Walking Heartbreak

by Sunniva Dee

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” I say. “One day I’ll—”

  “Don’t forget me,” he whispers, mouth against my neck.

  “Never. No way,” I whisper back.

  “I can’t stand to think about you being with him. Please… I’m selfish.”

  God, Bo is pleading with me. He’s hurting, and it’s my fault. Doesn’t he see that I am the walking heartbreak?

  I wish I could take Bo’s pain away. Soon. Maybe soon, I can. But now…? If I did, I’m not sure I would survive. I have to give Bo something though. Something to ease his pain so he can do his job. There are thousands of people out there in the audience, most of them coming for Luminessence. This is another chance for Clown Irruption to make an impact.

  “When are you back in Los Angeles?” I ask.

  “In a week.”

  “That’s not long. And I won’t be with Jude that way. The way you and I are.” It’s the first promise I’ve ever given him.

  Cautious hope lives in Bo’s gaze when he draws back to study my expression. Then he squeezes me, like I am his and he is mine to keep. “Are you saying you won’t sleep with your husband? That you’ll be waiting for me in L.A.?”

  “Yes.” My voice is sure. I’m light with short-lived bliss over the relief I see in his eyes, until my admission has me staring down the barrel of a nineteen-month-old reality, one I spend most waking hours trying to forget. That Jude and I will never make love again is just the tip of the iceberg.

  I flush my mind of thoughts. I’m starting to master it. Whenever I keep them clean and organized, facing another day isn’t the worst thing in the world.

  Bo’s arms scissor my back as he folds me in, tightening around me like he doesn’t want to let go. I’m straddling him, toes on the floor and hands raked into a hold at the back of his head. We’re still in this position, with Bo’s lips on my temple, when Troll opens the door.

  “Ten minutes and we’re on.” The tour manager jerks his thumb behind him. “Let’s rock, lovebirds.”

  The stage is huge with a wall of spots lined up behind the band. Video screens blast out colors and clips of their faces, their hands playing their instruments. Troy’s drumsticks whirl in the air and land safely in his grip before he plunges back in. The audience starts out listening, soaking in the light show and the sound. When Emil sheds his shirt on the second song, grabs the front of his jeans and thrusts hard, the crowd cheers wildly and the scattered cries for Luminessence fade and die.

  Bo turns to me, feet locked in place. He winks once, sexy as heck, and that flutter in my chest turns into a bah-boom, bah-boom, joining Troy’s beat and loving it all.

  Right now, this is it. It’s me not being me, not living the life I’ve made for myself in L.A., and I’m allowing it to happen without guilt. In a few hours, I’ll be leaving. Who knows what the future will bring then.

  Moments to live for. Moments to soak in. Seize the day, they say. I am, I am! When Ebele, the girl Elias likes, takes her confident place next to me in song three, I shake her hand, smile wider than I have in ages, and sway my body to the song.

  I laugh when Elias turns to us, half kneeling in the air with his bass on his thighs. It’s his not-so-subtle Hello! to this new crush in his life. Right now, right now, all is good, and when Bo’s voice echoes back from all corners of the arena, “Do you want to hear Fuck You?” I shout out my Yes! with the audience too.

  Ebele whoops at my side, lifting her arms above her head and shaking her hips. She’s shameless, beautiful, full of life and color—she’s exactly what I feel inside tonight.

  I cherish this instant. Cherish Bo when he steps off stage and lowers his guitar to hug me tight. His sweat covers me as he rubs against my body and sucks me into a kiss. “I want to leave—now. Let’s go to the hotel. I need you,” he pants, from the exertion, from lust, or from the audience roaring for more behind him.

  “I think you have to do an encore,” I say, breathless from his uber-presence rupturing the last inch of my personal space.

  “I. Don’t. Care. I need every second left with you.”

  Troll’s already heading over, a hand in the air and swiping at the stage. “Bo. Get your ass out there now. I’m not your babysitter, okay? You’ll get to your precious hotel soon enough.”

  Bo does listen, rolling his eyes lightly, a small smirk lifting his lips. He grabs my hand, but I know what he wants and I’m not going there. I slip away, hide behind Troy who covers me, while Bo bounces to the side, playful, not giving up so easily.

