Shadows of a Dream

by Nicole Disney

  “What day is it?”

  “Uhh, Saturday, I think.”

  “The date, Rainn. What’s the date?”

  “I don’t know.” Is that the point he’s trying to make? I’m so deep in this cave I can’t keep track of the date anymore? Well, I could never do that.

  “It’s the sixteenth,” he says. I stare blankly. “Of January.” I stare some more. “Which means…”

  I know I’m failing a crucial test. “It’s National Drop in on a Friend Day?”

  “Is that what we are?”

  “Jayden—”

  “Shut up, Rainn, for two seconds. I don’t know who you are. You used to be there whenever any of us needed you, especially when I needed you. You used to be the most badass musician in Denver. You used to be the leader of a band that was going all the way.” He pauses. “The old Rainn would have never done this to us.”

  “I’m not trying to do anything to you guys. I just have to be here with her right now. Jaselle needs me. I know you don’t like her, and I know she’s made mistakes, but—”

  “Shut the fuck up about Jaselle for two seconds!” I feel the doorframe vibrate under my hand from his voice. I’m ready to slam the door in his face, but I can’t fast enough. “Brad was at the Chapel last night, Rainn. He came to see us. You blew it for us. You weren’t there. You blew it.”

  My heart drops into my stomach. I’m about to ask why he didn’t call me, but he did. I’ve been ignoring his calls. For Jaselle.

  “I am so sorry.” I choke up. I’ve never had to apologize about anything like this before. I’ve never hurt him like this. I’ve never been the sole jerkoff in a situation before. “Oh my God, Jayden, I’m so sorry.” I put my hand on my forehead. I can’t meet his eyes. “Where are Shiloh and Alex?”

  “They don’t want to see you.”

  I find that hard to believe, even given the circumstances. “They don’t want to see me or you don’t want them to want to see me?”

  “You are so fucking self-deluded. You’re really going to try to make it seem like I want you to be the dick? No, Rainn, I wanted you to be the hero. You can’t treat people like they don’t matter and expect them to keep loving you.”

  I let that sink in for a minute. I can’t decide what I think of it. It hurts. It’s just, I suppose, but haven’t I been treated like I don’t matter more times than I can count? Don’t I keep loving anyway? Why doesn’t it work that way when I’m the one who needs the mercy?

  “I’m sorry, Jayden. Really. I screwed up bad.”

  “We’re finding a new singer, Rainn.”

  My ears start ringing, and I’m groping for the meaning to what he just said. “What?”

  “You were amazing, Rainn, but a good singer who shows up is better than a great one who doesn’t. We can’t wait for you to get your shit together any more. We’re moving on.”

  He turns and walks away, leaving me speechless in the doorframe. Part of me wants to scream at him that they aren’t the Suicidal Angels without me. What a joke to kick me out. I am their voice. I am their face. Well, Jayden might be their face, but I am their music. I want to tell him he better not even think about using any of the songs I wrote. I wrote. Alone. Without their help. Before I was the weak link, when I was the only link holding together a bunch of monkeys on a jungle gym. How many times did they goof off? Show up late? Leave early? Forget the song mid-performance? Did I ever try to kick them out?

  But I watch him turn the corner without saying any of that. I know I deserve this. I know showing up late and not showing up at all are different. I know I let them down on the wrong night. It wasn’t just a mistake to miss Brad Schafer; it was a betrayal. My entire being aches knowing how good they all are, knowing they’ll still be amazing musicians without me. Will they find another singer? Will it be as easy as he made it sound?

  When I turn around, Jaselle is standing there. I look her up and down, taking in her black eye all over again, and I’m grateful I didn’t make any desperate pleas to Jayden not to kick me out. I can’t be there for them the way they deserve right now, and I can’t keep lying and pretending I will.

  “Are you okay?” she asks. She heard everything Jayden said. I’m impressed she didn’t intervene. I’m even more impressed she’s setting aside her hatred of Jayden and suspicion long enough to realize I need her.

