Scratch Track

by Eli Lang

  I definitely didn’t know how to answer that. And my brain had gotten tangled up on the word love. I opened my mouth, but then I had to close it again. I didn’t have words for what I was feeling.

  “You don’t know what you want,” I said at last. “You kiss me, you go out with me. You introduce me to your kid. Then you tell me that this is all only fun? That it can’t keep going? Because . . . why? Because I can’t promise you everything right away?”

  His expression went hard. “You could try harder. You could stop being a coward and make more of an effort.”

  I huffed. “Speak for yourself.”

  For a minute, he was perfectly still. Then he said, “I think you should go.”

  “Nicky . . .”

  “Don’t.” He shook his head. “Just go. Let’s make it clean this time, okay?” He took an unsteady breath. “We tried it again. It didn’t work. If we stop here, it’ll be better. Easier. Please.” For a second, I thought he would try to smile, try to make this better, but he didn’t. He shook his head again. “Please go, Quinn.”

  I stared at him, but he’d closed himself off to me. Wrapped his arms around his middle, ducked his head to the side so he was staring at the pillows, at the place where our heads had been resting together a few minutes before. What the fuck had I done to get this so wrong? I didn’t know where it had happened, and I didn’t know how to fix it. I couldn’t think. So I did as he said, and left. I got out of bed and grabbed my clothes, threw them on, tugging my shirt quickly over my head, stuffing my feet into my shoes while I tried to simultaneously zip up my jeans. I stumbled around, flustered and confused and embarrassed, but he didn’t say anything else. I didn’t even think he was watching me.

  And then I was gone.

  It took me until I was half a block from his house, the night cool and silent and still around me, to remember he’d driven us here, and it was a long walk back to the studio. I considered calling someone. Tuck would probably come pick me up, but he was also probably warm in bed with Lissa. Micah would come. I didn’t doubt that for a second, and I wouldn’t have minded getting him out of bed as much. But I didn’t want to have to tell him why I was walking home instead of getting Nick to drive me. The bands had another week together at the studio, and if everyone knew Nick and I had had a falling out, it would only make everything strained and awkward. Besides, I didn’t know how to explain it to myself. And maybe Micah wouldn’t ask—probably, he wouldn’t. He was tactful—but I didn’t want to have to see him wondering.

  I considered calling a taxi or something, but then I decided I’d rather have the time to think, after all. I wasn’t positive of exactly where I was, so I brought up the GPS on my phone and put in the name of the studio. Ta-da. Technology at its finest. Helping you get home when you’ve been kicked out of your maybe-boyfriend’s bed in the wee hours. I turned the sound down, so the precise voice telling me which streets to turn on was just loud enough to hear. Then I walked home.

  It was a long walk, and by the time I got there, I was more confused than when I’d started out, and exhausted on top of it. The whole time, I’d tried to piece together what I should have said, what I should have done, but everything had gone so upside-down, so quickly, I couldn’t sort it out. Half the time, I’d wanted to go right back, march into Nicky’s house, and demand we actually talk about this, because it wasn’t me who’d left this time, it was him. But I hadn’t been brave enough to turn around. I’d just kept walking.

  I let myself in the front entrance of the studio’s house. The couch, where I’d been contemplating sleeping the day before, was right there, and it would only take me a couple of steps to collapse face-first onto it. But I wanted somewhere more private.

  I crept down to the studio, leaving the lights off, feeling my way down the stairs in the dark. Once I got to the main level, it was too dark to see where I was going, so I had to switch on the hall light. But that made it easy to find my way back to the room with the stereo system and the records and CDs. There was another light switch at the end of the hall, and I flipped it off, plunging the whole studio back into darkness.

  I turned on the lamp in the little room. Its glow was much softer than the hall light, and it didn’t reach nearly as far. Then I lay down on the wide couch at the other side. I thought about switching the light off again, closing my eyes, and trying to sleep, but whether it was the argument with Nick or the night air, I was wide-awake.

