Hurt

“What are you? Stupid?”
I was trying to fight back tears, because I knew if I started to cry, things would only get worse.
“You are. You’re stupid. Too stupid to know how to play music you supposedly wrote. Get out of here. I don’t want to see your face right now.”
I backed up, thankful that this was going to be the end of the abuse for tonight. I put my hand on the doorknob, but felt a hand pull my shoulder back.
“You know I’m only hard on you because you’re so much better than this, right?”
I didn’t respond. I just looked down at my boots.
“Twiggy. You understand, don’t you?”
I nodded, though my back was still to him.
“Good.”
I felt his closed fist slam hard between my shoulder blades. It was a good thing that he couldn’t see me, because I couldn’t keep from crying anymore. I darted out into the labyrinth of a hallway in the arena we were playing that night, found the little bathroom, and bawled my eyes out.
Things hadn’t always been this way. Once upon a time, long ago, Marilyn had been gentle with me. We’d been best friends, and we were so close that it was like we shared one mind. Then, he’d become affected by fame, drugs, and alcohol. Not that I hadn’t too, but we handled it very differently.
I’d left the band when things had started to get bad years ago. I’d sworn I’d never go back, that I’d never see Marilyn again. That was the night I’d left the band the first time, the night he’d been drunk off his ass and had pushed me down a flight of concrete steps.
Somehow, I’d allowed myself to fall into his trap again, to be talked into coming back to the band. It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, I regretted it. Of course, it had taken me nearly five years to get to this point again.
When I was finished crying, I came out of the bathroom and went to change into my everyday clothes. I tried not to look too much at my body, which was littered with various bruises and cuts, all inflicted by Marilyn when he’d lose his temper with me.
I walked alone back to the bus, and quietly climbed into my bunk. I was glad that I was the only one back yet. I didn’t want to have to face the guys and have to hide another session of Marilyn’s abuse. It was getting old, and nobody was dumb enough to believe that I was this accident prone all on my own.
Almost asleep, I heard the door open and boots crunching on the floor. The footsteps belonged to Marilyn, I knew that much without being able to see.
“Twiggy?”
I lay there quietly, hoping that he’d either think I wasn’t there, or that I was sleeping.
No such luck. I felt his warm breath wash over my neck, and his hand twist into my short, smooth hair.
“Twiggs, wake up.”
The longer I ignored him, the tighter his grip became on my hair. I had to open my eyes and pay attention to him, or he would scalp me with his bare hands.
“We need to talk.”
“I’ll do better, okay? I will.”
“No. You’ve been making mistakes for months now. You’re getting worse. The more I yell, the harsher I am with you, the worse it gets.”
Well, duh. Maybe he should try being the one on the receiving end of his physical and emotional abuse.
“I don’t know what to do with you anymore. You’ve become a useless embarrassment to me.”
Great. Now I was going to start crying again.
His hand twisted so hard into my hair that it was extremely painful. I let out a tiny sound, not even a sob, but it was enough to enrage him. He grabbed me hard by the arm and pulled until I was close enough to him that he could pull me out of bed.
I didn’t say anything. It would be over faster if I stayed quiet.
“There’s nothing left for me to say to you that will change things. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded as he roughly partially dragged and partially carried me to the lounge. I cringed inwardly when I saw that there was a gun sitting on the little table. There was an equal chance that it was either fake or real. I hoped for the first, but I couldn’t be sure.
“You know what I always tell my employees, don’t you? I only beat you because I love you.”
I didn’t react at all. I simply let him push me down into a chair.
He picked up the gun, looking carefully at it. He trained it on my head, and I felt my eyes shudder closed.
“You look so scared, little Twiggy. Are you afraid?”
“No,” I lied as convincingly as I could manage.
He laughed cruelly, coming closer to me. He pressed the gun to my temple. “Do you think I’d pull the trigger?”
I didn’t know how I was expected to respond. I decided to go with the truth. “No.” I honestly didn’t think he could pull off the act of murder. Beneath all of the rough edges and everything he tried so hard to project as being him, I knew that the real person at the core of it wasn’t this man. He was gentle. Caring. He would never kill anyone, much less his best friend. Or was it former best friend?
This laugh was more musical. He took the gun away from my head, and dropped it into my lap. “You’re right. That would be too messy. Think of all of the trouble I’d have to go to to clean up your blood and guts from this bus.”
The weight of the gun in my lap let me know that there was no way it was real in the first place. It was much too light, even if it wasn’t loaded. It had to be a child’s toy, like we’d used a few tours back.
“You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know.”
I squirmed a little bit in my seat, trying to stay as still as possible.
“I would never really hurt you. Not much, anyway.” As he spoke, I felt his hands slide around my collarbone.
At first, I thought he was going to rub my shoulders, that he was sorry for the way he’d been acting. At first, I was right. Then, something changed, and his hands moved up, up, up to my neck.
