Runaway Life With Rock Stars

Chapter Seven:

Everyone sat at the table with the steaming food placed neatly there, the plates with the rations just watching the faces of those who stood before them and waiting to get the food off their surface. Charles came in quietly placing a bag of sodas onto the swarm table and placing some beer in the mini fridge. Trying to ignore the drinks calling my name, eating was the only distraction.

“Wow! You’re alive? I had begun to think we were eating you!” Frank called out to Charles, who was taking a seat with the rest of us. When will Frank give that up, I hadn’t killed him. Maybe someone else but never Charles, I mean, hello! He did rescue me in the first place, didn’t he? Yes, I know he did. But with Frank rubbing in something like that, it was just too hurtful and shame was the only thing I would see in me then. I still hadn’t gotten over it after so many years.

We ate in a peaceful chat, eating and getting seconds— that is, who ever got to them first. Chicken was split evenly between Bob and Ray; Frank only hogged the rice and mashed potatoes with gravy; though, Mikey or Charles would dig into his plate for some when Bob was distracting him with a few comments; Gerard just stuck with the diet coke bottle close to him during the whole meal. I just sat at the corner, trying hard to be invisible. They left with their plates abandoned there on the table, rehearsing some notes to a song in the back of the bus. Gerard had stayed behind. Uh-oh. I bet this is the part where he’s going to ask—

He got up and sat next to me, shoulder to shoulder. Damn. “Hey,” he said to me, trying not to be so obvious what he really came for.

“Hey,” I said, rather scared. My heart in progress began to pound on my chest like a hammer beating on a pin. It was either that it the beating of my heart hurt or that it hurt to say the truth if this was what Gerard had come for.

“How did you learn to cook so good?” He asked, not looking at me in the eye, but hanging his arm over my shoulders.

This isn’t the question, is it? He’s trying to break the ice with something soft, so then he could rip it open with the power of words . I was the ice. “Well,” I gulped, “I don’t know how to cook. I just followed this recipe I had memorized from this recipe book.”

Heart pounding, sweat rising, lips drying, stiff body, faint head…when will he get over this? Its bad enough just keeping this secret, why doesn’t he drop the subject?

“So…uh,” he started to say. He obviously didn’t know how to start the question. Gulp, we both went at the same time. This gave us a feeling of awkwardness, so we slipped a little away from each other. “So why were you running away from Tony?”

That’s it? That was his question? It was really embarrassing to even tell him the answer, but my heart stopped killing from the inside , just knowing it wasn’t something I had been keeping secret for many years now, I was glad it was still invisible to others. “Uh…it was because I was almost into the age of getting into the Second-Level,” I answered insecurely, but with some relief.

“What’s the Second-level?” He asked finger quoting the two words with his soft looking fingers.

“No comment. It’s really embarrassing. Maybe some other time Gerard,” I said, starting to scoot over to him so he would get the gesture to move out so I could leave. He didn’t budge. Great, there’s more? I looked out the window to see the glow of the lights. New York was better , if Las Vegas was trying to compete. I felt secure with this band, more than Tony’s gangs the last time we’d come to do business; even if I was going to be asked something deeply personal, I sighed, ready to get this over with. If this is the cost to get his trust, or at least get somewhere, or nowhere, I was at least grateful that I had some temporary freedom. If he kicked me out after this or turned me in , well , at least it isn’t the end. I would find a way to escape, just like I’ve always done all my life, even if I fail the first time.

At that moment I had thought of my unsurpassed friends in my living days so far, I wondered what it was that Tony was forcing them to do. Susan…she was like the only feminine I trusted and who treated me like I was significant and that I was put in this earth for a purpose, even if I thought I was a good-for-nothing. Now, every time I remember who my mother was, I usually forget about the picture I have of her, I never met her, so why should I care? Like in the book I read of Philip Pullman, The Bridge, How could I miss something I never had?” The word “mother” was odd to me, but in truth, I thought of Susan as my real mother, even though we both new she wasn’t; but she didn’t mind.

Manuel…he was the only guy I trusted to this day. We were delivering buddies, as he put it. One day when we were delivering, it was the only time where Tony had us separated to deliver. Manuel had to deliver to this building just a block away from mine. He had planed to meet back at this ally once we had delivered. I had gotten there, and all of my packets were out when this guy popped out of nowhere in the dark of the alley. He begged for me in an aggressive manner to give him some of the packets I had, but since I was out, he didn’t believe me and took out his gun. He was very desperate for some and I couldn’t do much about it because I was stomped to the humid cement in the dark between these dumpsters. The guy was about to pull the trigger when he backs it away from my head. Light flashed before my eyes, but it was a gunshot. Not to me, to Manuel. It only hit his arm, but nothing stopped him to get off the guy’s back. He was wild, driving him to this wall and that. Despite the loss of blood and throbbing he had felt in his arm, nothing stopped him; he was full of rage and he beat him up until the guy was weak and fell by the dumpster where I was at. I had gotten up to check his arm and without him saying a word to me, we picked the guy and threw him in the dumpster. I tried to help Manuel with his arm, but he said he was fine, he said he would be okay as long as I was . That had made me cry that night, after seeing one of Tony’s members take out the bullet and hear him shout out in absolute groans in pain as he was demanding to retain secret. The tears in his dark eyes glittered in the dark room where only one lamp over the table he lay in glowed. The silver tools dug deep in and out of his body, trying to take out the deep bullet.

