Rock Country

by K. Webster

  A few hours and many, many beers later, we’re walking down the street when Cori’s eyes light up. She turns to me and grins. “This is a new chapter for us, Cheyenne. Let’s commemorate it with a little ink.”

  I don’t know if it’s the beer or the freedom, but something about Cori’s idea sounds tempting, even if I had a minor freak-out last time I was in a tattoo shop. We wander towards the shop, the door chiming as we walk in. She sets about looking through the hundreds of pages of tattoo ideas when the tattoo artist asks me if I know what I want. I think of Sawyer with amazing clarity and immediately know how I want to mark my body. When I tell him my idea, he smiles and leads me back to a sterile room, prompting me to hold my foot out.

  A few minutes later, Cori joins us and her eyes widen as she watches him work. “That’s beautiful, Cheyenne. Does that have something to do with why you’ve been so mopey since I’ve met you?”

  I shrug, not really wanting to get into it, but she doesn’t let it go. As I admire the black ink on my foot, my eyes well up at the symbolism.

  “What happened to you, Cheyenne? Why are you so sad?”

  Looking up at her, I blame the alcohol for what I’m about to admit. “I fell head over heels in love this summer.”

  She wrinkles her eyebrows and gives me a strange look. “And that’s a problem?”

  Sighing, I have no idea why I answer, but for once, I finally let it out. “The problem is…he’s my stepbrother.”

  Twist of Fate by Ella Fox

  Gone. Dead.

  The two worst four-letter words of all. When someone you love so much chooses to end their life, what’s left?

  The only thing that I was able to feel was a gaping hole inside of me, a big empty space that had been reserved for Marissa for years. She was gone and that was forever. No take-backs, do-overs, or second chances.

  I hadn’t slept for more than an hour or so at a time in over two weeks, and it was a struggle to remember to continue to breathe—much less ‘go on’. I listened to one thing on permanent repeat—Stevie Nicks singing Landslide, and all I could think about was the fact that my brother Dillon and I had each built our worlds around Marissa in order to give her what she had needed, but it still hadn’t been enough to save her.

  I wouldn’t change my time with Marissa for anything in the world—but I couldn’t help but feel that if I’d done more, said more, just done something differently, she wouldn’t have given up.

  I obsessively wondered what her last thoughts were as she stepped in front of the bus that killed her. According to the witnesses, she had shown absolutely no hesitation. They said she was calm and smiling when she took her final action and that infuriated me, which in turn made me feel like shit for being angry with someone that was dead. I felt such guilt, but the anger was there anyway and I felt like that pretty much all of the time. How could she not care about what she was leaving behind? Didn’t she realize that the bus wouldn’t just be hitting her—it would be hitting us all?

  My mind had turned down a very dark path, and I found myself wondering what the point of loving anyone was. Why willingly give someone so much power over you that losing them actually destroyed a huge part of you? I feared that the parts of me that Marissa took when she walked in front of that bus were the best parts; the things that I had needed most in order to survive.

  Was anything that was left going to keep me going for a lifetime?

  I didn’t know the answer.

  Several Months Later

  To me, the best thing about going out every night and getting wasted was that it gave me space in which to be able to breathe. I thought that my new friends were just what the doctor ordered because they only cared about fun and they got the best drugs. Ecstasy, Cocaine, Percocet, Klonopin… all the good things that made the pain fade away. Just a little bit to take the edge off was all that I needed, but God, it worked like a damn charm. I knew that there was a line that I couldn’t cross, mostly because I didn’t want my brother to worry about me enough that he threw me in rehab. He was already up my ass about my social life and the guys that I’d been ‘dating’; he’d have blown a fuse if he’d realized that I was taking drugs. I should have cared more but the new me was a selfish bitch who just needed the numbness that the drugs brought. For my entire life I’d been that quiet, casual girl who didn’t get loud and never cut loose. Suddenly I was free to do whatever I wanted, damn the repercussions, and I was taking advantage of it.

