Is There Somewhere?

I remember the night we met. It was after one of your awful sets; you were standing by the bar with your sweat-soaked jet-black hair pushed back a bit, a black towel thrown over your shoulder.

You were so pretentious as you talked to too-young fans – the X’s on their hands had been scrubbed off in the bathrooms not even ten minutes earlier. The dark black lines that were now a faint purple looked nothing like the bruises they were trying to pass them off as. It was a desperate attempt to get backstage with you.

I honestly thought they were going to, too, what with the way your arm was draped over one of their shoulders.

Then, your eyes met mine. You smiled that devilish grin that had worked on so many other girls before me. I scoffed, rolling my eyes, hoping you’d get the hint.

You didn’t.

You ditched the girls, then, coming over to waste your time with me instead. I wasn’t going to be your conquest. No, not that easily. I think you knew that. But you were going to give it your best shot anyways.

“Not interested, pretty boy,” I said before you could even open your mouth.

You laughed, showing off teeth lined perfectly like piano keys. It made me want to punch them out. “Don’t you know who I am?” you asked.

“I know who you think you are,” I said.

“Yeah?” you said with a hint of amusement, your eyes sparkling under the dim club lights. They reminded me of whiskey.

“Yeah.”

You grinned and nodded. You liked the fact that I didn’t care who you were. To me, you were just another boy. To you, I was a breath of fresh air in a stale room. Every other girl in that dusty, dirty basement club only cared about your face, your name.

You needed someone like me.

I didn’t need you.

“Want a drink?” you asked.

I laughed, brushing past you. I didn’t turn around, but I knew you were watching. I knew you were standing there with a grin on your face as I walked away from you.

The chase began.

***

“I thought you hated me,” you said to me after a show a couple weeks later. You had that dopey smile on your face as you wiped the sweat off your neck with that black towel.

“I do.”

“Why do you keep coming, then?”

I shrugged and took a sip of my beer. “You’re a friend of a friend.”

You nodded, understanding. “What do you think of the band?”

“Your band sucks,” I said, not even looking at you, instead looking out at the floor. Your poor bandmates were packing up their gear, and yours, while you were wasting time with me.

“Thank you,” you said. Well, that was a surprise. I looked at you, my eyebrows crumpled together in confusion. You laughed and shrugged. “Its great hearing someone be honest for once.”

“Wait, no one has ever told you you suck?”

You shook your head no – and it surprised me even more. Which, it shouldn’t have. It explained why you were such a cocky little bastard. Everyone had been feeding into your ego.

“Well, you do. So.”

“Thanks,” you said with a genuine smile before walking off to help your bandmates, finally.

I watched with a small smile. You were a complete idiot.

“So, you and, uh…” Jamie, our mutual friend, said, motioning between you and me as he came and sat next to me. “Getting along?”

“Fuck off,” I muttered, downing the rest of my beer.

Jamie just laughed.

***

We met almost on a weekly basis after that. It was always the same, too. You’d come up to me after your set and ask if you were getting any better. I always told you no, even though, truthfully, you were. Your singer was getting more and more comfortable in his position. Your guitarist wasn’t sloppy as hell, and didn’t mess up as many chords this time or that. And, thank God, you kicked out that old drummer and got a new one – he could keep a beat. You guys weren’t all that bad, finally.

You didn’t need to know that, though. At least, not from me. I would’ve never heard the end of it.

You pulled up a stool next to me one night, ignoring the flock of girls to the left of you. You got yourself a Guinness black and tan and me a Corona, even though I didn’t ask. I didn’t even want it.

“You know,” you said, handing me the Corona. “I still don’t know your name.”

I sucked on the lime wedge and just stared at you. You had to know I wasn’t going to give you my name.

“You know mine. You’re friends with Jamie, c’mon, I deserve to know,” you said, nudging my elbow with yours.

“It’s really none of your business,” I said, moving my stool away from yours.

“Can I try to guess?”

“What the hell, why not,” I muttered. I took a long sip from the Corona and turned to you, resting my head in my hands and giving you my full attention.

My name tumbled out of your mouth, then. My eyes widened a bit – I didn’t expect you to get it on the first try. Then, I realized you knew. You knew my name, you just wanted to hear me say it. You wanted to see if I would. You dick. You smirked. “Hey.”

I poured the Corona straight over your head. “Thanks for the drink,” I said.