“Ahem,” Gerard cleared his throat. It discarded me out of my mind, and now to the present, where I sat now.

“Oh, sorry, Gee. What was it you were saying?” I quickly said to him, not looking at him in the eye yet.

“Why are you crying?” He asked me, though, this time I heard him, not like at first when I was caught up with my thoughts. I hadn’t realized I was crying.

“Oh, an eyelash got in my eye,” I answered him after a moment. He chuckled and gave a side-smile (you know, that smile that is only to one side of your face?), and said, “I’ve always heard of the dirt-in-my-eye, but never that one. You’re funny.” Right; I’m not funny. He said then in a serious tone, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” quickly said my Daemon, which his voice came out to my lips. Great Daemon! You saved me! Yay! Oh, wait…aw; he’s opening his mouth to ask what’s wrong again…

“If it were nothing, then you wouldn’t be crying,” he said softly into my ear. It sort of tickled, but I made no sign of it. I sighed deeply and spilled out. “I miss my two friends…Susan and Manuel…”

Saying nothing for a moment, I guess to let me soothe in a way, and then I turned to him. Why wait till he asks? It's never going to work if he doesn’t know how to start the damn question. And if it’s like that, then he’ll make me feel miserable without knowing every time we’d be alone. He would want to ask me and how would I be able to defend the question? I couldn’t lie anymore; it makes things worse if someone is suspicious about it; Like Gerard. He looked at me in the eye when I told him in a faint voice, “Can I trust you?”

He looked scared but eager to learn what it was I was going to say. He said, “Uh, sure. You have my trust.”

Turning away from his stare and to the window, I said to him lowly so no one else could hear from behind the bus. This was a conversation between us both and no one else at the moment. Right? “I really am guilty. I did kill Mr . Samuel that day I was sent to Juvenile .” Turning to by as fast as a scratch from a cat, I said “But it was never my intention to kill him. I mean, I gated him because he wanted to abuse of me in that nasty manner of a filthy drunk old man, and that’s gross! A married man wanting to get to a little girl at the time, taking away the little bit of innocence she had left! I don’t think so. I was defending myself. But I never met for it to get to that point. Never! That knife didn’t slip into his throat on its own when he slipped.” I sighed and keep my voice at its low pace, while Gerard gulped in fear to know the rest. Oh well, he wanted to know, didn’t he? “When he fell, he grabbed hold of my hair and slashed the knife slowly and deep on my side. It hurt so much and I had nothing to think but to get him back for it…so I took it from his hand with, effortless, and stabbed him there and didn’t regret it. I was bleeding a lot from my side, but I managed to make it stop a bit by burning it with some lemon,” I continued until Gerard broke in, “Didn’t that sting you badly?”

“Gerard, it didn’t; It burned the wound to make it stop, I hadn’t paid any of my attention to the pain, I was more busy concentrating to make it stop and worried of what would happen. But from my unconscious, I only remember that it hurt the first few seconds.” I looked at him square in the eye, “I didn’t mean for that to happen. It just did. I don’t regret it, but it makes me feel miserable when someone wants to ask me about it but has no guts to do so because that type of question is hard to ask unless you have no heart. I know you wanted to ask me this Gerard, but I told you even though you didn’t ask me directly like you were planning. “He looked like he was exposed, but didn’t mind the next second after what I’d said. I resumed to what I was saying, “You won’t turn me back in, will you? I have nowhere to go, I’ve abandoned my friends to flee from Tony, and they were the only thing I had close to a family! I regret ditching them, but they know I’ll be back for them. They know, “I repeated, my eyes swelling into almost-tears. “You don’t know what it's like to hide from cops all your life! I mean, if its not that they’re looking for a girl who escaped from Juvenile because of murder, then its because they’re looking for a girl that helps Tony with his negotiations around the country! Maybe even around the world if its something I don’t know about!” I slumped in my seat, feeling defeated at no reason that could really get to me anymore. I was doomed, so what? At least I had a little freedom at the moment...

Gerard slid close again, touching my chin with his tender fingers to face him. “I would never turn you in , Jaddus. I gave you my trust. Don’t worry,” he said in his soft and caring tone. A silent tear slipped down my cheek, followed by another and another. I covered my mouth so no sob would escape, closing my throat tightly from the inside to clog away any difficult sob that would sneak out. Again, I was as stiff as a log when Gerard invisibly pulled my to him and hugged me. What was I to do? It’s the second one I got today, but I didn’t know what to do. Its frustration that could flow into anyone’s veins when they have no clue what to do. I buried my face into his shirt, wetting it with tear stains. “Don’t worry,” he said, and I loosened up a bit, just shaking helplessly in his arms, able to do nothing but choke back tears and sobs. Between these actions, I said to him, “You’re easy to talk to because you’re understanding…”