Immaterial Defense: Once and Forever #4

by Lauren Stewart

  I stepped over the intertwined feet of a couple who might still be physically stuck together under a small fussy blanket and headed toward the scent of fresh brew.

  Carissa was sitting at the table, drinking a cup of coffee from one side of her mouth so she could rest her head in her other hand. Her eye makeup had smeared, making her look as if she’d been crying. Even though she looked like hell, I didn’t comment because I felt like hell and probably looked even worse.

  I nodded to her steaming mug. “Any more of that?”

  “Help yourself.” She nodded slowly as if moving any faster were impossible. “I thought you would’ve left already.”

  “Why’s that?” I filled a mug to the very rim and took a careful sip before joining her at the table. The coffee was lava hot—exactly what I deserved. Maybe a third-degree burn on my tongue would remind me how stupid I was the next time I decided getting wasted was a good idea.

  “Because you and Sara are”—she shrugged with only one shoulder—“doing something that’s more complicated than it needs to be.”

  I took a deep breath, not sure if I should answer because my brain couldn’t possibly be working at full capacity yet.

  “You know I’m right. You’re into her, and she’s into you.”

  Sure, she was into me. Enough to fuck, but not enough to let down her guard or keep her promises. But even worse, having a big blank instead of any memories of last night didn’t let me off the hook either. If I’d been able to sleep with someone, I’d been coherent enough to know it was wrong.

  * * *

  “Ta-da!” Carissa barely lifted her hands, but I knew she’d meant to. “I’ve figured it out for you. You’re both welcome.”

  “Thanks,” I said unappreciatively. “You’re her friend, right?” After she agreed, I continued, “So, why’d you sleep with me?”

  “Because it’s my bed?” Her painted brows came together. “Wait, you think we had sex?”

  “We didn’t?” When she shook her head, the sense of relief almost sobered me up. That was the best news I’d heard all year.

  “Believe me, hon, if we’d fucked you’d remember. Although, you’re a hell of a cuddler.” She chuckled to herself. “Last night, Trevor talked you into going skinny-dipping in the community pool, and ten minutes later, you got all depressed and wandered off. I brought you back here before another tenant found you and called the cops. I tucked you into bed, put on my jammies, and slept on top of the covers next to you. I thought about putting your clothes back on, but I was drunk. If you’d turned or I’d slipped and touched something I wasn’t supposed to, I wouldn’t be able to look Sara in the eyes again. So, I swear—nothing dirty happened.”

  I remembered snippets of all that. Swimming, not the naked part. Getting depressed, not being put to bed like a toddler. But I was definitely happy that we hadn’t had sex because I wouldn’t have been able to look Sara in the eyes again either.

  Even though Sara was very possibly waking up naked in some guy’s bed right now. Actually, no. It was already eight o’clock—she’d be long gone by now.

  “Thanks, Carissa, for…” How did you thank someone for babysitting your drunk ass?

  “Not fucking my friend’s man?”

  “Am I her man?” Even I heard the frustration in my voice.

  “You’re more her man than anyone else has ever been, at least that she’s ever told me about.”

  That was nice to hear. It also peaked my curiosity. Sara and I had never discussed our relationship history beyond my failed affair with Señora Martinez and Sara being a late bloomer.

  “Has she always been like this?” I asked.

  “Like what?”

  “Partying…not wanting to care about anyone…”

  She stared into her coffee for a minute. “Sara has a lot of family shit that she tries to stay away from. And forget about. At first it was just going out a lot. The guys started later, and it wasn’t like there was a new one every night or anything. Then, obviously, as soon as you came along, that all stopped.”

  “Obviously?”

  “Look, Sara doesn’t talk about herself much, especially not when she’s sober. But her dad left when she was tiny, and her stepdad seems like kind of a jackass. So, you know, that can kind of screw with a girl’s head.” She paused, staring into dead space as if there was more she wanted to say. But for some reason I didn’t think it would be about Sara. Should I ask? We barely knew each other and only had the barest of reason to trust one another. But I’d listen if she wanted to talk. Turned out, she didn’t.