  That night I had been out with Jason, my sort-of-date, at a club in Hollywood seeing some band that he swore would be the next big thing. I wished that I could say that Jason and I were great together in bed—but I’d have been lying if I had. We had hardly ever touched each other at all unless we were on X, so it wasn’t some great passion. I’d never experienced what you would call a great passion so it wasn’t a surprise that he and I weren’t lighting the world on fire with our sex life.

  I’d thought I was in love with Marissa for a long time but we’d never so much as kissed, and eventually I realized that I didn’t love her that way, not really—I’d just loved her so much that I had wanted to do anything I could to make her happy. Knowing that she was gay and that she had so much love to give had made me think that maybe it was a sign that we were meant to be together. I had tried to fall in love with the person, not her gender, but that didn’t mean that it would have been the right choice for me, or for Marissa.

  God bless her, she’d known that even thinking about getting into a relationship with me would have been the wrong thing to do. Instead she had married my brother in order to make sure that I wouldn’t ‘waste my life’ trying to make her happy. It sounds bizarre but it was a marriage in name only and I was glad that it gave her something normal to hold onto for as long as she did. The scars that had been left in and on Marissa had been too deep, and a physical relationship with anyone had never been in the cards for her. She couldn’t be touched in even the most casual of ways without warning, so intimacy would have been a bridge too far. It broke my heart to think about how that felt for her and quite often I had wondered if I was also destined to have a passionless existence. I’d never felt IT—that desire for someone that was so overwhelming that it took my breath away. Jason was a perfect example of me settling for something less—the passion that the two of us had shared was doing whatever it took to forget and sometimes sex was included, but it wasn’t like we needed each other or felt about one another in any sort of real way.

  The only thing that the two of us had actually needed from each other was having another person enable our behaviors, a goal that we had been achieving spectacularly for each other. We went out and got trashed as often as possible as both of us continued avoiding our demons. I hadn’t known what his were, but I had sensed that the two of us were running from things that were unpleasant and painful. Going to clubs and listening to music was something that Jason liked to do and since he was the one with the drugs, I had gone along.

  The band on stage that night was just okay, definitely not the next best thing, and I had giggled to myself when I’d realized that Jason must’ve been high as shit when he heard them the first time. I had been dancing to the beat in order to keep myself awake for most of the band’s set. Whether due to whatever pills Jason had given me just before we had arrived at the club or the two tequila sunrises, 3 tequila shots, or the joint I’d smoked in the bathroom, I was completely trashed. Eventually I lost my coordination and just started swaying back and forth. Time and again, I stumbled and hit the person next to me. I had been having more and more problems staying upright, but I had felt so good that I didn’t care. A push from behind me threw me completely off-balance, and I couldn’t stay upright anymore.

  I had laughed hysterically as I fell on my ass, and then laughed harder when a strong set of arms lifted me up and started carrying me through the crowd. When I’d checked him out, my pulse had skyrocketed. Mr. Rescue Man was hot and he smelled like something I’d wanted to bite into. Not only
did he smell like sex on a stick, he was hot, buff, and he looked familiar.

  The other thing that was sexy as hell was that he was strong. He carried me like I weighed nothing and, for the first time ever, I felt protected by someone other than my brother. The faces of the people around me had gone by in a blur as I pointed at them and let out a long, “Wheeeeeeeee.” Keeping my head up got to be too much effort and I’d let out a chuckle as my neck gave up on the job and flopped back. He kept walking until we got into a long dark hallway, away from the crowd, and although I had no idea where he was taking me, I wasn’t worried at all. I can’t really explain it, but there had been something about him that made me feel secure.

  From the angle I was in, I could see that the guy carrying me was wearing a hat with a big S on it, and in my intoxicated state, I quickly clued in and realized who he was and why he looked so familiar. “S. Ha ha. You’re Superman. Where’s your web? Do you live in a bat cave?”