“You’re welcome!” you shouted as I stormed out of the club.

***

“I’m just saying hey, don’t pour that on me,” you said as you pulled up a stool next to me a week later.

Jamie, to the right of me, laughed. I rolled my eyes. I was sandwiched between two complete morons. “You gonna let that go? Ever?”

“Nah.” You smiled, showing those pearly whites.

It made me crack a small grin, which you caught before I even caught myself. Your eyes lit up and pumped your tattooed fist – the one that had the “bona” half of bona fide on your knuckles – in the air, like this was some huge victory.

“You’re such a fucking idiot,” I muttered.

“But you like it,” you said. And, there it was. The cocky son of a bitch I had begrudgingly grown to tolerate.

“Like is a strong word,” I said.

Jamie laughed, then, and got up, patting me on the shoulder. “Be nice,” he whispered in my ear before walking off to go talk with your guitarist.

I flipped him off, but he didn’t see. You laughed anyways.

No matter how I felt about you, your laugh was incredible. It was one you could identify immediately, and know exactly who and where it was coming from. It was loud and obnoxious and dorky as hell. It was you.

I laughed, too, and you fucking beamed, smile stretching wide from ear to ear.

“You look creepy,” I said.

“Sorry,” you muttered, bowing your head and running your hand through your hair. You rubbed your neck as you grinned at the floor. You were so happy. It couldn’t have been because of me just laughing and smiling at you. There was no way I made you feel like that.

But I did.

And, it made me feel something.

I hated it.

***

Over the next few weeks, I grew to like our after show whatever it was. Banter, you would call it. Flirting is what Jamie called it. I hated Jamie, really.

You pulled up your stool and ordered me a Corona. I didn’t know why. I didn’t particularly like Corona, I preferred Stella. But I would drink it anyway. Who was I to turn down a free drink now and again?

“What’s up, babe?” You had taken to calling me babe because it made me scoff and roll my eyes, which, for some god awful reason, you thought was adorable.

I didn’t answer. I sucked the little lime wedge before squishing it down into the neck of the Corona bottle, watching as it made its way down, plopping into the amber liquid. I licked my finger clean on the lime juice, and felt your eyes on me. I glanced at you, and you were staring with your lips slightly parted. I smirked.

“Can I help you?” I asked, taking a drink. I licked my lips. You watched, flicking your tongue out over your bottom lip.

“Do you, uh. Nevermind. I gotta go,” you muttered, stumbling off the stool and out on to the floor to help your bandmates pack up.

***

“What, is he sixteen? Who gets turned on by that?” Madeline, a coworker, commented over coffee the next morning. “And then leaves? He’s an idiot. I don’t get why girls like him.”

“He’s got a nice smile,” I found myself saying, picking at the blueberry muffin in front of me.

“Yeah, but he sucks in bed.”

“Pity,” I muttered. Madeline laughed. I forced a smile.

***

Your next show was three weeks later.

“Hey, babe, you made it,” you said, pulling up that stool of yours.

I had missed half of your set because work kept me late – a kid came in with a BB gun shot to the eye (Madeline kept muttering “you’ll shoot your eye out, kid” to me) – and I had to change. I wasn’t going to just show up in scrubs. Earlier, I would’ve just skipped the show altogether, the hell with Jamie.

But, now, I felt I had to show up. It would be wrong of me to miss the banter. To miss you.

“You wear that for me?” you asked, eyeing my small black skirt. And, there it was. It was a complete 180 from the last time, where you were a stuttering mess. I couldn’t figure you out. I didn’t even think I wanted to.

I scoffed and rolled my eyes. Yes.

“No,” I replied, crossing my legs, my skirt hiking up my thigh a little bit more.

You glanced down, your eyes dragging over my skin. You bit your lip and flicked your whiskey eyes up to mine. You leaned in close, then, and my heart hammered against my chest.

“You wanna go in the back?” you whispered, your breath ghosting along my ear.

I knew I should’ve said no – poured my drink over your head like weeks ago – but I couldn’t. I was
attracted to you, there was no more denying it. I wanted you. I wanted to see what was so great about you. Why those girls flocked to you every night.

I nodded. You grinned and took my hand, leading me across the floor to backstage. Girls glared as I walked by with my hand hanging dangerously loose onto yours.

The sex wasn’t anything special, really. You were average, at best.

