Coffee Shop Soundtrack

“Can I have another?” I slapped a five on the bar and another glass of rum and coke appeared in front of me. I felt my phone vibrate and I saw Ashlyn’s name flash on the screen. I hit reject. I didn’t feel like dealing with Ashlyn right now. All I saw was Makenna.

I kept having more and more to drink. I just wanted to forget everything that happened today. Everything that happened this past week. I didn’t want to remember what happened with Makenna in my kitchen, or what happened at the party the other night. I wanted to completely forget all of it. I wanted to forget that I ever called her. Honestly, I wanted to forget her altogether. Why couldn’t I do that?

I had lost count of how many drinks I had and the room was spinning, but still all I saw was her. My phone vibrated again. This time it was Garrett and I answered. “Hello?”

“John, where are you? I’ve been calling you all day. What happened after I left?”

“What happened?” I laughed. I didn’t know why I was laughing, I just laughed.

“John, what the hell? Are you drunk?”

“No, I’m fine. Really, I only drank a little.” My speech sounded fine in my head but out loud it was slurred, and I still laughed for no reason.

“Just tell me where you are,” Garrett said.

“I don’t know.” I hung up. I really didn’t know where I was. Some bar I didn’t know the name of. My phone started ringing again but I ignored it.

I sat on the bar stool taking large sips of my drink, Makenna’s face in front of me. My mind was so intoxicated that it felt like she was really standing in front of me. Every time my eyes shut, there she was. Now and then I would even say hi to her, and then laugh at myself because it was just her image in my mind.

I looked around the bar, everything was blurry. Girls were dancing and the bartenders seemed to change shifts every few hours. I was just sitting here, still trying to erase Makenna from my head, the image of her sitting at my kitchen table, wedding ring on her left hand.

I had hoped for so long that it wasn’t real. I remember hearing the news, we were on tour. Makenna Raze had gotten married. My Makenna Raze. It was a nightmare. Something I thought I was going to wake up from any day now. But it was real. It wasn’t a dream, it wasn’t a rumor. She had a different last name now.

“John?” I heard someone ask.

I took a sip of my drink and laughed a little. “Hey, Makenna.” There she was again, sketched into my mind. Her voice so clear it was almost real.

“Oh my God, are you okay? How much did you drink.”

I laughed some more to myself. I really had no idea why I was laughing. I finished off the glass that was in front of me, and tried waving down the bartender again. “Hey! Another one over here.”

“No, we don’t want another one,” the Makenna in my head said. I was looking at her, she seemed so real. Wait, she was actually real.

“Kenna,” I laughed. “Are you there? I didn’t know you had a twin.” I started laughing even harder now.

“John O’Callaghan, you are a fucking idiot. Give me your cell phone.”

I laughed. “No, no. It’s mine.” I shoved my phone in my pocket. “Let’s go dance.”

“I’m not dancing with you. You’re completely wasted,” she said.

“Fine,” I smirked. “I’ll go dance with someone else.” I stood up and made my way to the people in the middle of the dance floor. I could hardly stand but I walked up to a girl dancing and smiled anyways. That’s all I had to do around here, everyone knew who I was. She smiled back at me. I felt her move against me and I tried dancing, but I felt a bit dizzy and I kept having to catch myself from falling.

All of a sudden, I didn’t feel so good. I looked around the room for Makenna but I didn’t see her. I ran outside and to the side of the building just in time for my stomachs contents to come back up. The concrete was now lucky enough to have a puddle of orange puke on top of it.

“Are you done yet?” I stood up straight and looked to my right to see Makenna. I didn’t say anything to her. She came up to me and reached into my back pocket for my phone. I watched her put it up to her ear. “Hey, it’s Makenna.” Pause. “Don’t worry, I’m with him.” Another pause. “I’m at Craze. Do you know where it is?” Long pause. “I’ll be waiting outside. Bye.”

I sat down against the brick wall of the building. “So what are you doing here?” I asked, listening to my slurred speech.