  Everything Nicky had said came back to me. Everything I’d said did too, but all of it was tangled in a jumble of words and expressions, none of it linear in my mind. This was what I’d wanted, right? When I’d first seen Nick in the studio, I hadn’t wanted to get involved with him again, because everything—everything—was too fragile. And then, when we had gotten together, I hadn’t wanted to think about the future of it, because it was too big and too much, and I wasn’t in a place where I could take care of anyone. I’d proven that, and I’d told him. Everything had been . . . well, it hadn’t actually been too fast. We were more picking up where we’d left off a year ago. But everything was different now, and I didn’t know if we were still the same together. I wasn’t the same person I’d been then. So this should be . . . what I was aiming for. But it didn’t feel right at all. It wasn’t what I wanted in any way, and I was only now realizing that.

  This, lying on a couch in an empty studio, by myself, was definitely not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be back in Nicky’s bed. I wanted to wrap myself around him and feel him hold me. I wanted to wake up with him in the morning, and have breakfast together, and spend every minute we had together, because he was right—we didn’t have too long before this bubble we were in burst, and we both went our separate ways from the studio. I should have kept my mouth shut and let it happen. But then, wouldn’t we have only been repeating the past he was so afraid of?

  There was a shuffle of footsteps outside the room’s door, and I pulled myself away from my thoughts and looked up, expecting to see Ava in a strange déjà vu of the last time she’d come to find me here. But it wasn’t her. It was Ty.

  “Hi.” They raised a hand in a shy half wave. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude. I was wandering around, and I saw the light on.”

  I shook my head. “It’s fine.” I pushed myself up on the couch so I was sitting against the arm, and gestured at the vacant other half. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  They shook their head. “I’m a pretty big insomniac. But I like the studio at night. It’s so quiet. So different than during the day.” They glanced around, taking in the records and the stereo, and the few pictures on the walls. “Like you can hear old music, a little. Like all the history comes awake and moves around.”

  I liked the way they put that. It was like that. Like the studio was more than a building or a tool for musicians to use. Like it held the music and the stories in, protected them. As if the place itself straddled the past and the present.

  “Yeah. It is like that.” I scrunched my toes up to make more room for them, and they sat, leaning back, hands crossed in their lap.

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Tuck’s with his girlfriend. I figured the couch was better.”

  They gave me a soft smile. “Yes. But I meant, weren’t you with my drummer earlier? Or did I imagine the two of you getting into his car, making moony eyes at each other?”

  I laughed. Their teasing was so gentle, and it made me comfortable, in an odd way. Like they knew exactly what they were asking, what they were pushing for, but they were going to do it in a way that made me feel safe.

  “He kicked me out.” I hadn’t meant to say it—I’d already decided, when I chose not to call Micah, that I wasn’t going to tell anyone. But I couldn’t seem to help it with Ty, here in the near-dark, in the quiet.

  And then I wasn’t laughing anymore, and I didn’t feel comfortable or safe. I was just sad and lost.

  “Which of you messed up?”

  I cocked my head to the side, eyei
ng them. “Aren’t you going to take Nick’s side? He’s your friend.”

  They nodded, agreeing. Their hair, usually styled and puffed up on top of their head, was soft and loose, falling into their face. They brushed it back with a flick of their wrist. “And I love him dearly. But I know him too. I know he’s impulsive and energetic, and sometimes that can be . . . a lot.”

  I sighed. “I’m pretty sure it was me, though. I . . .” I stopped, wondering why I was telling Ty this. Any of this. We’d known each other when we’d toured together that time, and I’d spent a lot of time with them over the last couple of weeks while we were here at the studio. I thought we might be friends, but it was the new kind of friends, the kind where we still didn’t really know each other. But Ty made me, undeniably, comfortable. They actually wanted to listen to whatever I had to say. “I was scared. And I did a bad job of telling him.”

  “Scared of what?”

  I shrugged and stared down at my lap. “Do you know what happened to my brother?”

  They shifted on the couch. I still didn’t want to look up. I hated that flash of pity and sadness people got on their faces when I mentioned Eric. And if Ty didn’t know, I wanted to be able to explain without watching them.