After, though, when we were standing in the grimy alleyway out back that was littered with cigarette butts and broken beer bottles, sharing a cigarette, you looked up to the sky. "I wonder what Armstrong's thoughts were."

"What?" I asked, handing you the cigarette.

You took a long drag and shrugged. "What he thought when he saw the Earth for the first time, you know? He just had to feel so damn insignificant."

"Why?"

"Look at all that, man," you said, motioning out to space. "We're so fucking tiny and insignificant. But we like to pretend we're important. But we're not. Look at it all. One fuckin' planet in a vast sea of infinity."

I watched you as you stared up at the sky sprinkled with stars barely visible from the smog and glaring city lights.

You changed in that alleyway. For better or worse, I'll never know.

***

It escalated quickly from that night. We would see each other every other two nights, nights that I didn’t have to work the late shift at the hospital. You’d come over after practice, smelling like a dusty garage and pot. You were always apologizing for the smell, but honestly, I didn’t mind. It was you.

You’d stay the night, and always leave right after the break of dawn. We’d watch the sun rise together on my balcony, sitting there in nothing more than a blanket at times, smoking – pot or cigarettes, it didn’t matter. You would snuff it out, kiss me hard on the mouth, then disappear.

We didn’t talk much outside of my apartment or the shows. It was clear to the both of us, I think, what we were doing.

But that didn’t mean we didn’t fall for each other.

***

The first night I spent at your house was during a snowstorm. You had called me up, saying you got my number from Jamie, and asked if I wanted to come get snowed in with you. “Of course,” I had replied like it was the most obvious answer in the world.

You picked me up in your beat up old blue pickup. It didn’t look like a rockstars car, I told you. You said that’s what made it so punk. You were an idiot.

You lived with three other guys. I didn’t meet them once the entire time I was there. We stayed up in your room the whole weekend. I didn’t care. I just wanted to spend as long as I could in that queen-sized bed with you.

You did too.

“I never want you to leave,” you muttered against my skin. Your lips set fire to my spine. I couldn’t think of a better way to burn. “Promise you’ll stay.”

I didn’t say a word – I just held out my pinky finger. You stared at it for a moment, before a smile crept across your face. You hooked it with yours so gently, and shook.

And in your dark, shade-drawn room, I was yours.

***

“What are you writing about?” I asked as we sat in some rundown diner off the highway, just a few miles outside the city. We never went anywhere in the city; everyone we knew was there.

“You,” you replied without looking up from the soiled, coffee-stained napkin you were scribbling away on.

You. You said it so nonchalantly, as if it was something you did often. It made my stomach churn at the thought. I wanted to know what you wrote about me. Hips or hearts?

“I’ll be right back,” you said, and got up to head to the bathroom. The chicken-scratch napkin was still sitting there, black ink pen resting on top of it. I wanted to reach for it, read the words you had written about me.

Before I could reach over and grab it, you came back, snatching the napkin up off the table, along with the pen. You stuffed them deep down in your hoodie pocket. “Let’s go,” you said, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of the diner. We didn’t pay.

I looked over my shoulder, back at the busboy giving us a dirty look as we made our way to the truck, then down at your fingers intertwined with mine.

I wondered if it was hearts written on that napkin in your pocket.

***

You kept clothes at my apartment, just because. It was convenient, you said. I stole one of your hoodies so I could have a piece of you when you weren’t with me. You stole one of my shirts, an old tattered, bleach-stained mess of a shirt I’d had since I was sixteen. You kept a toothbrush at my place, too.

You even gave me some of your artwork. I hung them around the apartment. It made it feel even more like home.

And, even though you were invading every part of my life, I still felt like I couldn’t invade yours. I was only yours in dark rooms, never in public. I was your best kept secret, and you were my biggest mistake.

***

You showed up at my apartment at three in the morning, high out of your mind. “Let’s go to Colorado,” you said as soon as I opened the door.

“I have work tomorrow,” I said, stepping aside for you to come in.

You went over and plopped on my couch, staring up at my ceiling with glazed eyes. “Oh yeah, you got a real job.”

I handed you a beer. Corona. You took it and nodded thanks, popping off the top with the keys hanging off your belt loop. You still had your tour pass from a few nights ago on the belt loop, too. You liked to show people that you didn’t have a real job. That was your badge of honor.

“Aren’t you going to the coast in a few weeks anyways?” I asked, sitting next to you.

