The Way It Hurts

by Patty Blount

  On paper, they shouldn’t work. Dad was a dedicated businessman, the son of Etta, a former stage actress who had more ex-husbands than she had kids. And Mom was a free spirit artistic type who liked to wear long, flowy dresses and no shoes. He loved watching sports, while she preferred documentaries on the History channel. She loved to cook with organic food, while Dad was happy with chain restaurant half-price appetizers. I couldn’t believe they ever got together in the first place, let alone made it work all these years.

  A little sniffle from Etta caught my attention. She stared at Mom and Dad and caught a tear at the corner of one eye with her napkin. Etta had been married four times. Four! I wasn’t sure which of the four husbands was Dad’s father—I’d never asked—because he and Aunt Debra called them all Dad. Etta was still on friendly terms with all four of the dads, who’d remarried and started other families. Dad and Aunt Deb had dozens of half and stepsiblings, so now, our family gatherings needed bracket charts to keep track of everyone. It was loud and weird and fun and unconventional, just like Etta, and I absolutely adored us.

  “I think you should avoid that boy. You have to focus on your summer program arrangement. Have you chosen a piece yet?” Etta asked.

  I shook my head. “Not yet.” Oh, God. I had to tell them.

  “Well.” She leaned closer, her exotically painted eyes twinkling with secrets. “I suggest ‘Fever.’ It’s a classic, darling. So hot and sultry and certainly within your range.”

  That was the problem—“Fever” was in everyone’s range. It wasn’t a technically difficult song to perform. Besides, I’d already been rejected, so what was the point? I leaned over and murmured that news to Etta while the boys were chatting baseball and jobs and stuff.

  Etta made a tiny O with her mouth. “Oh, darling, I am so sorry. I know you had your heart set on Tisch, but there’s still time.”

  “Not really.” I shook my head. “Summer programs are already full. The best I could hope for is the wait list.”

  The tiny O-shaped mouth slowly morphed into a calculating smile. “What you need, darling, is an edge. And you’ve already been presented with the means to get it.”

  I blinked at her. “What, the rock band? No. Absolutely not.”

  Etta patted my hand. “Well, if you don’t think you can do it, that’s fine, of course.”

  Couldn’t do it? Please. I peered at her through narrowed eyes. “I know what you’re doing, and that’s not gonna work on me.”

  She gave one of her elegant little shrugs—patent pending—and just smiled. “I just think this band would showcase your brilliant flexibility.” She clapped her hands when a new thought struck. “Oh, and you might consider recording an original composition. That always impresses conservatory people.”

  My conservatory applications were a real BFD in our house. Ever since I’d taken my first voice lesson, when it was clear I had talent, my parents had been planning and saving for this. Me? Not so much. Truth was, I didn’t know what I wanted. I loved performing—of that, I was absolutely certain. But I loved dancing and acting as much as I love singing and didn’t want to study only classical music.

  The conversation stopped, and everybody stared at Etta, who lifted her shoulders in another elegant shrug. “Well, it could,” she insisted. “At the very least, it will give you notoriety.”

  “Mother, I’m not sure Pam and I want our daughter to be notorious.”

  “Nonsense, Richard.” Etta waved off his concern. “First rule of performing—there’s no such thing as bad press. If Kristen sings in this band, she’ll be famous locally, and the conservatories will fight to scoop her up.”

  Fight for me? I doubted it. I’d be one of thousands trying out.

  “I don’t get it. Why bother applying if she gets famous?” Gordon asked. “I mean, at that point, she’ll have all the success there is.”

  Dad shook his head. “It’s not just about things like record sales or screaming fans, Gordie. It’s about getting to work with masters, rising out of anonymity to earn the respect of leaders in the industry.”

  Etta and I both cringed at Dad’s mention of the A word. Anonymity was the very worst thing that could happen to a performer. That was why Etta was wearing her diamonds to the ice-cream parlor. She wanted to be noticed and remembered for the work she’d done back in the day. I saw the way pure joy beamed out of her like light when that man recognized her. I wanted that. Oh, not just for the money and the perks. I wanted my talent to be admired and have little kids look up to me. I wanted to be remembered.

