by Paige, Tylor
“You guys act weird around each other. You already have inside jokes. All you do is flirt. You’re trying to tell us that you’re just old friends?” His tone was skeptical. I blushed just thinking about Ethan. “It’s not like that. We’ve been working on our song,” I replied.
“But you inked his name permanently on your skin,” Derek reminded me. I pursed my lips.
“We were drunk. I don’t even remember doing it. You are making it into a much bigger deal than it is,” I said, shutting it down before this conversation got out of hand. Mark glared at me but moved on to discuss which waitress he wanted to bang. That next night though, Mark decided he wasn’t ready to let it go.
We finished our show and had just stepped onto the bus to travel through the night to the next state over. I had worn a skirt and long sleeve shirt with long tights on stage. They weren’t exactly lounging around clothes, so as soon as I could get to my bunk, I grabbed some pajamas and changed quickly.
When I returned to the front of the bus I saw Christian was pulling out three large bottles of tequila from his guitar case. “Who’s up for a little game?” He asked. People cheered their various agreements. Seth, their drummer, was getting shot glasses down from a cabinet. “How many people? Seven, that’s it? Where’s Ethan?” He sounded tipsy already. Nobody answered. Ethan had gone to the back of the bus. He had taken his little wooden box with him.
“Make it six. I’m out,” I yawned, and everyone either groaned or called me something crude. I ignored them all and went back to my bunk to listen to my iPod. Pushing play, I laid down and closed my eyes, making sure to have it loud enough to drown out the idiocy going on in the front of the bus.
I must have fallen asleep because I was rudely awakened by Derek shaking me. My headphones fell out of my ears, and I screamed for him to stop. Focusing my eyes on him I saw that his curly blonde locks were gone. He now had a very badly cut mohawk. His eyes were huge and bloodshot. He was utterly wasted.
“Cleo. I need your help. Adrian won’t let me have his guitar. Help me. I need to play,” he begged. I groaned and tried to lay back down, but he grabbed my arm again.
“Go away!” I put a pillow over my head and with an obnoxious moan he left me to find Adrian’s guitar. He must have found it because only a few minutes later I heard him screaming out the lyrics to “La Bamba.” I tried to go back to sleep, but the party was so loud I couldn’t take it anymore. I got up and went back up front. Out of habit, I looked for Ethan.
“He’s not up here,” Mark called over Derek’s song. I glanced over and instantly noticed he was close to blackout drunk. La Bamba always came right before the blackout.
“I wasn’t looking for him,” I lied and of course Mark saw right through it.
“Sure, and you two aren’t hooking up either,” he quipped, making the rest of the group chuckle.
“Whatever,” I mumbled, too tired to argue.
“So, it’s true,” he accused. I glared at him. He glared right back.
“Nothing’s going on. Will you leave it?” I asked, and then Adrian piped in.
“Then why haven’t you told Chris about the song. Or the video,” he demanded. All eyes were on me. I could feel my face getting hot.
“It just hasn’t come up,” I muttered.
Mark stood up and walked over to me slowly. “So, what? You’re gonna go back to his cheating ass?” He said, his eyes incredulous. I looked away guiltily, then glared at Adrian. He was too drunk to care that he spilled my secret.
“No, I didn’t say that. Can we drop it?” He backed up and plopped down on the couch. The room grew quiet, everyone’s eyes were on us.
“Does he even know you went on tour with him? That you’re sharing a bus?” Mark pushed, and the tears started to pool. He didn’t. Mark grabbed his shot of tequila Christian had poured him. He looked me dead in the eye and said in a low voice
“Ethan’s a good guy. He may be high all the time, but at least he cares about you. You made the wrong choice.” He tipped his head back, taking the shot. The glass slammed down on the table. No one moved. Things had gotten intense fast. I was about to break.
Finally, Christian raised his glass and coughed. “All hail the King!” He said, tipping the crown he had won earlier. Everyone followed with forced, awkward cheers and took swigs of their drinks. The party started to settle down after that. The only person still fully wound up was Derek.
“Cleo, I love you. Your hair looks like cotton candy. Can I touch it?” Derek asked. He didn’t wait for me to answer him before he was pulling me off the couch and into his lap to pull lightly on my hair.
