by J. A. Huss
Her eyes start to water and she swallows hard. “We were going in very different directions, RK, you know—”
“Were we?” I interrupt. “That’s funny, because we ended up in the same place, Melissa.”
She closes her open mouth, crosses her arms in front of her like she’s suddenly cold, and looks down at her black combat boots.
“I never asked you to change your plans for me,” I say.
“You were going to Juilliard.”
“And you weren’t. So what? You just wanted to move on with your life? I can understand that. Even now, as fucked up as I am, I can understand that. But I never asked you to wait.”
“Than what kind of admission are you trying to get from me?” She’s defensive now. Whatever emotion drove her up my driveway to my front door is melting away before my eyes.
“How did Melanie get in my car that night and become my prom date?”
She inhales deep. Bracing herself for something. “Do you really want to know?”
“Of course I want to fucking know!” My shout startles her. Makes her take a step back.
“She was very sick—”
“Fuck off!” I shake my head as the story just gets more and more incredible.
“She was, RK! Don’t laugh!”
I slam the door in her face but her black combat boot stops it, makes it bounce back. “You don’t know what’s true,” she says, the anger building. “You are the last person to lecture me about reality, Rowan Kyle Saber. You have no idea. Melanie was sick her entire life. She had—”
“Mental issues,” I say. “Yeah, I figured that out early.”
“Childhood schizophrenia, RK. You don’t even know what that really means.”
“Give me a little credit, Melissa. I’m not as stupid as I look. I knew you two your whole lives. You think I didn’t know she saw a therapist? Please. My parents talked about it all the time, even if you didn’t. But that doesn’t answer my question. Why was she in my car?”
Melissa hesitates.
“Say it, Missy. I need to know I wasn’t crazy. So say it. If you ever felt anything for me, then fucking say it.”
“She was your girlfriend at least half of the time, RK. She used to pretend—”
I slam the door and this time her boot doesn’t stop it.
Fuck this, fuck that, fuck all of it. I’m out.
I walk back inside and fling the fridge door open, find a beer, twist the cap off and draw that shit down my throat like it’s the answer I’m looking for. I guzzle half the bottle and then come up for air as Melissa’s last words echo around in my head.
No.
No. I might be crazy, I admit that. I’ve done some fucked-up shit in the past few years, but no. No, this is too much.
I grind my teeth as all the memories come flooding in. The summers we spent hiking. All the fucking music lessons. The band we had in high school. The trips into Denver, and skiing, and watching Melissa cheer for the football games.
Which memories were real?
I grab my leather jacket, my keys, and an old cowboy hat my dad used to wear that’s sitting on the same peg he probably hung it on years ago before he died. I go out into the garage and get in my truck. Fuck this shit. I start the engine, press the garage door opener, and then start backing out.
A blaring horn makes me step on the brake automatically and when I look in the rear-view, I see Jayce’s cream-colored Mercedes behind me.
I put the truck in park and watch her walk up towards me in the side-view, then reluctantly tab the window.
“What?” I ask.
Jayce opens her mouth to speak, can’t find the words, and then closes it.
“What the fuck am I supposed to believe, Jayce? Tell me. Because I’m not sure any of this is real anymore.”
“Come on, Rock. Turn your truck off, get in my car, and we’ll go find a bar. Not your brother’s bar, not any bar in this Mayberry town or even in these godforsaken mountains. Somewhere far, OK? Somewhere no one knows you.”
My eyes drift up to her face and see the pity. “Don’t do that, Jayce. Just don’t, OK? I’m fine. Fuck these girls. Especially that girl,” I say, nodding to the Vetti house. “Whoever she is. And I don’t want to be with you tonight either, so—”
“No, no, no, Rock. You’re not leaving alone. I will follow you. I’m not letting you out of my sight. If you think you’re going to disappear for a few days, you can forget it.”
I look back down at my dashboard.