  To matter.

  If I could find a way to impress the admissions committees with something fresh and daring, I’d have a shot. Etta was right. Tisch may have rejected me, but their summer program wasn’t the only way to impress the Berklee admissions people. Maybe this rock band idea wasn’t so bad after all.

  I glanced out the window again. Elijah Hamilton was gone, but I smiled into the bottom of my ice-cream bowl and decided to send him a friend request. I’d give his rock band a shot.

  It could be just what I needed.

  5

  Elijah

  Ride_On747: Nice riff on the video! Keep ’em coming!

  1 LIKE

  “I thought you wanted to hook up with Kristen Cartwright,” Sam said, shaking his head. “But all you want is for her to sing in our band with us? Why? Things are fine the way they are.” He sat with his arms crossed and face scowling on a stool in my garage, where amplifiers and Nick’s drum kit lined the back wall. Against a sidewall, on a cheap plastic banquet table, we had our soundboard, which was essentially an iPad and an old, trusty Mac. In boxes stacked on a ceiling-high shelf unit, we stored speakers, mics, and other gear we needed for shows—when we could book them. We typically played restaurants, cafes, and sometimes private parties. On Saturday mornings when my parents took Anna for her therapy appointments, we rehearsed. Except today. All we’d done was debate about Kristen.

  I hadn’t told the guys about Anna. About what my parents were planning to do.

  It sucked hard enough already. Telling them, risk having them feel all sorry for me and shit? They’d do whatever I asked, and if that was adding Kristen to our band, they’d do it. They’d hate it, but because I asked, they’d do it.

  Fuck it. I had to be honest with them. Wincing, I pulled in a deep breath. Time to come clean. “Things are great. But we’re not going anywhere, guys. We had a plan to hit it big, and that has to happen for us like right now. Otherwise, I’m going to have to pull out.”

  Sam shot off his stool, sending it crashing to the concrete floor. “Pull out? What the hell, Elijah? We made a promise!”

  “Chill out, Sam.” Nick shot to his feet and put a restraining hand on Sam’s shoulder. It took a lot to rile up Nick, and for that, I was grateful. “Elijah, what’s going on with you? You’ve been acting kind of—” He circled his hand a few times.

  I looked at Sam, still breathing fire, and at Nick, who studied me with his head to the side, eyes full of concern. My throat closed up.

  Aw, fuck.

  I couldn’t look at them, but I had to finish what I hadn’t been able to tell them last night. “It’s Anna, guys. She just… She’s getting worse. Harder to handle. She’s thirteen and hormonal and just…well…my dad—” To my extreme embarrassment, my voice cracked. “He, um… They want to put her in a home.” Just the thought of that made me clench my hands into fists.

  “Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Sam said quietly.

  The blood in my veins went icy. I straightened up and got to my feet. “Say what?”

  “Chill.” He put up both hands. “Just listen. You said she’s getting worse. If we do this thing with Kristen and suddenly take off, how are you gonna take care of Anna and still make Ride Out work?”

  “That’s the whole point, Sam!” I spread out my arms. “If we can get Ride Out to
the next level—get this gig, get the next one, maybe land a recording contract—I could afford a whole team of caregivers for her. She’d be in her own home instead of some prison cell with a bunch of other kids with disabilities.”

  He looked down at his feet. “And you really think Kristen Cartwright can help?”

  “You heard her last night. That voice is like a superpower. With her aboard doing duets, we’ll bring an audience to its fucking knees.”

  Sam looked from me to Nick and then down at his feet, jaw clenched. He shook his head and finally flung up his hands. “Okay, fine. You want to give her a try, we’ll do it. But I’m not doing any chick shit pop music songs just to showcase her voice. We’re a metal band, and she needs to sing metal. No ‘Over the Rainbow’ crap.” Sam slashed his hands through the air. “Why can’t she just sing backup in some leather outfit, and show off her tits and ass?”