“Adrian. Please. Please, Adrian. I need it. I need your guitar. Please Adrian, please,” he begged him. He dropped to his knees. Adrian kept telling him no, but the second he went to the bathroom, Derek jumped up and ran to where Adrian had returned the guitar to its case. He pulled it out and hurried back to us to play the only song he knew. We groaned as he started shouting the words out to “La Bamba” again.
He played the song over and over, singing the words. He ignored our shouting. We threw things at him, but we couldn’t crush his spirit. He closed his eyes, leaned back, and played his drunken heart out.
Adrian tried to take the guitar out of Derek’s hands, but he snapped his eyes open and glared at him. The only way Adrian was getting that guitar tonight was if he tore it from his hands, most likely in two pieces. I couldn’t take it anymore and told everyone goodnight. I went to my bunk and grabbed my headphones. Just as I was putting them on Mark came and sat on the bed across from me. I turned away. The last person I wanted to talk to was him.
“Go away,” I said, but he ignored me.
“Cleo, I’m sorry. I’m drunk. I didn’t mean it,” he said, but I wasn’t in the mood for his half-assed apology. “He doesn’t deserve you. Chris. He’s a piece of shit. Always was. He uses you,” he continued. Geez, thanks. I turned back to look at him.
“For what? I don’t have anything to offer him. He’s…” my words trailed off thinking about him. He really was quite a catch. Smart and handsome, he had a good career and was already creating a buzz around the political circuit as the next potential state senator.
I was nothing. Nothing like Holly. She was more his type. Beautiful and smart. She was his assistant. I was just a girl he picked up at a party one night. He could have picked any girl, and he chose me. I was the lucky one. Or so I had thought up until recently. Now I wasn’t so sure.
“He’s a liar. I don’t trust the guy. Never have. You should be with Ethan,” Mark said. I sat up to look at him face to face.
“Well, I'm not. I married Chris. You don’t have to remind me every chance you get. Sometimes you don’t know when to stop,” I told him. He looked away. Guilt in his gray eyes.
“You know I’m not trying to hurt you,” he tried to explain, but I didn’t want to hear it. I was over it. I couldn’t hear him apologize one more time. “Things aren’t the same,” he said flatly.
I hated to admit it, but things had changed since I married Christopher. There was a rift in my relationship with the band. It had never been this tense before. I had always put my friends first, and they did the same, but Christopher didn’t like that. In fact, he hated all of them. He wanted me to quit the band and stay home. I didn’t want to have to choose between my best friends and my husband. I knew they felt it too, and that’s why they were pushing me so hard to leave him.
In the beginning of our relationship, Christopher had made it seem like he fully supported my career choice. But once we moved in together and he started his job at the firm things changed. Sometimes it felt like he didn’t like anything about me. It made me wonder why he wanted to marry me in the first place.
“I know,” I said. There wasn’t much else to say. I looked back at Mark. His eyes were heavy. He suddenly looked exhausted. “I know you guys mean well, but Mark, you have to let me figure this out on my own,” I told him. He sighed and rubbed his face.
&nb
sp; “Yeah I guess,” he mumbled.
“You know I love you right.” I reached for his hand and squeezed it. He gave a half smile and stood up.
“Alright. I’ll drop it. Love you too,” he said and left me alone with my thoughts. I needed to go to sleep before I drove myself crazy.
The next afternoon, while still on the road to the next venue the four of us were in the bunks by ourselves. After my talk with Mark, things were a little weird. Slowly we began chatting again about regular tour stuff. I wasn’t angry. He meant well. They all did.
“Look, we just want to see you back to the old Cleo. With Ethan, you’re… you,” Derek, now sober and not happy with his new haircut told me. “Plus, we’ve read your journal. That new stuff you’ve been writing is killer. If whatever you two are is making you write like that, then by all means, keep being friends,” Adrian said while making quotations in the air. I whipped my head around. His big brown eyes grew even bigger with guilt.
“Where is my notebook?” I demanded suddenly.
“Adrian has it,” Derek accused. Adrian slugged him in his shoulder from the bunk under him. Derek yelped and glared at us.
