Behind the Bars

by Brittainy Cherry

  As I watched him surrender himself to his songs, I surrendered myself to my feelings. I cried that night, first a few tears, and then I fell into heavy sobs. I wasn’t able to stop myself. Everything that had happened to me over the past six years, over the past week, was flooding out of my system. I couldn’t stop the tears from falling as he played. I couldn’t stop the pain from shaking me.

  When he finished, everyone walked off to find their next adventure, yet I stayed put, still crying.

  He placed his saxophone in his case, he walked over to me, and bent down slowly, joining me on the curb. I turned my head away from him, embarrassed by my emotions.

  He didn’t judge me, though. He just reached into his pocket, pulled out a handkerchief, and handed it my way. Taking it, I wiped my eyes dry. “I’m sorry,” I told him, mortified.

  He gave me the softest smile, and his gentle brown eyes displayed his soul. “Baby girl, you’re too young to be feeling so much.” I laughed and kept wiping my eyes, still trying to catch my breath. As I tried to speak, he shook his head. “Just give it a minute. Feel what you need to feel. You can’t rush feelings. You just gotta let yourself ride the wave of them.”

  I didn’t know why, but that comment made me break into more sobs, and he kept sitting by my side. He was a stranger who allowed me to be strange that night.

  Once I pulled myself together, I blew my nose in the handkerchief and held it out toward him.

  He snickered. “Keep it.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What kind of music do you perform?”

  I raised an eyebrow. “What makes you think I’m a musician?”

  He gave me a knowing smile. “It’s New Orleans—everyone’s a musician,” he joked. “Plus, I noticed the charms on your bracelet.”

  Ah, makes sense. “I’ve spent the past several years singing pop music, but soul is what keeps me up at night.”

  He nodded. “That makes sense. I saw how you heard me. I saw how you witnessed the pain of the music as I played, and I felt your sorrow. You lost?”

  I grimaced. “Trying to find my way back.”

  “You know what my wife, God rest her soul, used to always say to me when I was lost?” He began to stand from the sidewalk and held his hand out to help me up. “‘Find the music when life makes no sense.’ You did the right thing, ya know, feeling tonight.”

  “Thank you.” I smiled, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. “For your music.”

  “Welcome. I got a question for you, though.”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s your truth?”

  “My truth?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

  He shifted around and turned to face me more. “What drives you? What motivates you? What breaks you and heals you all at once? What keeps you going each day? What’s your truth? What are the saddest parts of your soul? What causes your heart to shatter?”

  I laughed lightly. “I don’t know how to answer that question.”

  He nodded. “Most people don’t. It’s worth thinking about, though, don’t you think?”

  I just grinned.

  He smiled right back.

  “People around here call me Teddy James, but my friends and family call me TJ. You can call me anything you want.” He winked at me. “I play here every evening, if you want to stop by. I don’t promise you perfection, but you’ll get heart.”

  “That’s all I need, really. Thanks, TJ. I’m Jasmine, and I know this is going to sound crazy, but your music…it just reminds me of…” My words faded away, and I scrunched up my nose. “Did you ever know of a boy named Elliott Adams?”

  TJ’s eyes widened, and a small smile found his face. “Jasmine,” he sang. He took my hand into his, and his smile stretched wide. “Did this Elliott boy ever call you Jazz?”

  My stomach knotted up. “Yes.”

  He lowered his brows and leaned in closer. “I have a question for you.”

  “Ask anything.”

  “What does that key around your neck stand for?”

  I looked down at it. I hadn’t even noticed that at some point I’d wrapped my fingers around it while talking to TJ. I wondered how often I did that unconsciously.

  “I don’t know, exactly. Hope, maybe?” I grimaced, glancing down at the piece of metal.

  “Where did you get it?”

  My eyes glassed over. “You know him.”

  TJ reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy set of keys. “It was a family tradition of mine. It started generations back, the key swapping. Whenever someone was going through a hard time, or a major life change, you gave them a spare key as a reminder that they’d never be alone.” He started combing through his keys. “This one was from my mother the day my father passed away. This one was from my wedding day. My grandmother gave it to me as a blessing for a warm home and warm love. This one was from my father when I went to fight in the war. Each key holds special meaning. Each key also carries a form of hope, hope on the good days and on the bad, through the sun and through the storms.”

  “I love that so much.”

  “This one”—he unhooked a key from his set and placed it in my hand—“was given to me a long time ago by a thirteen-year-old boy named Elliott Adams when I lost my wife to cancer. We’d been neighbors all his life, and I looked at him and his sister as my own niece and nephew. I was that close to their family, and when he gave me this key, it saved me. He handed it to me as I sat in my living room crying, and he said, ‘Don’t worry, Uncle TJ, I know she’s gone and you feel lonely, but you’re not gonna be alone because you got us. You always got us.’”

  Tears filled my eyes as he spoke of Elliott. My heart began beating faster and faster. “I went to his old house and he wasn’t there.”

  “Yeah, no. After the incident, he and his mother moved across town.”

  “What incident?”