“I’m not moving my car, so you’re going to have to mow it over, Rock. I’m not kidding.”
I turn the truck off and just sit there. “What the fuck is wrong with these people?”
Jayce is silent, and then I see her shrug from the corner of my eye.
“Melissa just told me that I was dating Melanie. But not the whole time, Jayce.” I laugh because it’s ridiculous. “What the fuck does that mean? Not the whole time? Which parts were her and which parts were Melanie?”
“Does it matter?”
“Fuck yeah, it matters!” I yell. “I loved her, Jayce. Missy, not Melanie. Melanie was a freak. A lying, schizo freak!” I open the door, making Jayce step out of my way, and then pocket my keys and go back inside. “I don’t want to get drunk. I don’t want to go find some anonymous bar and pretend that conversation I just had with a dead girl who I obviously never knew at all didn’t just happen.”
“Rock,” Jayce says, following me into the house. “You’re here to recover, OK? Let’s just focus on that until that judge gets his head out of his ass and says you can leave. I mean, I see why you left. I do. I had a fucked-up childhood and got the hell out of Dodge as soon as I could too. And if I had a major traumatic incident and was forced to go back to my hometown to sort things out, I’d slit my fucking wrists. Or kill someone. Probably kill someone. But you’re too nice to kill people, so you just need to keep it all in perspective, Rock. Temp-or-ary,” she says, stressing each syllable.
I get my phone out and dial the landline at the Vetti house. Missy picks up on the first ring. “Tell me,” I bark. “Tell me which parts of us were real.”
“Is that manager person there?” Missy asks.
I look over at Jayce, cover the phone, and say, “Take off, OK? I’ll be fine.”
“Rock—”
“Go,” I say. “Out. I’m not joking, Jayce.”
She nods, squeezes my shoulder, and then walks back to the garage and disappears.
“She’s gone,” I tell Melissa. “Now tell me, which parts of our relationship were real? And why the fuck did you let her do that to me? I mean, do you have any idea how fucked up that is?”
“We were kids, RK.”
“The fuck we were! Eighteen is old enough to know better, Missy. Hell, ten is old enough to know better. Who was the girl I kissed on the sixth-grade trip? Just tell me, OK. I need to know that at least.”
“Me,” she whispers.
“And that afternoon before prom? Who was I with that day?”
“Me,” she says again. “Me both times.”
“Then what the fuck, Missy?” I’m so relieved. I’m so fucking relieved my anger dies and the next few words come out in a whisper. “How could you fuck with me like that?”
“Can I come over?”
“Hell the fuck no, you can’t come over. I don’t ever want to see you again. Ever, Missy. Ever. I’m done.”
“I just… we just… drifted apart, RK. You were going one way and I was going another. I wanted to leave Grand Lake, but not—”
Her words drift off, but I hear them in my head anyway. But not with you. She wanted to leave, she just didn’t want to leave with me.
“I never thought I wanted to get married or settle down, RK. I wanted to play in a band and just drift. Find my place in the world.”
“Drift,” I say flatly. “Well, isn’t it ironic? That I’m the one who drifted and you’re the one who stayed anchored.”
“And then all that shit happ
ened.”
“All that shit? Like Melanie trying to kill me? That shit?”
“What?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess you weren’t there.” I laugh. “Well, the irony is thick tonight. Because you know what really happened that night we crashed?”
Silence.
I try to say what’s in my head, but I lose track. I don’t remember. It scares me for a second, but I recover with another accusation. “Why did you guys trick me?” She says nothing. Like her head just went blank too. “Why did you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”
“Why did you leave?” she says, her turn to change the subject.
I don’t know why. It was just… the end of the line for me. The edge of my sanity. I had this overwhelming urge.
“I’m sorry,” Missy says.
“I bet you are,” I say. “I bet I could write a book about this shit, call it a true story, and no one would believe me.”
“So much has happened since you left. Not one day has gone by that I didn’t wish things were different. We’ve been through so much.”