“Screw you! You guys cut my hair last night!” He shot back when Adrian glared at him.
“Yeah and we listened to La Bamba for three hours. Get over it. Adrian give her the book back.” Mark snapped. He was hungover and tired of listening to us argue. Adrian pulled out my black notebook from under his blanket. He handed it to me and I snatched it, holding it tightly to my chest.
“Is it too much to ask to have one thing to myself?” I said.
“Yeah, you have Ethan,” Derek replied. The other two started laughing, and I glared at them all.
“Oh, shut up,” I said and left the bunks to go find something else better to do than be berated by them.
Everyone was still feeling the effects of last night’s party. The bus was pretty quiet. Spencer, Seth, and Christian were hanging out on the couches. Ethan was the only one who looked alive. He glanced up from the magazine he was reading when I came in. “Hey you. What's up?” He asked, setting it down. I instantly relaxed and went to sit with him.
“The guys are extra annoying today,” I told him.
We settled in to a movie on the TV, resting while we could. It was a short drive today. As soon as the bus stopped, Cruel Distraction wanted to eat. They invited us, but none of us were interested. Derek was still pissed at Christian for shaving his head, Mark hungover, and Adrian wanted to bleach his hair and retouch mine for tonight's show.
While Derek and Mark slept, Adrian squeezed us into the bathroom and began working on our hair. I did his and then he did mine. Since we were only touching stuff up, it didn’t take long. Once the chemicals were all rinsed, I went to rest in my bunk before I had to get up for the show.
I must have fallen asleep because I stirred when the other band returned. Most of them went to rest in their bunks. I noticed Ethan was missing. I stood up and went to join the gang in front. They had turned the TV on to play another racing game. No one turned when I walked in. My phone went off. I had left it on the couch, next to Adrian. I leaned over to grab it. There was a text from Christopher.
Talk to me love. I miss you. I need to talk to you. When is your break again?
My stomach turned. I felt nauseous. This always happened for a few minutes after Chris' texts or calls. I wasn’t ready to see him. I didn’t want to hear his bogus explanation. It was all lies anyway. I just wanted the whole situation to go away, but I was still legally married to this man. I was so confused about what to do. I set my phone aside and laid down, setting my head in Adrian's lap.
“Psychiatrist?” I asked him. It was a thing we had been doing for years. A little game that helped us deal with being on the road so much. It helped us not go crazy. He moved his arms to give me more space.
“Yes, patient?” Adrian changed his voice. He was now British. A tipsy British to be specific.
“What do you think about everything?” I asked him, begging him to decide for me.
“I think that we were less than an hour away from home and Chris chose not to come visit you,” he said. I stared blankly up at him. He shrugged.
“What? Did he ask you for a pass to get in?” He asked, accusation in his tone. I looked away. No, no he didn’t. Chris never came to my shows. “If anything, he probably expected you to catch a cab after the show and run home. Confessing how miserable you are without him and that you’ll quit the band right this moment and you’re ready to have dozens of his babies,” he said with such sarcasm in his voice it practically dripped onto my face.
“Oh stop. No, he didn’t come. But that doesn’t mean anything,” I defended. Adrian rolled his eyes.
“Why do you want to be with Chris? Like seriously. He’s a jerk, and Ethan is… ” he started, but I cut him off.
“Ethan is my friend. He said so himself. Just friends. That part of our lives is over. We are doing the song together, but that’s it,” I recited for the millionth time. Adrian sighed deeply.
“If you don’t make a move on old blue eyes soon, I’m going to,” he warned. I sighed but couldn’t help a smile from creeping up.
“You honestly think he doesn’t like you?” Adrian said, his eyes skeptical. I shook my head. Not like that. Not anymore. “He follows you everywhere. You guys are always flirting. How many nights have you guys spent alone in the back hanging out while we partied? Don’t give me that ‘We’re writing’ excuse, because otherwise you’d have a whole freaking album to show us. Cleo, he got your name tattooed on him! Drunk or not, he chose to do that. You can’t tell me you don’t feel anything.” I chose not to respond. “He’s perfect for you,” he whispered, playing with my hair.