She sighed and sat down next to me. “Well, I didn’t come here to babysit you. But that’s what I’ve ended up doing.”

I didn’t say anything else for a few minutes. I still didn’t feel good. But Makenna was right next to me and I knew I had to say something. “Look at you,” I said. “All dressed up to go out.” I looked at her purple floral dress and her black high heels. “You’re so pretty.”

“Is that what you say to all the girls that you meet at bars and hook up with?”

I laughed. “Yeah, pretty much.”

“And that works?” She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Baby, I’m John Ohhh. I can tell a girl I hate them and they’ll still jump into bed with me.”

“You’re disgusting,” Makenna said. “And drunk.”

“And you’re jealous.” I laughed.

“You’re wasted, I can’t even talk to you right now.” I watched Makenna stand up and walk to the street curb. She paced back and forth, watching every car that passed by. She still had my phone in her hand and every now and then she would look down at it.

Finally a black car pulled up to the side and parked. Obviously this was who Makenna was waiting for. I saw Garrett get out of the drivers side and he talked to Makenna for a minute, looking at me every now and then.

Garrett walked over to me and bent down in front of me. “What the hell are you doing, John?”

“Haha! Garrett! You’re here.” I felt my eyelids getting heavy. I was a little bit tired. How late was it?

“Come on, get up,” Garrett said, pulling on my arm. I stood up and he put my arm around him and guided me to his car.

“Garrett, Garrett,” I said as we were walking to his car. “I love you, man. I love you.”

“I know, John.” He said back.

“No, but I love you. You’re my best friend, okay? I love you so much, man.”

Makenna laughed a little bit and opened up the door to the passenger seat. Garrett made sure I got in fine and turned to her. “Thanks.”

She nodded. “It’s fine. Thanks for coming to get him.”

“I’m pretty used to it,” Garrett shrugged.

She smiled at him. “I’m sorry then.” She started to walk away and Garrett turned to get into the car. “Hey, Garrett?”

“Yeah?” He turned around to face her again.

“Is he okay?” She asked.

Garrett looked at me and back at her. “I don’t know.”

I woke up confused with my head throbbing. I tried to sit up but my muscles were tense and my arms couldn’t hold my weight. I laid back down and waited until I regained some more strength. I sat up but my head pounded with every little movement and my muscles ached like I had just played a six hour set the night before.

“Do you feel like shit? Cause you look like shit.” I looked to the left and Garrett was sitting in a chair with coffee and migraine relief already in his hand. I was in Garrett’s apartment. How I ended up here, I have no idea.

I leaned out to take the mug and pills. “What happened last night?”

“You tell me,” Garrett said.

I washed the pills down and leaned back against his sofa. I shut my eyes trying to recall anything that happened last night. I could only see flashes of things. A drink in my hand, the bartenders face, nothing of importance. I completely blacked out last night. Unfortunately the memory of Makenna standing in my kitchen calling me a jerk was still there.

I shrugged at Garrett. “I haven’t been that drunk since-”

“Yeah, I know,” he cut me off. I looked up at his face. He wasn’t happy with me.

“Okay,” I rolled my eyes. “So how many bars did you walk into until you found me?” He didn’t say anything back. “I need a drink. You know what they say, you can’t be hungover if you’re just always drunk.” I laughed at myself.

“This isn’t a joke, John.” He got up and paced in front of the coffee table for a few minutes. He stopped and turned to me. “Do you even care about how the people around you might feel when you do this?” He sat back down and put his head in his hands. “This is so exhausting, John. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t run around every night wondering where the hell you are and if you’re okay.”

I could feel myself growing angry. Who was he to tell me what I could or couldn’t do? “Nobody asked you to.”

He threw his arms down. “And what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t?”

I didn’t answer him. I was thankful I had Garrett, I was. He was a good friend, but he didn’t need him to look out for me. I was an adult, I could take care of myself. And if I wanted to drown my sorrows with a bottle of jack then so be it.