“You’re such a fragile thing. Do you know that? One snap, and that lovely neck would be broken in two.”
I shuddered again, feeling him press his thumbs into the sides of my neck.
“Sometimes what seems bad can turn into something good.” He changed the position of his hands slightly, turning the pressure from pain to pleasure and back.
“I miss seeing you smile. I think I’ve been too hard on you. What do you say I make it all up to you?”
“Sure,” I said softly.
He leaned down, planting a small, delicate kiss on the bridge of my nose. “I hate to make you unhappy. After all of the years you’ve spent trying to save me from myself.”
I felt the fear drain from my body. This was my friend, the man who would never hurt me. My big brother. My protector.
Marilyn moved around back of me, rubbing my neck and shoulders. “Does this feel good?”
“Yeah.”
His touch became harder, pressing my flesh into bone. “That’s a bit too hard, isn’t it?”
“I like it,” I told him, and I really kind of did.
He rubbed my back for several minutes before he returned to my neck. “You trust me, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You’re going to enjoy this.”
I felt an intense pressure in my neck, and then, everything went black.
***
“Twiggy?” I noticed that he’d slouched over. I let go of his neck, and went around to face him. His eyes were open, staring blankly at nothing. I tickled the sensitive spot on his collarbone that I knew made him laugh. He didn’t respond.
I wasn’t sure why, but I felt instantly that something was wrong. I positioned my fingers on his throat and felt for a pulse. I felt nothing. I emitted a string of curses, and ran out into the night screaming for someone to help me. What had I done? I’d meant to be gentle. Why wasn’t he breathing?
How had I hurt him? I must’ve pushed something into something that had caused him to stop breathing. Maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe he was still alive, but unconscious. Maybe his pulse was just weak.
I shook him a little, trying to rouse him, but he was already limp. Like a rag doll.
I panicked. I didn’t know what to do. I took Twiggy from the chair, laid him on the floor, and tried desperately to revive him with CPR, to no avail. I wept openly, for the loss of the only person who had ever been a constant in my life, whose life I had somehow managed to take.
All of the angry nights, all of the one sided fights, and now, I would never have the chance to truly make up for my poorly controlled temper. I’d never really meant any of it. Everyone made mistakes. It was mean, I knew, to put him in the corner facing the drums when he made mistakes onstage, but I’d only been trying to get him to step up his game. I had never meant for it to ever go as far as it had gone, and certainly not to end like this.
Time was passing, and I realized that the others would be back soon. I had to do something. I had to get rid of the body. But how? We were on a bus, and there wasn’t far that I could go. I had to make a plan. And quickly.
I stood up and looked out of the bus window. There were woods only a few feet away. I knew what I had to do. I lifted Twiggy into my arms. He was still so light, even though he’d recently put on a little weight and had had true cheekbones for the first time since I’d known him.
I carried him into the woods, and chose a slightly protected spot to put him. I didn’t want anyone to have to search too hard for him, because I didn’t like the idea of leaving him there in the first place. But I couldn’t be held responsible for what I’d done. I would go to jail for murder. Anyone could testify that I’d been abusive towards him, and no one would understand that this had all been a terrible accident.
I leaned down to Twiggy’s still form, and gently stroked his hair.
Then, I walked away, got back onto the bus, and pretended that none of this had ever happened.
***
It rained hard overnight. It was a blessing, I realized. The rain would wash away my fingerprints. No one would ever know that I’d touched Twiggy. No one could prove that I’d killed him.
Guilt weighed heavily on my heart. So much so that each time Jason or Fred would mention that they hadn’t seen Twiggy, I felt bile rise up into my throat and my chest tighten. I wished we would just leave already, that we didn’t have to be right there, so close to the corpse of my best friend.
As the day progressed, my guilt became unbearable. I searched the drawers until I found a knife, slipped it into my pocket, and grabbed a bag of pills and a bottle of vodka from the cabinet. I told the rest of the band that I was going out to get some air. They didn’t seem suspicious.
I left the bus, walked into the woods, and found the spot where I’d left Twiggy.
I sat down beside him, and began popping pills, swallowing them down with the alcohol. This would be easy. No violence involved. I’d just fade away beside him. We would be together.
I used the knife to carve into the trunk of the tree. I drew a large, crude heart with an arrow sticking through the sides like they used for Valentine’s Day cards. Then, I carved our initials. Our real initials, not the ones of our stage names.
Feeling the effect of all of the pills I’d just taken, I knew that I had no more use for the knife. I buried it in the ground beside me with the last of my lucidity, and sat side by side with Twiggy. I leaned against his stiff shoulder, lying my hand on top of his. I would’ve interlocked our fingers, but he was too stiff for that. This would have to do.
As I drifted into nothingness, I realized that this was what I’d wanted, to die holding hands.