“I used to think you were perfect for me too,” I reminded him. His face softened, and he smiled the same smile he gave me that day he hugged me and confessed that he loved me too much to stay with me just to appease me.
“It may not seem like it right now, but this will make sure we still stay close. If I waited, then it would end up ruining this.”
It was hard to hate him for being right. “Yes, let’s imagine what that would have been like, shall we? I think I would have knocked you up because I don’t think we ever were smart enough to use condoms. Do you even use birth control now?” He asked me. I shrugged.
“Yeah, I get a shot every few months. Not that I need it now. I haven’t had sex in forever,” I complained. He raised his eyebrows and grinned evilly.
“Well, you know as your Doctor I am always here to help with some stress relief. Get rid of all that hysteria.” I grabbed a pillow and swatted him in the face with it. I giggled as he tossed it across the bus.
“Alright, back to me being pregnant with your child,” I said and snuggled closer to my best friend. He wrapped his arm around my middle. I was so comfy; I didn’t want to move. “Well, I then take a job at my brother's shop, changing people’s oil, replacing windshield wipers. You know, real hard labor. I would insist you stay home with Adrian Junior, little Marky, and baby Derek. We would…” I cut him off, putting my hand up.
“Whoa, we have three kids? And I let you name them Adrian, Mark, and Derek?” We looked at each other a moment and then burst into laughter. “My time is up for today Doc,” I sat up and grabbed my phone, pushing the button to turn it off. I didn’t need to stress about Chris right now. Maybe Adrian was right. Standing up to go back to my bed Adrian snapped his fingers.
“Bring me a beer, wife,” he demanded. I looked up and glared at him. He winked, and I moved to the fridge, grabbing two bottles. I handed him his, and he took the top off. I let him take a sip before quickly tapping the opening with my bottle. The beer rushed out of the top, spilling all over his shirt and lap. He swore at me, and I ran to the bunks before he could stand. I pulled my bag out and started to get ready for the show.
After my clothes were on and my makeup and hair finished, I stepped out of the bathroom. I could hear that the othe
r band was awake and in the front with my guys. I decided to go to the back where Ethan most likely was. He used the lounge area more than the rest of us. It was another one of those unspoken things. I stepped in and saw him lying there, eyes closed on the couch. He had his little brown box with stickers all over it sitting next to him. Whatever he was taking was in it. I was curious, but knew the value of privacy in this world, so I let it be. I think a part of me was afraid to know what he was doing. I wanted to stay blindly innocent to it.
He heard me come in and opened one eye, smiling softly then frowning when he saw my face. He pointed to his eye and raised an eyebrow. I must not have covered the bruise up well enough. I explained what happened with a shrug and he just laughed and sat up, itching his nose.
“I've got some makeup you can use to cover it up,” he joked as he moved to get his clothes and eyeliner on. “You ready for tonight? I heard you changed your set,” he said while taking off his shirt. I admired his toned body while he moved around the tiny space. I loved that he took my music seriously and liked our songs. Chris always told his friends and family that it was a nice hobby I had. Artists were so low in his mind. They were worthless.
“Yeah, nothing special. We just added some songs we’ve been practicing. Some covers,” I said nonchalantly. I was super excited for tonight. I loved trying out new songs. It was nerve-racking and thrilling at the same time. You never knew how the crowd would react.
“When are we gonna do our song?” He asked. I pondered that for a moment.
“I can ask Sam if he cares or if he wants us to wait until we record it,” I replied. He came back towards me.
“You should stick around. Watch my set.” I almost always did, but I told him I would anyways. I helped him paint his face thick with eyeliner. He played with my pigtails while I held his chin.
“You’re the best,” he said when I finished. My stomach fluttered. I knew he was just being nice, but it still did something to me. We shared a long look before I moved away. What was I doing? I was a married woman. I shouldn’t be sitting here with Ethan. Just because my husband cheated doesn’t mean that I was allowed to do the same. Was it cheating? I mean, we didn’t kiss or even hug. Sure, we flirted, but I flirted with everyone. What was crossing the line? I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. Neither did my husband apparently. Why did I marry him anyway?