“Here,” Garrett said, handing me my car keys and my cell phone. “Pat dropped your car off this morning.”

I stood up and made my way to the door, but I stopped myself and turned around to face Garrett again. “Hey, Garrett,” I said. He spun around to face me. “Thanks. For everything.”

“Don’t thank me, John,” he said, “Thank Makenna. She’s the one that called me to come get you.”

“Ken was with me?” I asked. That seemed impossible. “What happened?”

Garrett shrugged. “I don’t know. You’d have to ask her.”

I faced the door again and mumbled a quick “thanks,” before leaving. I headed to the elevator of the apartment complex, my mind running crazy with questions. Why was Makenna with me? Did I drunk dial her? And what did I say to her? Something stupid, no doubt. I couldn’t just call her and ask what happened though. Not after yesterdays events, the ones that I actually remember.

I was just getting to my car when I got a phone call. I was surprised, I would have thought it was dead, but when I pulled it out I saw that the battery was full and that Pat was calling. I hit answer and held it to my ear. “Hey.”

“We need to talk,” Pat said. “Can you meet me at the Starbucks on main street?”

I contemplated thinking of an excuse to get out of it but I still had a headache and I wasn’t up for lying to anyone right now. Maybe Pat had talked to Makenna and he knew what happened last night. “Yeah, I’ll be there in ten.” I got into my car and drove as slow as possible to the Starbucks. I took the long way, if only to buy me a few extra minutes to figure out anything else I could from last night. I honestly had no remembrance of Makenna being with me at all the night before. I turned into the parking lot and noticed Pat’s beat up Honda right away. I parked and walked in, eyes shot up at me and I suddenly became cautious about my attire. I was still in last nights clothes and my hair was all over the place. I looked like a mess.

“Hey,” I sat down across from Pat at a small two seated table in the corner right next to the huge glass windows. “What’s going on?”

“You tell me,” Pat said. He wasn’t happy.

“I’m in a bad place, Garrett,” I admitted, looking out the window to the parking lot.

“Okay, so you get help,” Pat said. “You get help from the people around you, friends, family. Not from a beer bottle.”

I shook my head. “You don’t get it.” Nobody did.

“Maybe not,” Pat said. “Look, I don’t know what happened between you and Makenna when you talked yesterday and honestly I don’t care. But she’s not running off to some bar and getting wasted to try to forget her problems.”

“Why is everyone comparing us to each other? We’re not the same. We’re completely different. We have our own lives.” I felt myself getting angry at him for comparing us.

“Exactly, John.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He looked at his hands and back up at me. “We’re worried, John. All of us.”

“Does Ashlyn know?” I hoped she didn’t. I didn’t want her to know how fucked up I can get.

To my relief Pat shook his head. “No, she has no idea. But I’m serious John, none of us knows what to do.”

“I’m fine.”

“No you’re not,” Pat said firmly. “This is starting out to be a repeat of last time. Do you remember what it was like? Have you even thought about what it was like for us?”

I thought back to sitting in a hospital room, my bandmates gathered around me. Their faces looking at me with concern and worry. The same expression Garrett had this morning. I remember hating it. Hating that they were so distressed because of me.

“I’m sorry, Pat.” I felt my eyes watering up but I fought them back and didn’t say anything until I was sure they weren’t coming back. “What do I do?”

“For starters, stop drinking.” He stood up. “It’s not worth it.”

“Okay,” I nodded, “I’ll try.” And I would. I learned a long time ago that drinking doesn’t help get rid of your problems, it just causes more. But obviously that didn’t always stop me.

“There’s a party tonight that Kennedy was talking about. I’ll text you the address if you want to go but honestly, I’d advise you not to,” Pat said, “Unless you know how to stay sober.” I watched Pat leave and I sat there a little while longer.

Everyone around me was worried about me and I hated it. They should have been worried about themselves. But if I needed to prove that I could go to a party and not drink, then I would. I have self control, I could do it no problem.