  “I’ve had it for the day. Please, make my life easy for once,” Troll sighs, grabs the back of Bo’s shirt like he’s taller than him, and hauls him up front himself.

  Playful Bo. God, playful Bo is beautiful. Feelings inside of me mix and demand to burst free and be honest. Of course I don’t let them, but the softness they create within me, the gentle tug to say more, do more, is unequivocal.

  Bo raises his arms in a fine-you-win gesture out there. Troll blows his cheeks full of air and lets it out fast, exhausted by the crazy boy. Me, I can’t take my eyes off Bo when he starts strumming his instrument.

  “Ladies!” Emil bellows, and two thirds of the audience squeals a loud Whoooo! in response. “Ladies!” he bellows again, louder.

  “Yeeeeeees!” the audience cheers back.

  “LADIES!” Emil’s microphone retorts his voice and throws it back in a squealing feedback that lingers on for seconds after Emil stops. I swing to see Troll’s reaction, expecting him to be upset. He isn’t. His eyes are hard on the band, jaws tense in approval and waiting for Emil’s next move.

  “YEEEEESSS!” The crowd is so loud, it’s a wall of sound coming back at me. Ebele laughs, and it’s contagious and I laugh with her, hard, and I don’t even hear my own voice over the noise surrounding us.

  “You ready for a completely new song?” Emil yells.

  What?

  “YEEEESSSSSS!”

  They start, and I instantly recognize it. It’s what Bo played in that dark corner of the stage in Deepsilver when I arrived. The melody has evolved. It’s more polished. There are still no vocals except for a few “she came” and “she’s here,” moaned out by Emil in his signature I’m-making-love-to-your-ears fashion.

  My face is a cooked lobster. Thank the Lord Bo doesn’t write books, I suddenly think; song lyrics are revealing enough.

  Thankfully, the stage bathes us in red light, softening the impact of my reaction. Ebele leans in. “Is this song about you too?”

  I turn, and I’m struck by the openness in her expression. Elias is attracted to the opposite of himself, I’ve noticed—culture, skin color—but in addition, there’s a lack of judgment and of jadedness in Ebele’s expression. Has Elias noticed that in her too?

  I’m used to downplaying and hiding, but Ebele makes it easy to be honest. “Yeah. I came out to see him,” I reply, smiling a little.

  “Your boyfriend is a sweet man,” she says close to my ear so I can hear her. I need to tell her he’s not my boyfriend. Some other time.

  BO

  She absorbs my vehemence, my fury—my love. Yes, right now that’s what it is. I admit it as I crush our hands against the tiled walls of the shower and take her with my mouth and my cock.

  Her gaze had my back on stage, her belief in all that I do ever-present. Through my guitar solos, the backup vocals to songs I’ve made for her, for Ingela, or for life; whatever I did up there, she was with me in approval and a gentle pride that sat in her eyes. I know because I turned often.

  She’s my muse, my beauty, my other person. The woman I want around on the toughest day, during nights like these where the show is over and I let the fans slobber on me. Even then she had my back, a slender arm around my waist from behind while rabid girls attacked with CDs and T-shirts, navels to sign and butt cracks with Clown Irruption tattoos. Not once did she w
aver. Not once did it scare her off.

  I can’t stand that she’s leaving.

  So I take her hard against the bathroom wall, and it’s not the way I’d planned to be with her tonight. I’m upset with myself, but I can’t handle these emotions. The looming loss of someone who’s never been yours is a crazy, crazy thing.

  Her depths are smooth. She braves my frustration, my violence—my love.

  Love does not last, mine less than anyone’s. It’s fickle, a cat, a woman, not something I’ll bank on or profess to.

  I plead with her. Wow, yes, I plead.

  “Please wait for me.”

  “Yes,” she replies, and I hope she understands.

  My movements become spasmodic. She lifts one knee, embracing me with her leg, and I heave the other up so it’s her against the wall, ruled by me. I keep her from falling, and she trusts me. It’s beautiful when she contracts around me in slow tremors too.