  She looked at me and squinted. “How interested in her are you? It’s none of my business, but I want to know. I’m hoping you like her enough to last at least a little while. Because she’s basically been no fun whatsoever lately, and although that sucks for me, it’s really good for her. So…?”

  I rubbed my eye and leaned forward onto my elbows. “I think I’m good for her, Carissa. And I’m good to her. But I’m way more interested in her than she is in me. And honestly, I’m getting tired of being treated like shit.” Like I didn’t matter or wasn’t there. Like I was a purse she could use one day and toss in the corner the next.

  “Give her one more chance, Declan. Everyone deserves a second chance.”

  I laughed. “I’ve already given her three. Does everyone deserve a fourth chance?”

  * * *

  When I got home, Kitty eyed me angrily. Great, another couple of X chromosomes hated me.

  “I’m sorry, girl. I didn’t expect to be out all night.” I let her out onto the balcony, so she could take care of business, and went into the kitchen. At some point during the night, Kitty had decided to punish me by making herself dinner, which meant I got to clean up after her. I’d need a new bag of dog food since she’d torn through it and scattered kibble throughout the kitchen. There was no place to stand without hearing the snap of food crumbling under my foot.

  I crunched my way to the pantry to get the broom and dustpan and started sweeping it into a pile. When I dumped the first load of dog food into the trash, I saw the take-out packages from my last dinner with Sara. Not sure why seeing the remnants of a great evening stung so deeply, but it did. Made me wonder what I was doing with my life. You know, like Japanese food does for everyone. It tasted so great at the time, but the enjoyment didn’t last. And the next day, that enjoyment turned to shit. Literally, in the case of Japanese food, figuratively for everything else.

  Nothing lasted. Not even life. And it sure as shit was too short to spend it doing things or people you don’t want to do. These were supposed to be my peak years. I was young, fit, and confident. So, why was I currently cleaning up after the only being on earth who loved me unconditionally?

  Sara didn’t love me. She might not even like me. It certainly didn’t feel like she respected me. So, what was I to her?

  Trevor loved me like a brother, but even though we’d never spoken it aloud, we both knew his dependence on me wasn’t at a healthy level. I’d stuck with him and the band all this time because it was the only way I’d know he’d be safe from himself. Even if I’d never been able to really stop him from poisoning himself with liquor, drugs, or thoughts, I’d always felt like I’d been helping keep him alive, but had I? Maybe this whole time I’d just been giving him someone to rebel against. Someone he knew would keep him standing so he never had to try doing it for himself.

  All I was to them was a prop—something they could count on to be there whenever they screwed up and couldn’t stand alone.

  When I took my guitar off the wall and sat down on the couch, Kitty rubbed her head on my knee. Somehow, she knew as soon as the guitar came out, I needed comfort. Companionship. Love. And she was right.

  My song-writing process was always the same—start what I saw as doodling with the strings, strumming or plucking them in random order until something clicked. Then I’d play that riff over and over until it naturally led to another stanza and another. As soon as the momentum
kicked in, my fingers understood where they were supposed to go before my brain did.

  Once I had a basic chorus laid out, I said the first thing that came to my mind. Like a bad rapper trying to fit phrases to the beat. But since I knew the song’s rhythm, phrases came to me automatically. Some were complete shit, but I kept going, kept saying whatever came into my head until something sounded…right.

  I didn’t know anyone else who composed like I did—trusting myself enough to put something together on the fly. The other guys made fun of me for it, but they’d also never refused to play a song I wrote for them.

  I never set out to write a complete and stage-worthy song. I wrote to figure out what was going on in my head. When I was depressed, when nothing in there made sense, playing music helped me sort it all out. Music was my version of therapy, and aside from a new set of strings every once in a while, it had never cost me a dime.

