my life as a rock album

by LJ Evans

  “You big shithead,” Justice said, putting down his bowl with a bang.

  Locke put his hands in his trouser pockets and kind of rocked back and forth on his heels. Uncomfortable. Awkward. Unsure in a way that I’d never seen him before. I wondered at the timing. Like he was using us and our moving in together as a shield for dropping this bomb on his family.

  “What do you want me to say?” Locke looked away.

  “Man. We went through a lot together in college. A lot of women…” Justice trailed off still in shock.

  Locke stopped and met his gaze. “It’s taken me a while to realize it myself. To realize why I wasn’t always happy in my relationships. And, I like women,” he shrugged. “I just like guys too.”

  You were off of me and hugging him in a blink. “I love you, Locke, and I am very happy that you’ve found what will make you happy.”

  You’d said you loved him, and I tried not to let it twist me up with jealousy because you hadn’t said those words to me. We hadn’t said them to each other. But, you also sounded wistful, and that hit me in the stomach for a different reason. Locke seemed uncomfortable. Like he might turn as red as you normally do.

  Then Justice was up and at his side too. “You’re a fool. Do you know how many hot guys I could have set you up with by now? I own a gym!”

  Justice was trying to lighten the mood, and it worked some. He hugged Locke and then punched him on the shoulder. “Still a shithead.”

  I was amazed again at the love that your little makeshift family had found and made for itself. The acceptance that was there without even blinking an eye. The complete and utter support you all seemed to give each other. I felt like an outsider in my own house. It pissed me off.

  “Does this mean we’ll finally get better clientele at the gallery now?” I grunted.

  You glared at me. I just turned back to my food. You and Justice started asking questions about the guy Locke was seeing. I ignored it all.

  Finally, Justice was done with his bowl and the third degree and rose. “I gotta get back to Liv and Cole. She’ll probably be half asleep with him in her arms while she tries to wash the bottles.”

  All of you walked toward our front door. I trailed behind. “Thanks for helping us,” you said to both the men. You looked back at me expectantly, and I didn’t add my thanks.

  “Thanks for the stew. That was some really good stuff,” Justice said.

  I nodded, but only because you wanted me to. You were taming me even then. Breaking me in like a stray dog that you’d let into your house. Except that it was my house. Our house.

  They headed out the door, with you hugging them for what felt like the goddamn hundredth time, before the door finally closed behind them, and I finally got to pull you into my arms and kiss you the way I really wanted to kiss you.

  You laughed and pulled away. “Stop. I have head back to the apartment so we can finish cleaning before we go out.”

  “I’ll hire a maid,” I grumbled.

  “No. You won’t. I can clean up my own messes.”

  “Then clean this one up,” I said drawing your hand down to my jeans where I was already feeling like I would explode. You smiled that sassy, seductive smile that you’d come to wear so often when we were alone together.

  You pulled me down the hall to our bedroom, and we lost ourselves for several hours in the feel of our skin on each other’s skin, and the taste of our lives being tangled together even closer.

  * * *

  I woke to the sounds of boxes being open. You were sitting on the floor, sifting through clothes. “Come back to bed,” I mumbled.

  “You know I can’t. I need to go. The girls are waiting for me. I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  “This is bullshit,” I barked and threw myself out of our bed and pulled on my jeans.

  “It’s one night.” You smiled, resisting my bad mood. “Give it a week, you’re going to be wishing for a night without me.”

  I stomped my way over to you and picked you up. Your legs wrapped around my middle as they always did now. “You still don’t get it. This is the only place I want you to be. Ever.”

  You kissed me fiercely, as if you felt the same, but then pushed against me to let you down. I did, but with reluctance.

  You packed a bag, kissed me long and hard once more, and then took off in your worthless car while I watched you from the doorway like that stray dog again, but this one being left at home while his new master went away for the day.

  You were happy. I knew you were happy. I felt it inside of me, but when you’re happy, there is a glow about you that makes you this ethereal beauty that guys don’t stand a chance against. I didn’t stand a chance against, and all I could think of was you, out on the town with the twins and Claire, drawing the eyes of some schmuck who wouldn’t take no for an answer. God. If I’d known then what would happen later, it probably would have put me over the edge.

  As it was, the images in my mind were too much. I couldn’t stop seeing you and your drunk roommates at the bar surrounded by all those wanna-be models like I’d found you before. It was tearing me up inside.

  I had to actively resist the desire to follow you as much as I had to resist the magnetic pull that alcohol was whispering to me. So instead of following you, I drove north up Highway 1. Not far, just far enough. Closer to Hollywood and Santa Monica than home. I’d found this meeting when I’d first started at Otis. When I didn’t want to attend an AA meeting too close to school. I didn’t want to risk seeing anyone I knew from class, professor or student. AA meetings are anonymous. Confidentiality crucial, but I still hadn’t wanted to chance it.

  I hadn’t been to a meeting in a couple months. I hadn’t needed it. And then I’d found you and really thought I didn’t need it because I had you. Us. A new life. But, Mac used to tell me that it’s when you think you don’t need it that you actually need it the most. I guess I’d found that out the hard way. Like all the things in my life have ever been found.