  She comes over and holds me. I cling to her the way she clung to me, and it feels so good. It feels so incredible to be the weak one.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I say.

  She perks up. “Really?”

  “Yeah. I have to get out of this house.”

  We hardly ever go out anymore. I try my best to keep her here, where for whatever reason, I feel like she’s safe. Safe from the world, sure, but that won’t keep her heart from telling her to go fuck herself.

  She does seem better, though. I’ve been forcing her to eat. She hates it, but at least she has enough strength to walk around without passing out. She even seems a little happier, but when was the last time we laughed together? I can’t even remember it. I remember plenty of crying, fighting, lovemaking, but when was the last time we had fun? We’re both dying in this apartment.

  “I’m going to get dressed.” She springs off. I know she’ll also be smoking before we leave, but we don’t need to talk about that. If she doesn’t smoke, she’ll get sick. If I ask her not to smoke, we’ll fight. If I convince her not to, she’ll be in bed feeling like she’s going to die, and I’ll be taking care of her. Maybe I’ll hate myself for this later, but tonight I’m taking the easy road. Tonight I’ll let her have her way without a screaming match. We’ll go out, and maybe for just one night I’ll remember what it’s like to just hang out with Jaselle. Maybe the world won’t revolve around crank for just one night.

  Are we even in a relationship if we don’t try to have fun together every once in a while? Who knows, maybe if I stop being her opponent for once, she’ll remember I’m her lover and her best friend, and she’ll tell me what happened to her eye.

  Chapter Twenty

  Jaselle wears all the clothes she knows turn me on, revealing enough to drive me crazy but not so much she looks trampy. Our sex life is one of the only things that hasn’t suffered from the drug use, but it’s still refreshing to see her dress up for me.

  I want to go to a gay bar, but we don’t have much money. Jaselle convinces me a straight bar will be better because guys will buy our drinks. I don’t relish the idea of dealing with a bunch of drunk straight dudes all night, but Jaselle says leave it to her, so I do.

  We buy our first round ourselves and settle in at a table in the corner. She looks beautiful, except for the black eye that won’t stop demanding my attention. I don’t want to jump straight into that though, so I waste time on Jayden for a while.

  “I really let them down.”

  Jaselle holds my hand. “They’ll forgive you.”

  “Why should they? I haven’t really been in the band for a while now. They just made it official.”

  “You know what?” She brightens up.

  “What?”

  “You’re better off without them. You’re so much more talented than they are anyway. Just focus on your own stuff for a while. The songs you’ve been playing on the piano are so beautiful. Maybe you should be a composer. Do you even like the band anymore?”

  “A composer?” What does she think we’re in 1750 Vienna? “There’s no audience for classical music anymore, babe.”

  “Of course, there is. What, no one listens to anything except Beethoven and Bach and Mozart?”

  “And Chopin. And yes, the list pretty much ends there, give or take a dead guy.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” she says. “And anyway, if that’s what you love…”

  “I loved the Suicidal Angels. And that’s not even the point anyway. The point is that they’re my friends, and I completely failed them.”

  She frowns, and I know she’s thinking all kinds of Jayden thoughts
again. I wish I could figure out how to stop that. I live like I cheated on her, constantly tiptoeing around his name and not hanging out with someone I have no reason not to hang out with, just because she’s under the unfounded misapprehension that I slept with him. Suddenly, I’m angry. I take a swig of beer. This is not what was supposed to happen tonight. I force myself to relax and smile.

  “I started a new painting,” she says.

  “That’s good. What is it of?”

  “Death.”

  “Oh? And how exactly do you paint death?” I ask. I hate it when she says intriguing things like that, and I have no choice but to get sucked in.

  “I’ll show you when I’m done. It just hit me. Even if it’s just a feeling, I know how to put it on the canvas. That’s why paint is so amazing. You can capture anything.”

  I lean across the table and kiss her.

  “Well, you know the feeling,” she says. I raise my eyebrow a little. She looks at me like I’m missing something super obvious. “You do it with your music all the time. Hell, you probably do it better than I do. I know you’ve played death on the piano. I’ve heard you.”