“Yeah,” I say softly, my anger fading into bleak nothingness. “We have. And you know the really sad part, Missy?” I wait for her to ask, but she doesn’t. “The really sad part is that we could’ve done all that stuff together instead of alone. And now it’s too late.”
I end the call and turn my phone off, throwing it against the wall as I grab my keys again, walk back to my truck, and back out. Jayce is gone, probably figuring I’d spend the night letting Melissa Vetti sweet-talk me into not doing anything crazy.
But Jayce should know me better.
I don’t go through town. I head higher up into the mountains, take the very twisted road all the way into Estes Park, and then wind my way back south down to a bar I know.
It takes me almost three hours to get there, and by that time it’s prime time. But I’m not here to drink, I’m here to listen. Just chill, forget, and be nobody.
The band on the stage out on the edge of the Poudre River was what gave my dad the idea to open Float’s all those years ago. It’s legendary, this bar in the middle of nowhere. I put the cowboy hat on before I get out of my truck, pay the cover, and find a seat inside, in the back. I can still hear the music well enough from inside.
That’s the only thing I have left, I guess. The music. Not my music. I’m pretty sure my music is gone for good. But other people’s music is better than nothing.
So I sit, nursing a beer, until the set ends and people flock inside for drinks as the next band sets up.
The hat is the only attempt I make to hide, but no one thinks RK Saber is going to be hanging out at the Mish, so no one looks too close. No one sees me at all. I’m just some guy in a tattered flannel, ripped jeans, and a cowboy hat. I could be anyone.
I am RK’s anonymous body.
No more, no less.
Chapter Fourteen
TJ and Melissa appear in front of my table a few hours later, but I’ve got a little buzz going from the beers, and the smile on my face doesn’t even break as I ignore them and enjoy the fourth band on stage since I got here.
“If you’re hiding, brother,” Teej says, all sarcastic like he does, “this is the wrong place to go.” He eyes me for a minute. “Unless you wanted us to find you.”
That makes me laugh. “I don’t need a babysitter.” TJ pulls up a chair at my table and motions for Missy to sit. She does, not looking me in the eye. Teej sits next to her, almost across from me, and mostly blocking my view of the show outside. “And if I was hiding, believe me”—I look at him to make sure he knows I’m serious—“you would not find me.”
“Well, maybe you haven’t noticed, but you’re in Larimer County, bro. Out of bounds. So we’re gonna need to go.”
“Nah,” I say. “I really don’t mind jail. At least I can be sure you assholes won’t follow me there.”
“None of this is what you think, RK.”
“Is that so?” I glare at him. What kind of brother is he? I have no idea anymore. Who are these people?
“That’s so,” Melissa says. “It’s a long fucking story, RK.”
“Yeah?” I say, looking over at Melissa. “How long of a story, Missy? When did you start lying to me?”
“We’re not having that conversation in public,” TJ says.
“No? OK.” I stand up and throw down a twenty for the waitress, pushing past the crowd until I find the front door and walk right out.
Gretchen is waiting at my truck. She giggles as I walk up. “I knew you’d make a break for it!”
I tap a finger on her blonde head. “Can’t get nothing past you, Gretch.” I grab both her shoulders, gently move her aside, and then unlock my truck.
“Wait,” Gretchen says, as TJ and Missy walk up behind her. “Just let Melissa explain, RK. Seriously, it’s a story you need to hear. I’m on your side, OK? I am. But you need to hear her out.”
Missy is avoiding my gaze, not looking me in the eye when she finds her voice. “One drive home, RK. That’s all I want. One drive home and I get to talk and you get to listen. And if you want me to disappear when we get back to your house, then I will. I’ll never bother you again.”
“I’m very fucking sure, no matter what you say, I’ll never want to talk to you again when I get home. I’m calling my lawyer, getting this ridiculous county arrest thing lifted, and I’m outta here. I’m going back to LA to piss away all my money and make the most of whatever life I have left.”