  They crossed their legs, folding them up and under them. They were wearing a T-shirt and pajama pants. Sleep wear. But it didn’t seem to me that they’d been to bed at all.

  “I know. Nicky told me. I promised not to tell anyone. He knows it’s your business. But he wanted advice.”

  I did look up at that. “Advice on what?”

  They shrugged. They were so graceful, so delicate but strong at the same time. “On what to say. Or not say. On how to comfort you if you asked. Or wanted that. I’m not the only one who knows that Nicky throws himself into everything a little bit too hard. He knows it too. And he wanted you to feel okay with him.”

  I groaned and let my head fall back against the couch. “Don’t tell me that.” I stared up at the ceiling. I blinked, and the pale orange gray of the light on the ceiling shifted and blurred, and I realized I was close to crying. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. Just . . . couldn’t remember. It hadn’t been in me. Not when Eric died. Not at his funeral. Not when I found my mom crying about him, and trying to hide it from me. It was like that part of me, the part that expressed those emotions, had been walled off, sealed away, and it was better like that. But this short time with Nicky, and it was as if he’d torn all those walls down, ripped away everything I used to protect myself, and he hadn’t even been trying. He was simply good at . . . getting to me. Getting inside all the cracks and finding the deepest parts of me. Half of me loved him for it. And the other half was terrified.

  “I’m not saying he’s perfect, or that he doesn’t make mistakes,” Ty said softly. “I’m saying . . . he really wanted to try.” I tipped my head forward. They were smiling, wryly. “You must have really fucked up to make him throw you out.”

  I opened my mouth to reply—to explain or apologize, I wasn’t sure—but they held up a hand to stop me. “Why did you ask if I knew about your brother?”

  I sighed. “Because I didn’t take care of him. And because . . . I’ve been noticing, I’m not taking care of the band in the same way I used to. I don’t know . . .” I took a deep breath. Why was this so hard? It was facts. Only facts. “I don’t know if I’m any good for it anymore. So I don’t know if I can take care of Nicky in that way, either. Or . . . or Josh. I already failed at it once. And I don’t . . . I don’t know if I can do it again. I’m afraid.” I raised my hands, then let them flop back into my lap. “I’m afraid. I don’t want to mess up again. I don’t . . . I’m not good at that.”

  I wasn’t looking, but when Ty reached out and touched my leg, squeezing their hand around my calf, and I glanced up. They were watching me, intent, leaning forward. “Quinn. I am so sorry.”

  I shook my head slowly, rocking it back and forth. “I should have been there for Eric. And I wasn’t. I should be there for the band, but I’m not. Nick made sure to point that out tonight.” I gave Ty a wobbly smile. “I don’t . . . I don’t want to promise Nicky and Josh that I’ll be there when they need me. Because there’s a good chance I won’t. I don’t know what I can do. I don’t know if I can do this again.”

  Ty sighed, but they didn’t sit back or pull away. “Your brother was an adult, right? A grown man?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you honestly think you could have stopped him from doing what he wanted to do? Do you honestly think that if you’d been there, you would have changed his mind? Made him want something else?”

  The question froze me, and it took me a minute to answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Do you blame Micah for what happened to your brother?”

  I shook my head hard. “Of course not.”

  “Then why are you blaming yourself? If Micah, who, I think I’m right in saying, was your brother’s best friend? If he couldn’t change it, why do you think you could have?”

  A shiver ran through me, and I tried to shake it away. “I don’t know.” My voice was rough and soft, a whisper. “I just think I should have been there. I should have done more.”

  Ty sighed and sat back, but not far. Their hand still lay between us on the couch. “Listen to me, Quinn. Nicky doesn’t want you to take care of him. Not . . . unevenly like that. He’s looking for a partner, not a babysitter. Not for him, and not for Josh.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  They held up their hand. “There are a lot of ways to fuck up a kid.” They let out a dry laugh. “Lot of ways. I didn’t know your brother. But when I talk to Micah, when he isn’t talking about Bellamy, he’s talking about Eric. He loved him. And I didn’t know your brother, but damn do I like Micah. He’s the best sort of person. From everything he’s said, your brother was that type of person too, and I’m inclined to believe him. I imagine he was like that because of how you taught him to be. I don’t think you fucked him up. I think you brought him up well. I don’t think it would have mattered whether you were around more or not. You showed him he could be anything, do anything, that he wanted. If you’d stayed, he’d never have thought to aim for that. And I still don’t think you would have been able to persuade him away from a thing that made him feel good.”

