Dear God, I Left Her When I Found Her

"Michelle?" Damien called over to me.

"Yeah?" I said looking over at him. He busied himself by loading his drum kit into the bed of the pickup. When he was finished he stepped in front of me so I would give him my complete attention.

"Who was that that woman over here talking to you?" Damien asked softly.

"Her name's Michelle and she's my biological dad's girlfriend." I said without feeling.

"No shit? Her name's Michelle too?" Damien asked surprised. That was just like him to not get the "biological dad" part.

I nodded at him and looked down at the gravel.

"What did she want?" he asked with a soft voice again.

"My address." I said flatly. A little too flatly. Only Damien would know when I tried too hard to hide my true feelings.

He cupped my chin with his hand and gently lifted my face so he could meet my eyes. He let go and I could feel the way his fingers felt like feathers to my skin. He opened his arms and I went to him. Damien was a lot taller than me and my head barely made it to his chest. I couldn’t help but notice the Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt he was wearing. Hot anxiety dripped into my stomach. There was something about them…

"Damien?" I asked.

"Hm?" he acknowledged me.

"Who's the guitarist in Avenged Sevenfold?" I asked without breaking his hug. Why did I ask about the guitarist?

"There's the lead guitarist, Synyster Gates. Then there's the other guitarist, Zacky Vengeance." He answered.

How helpful. That would be just my luck. They got fake names just to make my life that much more complicated. Something was nagging my brain to ask more questions, why? It was my stomach making its way to my brain. Yuck.

"Do you know their real names?" I asked a little to hopeful for my liking. I didn't want him to notice the battle inside of me.

Damien pulled back from me to get a look at my face. Well, too late. "Brian Haner and Zacky Baker." He answered and he gave me one of those x-ray looks of his. "Are you starting to like them?" He asked.

Whoa. Thank God Damien's uncanny skills to read me had faltered just this one time. I didn't answer him, though. I didn't feel like telling Damien the real reason, but then I realized that my real dad probably thought the same thoughts about telling his friends about my existence.

I'd rather staple my tongue to the roof of my mouth.

"My dad's name is Brain Haner." I told him. Damien then became thoughtfully silent.

"Hang on a sec," Damien told me and unlocked the doors to the Chevy. He climbed in and began to rummage around the glove box. "Here," he said handing me a clear case. There was a purplish pink disc with the Death bat insignia on it. "All Excess" was posted in white over the name Avenged Sevenfold.

"it’s a DVD," Damien explained. "You'll learn a lot about the band."

"Thanks, Damien." I said thankfully.

Damien just gave me a warm smile. I gave him another hug right when Tanya and Nathan appeared.

"Hey! What's going on here?" Nathan questioned Damien and me in mock suspicion.

"Nothing." Damien and I answered in unison. We played along by plastering guilty smirks on our faces.

"Hope we weren't interrupting." Tanya said lugging her guitar case into the pickup.

"That would have been horrible." I said.

"It would've stained your eyes forever." Damien agreed.

"Are we ready to go yet?" Nathan asked impatiently.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Damien sighed and hopped into the driver's seat. "Don't get your panties in a bunch, or we'll trade our wonderful bassist in for an equally useful mini-fridge."

Once Tanya and I had climbed back through my bedroom window, Tanya began asking questions.

"What was with you on stage? Everything was going great until our last song. Not that you choked, or anything. Just that you went all rigid. Then you disappeared. What's going on?" Tanya asked.

I sat down on my bed. I wasn't about to hide anything from my best friend. She wouldn't hide anything life changing from me. And this went under the category of "Life Changing Things".

Not that it would be life changing, or that it could be. I might not ever hear from him again, and that could be a good thing. Besides, I had learned over the years not to put hope into anything much. Especially a parent that had failed to accept my existence nearly 16 years ago.

After I got done telling Tanya everything from why I had the way I did on stage, to the other Michelle, and my dad, I put "All Excess" into my DVD player.

One thing was for sure after I was finished watching the DVD. Brian was not ready for a kid. Also that he was one of the most amazing guitar players I have ever heard.

Tanya also reminded me over and over how gorgeous Zacky's eyes were, and how finger-lickin'- good he was. I was just relieved that she didn’t see Brian that way. That would have been just weird.