  “Don’t worry. It’s just us here. No one can hear you,” I murmur, and she rewards me with a whimper as everything becomes too much for her to bear.

  “Darling, I—” I cut myself off in time. Yes, I love her but that’s now. Tomorrow I’ll return to me. Shit’s complicated, and I don’t want to think about it. Her life. My missing love muscle. Or what if my heart’s just weird and skittish? Anyway.

  I lower her to the floor and drink lukewarm water from her lips. We’re under the shower, breathing hard, and I’ve slid out of her and wish I hadn’t.

  “It’s wrong,” I hum to her.

  “What?” she puffs into my mouth.

  “To be outside of you.”

  A small breath hitches from her. It’s a cute laugh. Everything is cute with her.

  “I’m obsessed,” I say. Carry her wet from the shower and dump her on our bed. She laughs softly as I lick her boobs free of droplets, grab an old hand towel from the floor, and start drying her off.

  “I’m obsessed with you. It hurts. I still want more every time.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers, but her eyes shine. There’s love in there, hidden. It’s of the kind that rages beneath the sternum of my own chest, of the kind I don’t allow out, except as an obsession.

  Obsessions I can live with.

  Obsession is music. Stage. Guitar. Melodies. Lyrics.

  Adding another obsession is fine.

  “You’re my latest obsession,” I tell her, kissing along her hairline, down past her ear and to her neck. I suck on her collarbone, and she’s content, her body a subtle wave beneath me on the bed.

  “The bed is wet now,” she whispers, and I say “yes” because I couldn’t care less. Now, we’re done with the meet-n-greet she made me do, and it’s just us, enjoying our last hours together.

  “Let’s not sleep tonight,” I say, hiking her knee over my hips though I’m drained and not ready for another round. I still thrust against her, needing her to remember where I’ve been, where I want to be, where I’d like to be the only man who ever—

  Is.

  Fuck, okay. This is the high after an amazing show. All performers are like this. Some get drunk off their ass. Some get high. Others have sex until they’re exhausted enough to sleep, while the most wholesome ones work out like Olympians to ease down from the endorphin rush of a great show.

  Yes, that’s it. I am that way right now. I’m obsessed with her, and tonight I love her. She’s amazing. Exactly what I—

  But all of this aside, once she leaves, once I’m back in the groove, life will be back to normal. My rushes will come from writing songs and performing them. Maybe a quick lay in the bunk with a fan.

  I breathe out fast, anchoring myself to reality.

  Yes, that’s what it will be. And yet I ask, “You want to see the moon?”

  NADIA

  We watch the full moon from the hotel roof. The lights from the city dim the stars surrounding it, but with Bo’s arms around me and my head against his shoulder, I can’t remember seeing a more beautiful moon.

  His chest moves with slow intakes and outflows of air while we watch. In a hard stab deep inside me, where he just shook me to Heaven, it strikes me just how alive he is. Bo. Is a living, breathing man who is obsessed with me.

  Tomorrow, I’ll be gone. I can’t stand the thought of leaving him. I don’t want to go back to the life of before. He’ll return, I tell myself, be on break from tour in a week. Beyond that week, beyond his break, I can’t even imagine.

  Thoughts keep shivering through my head. I’m the product of my upbringing, my past, my marriage. I’m ruined.

  In bed, we fall asleep with our hands stilling on each other’s skin. Cocooned in the air-conditioned room, I’m on his arm, a leg twisted with his under the covers, soft sheets tangling with our limbs and keeping us warm.

  “Darling,” he whispers through the pitch-blackness. “I’m so sorry. We have to get up.”

  My eyes go wide, my heart hammering out the too-early adrenaline shock I get whenever I wake up at an ungodly hour.

  Four. Four a.m. Yes, he’s right. If I am to get on my plane in time, this is it.

  I straddle him to get up, but his arms weigh me down, keeping me in his embrace for another sleep-warmed moment. I sigh, nudging in against his throat and savoring the rightness I feel.

