Forgive Me

by Melanie Walker

My mom used to tell me every day before school to “have a good day and make good choices Shamus.” Fuck she would be disappointed in me now. I blamed my dad for the whole mess. He never gave a shit about my music and the need to play it. He cared about the water, the crabs and the boat and he drank like a fish in between those three things.

  I don’t know if Chad or Cal said anything because I was too wrapped in my own head to notice. I grabbed a blanket and a pillow, tossing them to the floor. I lay on my back and tune out the sounds of battle and Chad and Cal talking trash to one another. I close my eyes and see her face and it feels like a knife to the skull. It physically hurts to think about her.

  Every night after that I spent either drunk or fucking. I did anything I could to keep my mind free of dark brown curly hair that smelled like honeysuckle and green as envy eyes. I missed her I loved her and I had let her go. Not even three months later the guys finally told me she had married.

  It had happened and I finally slept. I slept because it proved the old man right. We weren’t meant to be.

  I used to be a little boy

  So old in my shoes

  And what I choose is my voice

  What's a boy supposed to do?

  The killer in me is the killer in you

  My love

  I send this smile over to you

  Smashing Pumpkins

  Chapter Twelve

  Cassa

  I walked into an apartment full of people. People who wanted answers about Shame and I. Answers I couldn’t give. It wasn’t that I didn’t love or want Shame, it was that I loved him enough to finally let it all go. He had walked away from me two years ago without a word…closure was, in fact, important and I gave us both closure this time. He could go and have his groupies and stardom and I could finally find some peace knowing we had our goodbye.

  This was for the best, I knew it was even though it was shredding me. I had involved so many people when it came to my secrets and now I had freed them all. I knew Shame was mad and hurt because he had been kept out of the loop but now I was hoping he understood it was my constant begging that kept them all silent.

  I dropped my keys on the table and took a deep breath before turning to the group of friends and family in my living room. “Hey beautiful.” Chad said and took a sleeping Noelle from Carries arms when she made her way to me.

  “The guys said you showed up at the studio when they were there.” Carrie wasn’t the nosy type. She would not ask me about the details of going to the studio to confront Shame. She would however find a way to make me think I wanted to open up about it all. Sneaky girl our Carrie.

  Little did they know I wasn’t hiding secrets anymore. “Yeah. We talked about my fears, the secrets, the anger between us both…” I trailed off when I saw Mikey roll his eyes. “What Mike? Just say it I know you’re dying to chime in here.”

  My big brother was awesome. I would never pretend to be bothered by a brother who took concern to a whole new level, but Mike was also a serious gossip girl. The man loved knowing all the drama. “Well I cant just sit here and pretend like we are all not a bunch of dicks. I knew Cass, I knew every minute he was gone that he regretted it. I knew and yet I took your side and I was right to do so. I hated how he left you and I was mad as hell. But like everyone of us in this room, I knew Cory was bad news and didn’t stop you. I knew if I had called Shame he would have come home and stopped you from marrying Cory.”

  “Same here.” Chad said and leaned back with Noelle on his chest sleeping and sighed.

  “All of us knew.” Cal said and looked at Noah who stoic, as ever nodded once.

  “Not all of us.” Candey said and slapped Cal along side the head. “Carrie and I had no idea that Shame would have come home. We pushed her to go out and fuck countless randoms in order to forget Shame. Do not categorize us as knowing. We didn’t know and as women we could have butted our pretty little heads in and saved the day.”

  Carrie and I both snorted and laughed at that.

  Mainly because yeah, Carrie and Candey would have nutted Shame for leaving if they thought he would have come back to me. The problem was that he never said a word to anyone about missing me…not until tonight.

  “It doesn’t matter now because we have made our peace.” I say and look at them all with guilty faces and sadness in their eyes. We had all managed to hurt him and it ripped me wide open because they were willing to do it in an attempt to protect me. “You guys need to talk to him though and try to sort the whole thing out.” This I said to my TAT guys…and they knew I was talking to them.