  The thought of Kristen in a skintight leather outfit had my jeans tightening to the point of pain. I grabbed my guitar to hide it from the guys.

  Brothers or not, some things were just private.

  “Christ, Elijah, is that what this is about?” Sam asked with a smirk. “You want in that girl’s pants? Why don’t you just take her out? Why dangle our band under her nose?”

  “I want her voice.”

  “I’m calling it.” Sam raised one hand, like a referee. “Bullshit.” Nick laughed and shook his head while my face burned.

  “Okay, she’s hot! I admit it. Hottest chick I’ve ever seen—no offense, Nick. But that’s not what this is about. It’s about the music. She brought the house down last night with that song.”

  Sam laughed once. “She brought the house down because she had a hella nice rack in that cat costume.”

  I stood up and walked away so I wouldn’t knock his teeth in. Yeah, Kristen rocked the cat suit. Yeah, she had nice boobs. Didn’t mean that was the only reason I wanted her in the band. I wasn’t a tool. I respected girls, which was why I didn’t date. You shouldn’t make a girl promises you can’t keep. Dad taught me that.

  “Okay, my vote is she sings with us—duets, maybe even lead on some songs. But I like the idea of hot outfits to show off her body,” Nick cut in. “The lead singer of In This Moment got voted hottest chick in metal. That could be us.”

  “I agree.” Sam crossed his arms. “Two against one, Elijah.” When I remained stone-faced, he flung his hands in the air. “What is the problem with this?”

  “Because it should be about the music.”

  “Come off it, Eli. You said we needed a push. A shot of adrenaline. You think she’s it. What’s the big deal about using her looks, too? I do it. I have fucking highlights in my hair because chicks dig it.” He waved a hand over his long, flowy blond locks that looked like something out of a shampoo commercial.

  “The girls love that whole Brad Pitt/Zac Efron thing,” Nick added with an eyebrow wiggle. “So why not give the guys some eye candy?”

  Sam flipped him off but added, “Exactly.”

  “Okay, so you’ll sing backup in a tight outfit? That could be interesting.” I smirked when Sam shot me a glare. It suddenly hit me that this was the real problem. Sam hated sharing the spotlight.

  I needed to make him see that this was for the good of the band. If Ride Out had a future, we had to take some risks. With a long, loud sigh, I grabbed a stool, tapped my tablet, and brought up the county festival website.

  “According to the sign-up FAQs, the county plans to start picking acts for the festival later this month. Every teen idol and pop star wannabe probably applied by now. But how many heavy metal bands do you think did? And how many of those can brag about not one but two powerhouse voices?” Yeah, I knew that was arrogant as hell.

  It was also the truth, and the guys knew it.

  Sam pressed his lips together but didn’t say anything, so I figured I’d scored a point. He sat down on a stool, arms crossed, face flushed. Finally, he dragged both hands through his hair and shrugged. “It was supposed to be the three of us. All the way to the top. I wanted this to stay ours—just ours, you know?”

  I knew. I just didn’t think that was going to happen before I was thirty, and I couldn’t wait that long.

  He stood up and put a hand on my shoulder. “Okay. You want her, you got her. But I swear to God, Eli, if you’re just doing this only to get laid, tell me now. I don’t want her being our Yoko. You guys are my brothers. Nothing comes between us.”

  “Bros before hos, man.” Nick put out a fist.

  I bumped his and then Sam’s. “Deal.”

  I could totally keep my hands off Kristen Cartwright.

  No problem.

  • • •

  An hour later, the question of asking Kristen to join our band settled, we were sitting on stools, huddled around the ancient Mac, listening to a track from a new band. Cymbals clashed, drums raged, and the final notes of the outro faded, leaving their echo in my head. I sat back and swiveled to face Sam and Nick.

  “Well?” Nick asked, a smug smile curving his lips.

  “Okay, okay, it’s got potential. Happy now?” I rolled my eyes.

  Nick didn’t answer me. He just exchanged high fives with Sam, who grabbed my iPad and started tapping. I looked over his shoulder.