  “Oh?”

  “You didn’t feel it while you were doing it?”

  Remarkably, I know exactly what she’s talking about. I did play death, though I might not have called it that in the moment. I wrote it for her.

  “I used to say Jayden on guitar was the sound of heartache.” I say it without thinking. I hover on the edge of guilt for a second, but I pull myself away from it.

  “Yeah, he did sound like that.” She looks sad. “Rainn, I want you to be happy. I love you.”

  “I love you too.”

  “If you want your friends back, go get them back.”

  “I’m not sure it’s that simple anymore,” I say.

  “They’ll forgive you. You know they will. I don’t want you losing them on my account. You’ll only resent me for it anyway.”

  I’m pretty sure I already do, but I don’t say that.

  “Go see them more often. I’ll be okay without you for a day here and there. Don’t think about the band right now; just get your friends back.”

  She looks so sincere. I realize as easy as it is to blame her, it was never her fault. They’re my friends. It’s my responsibility to make time for them, not hers to shove me out the door. She didn’t keep me from them, I kept myself from them, perhaps with the exception of this Jayden thing recently. Still, I shouldn’t have let her do it.

  “Are you sure it’s not going to bother you?” I mean me hanging out with Jayden, but I don’t want to be that direct. She answers as if I was anyway.

  “You are not allowed to fuck him,” she says.

  My mouth opens wide, and I raise my voice without meaning to. “I never did! How many times—”

  She puts her hand over my mouth and kisses my cheek. “Okay. But you’re still not allowed to. Right?”

  “Of course not. What kind of idiot do you think I am that you have to tell me that? Why can’t you see you’re the only one I want?” She kisses me again. It’s so warm I melt into it. She wraps her arms around me and squeezes.

  “Can I get you girls some drinks?” A guy with too-big shoulders interrupts us. I pull away, irritated, but Jaselle speaks before I can tell him no.

  “Sure, you can, handsome. What’s your name?” I forgot we’re relying on guys buying our drinks tonight. I hate relying on the male species for anything. Now I have to listen to this jockstrap try to talk his way into a threesome for the next two hours.

  “Trey,” he says. Jaselle introduces herself and, unfortunately, me too. As predicted, when Trey returns with drinks he makes himself comfortable at our table.

  “So,” he says, “I’m trying to hook up with this girl over here. I’ve been in love with her since like third grade. I figured a couple lesbians might be able to give me a few pointers, huh?”

  I smile against my best efforts. Well, that’s more interesting than being hit on. “You’ve strictly been friends the whole time?”

  “Yep.”

  “Does she know you want more?”

  He shrugs.

  “Make it clear you’re interested,” Jaselle says. “You have to be confident but not creepy or aggressive. If it’s been that long, she either has no clue you like her or she thinks you’re a total chicken. You have to use your balls.”

  “Use my balls?”

  “Yes,” we say together.

  “That’s not what I’d figure two ball-less lovers would advise,” he says.

  Trey keeps buying us drinks, and we keep giving advice. He turns out to be excellent company and even fairly easy to get rid of. When we’ve had enough of him, we send him off on his mission to get his girl.

  Jaselle nods at me when he’s gone, as if to say she told me she’d handle it. We’re both plenty drunk now. Jaselle disappears to the bathroom. I don’t think anything of it, but when she returns I know she’s high. I can’t imagine wanting to get high on top of how drunk we already are, but she does it all the time. She comes straight over to my chair rather than her own and kisses me. I expect a peck, but she makes it clear she wants more, pushing against me and waiting for me to invite her tongue.

  I wrap my arms around her and give a deeper kiss. I’m conscious of the room around us and the fact that this is getting pretty showy for a straight bar, but I chance it. There are other couples making out too, and it’s so nice to just have a normal night for once. We’re us again, finally, if only for tonight.

  “Dykes.”

  Jaselle spins around to spot the culprit. He looks like a frat boy, of course. “You got something to say, cock breath?”