  “Shower?” he asks, waking up beneath me, allowing silky hardness to prod gently at my core. I’m weak. I’m needy. I widen my legs to feel him one more time because soon I’ll be on a flight speeding far, far away from this man who has woken me from grey slumber.

  “We should get up,” he hisses, and I love the heat rasping in his voice, how he has already surrendered and lets himself in even as he speaks.

  “Yes…” I say, but what does it matter if I don’t get that shower? Once I’m in L.A., I can take as many showers as I want.

  The length of our bodies align in the darkness, the comforter hugging us while Bo’s arms hold me still on top of him. Then he thrusts slowly, coolly, until I envelop him so completely, just the way I want him.

  “Why do you trust me like this?” he whispers. “You should be protected.”

  “Because you’d never do this to me if I were at risk.”

  “Not since my ex have I—”

  “And I… not since my husband.”

  We’re quiet, undulating with each other until my breath becomes irregular and he ignites his phone and shines it on my face. It’s unromantic, ridiculous.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, my question truncated, and he replies—

  “Memorizing how your face looks while I love you.”

  I have no answer, and once the room returns to black, I already shiver in his arms, his presence overwhelming inside of me. I slow our rhythm, and he adjusts to my need, hard as bone and waiting until I am ready.

  A breath as fast as a sob escapes me, and this beautiful person understands. It’s a rush that he understands, and I’ve never felt closer to anyone.

  “Now?” he whispers seconds before my climax ripples in, and I do sob then, when he knows things people don’t know.

  Pushing my spine down with one hand, he locks the other over my behind to secure himself deep inside of me. He moves in small, barely contained jerks that drive me insane.

  “Bo!” I scream, and it’s surreal, weird, wild because I never scream.

  Bo whispers, “Yes… Darling…” before he comes apart too.

  In the back of a dark cab, he brushes the hair off my face and stares into my eyes while we two-wheel it through back alleys and orange lights. I’m so full of him I don’t have words to share.

  “Will you wait for me?” he repeats once the airport appears ahead of us, and I nod because there is no doubt in my mind. I will, I will.

  NADIA

  The plane heaves me up high, but it can’t keep my mood from dropping. It doesn�
��t hold the power to alter my loss and my guilt. A new love corrupts my nerves.

  I’m in love with two men, and I can do nothing about it. There is no salvation from the doom coming my way. I’ve escaped my past, my family, but no one can abscond from what’s right and wrong.

  My mind is a smogged-down cloud that allows me to doze off when we hit higher altitudes. This new love of mine beats like moth wings against the walls of my heart and refuses to vacate. But in sleep, in sleep, the love invading my dream is my forever:

  “Jude,” I shout, shaking him. The bed is rumpled and my sweetheart weak between the sheets, a glass of water the only thing on his nightstand. “Wake up, baby. Have you eaten today?”

  Jude has Sundays off from his job at the gas station. He’s the assistant janitor of the Alhambra Apartments too now, which leaves us with minimal utility bills. Today, on his day off, the plan had been to fix the gutters outside.

  I don’t know if he has done it, and I don’t care, because I’m just home from my eight-hour shift at Scott’s Diner, and here I am, finding this.

  “Jude!”

  He stirs. He’s paler than our cream-colored sheets. “Nadia. I’m fine—just resting.” He sounds trustworthy, but it’s the fourth time in eight weeks that I’ve found him like this.

  “Did you finish the gutters?” I say, and he smirks, eyes still closed. “I don’t leave a job until it’s done.”

  My pulse settles at his attitude, knowing he’s right. “When did you eat last?”

  “Women,” he says. “I thought I’d finally moved out of Mom’s domain. I’m fine, Nadia. You don’t have to keep an eye on me. I’m good.”

  “Tell me,” I insist. “When?”

  I recognize the signs. He’s feeble and opinionated. Wants to be left alone. When he’s okay, Jude always wants me close. He greets me at the door when we work shifts that don’t match. Sometimes, he lights the candles I love so much, the ones that smell like peaches and lemons. He waits for me with some sort of foody concoction neither of us enjoy much, but the main thing is, he makes it. Like I do for him when he’s the one coming home late. Tonight, there’s no food on the stove.