  “Common Kiss?” I raised my brows. “Lame name. But yeah, okay. The lyrics were decent.”

  “Yes!” Nick raised both arms. “We’re unanimous. This band is our next cover.”

  Frowning, I put up a hand. I knew Nick was trying to make up for the time we’d lost by watching the play last night, but this was a stretch for us. “Hold up, guys. I only heard one song off that album. There’s no way I can play any of this.”

  “Yeah, especially if you don’t stop checking your phone every ten seconds for texts from Kristen the White Cat.”

  I flipped Nick off while Sam sighed and scrolled through the songs. Common Kiss was a new pop rock band—FM radio stations would play them like they were the second coming of Nickelback. But their sound wasn’t special.

  Special… The word made me think about Kristen—oh, she was special—beyond special. I couldn’t get her or her amazing voice out of my head. I’d already spent hours imagining what she would sound like singing death metal…and had to take a cold shower when I was done.

  “Look, with everything going on right now, I don’t think I can make the time to learn this.”

  “Got that covered, bro.” Sam took back the tablet and tapped a bunch of keys, head-banging as he typed, long blond hair flowing to the beat from the last track that seemed to drip from the air. Finally, he looked up. “What if we only cover one song from the album, but do a video review of the whole thing?”

  Nodding his head, Nick took the tablet. “I like it. Kind of a Wayne’s World thing?”

  “No, seriously review it. We’re musicians, and we’re fans. It’s fine if we don’t eviscerate them—not like that bitch on the Beat does.”

  I laughed. BroadwayBaby17 was a pain in all our asses. I took the tablet from Nick, glanced at the guitar tabs Sam had found, and then back at the website so I could skim some of the lyrics. There was a real storytelling skill here…kind of folksy, kind of Bob Seger. We’d reviewed songs before but never a whole album. Our reviews were a big hit with our fans. In fact, I was convinced our online reviews were why we had fans in the first place. We were good and called ourselves Ride Out because we figured we’d hit it big one day, and then we could just sit back to ride out our fame for however long it lasted. Sam on lead guitar, Nick on percussion, and me on bass guitar. I was our front man too. I could switch from a gas-gargling howl for our aggressive death metal tracks to a powerful sound for crowd-pleasing power ballads, and even manage the husky texture needed for those rootsy songs from our heartland playlists—and could do it all in the same set.

  I’d worked my ass off to
be able to do that. I took a talent I was born with and developed it into something real and strong and—if all went according to plan—marketable.

  Sam was the same way with his guitar. He made the strings sing. Then there was Nick. His drumming was nothing short of brilliant. People always assume it’s easy to beat a skin, and Nick would just smile, hand over his sticks, and let them flounder for a couple of minutes. Then he’d take the sticks back and cut loose until jaws dropped. I didn’t know anybody who could make the time between beats really groove the way he did.

  We weren’t just good; we knew what we were talking about and had the chops to back it up. I took a closer look at the guitar tabs Sam found and nodded. “Yeah,” I said, already liking the Common Kiss plan.

  “Okay,” Nick joined in. “Where do we start?”

  Sam booted up the Mac. “How about a comparison? We start with their band members—who they are and how they met, where they came from, who influenced their sound, and compare that to our own situation.”

  “Excellent,” Nick said, and I agreed. “You do that. Elijah and I will listen to the whole album and start taking some notes.”

  I grabbed a splitter, stuck one end into the jack, and waited for Nick to do the same. Pens ready, I tapped Play and shut my eyes.

  Music was all about the feelings. A teacher once told us that music affects our brains kind of like sex, food, or drugs. He rattled off things like dopamine and other scientific and biological crap that just took all the fun out of it for me. I didn’t care why we liked music, how it affected us, or why it was so important. I knew only that it mattered. Some days, the music was all that mattered. I shut my eyes and just let the sound in, tuning everything else out. I liked to feel music with my whole body. My pulse synched up to the percussion, and I could taste the lyrics on my tongue—bitter and angry. And the smell? Leather and sweat. My pen flew over the page, recording observations and feelings while the music filled me up.