In the Absence of You

by Sunniva Dee

  “I’m not lethal,” I murmur, resisting the urge to pull the gun out of his hands and toss it out the window. Gone forever. How nice it would be.

  “No, you’re not,” he says, dilated pupils finding me over the gun. “You’re nice.”

  I want to keep talking, explain that he deserves better than some deadly chick who never picks up his calls. I wonder if she realizes where she’s got him: wooed by millions but playing with guns, owning a glittery stage floor but buried by her. I’d do anything to have him sing to me the way he sings to her.

  Emil spins the cylinder of the revolver. It makes a whirring sound I haven’t heard before. It’s the first time he does it in front of me offstage. I’m a shitty “girlfriend” for not telling him how much he sucks for doing this to me.

  After two weeks together, I still have everything to gain, and I don’t know which issues to press to get closer to him. What I know is I won’t take my chances on losing the small piece of him I have won—the trust to be himself with me.

  I watch him, willing him to understand how he frightens me. He doesn’t. Emil’s mind is far away, studying the revolver in the way I want him to study me—with longing, with love, with the urge to be one with it.

  “Oh bullet me, bullet me… you make it easy.” A smirk, like he’s talking to a lover, caresses his face.

  “What the hell?” My Gypsy blood finally boils, instincts taking over. “Give me that.” I reach out and grab the weapon, but he wrenches it out of my hand like it’s nothing.

  “It was just a song, Aishe.”

  “Didn’t look like a song to me. It looked like you were singing to your girlfriend!” I gasp the last word out, fingers splayed and empty.

  “No, no. Don’t be sad.” He’s with me now. He’s left the gun and the pain. He hides deadly steel under his pillow and hoists up on his side for me. “Shit, I’m taking you down too. I’m so sorry.”

  He strokes my cheek, wanting to comfort me, apologizing for before, for now, but my lungs spasm, wanting to flood out anguish, show him what I feel when he hides and doesn’t let me help.

  Please let me in!

  Emil’s eyes beseech of me that I leave him—I know it’s what they say.

  “What would you do if I moved over to the crew bus and didn’t come back to you?” I hiss out.

  He holds my face, indecision washing over his features. I think that he knows what he’d do. I think that he’s deciding whether to tell the truth or break my heart.

  “You want to know?”

  NO!

  “Yes.”

  “I’d hate not having you here, but I’d understand. I’d write songs. I’d sing. I’d be with groupies when I needed it. And I’d—” The break he inserts before the next words isn’t a good omen. He wants to spare my feelings, but then he can’t hold back. For the smallest beat, his stare hits the pillow where the revolver lies. “I’d play more with my sexy friend here.”

  I wish his “sexy friend” RIP’d.

  “I won’t give up on you that easily,” I whisper. Shifting deeper under the sheets, I hide my face and pat wet makeup away from my eyes.

  Emil lets out a raspy breath. “I’ve done nothing to deserve you.” Then he pulls me in, sadness in every limb under our covers. “I wish I was strong enough to let you go.”

  He’s a man.

  He reacts to my nearness.

  And I make him forget if even for a scanty hour.

  EMIL

  “No. We’re definitely not playing it tonight, Emil. No promises, but at the earliest on the next tour.”

  “Why the fuck not? Who makes decisions in this band, just you?” I look around at the two other members of Clown Irruption. All girls and crew members are gone, and we’re having a band meeting in our shower room—a single hotel room we rent for washing up on days when we’re sleeping on the bus. “Where’s Troll?” I ask.

  “You think he’d support your case?” Troy asks, as hostile as he’s been lately. He’s icing his forearms down. We have a show in one hour. It’s sold out, and Bo insists we be at our best. Of course we will. It’s what we live for.

  “What’s with your arms?” I ask.

  “You’ve got to be kiddin’ me,” Elias mutters, turning to latch the window open. “Do you notice anything lately? Troy’s been hitting the shit out of the drums. He’s not a finesse drummer, right? Remember this?”

  “Power drummer, sure. And?”

  “It’s okay. I’ll explain,” Troy tells Elias. His shoulders heave as he pulls a bright white T-shirt over his head and shakes his dreads free of the fabric.

  “He’s been going caveman-style for a while now, dude. He’s this close to getting carpal tunnel or something. Whaddaya think it’s gonna look like for us if he can’t beat the drums anymore?”

  Troy’s gaze levels on our friend, waiting for him to stop gesticulating. “Never mind me. I’ll manage. As long as I get new skins every night and the occasional drumstick replaced—”

  “How many a night?” Elias breaks in again. “Troll’s getting them shipped in by the box now, right?”