  As soon as I had enough notes put together for the beginnings of a chorus, I closed my eyes and played it over and over, listening to the tone and rhythm until I understood it. The notes were soft, pensive. The rhythm was way slower than anything Self Defense would ever play. The pauses were longer but felt true. If I let myself get all metaphysical and deep, I’d have said they sounded like emptiness. And I’d have said the notes sounded like goodbye. No bitterness or anger, just regret for what could’ve been. Maybe even a little apology.

  Then I opened my mouth, not knowing what would come out.

  “Who left who?” I kept playing the same few bars of music over and over, saying whatever felt right. I’d worry about getting it to sound right later. Maybe.

  * * *

  One side…to every good story

  One line…to end every joke

  One chance…to say that you’re sorry

  One shot…to make this thing work

  * * *

  One side…gets the blue ribbon

  One guy…comes in second place

  One time…to catch her not listening

  One last moment…to look at her face

  * * *

  She could stare at her own reflection,

  And never be able to see what I do.

  So, no matter how strong our connection,

  This will never work out like I wanted it to.

  * * *

  It needed some work, but then, who didn’t?

  33

  Declan

  “Declan!” Trevor yelled through the door. “Let me in! I can hear you playing, so I know you’re in there. Open the damn door!” His pounding set Kitty on edge, and I could’ve sworn she sighed as she walked toward the door. I could tell she didn’t want to see what was on the other side any more than I did, but Trevor was just stubborn enough to stay out there all day.

  “Relax, girl. I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can.” I patted her and then grabbed her collar before I opened the door, just in case she decided to run for it. “Shut up, man. You’re scaring my dog.” I left the door open and pulled her into the living room, hearing Trev close it behind himself.

  “I lost my keys at some point last night.” Which also meant he’d lost the spare for my apartment. Great. “Can I grab yours?”

  I let Kitty go and went over to the TV stand. The key was in a small drawer, mixed in with remotes, pens, and some other random shit no one ever needs and no one ever gets rid of.

  Trevor flopped onto the baby-sized couch that came with the place and stretched out. His head rested on one end, and his feet hung off the other. I tossed his spare key to him, but his eyes were already closed, so it landed on his belly. He didn’t react.

  I sat down in the chair opposite him. Kitty sat on one of my feet, still watching him suspiciously. It was probably the smell—he reeked of booze and sweat.

  “Kitty thinks you should take a shower.”

  “Kitty’s favorite scent is Ass du Jour, so forgive me if I’m not too worried about her opinion.”

  “Fine, I think you should shower before your stench works its way into that couch. I’d like to get my security deposit back.” I reached out with a foot and nudged him in the leg.

  “As soon as you get the apartment to stop spinning, I’m gone.”

  “The apartment?” I sighed. “Yeah, sure.”

  “You got something to kill the pain in my head? Make it ten somethings.”

  If anyone else had made the comment, I would’ve let it go. But Trevor wasn’t allowed to. How did he not know that? I stared at him, dumbfounded, while he just lay there with his eyes still closed, acting as if he hadn’t made a horribly inappropriate joke.

  “Don’t fucking say shit like that.” My hands gripped the arms of the chair, and I kicked him harder. I wanted to do it standing, to have my full leverage. How many times had I wanted to hit him, to hurt him for everything he’d put me through?

  He twisted his head to look at me. “Oh, come on, Dec. That was years ago.” As if I didn’t know that. “Different times, man. Everything’s great now.”

  “Everything’s great?” I snapped. “The only difference between then and now is that I’m the miserable one, and you’re killing yourself slowly instead of in one swift shot.”

  He sat up, staring at me. “Why are you miserable? Is it Moguli giving us the whole we-love-you-but speech?” He scoffed. “Nah, it’s that girl giving you the love-you-but speech, isn’t it?”