You pulled me closer to you, wrapping your arm around my shoulders. You sloppily kissed the top of my head. You smelled like stale beer and weed.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you said.

I looked up at you. You were staring at the ceiling again. I wanted to know what you were thinking. If you really were going to miss me, or if you were going to just miss the sex.

“Promise you’ll call?” I asked.

You held out your pinky as you continued to stare at the ceiling, completely faded. I smiled to myself and took it, wrapping my pinky with yours.

***

You didn’t call.

Three weeks, you didn’t call or text. You were probably busy. You had just released an EP and were probably just promoting the hell out of it, out there on the coast.

Plus, we weren’t a thing.

Your friends didn’t know about me, and mine didn’t know about you. All my friends knew was I was drinking a hell of a lot more. I was out every night to try to distract myself, it never worked though.

It all reminded me of you, one way or another.

Jack Daniels for your eyes. Absolut with a touch of cranberry for the night I first spent at your place. Corona for every other minute spent with you.

I slept with other guys, too. You were out sleeping with girls, as implied by all the updates on Snapchat and Instagram. So, why couldn’t I sleep with guys? They all looked the same, too. Heavily tattooed, jet-black hair, and grins that would put the devils to shame. Wal-Mart versions of you.

We weren’t a thing.

***

You finally called me the night before you were supposed to come home. It was midnight out on the coast, three hours behind where I was.

“Hello?” I answered, slipping out of bed, trying not to disturb my guest. I slipped out on to the balcony, your baggy hoodie hanging loosely off my frame.

“Been a while,” you said. Your voice was like silk, I wanted to wrap myself in and never let you go.

“You having fun?” I asked, lighting a cigarette with shaky hands. The world was spinning, and I couldn’t tell if it was from the booze or you. I was going to blame it on the booze, but I knew it was because of you.

“I miss you,” you said after a heartbeat.

“Yeah.” I stuffed one hand down into your hoodie pocket. My fingers grazed something. I pulled it out and unfolded it. Black ink smudged and coffee stained, but still legible. The Napkin.

I knew I shouldn’t have read it, but I couldn’t help myself.

i am magnetized to everything you do
when i’m sleeping next to you i’m not scared of what will happen to me after i die
i would stop all this in a second and move to the middle of nowhere
and disappear with you
forever.

“You there?” you asked.

“I gotta go,” I said, not even bothering to wait for you to spit out some excuse to keep me on the line. I hung up the phone and set it on the table next to the ashtray. I snuffed out my cigarette and went back inside, leaving the phone buzzing on the table.

***

You showed up on my doorstep, drunk and unexpected, at four thirty-two in the morning, a month later.

You were pounding on my door as if your life depended on it.

You didn’t say a word when I opened the door. You just stared at me.

“You’re wet,” I said, noticing your hair and clothes all weighed down, soaked. It hadn’t rained in a week.

You looked down at yourself, and the puddle you were making on my doorstep, like you didn’t know you were soaked to the bone. “I crashed my car.”

“You what?”

“That lake, over that way,” you slurred, pointing vaguely in the direction of a lake that was twenty minutes from my apartment.

“What the fuck,” I muttered, pulling you inside. I tried taking you straight to my bathroom, so I could see if you had any cuts or bruises, but you ripped your arm out of my grasp in the living room.

You stared at the walls. The places your art once hang were now bare. You pointed at the wall. “Where?”

“I took them down,” I said, grabbing your arm again. It really wasn’t a good time to start talking about my redecorating. You more than likely had a concussion, what with your slurring words and drooping eyes.

Still, you protested, ripping your arm out of my grip once more. “Why would you do that?”

“Come on,” I said, reaching out to touch your shoulder.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” you spat, jerking away from me. You went down the hall to my room. Your things were tucked away in a box labeled His, canvases, clothes, and all.

“What are you doing?” you asked, going through the box. The napkin was at the very bottom, crumpled up into the smallest ball I could make. You grabbed it and uncrumpled it. “Where did you get this?”

“How much did you drink tonight?” I asked, watching from the door. I was about three seconds away from calling for an ambulance. You were getting hysterical.

“Is this why you’ve been ignoring me?”

“I think you need to go to the hospital.”

You slumped down, burying your head in your hands. You tugged at your hair, your bona fide knuckles turning white. “I’m sorry,” you muttered. You looked up at me, then, with your bloodshot whiskey eyes. “I meant every word.”

“I know.”