  “What does it matter? My drumming is not what this meeting’s about. I believe I’m doing just fine for Clown Irruption.”

  “Elias, he’s right. Let’s get back on task, here. We’ve got another eight days in concert, then a few months off from touring. We’ll step down on practice so Troy’s arms can heal. Now, let’s save the remainder of this tour, shall we?”

  The others’ attention goes to me.

  “What’s wrong with a song named ‘I’m sorry?’” I ask.

  “It would be fine if it weren’t the darkest we’ve ever sounded. It’s a different style, Emil. It’s not us,” says Bo. Mister Broody and Weird. No way?

  “Oh so you can judge the level of darkness allowed now? What happened to…” I rummage through the songs from Bo’s gloomy past without Nadia. The ones alluding to hearts shattering, either his own or his ex’s.

  Okay, so this song is different. It can’t be played with a hyped-up beat or with a jumping bass. It’s got to stay down there, the level of it, just fucking killing the way the words do.

  I feel good singing those words, putting them on top of a melody I’ve created myself as well, one that Bo originally loved. Before he heard the lyrics. I don’t know why everyone looks so serious playing it. Troy glared. Bo just shook his head slowly after the first time we all played it together.

  “Emil, we love you, man. It’s hard for us to understand what you’re going through. At this point, even I can’t fully immerse myself in it, but you have to think about the audience. This song. The way it needs to be played and the way you want to sing it? We’re slaughtering the fans, all right? We can’t do it to them, unprepared.”

  “Please?” I don’t mean to sound like I’m choking on the word. “Ah. I need us to play it. It’s… it’s got to be played.”

  Bo doesn’t pull away from my insistence. He meets me head-on, pupils swollen within his grey irises. He’s good at hiding what he thinks; a master of the stone-face. But if you’ve hung with him for most of your life, it’s not hard to see the compassion under that still surface.

  Elias throws his hands open, staring at Bo. “You’re not considering it, right?”

  “Emil. I see what you’re doing, but we need to make an effort for our fans. This is our livelihood,” Bo says.

  “I don’t even know if I need a livelihood,” I say.

  “What?” That’s Elias. “No need for food or drink or something to live off of? Live, man. Livelihood.”

  “Oh I’m aware of what it means.” The subject change is the first thing that’s caused me relief today. I open my mouth to continue.

  “Emil.” Bo whips his demand out.

  “What?”

  “Listen. The song is great, and we play it like a motherfucker. But we’ve given our fans too many surprises on tour as it is, between your suicide version of ‘The Entertainer,’ and ‘Bullshit.’ We cannot do this to our
selves, okay?”

  I open my mouth to dispute him again, but he lifts a hand, palm toward me to keep me quiet. “I’ll send an email to our publicist tonight. I’ll see if he can get something going. If he can spread the word on such short notice, perhaps our last show in New York could be the place we play it.”

  There’s air escaping my throat in a relief I didn’t expect. I—fuck. I really need to sing this song to an audience. To all the girls. To my girl.

  In case she listened.

  “Promise,” I try to say out loud. I’m a mess, so I drop off the bed I’m sitting on and start digging inside my bag. Souvenirs given to me by fans. Underwear, dirty and clean ones mixed. I don’t even have an organized overnight bag off the bus anymore. But my revolver is there.

  I clasp my fingers around it inside the bag. I don’t tote it in front of the others. I don’t want them to find out that it’s real.

  “No promises,” Bo decides. “We’re checking with Ollie. If Ollie says he can put out a press release or whatever and prep the audience, maybe get a few journalists over there, I’m in. If not, we’ll record it on the next album, and we’ll play it on the spring tour.”

  I don’t agree with him, but I’m unable to speak up.

  I used to want so much. There isn’t much I want anymore. My girl. If I can’t have her, I want the freedom to roar out my agony and my regret.

  I need them to give it to me.

  I don’t know if the spring tour will be too late.

  Soon it’s Christmas. Christmas break. Ha. I let my eyes roam over my friends, knowing that Bo will take Nadia to Skala to meet the family in Sweden. Troy will be with his fam in Los Angeles. Elias, probably back home too.

  I can’t picture myself in Skala this year. Mom and Dad, my siblings, they’d be thrilled if I came, but it’ll be too fucking pretty. Layers of sparkling snow shining blue in the low, mid-winter sun. A postcard Christmas with real ornaments on real trees. Tomtegubben, our Santa Claus, visiting in person, making my nieces and nephews so damn happy it’s painful to watch, when all you want is to hear bullets explode so fucking close to your head.

  My mother isn’t used to seeing me like this. She wouldn’t take it well. I’d do my mother a favor by staying away.