  That girl hadn’t said any of those words, actually. “Kinda.” Because, unfortunately, every thought I had was about that girl lately. But not this one. “She’s part of it.”

  “What’s the other part?”

  I laughed, throwing up my hands, afraid to tell him the truth. Pissed that he chose to focus on that instead of his slow and steady death wish.

  “What’s the other part, Dec?” Suddenly, he sounded sober, all blur of hangover gone.

  “Never mind.”

  “Fuck you. Tell me. Is it me? Am I making you miserable?”

  I let out a deep breath.

  “Wow.” He leaned back on the couch. “Okay, I’m making you miserable, and yet this is the very first time I’ve heard anything about it. Way to use those big balls of yours, Dec.”

  “It’s not a big deal.” I grabbed my guitar and slipped the strap over my head. Not to play, though. My guitar had been a shield for as long as I could remember, some wood and strings I hid behind whenever I didn’t know how else to communicate all the shit going through my mind.

  “If it weren’t a big deal, you would’ve said annoyed or pissed-off. But you didn’t. You said miserable. When someone like you uses a word like miserable to describe himself it automatically becomes it a big deal.”

  “Someone like me?”

  He shrugged. “Someone who has his shit together, who sees the bad but doesn’t give up looking until he finds the good.”

  Was that who I was? “I don’t think that’s true anymore.”

  “Thank God. Finally, some proof you’re human. Okay, then, spill. Or do you think I can’t handle it? Do you think I’m too delicate and weak to know? What the fuck do you want, Dec? You want me to read your mind?”

  I shook my head. I’d been avoiding this conversation for years, putting up with all kinds of shit I didn’t like because I didn’t want to cause trouble. But I was sick of that, and Trevor was right—he was a grown man, despite how he acted. He deserved to know the truth, and I deserved to have the life I wanted. If I didn’t say something now, I’d be stuck in this for years. And those years would feel like an eternity.

  “Fine, you want to know what I want? Or how ‘bout what I don’t want?” I twisted my body to look at him straight-on. “I don’t want to be in the band. I haven’t wanted to for a while now, but I didn’t want to disappoint you.”

  “Motherfucker.” His eyes narrowed. “You want to go solo? After everything we’ve done together to get where we are, you want to dump me on my fucking ass and go solo.”

  “No, you shithead. I don’t want to go solo. I don’t want any of
this.” I held on to my guitar as if it were the last life jacket on the Titanic. “I hate performing. I hate being told what to do. I hate being styled. Don’t you? Fuck, if one more person tries to tell me I should wear guyliner, I’m going to break a perfectly good guitar over their idiot head.”

  The longer I ranted, the wider his eyes got. My guess—he probably couldn’t fathom why anyone wouldn’t want whatever fame we’d garnered. His mind couldn’t wrap around the idea that the thing he’d dreamed about for over a decade was the thing I hated most about my life.

  I took a deep breath when I ran out of shit to say, shit I’d been holding back for at least the last few years, probably a lot longer.

  “So…” he said after a minute. “I’m not sure I understand what you want.”

  “Didn’t you hear anything I ju—?” I tossed up my arms up instead of strangling him. “Come on, man. Could you please just take something seriously for once?”

  He was silent, staring at me and scratching the scruff on his chin. “What I meant was, do you want to quit because you hate the music or because you hate me?”

  I didn’t even pause. “Neither. I love both of you, even though you piss me the fuck off almost constantly. I don’t want to quit our friendship, and I don’t want to quit music. I just don’t want everything to be about Self Defense. Remember when we used to talk about normal shit before the band became our entire lives? I want to keep writing and playing music. I just don’t want to do it for other people. I want to do it for myself. Does that make sense?”

  If I were talking to anyone else, I wouldn’t have had to ask that question. But Trevor had been wearing blinders since the day our first agent came backstage and told us we had a real shot at going pro. Ever since then, the only thing Trev had cared about was reaching that goal. Well, that and all the perks that came with it.