  “He wont talk to us. Cal has been texting him for the last two hours trying to get him to meet with us and he wont answer.” Chad was still lying back looking at the ceiling as he spoke, his hand stroking over Noelle’s back.

  “After you guys left I explained how much pressure I put on you to keep quiet. I took full blame for the entire mess.”

  “Of course you did.” Noah snarled and stared me down as he stood. “Of course you took the blame because it’s easier to take it all on. You forget that we are adults and members of the band too. Do you think Shame would have been better off knowing the hell that went down? Even if he didn’t love you anymore Cass, he would have went bat shit crazy knowing what you went through and he wouldn’t have been able to play and focus. We didn’t do it just for you. We did it for us as a band, for our friend who was dying fucking slowly and for the girl he left behind broken and bleeding. No offense sweets but it isn’t all your fucking fault.”

  “He’s right Cass. We placed the greed of success top dead center of the whole mess.” Cal said and stood to stretch his back. “This band has been my life for a decade and it was no different when we had a chance to make it big. I took that chance just like the rest of the guys and ran with it. We all knew what was going on at home and the decision to remain quiet was easy because knowing would have robbed us of Shame and he is and will always be irreplaceable.”

  “The wake is tomorrow and he’s still sorting out the pain from Jerry passing. I don’t think bombarding him now is such a good idea.” Noah looked at his sister with a little pride but clearly aggravated by her words.

  “Well I sure as shit aint sitting here and boobing about what a shitty friend I am. He’ll either hear me out or not but I’m still gonna try.” He walked to Chad first and leaned down to drop a kiss on Noelles head before going to hug Carrie.

  “Where are you going?” She asked.

  “I'm going to talk to Shame, maybe let him hit me a few times.” Noah pulled me in for a hug. “Don’t get in your head beautiful. I can handle Shame. I understand the anger he’s in right now. Let me try getting through to him.”

  I nodded unable to speak through the lump in my throat as my tears fell. I loved Noah Beckett and the way he stood up and took the hits as they came. He wasn’t a giant man, but he sure as hell cast a giant shadow.

  “Want us to come with?” Chad asked and rose from the couch.

  Noah was shaking his head no. “Let me go into the lions den alone this round.” I knew why he was wanting to go alone. Shame knew how I confided in Noah, that Noah had done the work to hide my scars as well as Noah understanding abuse on a level Shame and the rest of TAT never could.

  The guys understood why as well and nodded in agreement. Noah kissed Candey goodbye and I say kissed loosely. He basically fucked her mouth with his mouth before leaving. The two of them were so openly freaks with each other, you couldn’t help but laugh and accept it.

  Noah left and our group of friends all started rummaging through cupboards looking for food.

  The pigs.

  “Pizza?” Carrie said and started calling in the order. I just wanted a hot bath and my bed. I had been up all night looking for Shame as well as fucking him goodbye.

  “Where you going Chica?” Candey asked following me down the hall.

  “I need a bath and some sleep.” I could hear the defeated and exhausted tone in my voice.

 
Candey nodded and pulled me in for a hug. “I love you Cass and I promise if anyone can make Shame see reason in all this garbage it’s Noah.”

  I didn’t say anything because I knew she was right.

  *

  Shamus

  I walked through the house, looking at the pictures on the wall, the dirty dishes that were still in the sink and the bottle of Jim Beam black that sat on the end table a single shot sat in the bottom of the bottle that my dad hadn’t finished. I walked to the mantle and looked at a picture still on display of Cassa and I from her senior prom.

  I’m four years older than her but still agreed to go because she had wanted too and for me it was that simple. W had been going steady for a little over a year and a half and I had an underlying need that maybe she would finally have sex with me. I got the tux, I got the limo and I got laid. I smiled at the memory.

  The night was ending and I wanted to take her right there in the limo, but she was a virgin unlike me and I knew she was scared. I sat next to her my arm around her when she closed the sun roof to the limo before resting her head on my shoulder. “I want to make love Shame.” She had whispered in my ear a little drunk from the champagne. I could still hear the fear in her voice as if she were beside me now asking me again.