  Superman wasn’t happy with me, not one little bit. Kicking open a door, he tossed me down onto a couch with a sound of annoyance. He seemed like he was one hundred feet tall as he stood next to the couch and glared down at me. My pulse picked up speed when I realized that angry Superman was crazy fucking sexy. Just looking at him made my mouth dry and my panties wet, and I wondered if he would be having his way with me on the couch. Shockingly, I wasn’t opposed to that idea at all.

  Glaring down at me he snapped, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  I was confused by his anger. “Whaddya mean waz wrong with me? Waz wrong with you, Superman? Why you no smile at me? You’re perrrtyy.”

  He completely ignored my questions, instead asking one of his own. “What did you take?”

  I’d been so wasted that I figured that he was wondering what kind of drugs I would do, which I’d seen as a good sign that he had more and he wanted to share. Without hesitation, I had started reciting the list. “Coke, ecstasy, pot, Percocet, Kl-klon-klono-something, Valiummmmm, hash and one time I did ‘shrooms. They were terrible.”

  He’d looked like he was about to swallow his tongue. “Jesus Christ! You need your stomach pumped! I have to get you to a hospital—”

  I’d giggled like an idiot as I pointed at his oh-so-serious face. “Nooooo silllllly, those are the drugs I’ve done in the last few monthsssss. I don’t need to be pumped. At leas’ not the way that youuuuu think. You’re hottt, Superman. Wanna get nakkkkeddd and have funnn?”

  He didn’t just look annoyed anymore after I said that—he looked livid. “Try to have a little fucking dignity. Just because I’m famous doesn’t mean that I fuck every drunken bitch that throws herself at me.”

  I’d nodded solemnly before bursting out into giggles again. “Of coursssseee! Superman would get a lot of assss, duh! But wait… you’ve got Lucccccy. Lucy Lane! Is you cheatin’ on Lucccy? You’re not so super after all if you’re fuckkkking around,” I slurred. “You’s a cheater. Super cheater man, coming in you faster than a sp-speeding bullletttttt.”

  For some reason that struck me as being hysterically funny, and I had laughed so hard that I couldn’t catch my breath. The next thing I knew I was choking on vomit and Superman was sitting me up so that I could get it all out. That wasn’t so funny and I cried a little as I showered us both with an insane amount of tequila flavored barf.

  It had felt as if it had gone on forever, and I puked so much that I’d started to panic because it felt like it was never going to stop. At one point I wondered if I was literally going to barf some internal organs, but thankfully it didn’t come to that. When it was finally over, Superman left the room for a minute before coming back with a large handful of wadded up paper towels and a bottle of water that he had used to clean me up as much as he could. When he was finished, he picked me up and carried me out of the room. I’d heard him snapping off orders to someone, something about security, my purse, and making sure there were no cameras, but none of it resonated with me. I didn’t even question where he was taking me. For whatever reason, I’d just accepted that he was in charge.

  Somehow he’d gotten me into the passenger seat of his car. At that point I felt really, really bad for him because the car was ridiculously expensive and I was covered in vomit. Laying my head against the glass of the passenger window, I had tried to get my wits about me. I had felt myself coming down from my high and it felt awful.

  We drove in silence—me in misery, him with what I thought of as an air of calm assuredness. I’d thought that I was doing okay, until the very moment that we pulled up next to a city bus and I burst into tears. Great body racking sobs tore through me as I had wondered if that was the bus that had taken Marissa’s life. Thinking about the fact that they had probably been able just to wash the bus off before putting it right back on the road was like a knife to my soul.

  Poor Superman must’ve felt like he was riding with a crazy person, and I could tell that he was a little freaked out when he asked me why I was crying.

  “Dead. Gone. She’s gone,” I cried. “She just… she stepped out in front of a bus. I don’t know how to live without her.”