  The meeting calmed me. Got me focused back on what was important. The now. Us. Our new life together that you would be coming home to after this one last night with the girls.

  When I got home, I went into the studio and pounded on the legs of your silk covered chair that still didn’t seem right to me. Like it was still missing something that I hadn’t discovered yet. And I guess I hadn’t because you were still keeping secrets from me.

  At about midnight, my phone rang. It was from your number, and all the panic and insane thoughts rushed back into my brain.

  “Bella?”

  Quiet. “Seth? Who the hell is Bella?” I could hear the drunken slur of Claire’s voice even over the phone.

  “Where’s PJ?” I demanded.

  “Who’s Bella, jerk?”

  I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her even though I appreciated her protectiveness. I didn’t need to justify myself to her. “PJ is Bella,” I growled at her. “Put her on the damn phone.”

  “She’s here. But, I think we need a ride.”

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I demanded and was out the door before I’d even hung up the phone.

  I felt like a crazy man as I drove to the bar. Why hadn’t you called me? Were you sick? Were you throwing up in some disgusting bathroom? I wanted to punch a wall. I wanted to punch Claire for letting you get that way.

  When I walked in and saw that stupid kid from the gym, I almost busted a table. And I knew instantly why Claire had called. He had you cornered behind the pool table. You looked uncomfortable. I couldn’t help the visceral reaction I had as I stormed across the room shoving people and chairs out of my way.

  As I approached, I saw you duck under his arm, him grab at you, and you twist his fingers back, but he still didn’t let go even when it was obvious you’d hurt him. You were damn strong.

  He didn’t have a choice but to let you go when I reached him. I slammed my fist into his jawbone before either of you truly registered I was there. I hit him a second ti
me, and he hit the floor. A puddle of blood pouring from his nose. I went to pick him up and hit him again, but your hands and Claire’s tugged at my arms. “Seth. Stop.”

  Michael whined. Something about his goddamn nose. I pulled away from you and Claire and picked him up by his shirt collar. “Stay the hell away from my girlfriend.”

  “Fuck you!” Michael bellowed, pushing against me ready to go.

  I flung him backward and his hip hit the pool table with a loud crack. He yelled out in pain, but I didn’t care. I was going back in, but by then the bouncers had figured out what was going on, and they had my arms. And you and Claire had my arms, and between the four of you, you kept me from continuing my deadly pursuit of the shithead.

  Too bad I hadn’t been able to finish him.

  But then I’d be writing you letters from jail instead of the table in our kitchen, so I guess you would say it was better this way. But, I’ll never be able to forgive myself for not putting an end to it right there.

  “You actually going to go with this He-man?” Michael said in shock as you turned to follow me and the bouncers to the door.

  You turned back to him and shoved your hand into his chest while I fought to get rid of the muscled guys on my arms so I could reach you and the piece of garbage. Worse than garbage because I can make garbage beautiful and there will never be anything beautiful about Michael.

  “You turned up here unwanted, and I put up with it. But then, when I told you that I loved him, you wouldn’t let it go. I think that makes you way more of an asshole than Seth will ever be. Leave. Us. Alone,” you said and stomped away from him.

  You’d said you loved me. It sucker punched me in the gut… the gut that had been hit several times tonight, and I wanted to kiss you just because you’d said it, but when you got to me, I could see you were pissed at me as well. I shrugged off the bouncers, grabbed your hand and hauled us out of that place with Claire on our tails.

  You and Claire folded yourselves up together in the passenger seat, and I drove the three of us toward the beach. It was when I didn’t take the turn to your old apartment that you realized what I was doing. You frowned at me, “Where are you going?” Even though you knew. I was taking you home.

  “Take me back to the apartment, Seth!”

  “That isn’t where you live.”

  “I know that, but Claire and I are staying there tonight.”

  “No.”

  “You don’t have a say in this.”

  “I’m the one driving.”

  “Then pull the hell over, and I’ll drive.”

  “No.”

  “Seth!”

  I didn’t respond. I just shifted gears and barreled down the road.

  As we pulled up, Claire jumped out the car door, “I’m gonna be sick.”

  She threw up on the bushes by the garage. You looked at her a little stunned. I picked her up and carried her into the house. In the hall bath, you got her cleaned up, and then led her to the guest room.

  You came out a few minutes later to get water and aspirin for her and then went back. I trailed after you, leaning on the doorframe as you ministered to your friend. When she’d drank water and aspirin and passed out, you shut the light, and I followed you again back into the kitchen where you put the glass in the sink before turning to me with sad eyes.

  “What was that, Seth? Why were you even there? Do you not trust me?”

  It wasn’t you. I’ve told you that a million times. I don’t trust anyone else. But what I really didn’t tell you that night, what I didn’t tell you because I couldn’t, was that when I saw you cornered by that schmuck, with him holding on to you even as you struggled to get away, all I could see was my mom as she’d been cornered a million times by my dad. How by the end, she was just taking the hit without even flinching. Like it was not only expected but deserved. I wasn’t going to let you be my mom.

  “Claire called.”