  I looked at her a smile of victory and love when I kissed her. I had no clue how to be gentle with a virgin, my first time was with a loose girl in my ninth grade class. So I started with her lips and worked my way down. I slid my hand under her dress ripping a hole in her leggings to reach her clit. I knew how to please Cassa with my mouth and my fingers but now it was the big deal, no curtain call no trial chance. This was it.

  I took her to my room and laid her on the bed, stripping her of her dress and me my fifty buck tux. Kissing her and fingering her till she was coming on my fingers I finally realized that it was really happening. Looking back it all seemed so robotic, I was so nervous and scared of hurting her. I rolled a condom down before climbing in next to her. She pulled me on top of her and took me in her hand ready to take me in when I stopped her. “I don’t want to hurt you Sassy.”

  “You love me Shame, you could never hurt me.” She pulled me towards her and I did it, slowly methodically I took from her the most precious gift a woman can give a man, and it was a damn near religious experience. In a million years I never thought I would be that lucky. I lay over her and thrust slow kissing her gently as her body stretched to take me in. She came in my arms and I followed, and it all lasted about five minutes. It was the best five minutes I had ever experienced.

  I smiled at the memory, knowing I had been a fool to walk away from her, to leave my dad to take a nose dive to the bottle. I had ruined so many lives by wanting to fulfill my dream. I did and no pact with the devil would take it back, I had everything I had wanted and it cost everyone I loved. I looked around the house remembering how this house had built me. My father painted and remodeled to surprise my mom every nail every board had built the foundation but it was the love that was once inside that built it had made it a home.

  I could see the Christmases and Thanksgivings; I could see the morning I woke on the first day of Junior high when my mom had brought me in a second hand black acoustic guitar. The same guitar I still played every day and never went anywhere without it. I loved that guitar more than my drums, I just lived and breathed my drums where my guitar was personal and if I was being honest I was nowhere near as good as Cal, Chad or Noah.

  I walked down the hall and looked in my dads room, my parent’s room. I could see my mother lying in the bed, her body frail, her skin bruised because the chemotherapy had made her immune system completely incompetent. I saw her, the shawl she wore on her head to hide her baldness, it was pink the tribal color for the cancer that was robbing her of her life, her breasts and her hair, robbing me of my mother. She would smile and say she was fine, call it a headache. I knew she would be gone before the end of the year. That was October of 1998 and she didn’t make it to Halloween.

  Now tomorrow I would lay my dad to rest next to the woman he missed every day from the day she left. In some small way I wondered if that was when my dad decided to follow her, because the night he buried her he drowned his sorrows in a bottle of Whiskey and every day thereafter. They were now full circle, he would join her tomorrow, side by side for the rest of time.

  It was poetic; in a dark and beautiful sort of way.

  I walked into my room. I could see Cassa lying in my twin size bed, her hair rumpled and her skin flushed from the many times I made her come in that small bed. I saw Cassa in that room yesterday scared to death of being alone with me.

  Yeah no fuckin’ shit things had changed.

  Now I sat alone the impact of this trip home weighing heavy on my heart. I was alone, no mother no father. Jerry was dead and I never had the chance to tell him that he was right. I made it big sure, but Jerry was right. I left a hole in my absence, one bigger than I had been warned of. I should have been a Crabber; I would have married Cassa and had a family. My dad wouldn’t have been a drunk because I would have stopped it. I would never admit to him how badly I wanted to come home and fix it all. I wanted to fix him, fix Cassa…just like I wanted to fix my mom.

  Music was in my blood, I loved the feel of my drum sticks in my hand, the way the wood felt in my hands. Hands that blistered from teaching myself to play. Hands that were now worth more than this house in gold. I reached for my black acoustic that was leaning against the wall. I looked at the posters on the wall, still there from my younger years. TOOL, Nirvana, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam all paved the way for the band.