  It was exhausting to think about, and I cried my eyes out against the passenger window of his car until I had no tears left and everything faded to black.

  The following morning I woke up feeling like absolute death, and when I opened my eyes, I pretty much expected to see the grim reaper standing over me. Instead, I’d found myself staring at a beige colored wall in a bedroom that I’d never been in before.

  Memories of the previous night had hit me right away. They were all pretty hazy, but I remembered vomiting, crying and making a fool out of myself. The guy that I now realized was not Superman had brought me back to his house and given me an enormous white t-shirt to change into. I had a vague recollection of him making me drink some water before he tucked me into bed and told me that he was going to put my clothes in the laundry, but everything was really hazy after that.

  As soon as I sat up, I’d found that he was fully dressed and asleep across the bottom of the bed on top of the covers. Clearly, he’d stayed with me to make sure that I was really okay, and that had surprised me. He’d been so pissed off at me when we were at the club, I couldn’t believe that he hadn’t walked away without a backwards glance once I started hosing him down in vomit.

  He must’ve felt me moving because I’d only been staring at him for a minute or so when he woke up. Sitting up, he rubbed his hand across his face for a minute before he looked at me. When he spoke, he had a gravelly sexy morning man voice that made me want to jump on top of him.

  “How do you feel?”

  There was really only one honest answer to that question, so I gave it to him. “Stupid.”

  Rubbing his hands across his face again, he’d nodded. “I think we both know that’s an understatement. The question is; did you learn anything from it?”

  I’d hesitated to answer that because in truth, I wasn’t sure at the time. Had I? Right in that moment, I had doubted that. In lieu of a real answer, I shrugged my shoulders.

  He’d given me a look of absolute disgust as he shook his head. Without another word, he got up from the bed and stalked out of the room. A few minutes later he came back and tossed my now clean and vomit free clothes onto the bed. “Here’s your shit. It’s time for you to go.”

  My jaw had dropped in shock. He’d taken care of me all night and in the morning was just tossing me out on my ass? Clearly, I’d overstayed my welcome. Nodding my head I’d mumbled, “Okay.”

  He’d turned to leave again before he stopped at the door and pivoted to face me again.

  “Does anyone love or care about you?”

  I couldn’t see what business that was of his, but after a moment’s hesitation I’d decided that I owed him an answer for saving me from choking to death on vomit—not to mention the fact that he’d never said a word about the fact that I’d gotten sick all over him.

  “My brother and my best friend.”

 
; He’d stared at me with such intensity that I felt as if he could not only read my mind, but also that he somehow knew every single thing there was to know about me. “Then my suggestion is that you take a break from your pity party and think about your brother and your best friend the next time you get so fucked up that you can’t function enough to even walk. Then take that one step farther and remember how you felt when your friend walked in front of a bus and left you behind. Guess what? That’s exactly how your brother and your best friend are going to feel about you if you don’t get your shit together. I don’t know if you’ve always been a quitter or if this is a new thing for you, but if you’ve got any fight in you, now’s the time to access it.”

  He didn’t even give me time to formulate a response. One second he was staring at me, the next he had turned and was out the door. I’d walked to the bathroom in a complete fog where I spent the next twenty minutes sitting in his shower and crying. Mr. Intensity was right and I knew it. I was perilously close to doing myself some real harm that, in turn, would cause Dillon and Minnie pain.

  After showering, I’d quickly gotten dressed. I’d breathed a sigh of relief when I found my purse sitting on the dresser in the room, and I knew that I had one more thing to thank my anonymous savior for.

  After I’d left the bedroom and gone downstairs, I had been greeted by a guy who introduced himself as, “Mr. Wilde’s personal assistant.” He’d told me that he had been instructed to see me home and I had been more than grateful to get out of the house without having to see Mr. Intensity again. I’d known he was pissed at me and I didn’t want to revisit that again. The disappointment and frustration in his eyes when he’d looked at me for the last time had made me feel like a jerk.