  I grab Jaselle’s arm as a precaution. She looks like she might spring at him. I see it coming way before Jaselle does. The collection of girls accompanying the douchebag head our way, one charging forward in a rage, the others fulfilling the obligatory friend backup.

  “Cock breath?” the girl says. I have to stifle a laugh at the phrase coming from this choir girl looking thing. “Just because you have no problem throwing yourself into the fires of hell doesn’t mean everyone in this building is a fag like you.”

  “Hah, I nailed that one,” I say to Jaselle. “I knew she was a Christian.”

  “Oh, that’s hilarious, making fun of the love of our Lord and Savior. That’ll go over well when you’re trying to explain yourself to Him.”

  “Is she trying to fight me?” Jaselle turns to me and asks. I force myself not to laugh and address the offended Christian.

  “How about if you stay on your side of the bar, and we’ll stay on ours?” That’s peaceful, right? I insulted her religion, she insulted my basic composition; I think we’re even.

  “How about if you stay at home, and we’ll stay in the bar. No one wants you here.”

  “She’s definitely trying to fight me.” Jaselle takes a step closer to the choir girl. I can’t believe the little thing has the guts to hold her ground. She’s so small and fragile looking, and I’m pretty confident she’s never been in a fight before. Meanwhile, Jaselle looks like she got in a fight two hours ago with her black eye. I try to wedge myself in between them.

  “Back off,” I say sternly to the choir girl.

  “Sin is an infection. If we turn a blind eye to you then—”

  “You’ll catch homosexuality? Yeah, it’s really been going around lately,” I say. Jaselle laughs and puts her arms around my waist. Before I know what she’s doing, she licks my ear just to agitate the girl.

  Choir girl’s face contorts and she raises her hand. I think she only intends to point at us and deliver another misguided interpretation of the Bible, but the second Jaselle sees movement she assumes it’s an attack and pushes choir girl away with all her strength. Choir girl stumbles backward. She probably would have fallen down were it not for her wall of friends.

  I throw myself in between Jaselle and the recovering choir girl. I hold a hand to Jaselle’s chest, pushing her back,
and a hand in front of the five girls springing toward us.

  “We’ll leave!” I yell. My mind is going crazy. Jaselle is high. What if the cops are called and she’s caught with meth? “We’ll leave!” I repeat.

  “Fuck you!” one of choir girl’s friends yells and pushes me. Her shove knocks me into Jaselle, which sends her into a fury again. I recover and hold her back before she lands a blow. I desperately hold my hand up again, but it’s too late. Another of the girls pushes me, then another, and I’m in a mosh pit trying to resist throwing punches.

  I see Trey trying to make his way over to help break it up, but the crowd is thick now between people wanting to get in on the action, managers trying to find the center, and people who just want a good view.

  One of the girls throws her glass. Beer showers us all, but the glass connects with Jaselle’s head. I hear the crack and Jaselle staggers back. Then my mind goes blank. My body takes over and my fist is swinging. I feel the glass thrower’s face break, her skin splits and she falls back.

  Someone tries to grab me. I throw an elbow over my shoulder. It connects too. I shove choir girl. She trips and starts to fall. She’s clawing at people’s clothes on the way down trying to stop herself. She gets a grip on someone’s arm and starts to recover, but I kick her square in the chest, hard.

  I’ve created a couple feet of space. I know I’ll only have the window for a second, but I spin and find Jaselle. She’s on the ground. There’s blood dripping from a cut over her eyebrow. I scoop her up. Between her frailness and my adrenaline, she weighs nothing.

  There’s a scramble behind me. I realize Trey has made his way over and is trying his best to hold three girls back. Thank God his shoulders are five feet wide. The managers close in. The crowd is thick. The stairs aren’t far. I head straight for the densest area of the bar, trying to get lost in the people. Attention starts to turn to the girls I injured. I hold Jaselle tight to me and weave. I will us invisible.

  I can hear one of the girls trying to tell someone to stop us, but everyone is confused now and thinks the fight was between the girls I knocked down. I creep down the stairs.