  My throat was tight, and I couldn’t do anything but shake my head.

  “You think you’re going to fuck up,” Ty said gently, “but you’ve proven over and over again that you can care for people, with the way you care for your band.”

  I kept shaking my head. “They’ve all got someone else to do that for them now.”

  Ty sighed, and it sounded sad. “Oh, Quinn.”

  I gave a watery laugh. “I know how bad that sounds. I just . . . They don’t need me anymore. What happens when Nicky doesn’t need me? Or what happens when I show him I can’t care for anyone, that I don’t know how to do this anymore?” I wrapped my hand in my T-shirt and tugged, wishing for something to break, or something to hold on to. “That was always what I was best at. Taking care of people. It was what I did, it was my whole life. And in one shot I proved I’d never been as good at it as I’d thought. That it was a lie.”

  “Quinn, Quinn. That isn’t true at all. If you talked to your friends, you’d know that. They still need you. They’ve just found other people to need too. It isn’t the same thing, though. What you do for them, the friend you are to them—no one is ever going to take that place.”

  Their words hit me like a series of soft blows. Inconsequential at first, something I could brush off and away. But the more they talked, the harder the words fell, and they bruised me, breaking past those ridiculous shields I had up. Breaking past all my logic and reason, and right into the place where I kept my sadness, my hurt and my grief. I still didn’t believe it, not really. But I hadn’t realized how badly I’d wanted to hear that, either. To have that reassurance.

  When Ty finished talking, I stared at them for a second. T
hen I tipped my head forward, let my shoulders slump, and I cried.

  They were good about it. They put their hand on my shoulder and rubbed soothing circles, but they didn’t try to calm me any more than that, and they didn’t say anything else. They let me spill out all that compacted, hidden-away sadness.

  “I’m scared,” I mumbled finally. Or I meant to mumble it, but I was crying harder than I’d thought I could, and the words came out in loud, choked gasps. “I don’t know what I’m doing.” I wondered, vaguely, if they knew how difficult it was for me to admit that. I was supposed to be the strong one, the support. Not the person who was scared. But saying I was afraid was all I’d been doing lately.

  Ty laughed gently and squeezed my shoulder. “None of us do, really. But I know Nicky thinks the world of you. I know when he met you, whenever he talked about you, it was like you were the best thing since sliced bread. Like you lit him up from the inside. And when you didn’t come back to him, when he didn’t hear from you, he tried to hide it, but he was crushed. He isn’t unreasonable or clingy. That’s not Nicky. But . . . he knew he’d found a good thing with you. He knew he wanted to be with you. And then it got taken away. And he was hurt.”

  I looked up at them. I expected them, still, to be angry, to try to defend Nicky. To tell me I was wrong. But they weren’t. They were being so kind.

  “I don’t like seeing him hurt,” Ty continued. “I get being scared, though. And I’m not saying taking on a relationship isn’t scary. It’s fucking terrifying.” It startled a laugh out of me, and Ty smiled. “And taking on someone’s kid is . . . I can’t imagine, actually. It’s huge. And you might make mistakes. Nick will for sure make mistakes. But I think you did a really good job with your brother. And if you wanted to, if what you and Nick have grew to that, you could do a really good job with Josh.”

  I wiped my palm across my face. “I think it’s probably too late for that. After Nicky kicking me out and all.”

  Ty sank back against the couch. “I don’t know. I think being scared runs both ways. And I bet Nicky’s just scared that you’re going to disappear again. You can’t blame him. You already did it once, and he wants to trust you—I think he does trust you—but the fear of being hurt, of being left, is pretty big. It’s hard to get over. And he doesn’t have any reason to believe you won’t do it again, because it’s easier. Because it’s safer.”