  TJ looked down at his hands and his bottom lip twitched a little. “You went to school with him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you remember a bully Elliott had named Todd Clause?”

  My stomach knotted up. “Yes.”

  “I’ll never forget that name. I’ll never forget how he stole so much from that poor family.” TJ teared up, and he tried to keep himself together. “After you left, the bullying got worse.” He told me everything. He told me how they attacked Elliott and used him as bait, how they forced him into the dumpster, how he had to listen to them abuse his sister. He told me how once he was free, it was too late, how he blamed himself each day, how the corner we stood on housed the ghosts that haunted Elliott every day.

  The more he explained what had happened to Katie, the closer I grew to wanting to vomit.

  “Oh my God…” Tears formed in my eyes as TJ told me how Elliott’s sister had literally died in his arms. I couldn’t imagine what something like that could do to a person’s psyche. I couldn’t envision the daily battles going on inside of Elliott’s heart and soul. I was sure he blamed himself for what had happened to his sister, but it wasn’t his fault. None of it was ever his fault.

  “It was my fault,” I whispered, my voice shaky.

  TJ raised his eyebrow. “What was your fault?”

  “All of this, everything that happened. The only reason those guys were bullying Elliott so hard was because he stood up to them for me. If it wasn’t for me—”

  “No,” TJ disagreed swiftly, cutting me off. “Those boys were bullying Elliott before you even came into the picture. Don’t you ever blame yourself for what those monsters did.”

  The ache in my chest wouldn’t go away. “I’m sure he blames himself, though.”

  “Yes,” TJ agreed. “He does.”

  “I kept emailing him,” I told him, my body shaking with nerves. “He never wrote me back.”

  “He became a recluse. He kept to himself, not opening up to anyone anymore. He still shows up for things sometimes, but when he’s th
ere, he’s not there. It’s almost as if his mind is emptied. He’s a ghost, as if he died right there with his sister all those years ago.”

  “TJ?”

  “Yes?”

  “Where is he?”

  A weighted sigh fell from his lips. “Jasmine, it’s important for you to know, he’s not the same person he was when you knew him. He’s…different, colder, much more of a loner, and he doesn’t have much space to let people in. It’s hard to explain. If you do see him, don’t be surprised if it doesn’t go the way you think it should, because it won’t.”

  I understood what he was saying. I understood the warning he was giving me, but still…

  I needed to see those hazel eyes.

  “TJ?”

  “Yes.”

  I took a deep breath. “Where is he?”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Elliott

  I liked my job well enough.

  It paid my bills and kept me busy. Plus, during my breaks, I could work out, and any time I could work out, I took advantage of it, which was why today sucked.

  “I’m so-sorry, what?” I leaned forward in the metal chair toward Marc. He sat at his desk, which was covered in protein bar samples, paperwork, healthy recipes, and two-gallon water jugs. It was a mess, just like most of the stuff in the broken-down gym, but Marc, the owner, didn’t seem to care much about shaping it up.

  The gym had been passed down to him from his father, and it was clear that he wasn’t passionate about the project. After he graduated college with a theater arts degree, finding a job that paid enough for rent in New Orleans was almost impossible. When his father offered him the gym, he took it with arms wide-open.

  Marc wasn’t a business man, but with his theater degree, he could sometimes act the part.

  “Yeah…I’m sorry. You’re fired.” Marc looked down at his paperwork and shuffled through it, avoiding eye contact. That was how he handled everything—he avoided dealing with issues directly, and then he’d later complain and place all the blame on the employees when really, it was his own lack of leadership causing the decline of the facility.

  “Oh?” I replied.

  He placed the paperwork down. As he looked up, he shrugged. “That’s all you’re going to say? Oh? Don’t you want to know why you’re fired?”

  “Will it change your de-decision?”

  “No.”

  “Then, no.” I started to leave, but he kept talking.

  “You made three clients cry yesterday,” he told me.

  “They were acting weak.” They’d all had three more sets of chest presses in them, and they’d failed to complete the task. “I thought my job was to push our clients.”

  “Exactly—push,” he agreed. “Not destroy. I mean, listen, you’re the best personal trainer we have when it comes to the actual fitness aspect. You’re well-versed in the equipment and how to demonstrate the correct way to use it. You have a solid education in fitness and wellness, and you know technique inside and out for how to transform a body. Hell, you did it to your own body. Physically, you’re a Greek god. Your muscles have muscles and your body is fucking insane, but emotionally…? You don’t give the right emotional support for people on their health journeys.”

  I stared blankly. “You’re firing me because three people cried yesterday?”

  “Yes—no. I mean…”—he groaned—“Elliott, don’t you see that you can’t be there for people in an emotional, compassionate way if you’re so cold?”

  “No?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a question?”

  “No.”

  He sighed, baffled. “Most of our clients here are looking to lose weight. Many have struggled with weight loss and self-worth issues for most of their lives. Can you see how having a trainer shouting at them that they aren’t strong enough isn’t the best approach?”

  “But it’s true—they aren’t strong enough.”

  “Words aren’t always necessary,” he stated.

