nod, “Cool….”

He finds the box he’s looking for and I’m shocked it took him so long to find condoms as he jumps up it drops from his hand as he wobbles for a second. His eyes roll back a bit. I jump into action. I catch him though he has yet to fall and keep my hands on his shoulders as I look him in the eye, questioningly.

“Just Xanax, to chill out. Get out of tour mode, you know.”

“You should eat something,” I chuckle as his lips tickle my neck and I push my fingertips just enough into him to feel his ribs.

“No, thanks, mom,” he mumbles and reaches down to grab to unopened box on the floor. I raise an eyebrow at that and realize he’s trying to trick me. He doesn’t come back from tour with closed boxes.

And then there’s a smirk. And then aggression that includes rough bites that leave marks and red crescent moons from digging nails. Of course, I don’t think about the treat he had before I got here, any of them. Because what’s a worse boner kill? When I’m not caught up in moments like this though, it bothers me. Because I feel like I’m always supposed to be there, catching him, watching him, loving him. Recently, I think I’ve been sticking around just to feel good about myself, sticking around with the thought that I can save him. And when it gets too bad, I’ve got the memories to keep me warm at night and the CD’s to sing me to sleep.

There comes a time in love where it doesn’t matter how much that person has changed, even if they’ve changed so much as to not be the person who was fallen in love with in the first place. It doesn’t matter what wrong they do to you or how much it just doesn’t work anymore. Because by then a love deeper than any other has been experienced and just the pure nostalgia and hoping that it’ll be that way again, keeps you-me- coming back.