I laughed. Okay I wasn’t always grounded, but I wasn’t a spoiled, rich kid prick either. My dad would have beaten my ass if I were.
I tied on my black Chucks, adjusted my leather and studded wrist bands and watch and wondered how Jolie was holding up. I really hated how she’d just run out of the restaurant, but I knew better than to go after her. She wanted her space. That might be the only thing I really knew about her. I’d seen the storms crossing her clear blue eyes like darkening skies.
I really had to leave for the gig, but I couldn’t help myself, I had to text her.
Hey there, Jolie. My set starts at eight. The Highline on Broadway Ave East. Drinks are on me.
Send.
That was the best I could do. Well, the best I could do was go get her ass and throw her in my car. She was still my professor so that wasn’t about to fly.
Fuck me. Any other woman would have been totally thrilled by me doing something like that. But Jolie wasn’t any woman.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text.
My heart slammed and a smile crossed my face. Jolie?
I looked at my messages.
What is taking your crazy ass so long?!
Lucas—the drummer. I looked at the time. Fuck! It was close to sound check.
On my way! I shot back.
I grabbed my leather and my Gibson and headed the hell out!
Lucas, Zach and Noah had already gotten everything set up on stage and, since I was walking in ten minutes before show time, I prepared myself for the shit storm that was about to fly.
“Logan’s pissing fire, man,” Lucas laughed as he drummed out the classic joke punch line.
“Where is he?” I asked, pulling my guitar out of the case to do a quick tuning job.
“Up there talking to the sound and light techs.” Noah indicated with his eyes. “He’ll get over it.” He turned toward Lucas to get his bass jamming with the drums.
Zach chimed in, “Where the fuck were you anyway? And your lame ass excuse of, ‘I think I’m coming down with a flu’”—he burned a Van Halen riff up the neck of his guitar—“is a load of whale shit, and you know it.”
I smiled. They all loved giving me hell. “You’re all just pissed ’cause you know I’m better looking.”
“Speaking of better looking,” Lucas said, “there’s a table stage right with five gorgeous sets of tits.”
“I get the Chinese girl with the long hair. Damn, she’s fucking fine!” Zach said.
“She might not even like you, dude.” Noah grinned.
“What? You think she’ll like you better?” Zach asked. “Put your money where your mouth is.”
“Fucking fine. I’ll bet you twenty,” Noah chided.
“You’re on,” Zach said confidently.
“She’s going to drop you both on your asses. But I’ve got the leggy brunette wanting me already.” I listened as Lucas showed off behind the kit.
“I’ll take the blonde,” I remarked without thinking or looking up as I worked the tuning keys.
“There is no blonde, asshat,” Noah said. “Where’s your head?”
Zach threw his head back and laughed. “Not his head, his dick. It’s probably back with that hot piece of blonde ass he called a flu.”
I rolled my eyes. “Too bad you can’t play music half as good as you can run your mouth.”
“Glad to see you decided to show, Sam.” Logan, our new manager, walked between us. “Let’s rotate set lists. We’ll start tonight with set three. We’re getting a lot of requests for the original stuff here, so intermix two originals with every cover. Make it a show to remember, the scout from The Showbox is here.”
“No fucking way, I’ve always wanted to play that place!” Zach looked around. “What does he look like?”
“She,” Logan answered plainly. “She’s the pretty Asian woman at the table on the right.”
“Fuck.” Zach grumbled. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a smashed twenty dollar bill and threw it at Noah.
I laughed. “You guys are such douche-bags.”
“It’s show time, little girls,” Logan informed us as he walked behind the stage.
We were ready.
I checked over the set list, mixing it up like Logan suggested.
Three Days Grace – “The Good Life”
Bush – “Glycerine”
Staind – “It’s Been Awhile”
Tool – “Sober”
Daughtry – “It's Not Over”
Creed – “One Last Breath”
Nickelback – “If Today Was Your Last Day”
Nirvana – “In Bloom”
Foo Fighters – “The Pretender”
I’d pepper the list with our original songs. They were good (after all, they were mine) and Logan had been spreading our demo around. We were already getting airplay and requests throughout Washington. Logan was on me to write a second full set list of originals.
I was the sole songwriter of the group—which is where my dilemma began.
I knew it was me holding the rope that held back the tour. I loved playing, but did I want it to be my whole existence? Every kid dreams about being a rock star, but do they really know what that pot of gold looks like at the end of that rainbow? No, they see the bright lights and adoring fans singing with the lyrics and jumping to the pounding drums. It’s hard work to get there. But to make it, even if it’s just for a while before you choose to step down … the ride could be fucking incredible.
We stepped out on stage to the roar of the early evening crowd of at least two hundred. People were crammed in and standing against the walls. The owner looked like he was trying to keep people out of the fire lanes. I looked back for a moment because I had that feeling that someone was watching me. Sure enough, Logan pointed at me and I heard him in my ear monitor.
“You’re the man!”
I gave him a quick nod and leaped to the front of the stage with my arms in the air and my guitar strapped to my body.
“ARE YOU READY TO ROCK THE HOUSE, SEATTLE?” I shouted into the mic.
The crowd screamed back.