  Jerry hadn’t changed a thing and I couldn’t help but wonder if my dad missed me…as much as I missed him now.

  *

  Noah

  I walked up the small stone trail to Jerry’s front door and knocked on the door but there was no answer, so I tried the doorbell.

  No answer.

  I looked at my watch, it was two in the afternoon, where the fuck did he go now? I took the keys from my pocket, keys I swiped form Cassa’s key ring knowing damn well I would break the fuck in if he didn’t agree to talk to me. I was…a natural if I do say so myself, at getting to the point. If it meant there was kicking and screaming then so be it.

  I walked in and shut the door behind me before making my way down the hall. As I headed for the bathroom I heard someone, namely Shame playing a song I recognized but not one of ours. I knew it was Shame because it wasn’t that awesome of playing. I was awesome…just saying.

  I stood on the outside of his bedroom door and listened while he strummed his acoustic pausing when I heard his voice.

  Shame’s voice was undeniable and easy to recognize. He had the voice of a tenor and us guys had asked numerous times for him to sing on an album. Of course he always said no claiming that Adam Levine did a fine job creating hits as a tenor so the world didn’t need another. Hearing him singing now, I would be sure to revisit and revise that subject when his emotions weren’t in an uproar.

  The fucker could sing.

  I knew by the lyrics alone and the pain in his voice that the moment was fragile and I was being an intrusive ass by listening but I just had to see him, had to see his face to know he was OK. Carrie and me didn’t have family accept for Seth and Lilly and it was strained anyway. We relied on each other our whole lives until we both were brought into the TAT world. Now seeing these guys hurting made me as crazy as Carrie or Candey hurting did. I couldn’t take it and wanted to fix it.

  I couldn’t fix this shit though. This was time and only time.

  So I would wait here, let him work it out but I sure as fuck wasn’t leaving either. Shame was so closed off emotionally that knowing he was dying inside right now, man I couldn’t leave him hanging. I came around the corner and saw that his back was to me, the black acoustic in his lap. He wore a black bandana on his head and looked like the boy who was pumped about bringing me in for base so many years ago.

  I watched h
is back tighten and release with each strum, the thermal shirt he wore beneath his RamonesT shirt shifting slightly. I watched his hands as they shifted, his fingers dancing over the strings letting the tune take him over, something I understood perfectly. He sang the words with conviction, his voice attaching and adapting perfectly, filled with sorrow and anger, he strummed as the melody played for his pain.

  It had been so long since I had seen him play I forgot how good he was. He was way better at the drums, giftedwith the drums, but the guitar was made to work through a mood. The song was so fitting to him. How Jerry would have loved this sound, to see this talent so raw and open. Fuck, I had to fight back the tears, Shame was making me a pussy right now. Each verse was like a dagger to the chest. His pain was so deep, his father gone so the boy sings to kill the pain. It was beautiful and something I could never understand. I hated my fucking dad. I knew he was singing for Jerry though.

  Disarm you with a smile,

  Leave you like you left me here,

  To wither in denial

  The bitterness of one who's left alone

  His voice roared in pain as he went into the chorus; his hand coming off the arm of the guitar to wipe at his face. Were they tears he was shedding? The chords cried from the guitar as he belted the lyrics as if they were his life force, keeping him alive he went on through his anguish.

  I used to be a little boy

  So old in my shoes

  What I choose is my voice

  What’s a boy supposed to do

  The killer in me is the Killer in you

  My love

  I'll send this smile over to you

  I watched and listened not fearing my presence being known. I wanted him to see me and ask me to stay. Shame was alone and it was clear as day he felt it. Fuck I wasn’t big on guilt but I was feeling it now. We had all fucked his world up at the worst possible time of his life.

  I watched as he pinched and slid on the keys as the song came to an end. I looked at his room it was the same as when he lived there. The posters and concert tickets covering the walls, and in the corner where he left them were all the pictures of him and Cassa. He stopped playing and I tried to back out of the doorway but the floor creaked and Shamus spun.