  “I hardly speak to them. I hardly speak to anyone,” I replied. It was true, too. I kept my words to a minimum. Most people didn’t have a clue that I even stuttered, which was exactly the point. I hardly stuttered anymore, anyway. Stuttering was a weakness of mine, and over the past few years, I’d made it my mission to not reveal any weaknesses to anyone. I took a lot of speech therapy, and currently my stutters only came out when I was thrown off or upset.

  “That’s another issue,” he told me. “Everyone says you’re weird.”

  “Weird?”

  “Like, you’re mute, unless you’re calling people weak. You don’t engage with the clients. When they’re good, you don’t tell them.”

  “How will that help them?”

  “It’s called positive reinforcement. It’s beyond helpful.”

  “I’m not going to do that,” I told him.

  He nodded. “That’s fine, because you’re fired.”

  “Oh?”

  “Dude, why do you say everything like it’s a question?”

  I remained silent.

  He stared at me. “You can leave now.” I pushed myself up from the chair and before I left his office, he called out one last time. “Make sure to clean out your locker, too. The new trainer is coming in in about thirty minutes.”

  I headed to the locker room and collected all my things. As I walked out toward the weightlifting section, I overheard a few people celebrating the fact that I wouldn’t be back again. They all hated me, which was shocking.

  How could they hate a person they didn’t even know?

  I kept to myself for the most part, hardly spoke a word, and still they made up stories in their heads about the creature I was. It bothered me a bit that I could be the monster in someone else’s story.

  I never wanted to be a villain.

  All I wanted—all I ever wanted—was to be the hero of a story, yet somehow, over time, I lost my way, and I was certain I was too far gone to ever go back.

  In the back corner of Daze Jazz Lounge on Bourbon Street, no one bothered me. I sat in the booth every night, drinking whiskey and writing in a notebook. I was never bothered, always alone, except for when Jason wandered over.

  He wandered over each night to sit across from me with a bottle of Jim Beam in his hand. He’d always cap off my already full cup and strike up a conversation. “What do you mean they fired you?”

  “That’s all there is to it,” I said, flipping a page in my notes.

  “What an asshole,” Jason said, growing more upset than I was. “You worked your ass off there. Marc is such a dick.”

  I shrugged.

  “Dammit!” he hissed, hitting his hand against the table. “I know you’re nonchalant and don’t give a shit about much, but that’s messed up,” he complained. “Listen, if you need extra cash flow, you can work a few shifts here, whenever you need to.”

  I gave a half-smile and thanked him. Jason’s father owned the bar, and I lived upstairs in the apartment overhead. Jason used to live up there, but when he moved in with his fiancée, Kelly, he offered me the spot. It was almost half the price of my rent at the time, so I’d snatched it up.

  “Also, did you get my messages about the bachelor party?” Jason asked.

  “You sent me ten messages.”

  He smirked. “It was eight, you dramatic asshole. So, does that mean you’re in?”

  “Out.”

  “Come on, how often is it that your best friend gets married? You’re the best man!”

  “I do-don’t party. Your fraternity pals hate me.”

  “They don’t!” he lied.

  “They think I’m weird.”

  “You are!” he agreed. “But you’re my ride-or-die weird best friend, and if they have a problem with that, fuck them. If you want, I’ll uninvite them all and you and I can just have our solid bromance and go get drunk on our own.”

  “Isn’t that what we do here?”

  “Yeah, but we’ll do it with, like, strippers!”

&nbs
p; I chuckled. “I’m gonna pass, but I’ll be at the wedding.”

  Just then, Jimmy Shaw stumbled into the bar, breaking us away from our conversation. He’d been stumbling into the bar for the past few months since finding out his wife was leaving him. We both turned toward him as he fell into a booth and placed his head down on the table.

  “Hey, Jimmy!” we both called out.

  He kept his head down and waved.

  “You okay?” we asked.

  He stuck his thumb up then proceeded to sob. Jason grimaced. “If you’re okay, I’m gonna go take the Jim Beam over to that sad sack. It looks like he needs it more.”

  I agreed and watched Jason go console Jimmy. My best friend was a good man through and through. He’d been that way our whole lives, too. Every time I tried to keep to myself, he’d kick the door down and barge right in.

  As Jason took care of Jimmy, I went back to my whiskey and my notes.

  I might’ve been a recluse, but with whiskey, my notebook, and Jason, I was never really alone.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Jasmine

  I saw him first, but he’d argue that was a lie.

  He kept to himself, sitting in a corner booth at Daze. A pencil balanced behind his ear as he flipped through a tattered notebook and sipped on whiskey. He’d been sitting in that corner booth since I’d arrived two hours ago and hadn’t once looked up. The only person he took note of was the bartender, who wandered over every now and then to top off his drink.

  I sat in the booth across from him, glancing over every now and then, sipping on my drink of choice for the night: vodka.

  I used to drink tequila, but it made me too emotional.

  I once tried bourbon, but it made me too sick.

  So, vodka was my safest bet.

  He was different in almost every way. He was huge, built, fit, and shredded. His black T-shirt clung to his body in all the right places, and his lips didn’t have a smile on them, but those eyes…