  “What?” That got you.

  “She asked me to come get you.”

  “No way.”

  You knew I didn’t lie, so I just stared at you in response.

  “I had it under control.” You glared, but there was a wariness now in you, a little uncertainty.

  “You didn’t.”

  “I did.”

  “We’ll have to agree to disagree.” I had my arms crossed against my chest. I wasn’t going to apologize. I wasn’t going to say sorry for not letting that shithead hit on you and not take no for an answer.

  “You’ll be lucky if he doesn’t press charges,” you said, trying to keep your anger, even though it was fading as you doubted yourself. I didn’t want you to doubt yourself, but I also needed you to see I’d been there to protect you.

  “He won’t.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He’ll be too ashamed.”

  “Is this how you handle everything? With your fists?”

  And as soon as you said it, I hated myself because that was how my dad handled everything. With his fists. And his belt. And broken bottles. I didn’t want to be that man. I’d been fighting for so long to not be him. From the time I’d hit Cam and saw her land on the ground at my feet, I’d promised I wasn’t him, and yet here I was, again, being reminded of just how damn much I was like him.

  With Cam, I’d been an asshole teenager. Drunk. Scared. Pissed that I wasn’t getting what I wanted from life. From her. Pissed that she was leaving me because I’d felt her pull away ever since I’d pushed her off the cliff, and so I hit her. Sure. She hit me first, but that’s not an excuse. A true man doesn’t hit a woman. He doesn’t push her off a cliff to feel a thrill. I wasn’t a man then, and tonight, even though I wasn’t that drunk teenager, I wasn’t sure I was anymore of a man now.

  I turned and stormed out of the room. I flung the French doors open and took off down the beach.

  * * *

  When I came back a couple hours later, you were curled up on the couch, a blanket tugged around you. It tore at my heart to see you there instead of curled up in our bed. I lifted you up, and you murmured a protest.

  “Shh,” I said and brought you into our room and pulled you down into our bed with me. I laid my head against your chest. I didn’t know how to find the words to tell you everything that was going on in my thick skull. The only thing I knew for sure was that I loved you, and you had said you loved me, and so I had to tell you the only way I knew how, with my lips and my hands on your body.

  As I kissed your chest and neck, I felt you relax against me, and then you dragged your hand through my hair as if to reassure me that everything was okay. And I lifted my head and covered your mouth with my own and dragged you into my world with a desire so deep that I knew I’d never find my way to shore again. And you responded with the equal force that you always responded to me with, and I thought maybe we’d be okay.

  But, we weren’t, were we? I didn’t talk to you and you didn’t talk to me. You didn’t know that my reaction was more than just me being some testosterone filled jackass with wounded pride. It was me fighting the battles that waged inside of me from my childhood. If you could call it a childhood. And that continued to slowly erode the sand we’d built our home on because I couldn’t talk so you couldn’t understand. But, I can say the same about you. You hadn’t told me so many things either. We both battled our demons alone instead of together when we should have known, we were always better together.

  Livin’ In Sin

  PJ After Letter Seven

  “Sometimes it scares me, I don’t know where to begin. I don’t know where we fit in.”

  -Bon Jovi

  PJ IS SHAKING AS she puts this letter in with the others in the metal box with the twisted vines and hidden fairy that Seth had given her for graduation. It’s been a fitting place for his words. Inside the box he made. She hadn’t known any of the things he’d felt that night when he’d beat up Michael. How could she? His face was always a closed door. Even when he’d said he’d loved her. Even when she�
�d seen emotion in his eyes, his face had never given anything away.

  Growing up the way he had, it must have been self-preservation. If you showed emotion, it got preyed upon. But his inability to tell her what was going on was almost as bad as the secrets she kept. It’s why his letters are helping even when she has no more secrets to share. Even when everything had come tumbling out.

  * * *

  The morning after the bar fight, she’d woken up to his side of the bed empty again. She’d gotten used to that before she left. Waking up with him already gone. Moving in with him, she found out that he didn’t sleep very much. He was in the studio at strange hours, and he was up with the sunlight. Another habit from a childhood that encouraged him to be up and gone before his drug addict parents came out of their haze.

  That morning, as most, she found him in the studio with the legs of her chair in his hand where he was covering them with notches that were like the scars she felt inside her body. She stared at his gorgeous, tortured self and felt an ache inside her.

  He looked up as she stared even though he had earbuds in and the air compressor running. He’d still felt her. She wasn’t sure how except that somehow, when they were in the same room together, there was a current to the air that wasn’t there when they were apart.

  He pulled the headphones out and flicked the switch on the air compressor. The silence was deafening. She made her way across the floor to where he sat. She ran a hand over the legs of the chair.

  “How can you see me so well and still not know that there will never be another man for me? That you are all there is now?” she said it quietly, without meeting his gaze.

  “You said you loved me,” he responded without emotion in his voice, as if he was afraid to show it.

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed a calloused finger over her reddened cheeks. She hadn’t known he’d heard her when she’d said it to Michael. She wasn’t exactly embarrassed. More like she wasn’t sure she was ready to say it to him. Which was its own kind of messed up.