“WE ARE … CHASING NORTH!”
The crowd lost their fucking minds! This was a high like no other, better than bungee jumping off the tallest bridge or snowboarding the longest, fiercest halfpipe. Those were things you did to test and challenge your own strength and endurance. This—performing in front of others—was a give and take relationship. The more they loved you and screamed and jumped and sang along, the hotter you got. Best thing I could compare it to was amazing fucking sex.
The sex idea got me thinking and, as we started Three Days Grace’s “The Good Life,” I found myself scanning the room for a tight blonde bun.
Chapter Seven
“Away from the Sun”
3 Doors Down
Catherine
“You’re not answering the question, Catherine. Do you feel like you’re truly living?”
“My heart is beating and I’m breathing, so yes, I’m living,” I quipped sarcastically. It had been a week since my epic disaster with Sam North and now I was forced into the humiliation and agony that was my mandatory bi-weekly mental health check-up. I had already filled her in on what had happened with Sam last week.
“That isn’t what I meant and you know it,” Dr. Tennille Jensen said as a challenge. “If you could acknowledge that you’re only human too and what happened will always be a mystery, a toss of the dice—dice you didn’t throw …” She was in my face again.
I leaned in closer for the battle. “The only people who say things like that are people who’ve never experienced what I did.”
“If it were the other way around, would you want him to go on with his life, Catherine? Or would you want him to beat himself up over and over again, day in and day out because he hadn’t died too?”
“Fuck you!” I leaned back against the black cushioned sofa and folded my arms, furious.
“Maybe your fierce standards o
f achievement have something to do with trying to ease the feelings of guilt and unworthiness?”
“Maybe I hate you,” I mumbled.
“Maybe that’s because you know what I’m saying is right.” She softened her tone. “You did nothing wrong, and when you find the strength to embrace that truth, you could be you again.”
“Me again …” I heard myself whisper.
“You’re a very intelligent woman. Logically, were you at fault? Were you actually responsible?”
“You’ve known me for several months now, you’ve had conferences with my tribe of headshrinks back home, and you know I know all the correct psych answers.” I sighed and spoke in monotone. “No, I’m not responsible. No, there was nothing I could do.” I shook my head. “I can say it, but I can’t feel it!” Just talking about it raised my pulse rate. “When I go about my routine, I can keep the pain and panic back. When I veer off course and go out of that routine, everything gets totally fucked up.”
“I understand how you could feel that way,” Dr. Jensen agreed. “It’s like a splinter in our foot. We perceive that the pain of removing it would hurt us more than leaving it in. But by leaving it in, it cripples us.” She sat back, her blonde hair cut to mid shoulder. One thing I liked about her was that she didn’t dress like a headshrink, and she didn’t mind my calling her “Soul-sucking Headshrink” or just Tennille. She dressed modernly progressive (today she wore green cargo pants and a black tank top) and even had a facial piercing—a single gold stud below her bottom lip. “What happened this week was progress, Catherine,” she said encouragingly.
“No, it’s not progress,” I argued.
“Yes, it is. It made you interact with another person on an intimate level and pushed you completely out of your comfort zone.”
“I think he wants to be friends.” With benefits.
“That’s excellent.”
“It’s not excellent. He’s funny and full of life and he reminds me of who I used to be and what I miss about myself … and … and …” My eyes started to sting and I tried to blink them clear. My leg started bouncing up and down in a jerky little motion that I used when I got nervous.
“And?” She tried to draw more out.
“And what I miss about being around someone else,” I said more softly, like I didn’t want to say it at all. “It only reminds me how lonely I am now, and then that brings up everything else, and I can hardly cope again.”
“You deserve friends.”
“How could I deserve anything?” I shook my head, resigned. “In just those few hours he was with me, I remembered what it felt like to be happy, to feel alive. To feel! But I can’t be happy—I’m so ashamed I even let myself have a glimpse of it.” Now my lip began to shake and the tears filled my vision. “He’s the first person that’s come along that I actually wanted to tell, not a shrink or another therapist.” I gestured to Dr. Jensen. “Just another human being. But it felt like if I did … or … if I let myself be happy, then I’d be … betraying him. Or I’d forget about him or worse, like I’d have moved on and gone on without him.” I rubbed my forehead to try to calm myself.
“I think it’s natural to feel that way when you’ve lost someone you loved.” She thought for a moment. “And sharing your experience with a new friend isn’t going on without him; it’s simply letting him rest in peace, inside you. It’s a healthy step forward.”
“And what if I did tell him?”
“Why don’t we put a name with the him that’s becoming a friend?”
I gave her an angry look.
“Not using his name keeps him in an impersonal space and keeps you aloof.”
“Sam.” I forced his name between my lips. “What if Sam blames me like I blame myself or is a real dick and tells everybody at the university? I’m a professor, a very young professor. I can’t risk that.”
“Let’s talk about taking one positive step. What is one positive step that you could take?”
“I already did. I went out to lunch with him—Sam. That was positive.”
“Absolutely, but you also felt like you owed it to Sam, which means you’re still acting because of your feelings of guilt.” She waited, but when I didn’t respond, continued. “It’s time we made an action plan.”