I almost feel the hurt coursing through Missy’s body as my words sink in. A pang of guilt strikes me in the heart and I’m about to apologize when she nods and whispers, “Deal. If that’s what you need, RK, then that’s what you need. All I want is a chance to set things right with you.”
I wave her towards the passenger side of the truck and get in, ignoring TJ and Gretchen completely. We slam our doors at the same time and then Missy says, “Are you OK to drive?”
I huff out a breath as I start the truck. “I had two beers over the course of six hours, Melissa. Give me a little fucking credit. I get that everyone up here thinks I’m the biggest fuck-up in history, but I’m not.”
“I was just asking—”
“Sure. Sure.” I flip the headlights on, wait for a lonely car to pass me on the highway, and then pull onto the road. I don’t look back at TJ and Gretchen, but I’m sure they’re already in his Jeep and they’ll be following us the whole way back. We sit in silence as I navigate the mountain road and honestly, I can’t blame her for not trusting me to get her home safe. It’s a twisty road, it’s dark, and there are few cars and no lights up here. Not even a moon tonight. Just the cone of illumination coming from my truck and then total blackout on either side.
“How the fuck did this happen?” I finally ask, getting sick of the tension and the emptiness. I glance over at her, huddled against the door like she can’t put enough distance between us. Her head rests on the window and her face is glowing with a bluish haze from the dashboard lights. She’s wearing a black shirt under her jacket—probably a tank top, if I had to guess. She likes the tanks. The jacket is the same black leather one I saw her in that first night at my house. And faded blue jeans with so many rips, I can see a good portion of her thigh.
I should’ve known she wasn’t Melanie. She morphed into this dark girl about halfway through our junior year. Black eye makeup and red lips. Piercings and even a few tattoos. And that was about the same time Melanie morphed into a girl who wore dresses and no makeup. Then they both cut their hair. First Missy, I think. Then Mel.
Did they mean to do that switch? How do I know this is really Missy? How can anyone be so sure?
Her hair is long and dark, pulled back into a ponytail tonight, but long whips of it hang down, fluttering against her face from the vents. And she’s got those black combat boots on again. Docs or something similar.
She’s the one who looks like a rock star tonight. Like she was meant to be one and I’m the fake.
I never wanted to be a rock star. That was Melissa’s dream all growing up, not mine. RK, she used to say. Can you imagine how great it would be to play in stadiums in front of thousands of people?
“I’m not sure where to start,” Missy says, answering my forgotten question. “I just need to gather my thoughts for a minute.”
“So you can get your lies straight?” I glance over as I say it, expecting a reaction, but she just bites her lip and looks worried.
I don’t think Melissa had any idea how many people actually fit into a stadium. They are incredibly big. And while every stadium show I’ve ever played was exhilarating, almost inciting panic in me, I actually prefer the smaller venues. Stadiums sound horrible. I know the fans don’t care. They just want a shot to be there in the fray. Hear the music at its loudest. Be part of it.
My dad once told me about how he managed to get front row at a Metallica show in LA once. There was sort of a mini-riot. The band had to stop playing because they had chairs on the stadium floor and too many people. Fans rushed the stage and suddenly the chairs weren’t chairs, but obstacles. Floods of people were trying to get closer, chairs got knocked over, people got knocked over, until they had start lifting the chairs up and passing them up to the band to dispose of.
They called it a riot, but it wasn’t. It was an experience for those people. That’s what they came for. Not to hear Metallica—but to be part of them.
I don’t mind being part of a big dramatic experience like that, but I prefer the small shows. I prefer five hundred people to fifty thousand. I prefer venues with amazing acoustics instead of the echo of the stadium.
I never wanted to go big, I wanted to stay small.
Irony gets you every time.
“The first time she did it we were six.”
“Did what?” I ask, pulling myself back to the present.
“Pretended to be me.”