“A what?”
“Goals. For you to begin doing something different from your routine, something that brings you closer and makes you feel more in touch with your true self,” she suggested.
“Not following you.” Or maybe I didn’t want to be.
“Here.” She got up and moved behind her desk, retrieved a pad of paper and pen then handed them to me. “Write this down: Goals … Walk on the sandy beach with no shoes.”
I let the pen drop to the paper and stared at her. That hit way too close to home.
“Just write it, you don’t have to do it. Not yet.”
Reluctantly, I scrawled it onto the paper.
“Go to a movie,” she said.
I barked out a laugh.
“Write it!” she ordered. “Dance in the rain. Get drunk.” She watched me to make sure I was actually writing what she said. “Let’s see … Play your favorite music. Go to three places you’ve never been before here in the area.”
“I’m starting to hate you more.”
“Good, just keep going on that list. Wear the clothes you used to like. Get laid.”
“Get laid?” I croaked, wide-eyed. “Are you serious? That’s going to be in your doctor’s plan?”
“I’m a woman just like you, and yes, ‘get laid’ is part of the plan. Just make sure you use a condom.”
I rolled my eyes. “And am I supposed to hire a male prostitute? Because I don’t have any offers!”
“That’s your problem,” she shot back, then said, “Okay look, getting laid is a personal choice and I’m obviously not going to force you to do it. If you really want to take it off the list … the choice is yours. But from one woman to another, I know your past and I know that having sex can be deeply therapeutic.”
“Fine, I’ll keep it on,” I said to appease her. I was just keeping it on the list to make her happy, right? And I was definitely not thinking of Sam as I wrote it.
“Good! Now after you accomplish those things, you’ll be tackling some even harder triggers: Ride in a car. Drive a car yourself …” She watched my expression. “Keep writing, Catherine, you’ll get through this.”
I knew she could see what I felt, the terror that was now coursing through me, consuming me, sucking my soul further into the black hole I worked so hard to keep it from going into.
“Breathe. You don’t have to run out and do all of these things tomorrow. Just one day at a time. One goal, one step, and the next won’t be as hard.”
I nodded silently and wrote the goals she had listed.
“Then go after something you’ve always dreamed of … something that you tucked away when all of it happened. Then lastly, you need to confide in one person, even a portion of your story.”
I felt my chest rise as my breath hitched in to protest.
She quickly raised her hand. “Stop. You can’t say no. These are my orders, and they cover all aspects of behavioral and cognitive therapy. You can move at your own pace; however, you must do one item on the list every two weeks, so you’ll have something to report back to me.”
“You’re out of your mind, Headshrink,” I said bitterly.
“These are the actions of a normal twenty-six year old woman. You’ve been fighting for way too long to hide yourself and, in the meantime, have created a pseudo self you call ‘Catherine’ while you’ve buried your true self so far down you can’t see her anymore. Even the sound of the name you once loved triggers you. And you tiptoe on eggshells so as not to disturb this fragile balance of sanity you make yourself walk.” She leaned forward and took my hands in hers. “It’s time to save you. You can’t save everybody else, but you can save Kate.”
Now the tears had nowhere to go except down my chee
ks. “I don’t think I can do it.”
She gently took the pad from me, tore the page I’d written on away and handed it back to me. “Remember, it’s only twelve items; twelve small goals. Every time it becomes suffocating, because it will, take a little of your medicine and tell yourself and him, that you loved him and know that he loved you too, that you would want him to move on with his life if it were the other way around, and that now it’s time for you to move on with yours.”
“This is impossible.” I held the paper between shaking fingers. I might die if I try any of this.
She put her hands on my face so I’d have to look at her. No doctor had done that before with me. “You have a broken heart, and I could never pretend to understand what you went through, ever. But I have had a broken heart. I lost a baby once. I was pregnant with her for five months. I did everything I could, but still delivered prematurely and she couldn’t be saved. Not a day goes by that I don’t think of her—what she’d look like, how old she’d be, what the sound of her voice would have been like. Moving on with my life was the most difficult challenge I’d ever undertaken. But she would have wanted that,” she said. “Be benevolent to yourself, Catherine … and start living your life again as Kate.”
I came out of Dr. Jensen’s office in a daze. Rain was falling over the city and it felt poetic. I wandered the streets without much thought in my head besides Soul-sucking Headshrink’s words on replay. And I couldn’t even hate her right now as much as I wanted to. She made too much sense.
People passed me by. Some hurried through the rain for drier destinations; others were more prepared with umbrellas and didn’t care. A couple in hooded parkas walked by, laughing and holding hands. A mom was jumping through puddles with her little girl, who wore the cutest green rubber frog boots. I wanted to smile at their joy and become a part of it, but it didn’t happen; instead my tears mixed with the rain.
I made my way to Pier 57 in Waterfront Park, gripped the white railing and lifted my face to the sky. It was good that I was alone, because the silent cry had turned to violent sobs. I had learned to barely function with a damaged heart that still managed to beat somehow. Every moment of my life had become a song too sad to listen to and possessed by an agony I couldn’t truly face.
True North Book 3 - Finding Now Kate and Sam Page 6