  As we head out of the shower room, Bo passes out the set list for tonight’s gig. It doesn’t have many changes on there. We play the tunes people love and sing along to. Two of them are entirely my creations, and if this were before, I’d be damn stoked.

  In the lobby, I see her walk through the door. Not my girl. My tour girl. She’s so beautiful my heart twists for her. Shiny locks slink along her frame all the way past that tight top to the waist of another Gypsy skirt. For the first time, I notice that her eyes are oval and tilt up at the outer edges. She’s fodder for lyrics, for sure, for a writer who loves.

  Loss causes me to wave her to me. She trips a little but doesn’t fall as she hurries over. I shake my head at her, watching her move. Then she’s in my arms, and I hug her tight, my consolation prize, my lovely, lovely girl that I need to let go. Honesty is a good thing, they say, but it’s hard to be honest when it hurts everyone involved.

  We’ve got nine days left of the tour. That’s where our relationship ends. She suggested it. I agreed to it. I kiss her deep, extracting closeness and feelings from her that I cannot match.

  She moans against my mouth. “I’ve missed you,” she murmurs. “My plague, my love fire.”

  “I was gone for thirty minutes,” I murmur back, kissing more and ignoring her strange words because they can’t be good. “Not so long.”

  “I still missed you.”

  “We have time for a shower,” I say. What else can I do? What I can’t provide in emotions, I’ll give her in spades with my body. I’ll love her body with mine. It’s good for us to do this. I’ll give her reassurance. She’ll give me respite.

  “Okay, yes…” Her desperation isn’t only in her gaze anymore when she finishes, “Anything.”

  I wait until after the shower. After the show. After the meet-n-greet. Then I keep waiting, because I can’t not have her with me in the bunk.

  After breakfast at a small, off-path diner, we have a moment to ourselves outside. And I finally say what I’ve needed to say since the day I agreed to her proposition.

  “Aishe. You’re hurting, and I feel like shit.” I bring my hand up to touch her cheek, and she leans into it, fluttering her lids closed against my touch. Why does she have to be so lovely? Such a perfect girl. I hook my arms around her and feel her tears against my cheek even before I say what I need to get out. If I don’t speak up now, I won’t.

  “I’m okay,” she starts, but I shush her.

  “No, you’re not. I can’t do this to you anymore. Us needs to stop.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” she whispers, her pain mixing with my own. I know how she feels.

  “Yes, it does. I’m messing with your head, with my own head. I shouldn’t have accepted this arrangement. It was unfair of me. You’re such a beautiful person, and I don’t want you to lose more sleep over me.

  “You’re the closest I’ve ever been to feeling peace after Zoe, but it’s not enough. I’m a total prick, but I want to finally make things right for you.” I sigh before I continue. Saying the part that will break her the most.

  “I want you to move out of our bus and back on the crew bus.”

  A sob erupts from her, and I can’t help but kiss her. Fuck. Why? She kisses me back, not wanting to let up.

  “Emil, please,” she hiccoughs. “Give me the eight days we have left.”

  “I can’t,” I whisper. “This is the only way I can keep from finding your bunk at night. Baby. I’m sorry for all the pain.”

  AISHE

  I’m in a middle bunk on the crew bus with my cousin beneath me toward the floor. I’m broken into tiny pieces. This is the plague at full force—I know it is—and I’ve done this to myself.

  On the first morning, Shandor gets up before me, ties a fresh bandanna over his forehead, and pulls my curtain wider so he can see me too. “Hey. I’ll make us espressos, real Italian. And we’ll get to town early today—you want to do some shopping?” My cousin hates shopping.

  “I don’t need anything,” I say.

  The rest of the crew stirs in their beds, but Shandor is always awake first. Even as a teenager, he was an early bird. It works for the two of us when we’re out there in the world. It works for us now, because we get fifteen minutes to ourselves in the kitchen.

  Those yellow eyes of his study me with measured compassion. He deposits the coffee cup in my hand and leans against the counter instead of taking a seat. “I think it’s time. The three-piece girl band I told you about the other day likes what they’ve learned about us.”

  “They don’t know me,” I say, drinking coffee to clog the sorrow in my throat. “I haven’t even talked with them.”

  “No one knew you in Clown Irruption either before you came out. This gig was through me too, remember?”

  I squeeze my eyes shut. It’s awful to be on a different bus than Emil. I can’t imagine how it will be once the tour is over.

  Seven days. I have a week.

  I lower my voice. “When do they want us to start? You don’t mean to jump ship and leave Bo and everyone hanging, do you?”

  Shandor straightens against the counter. It makes him tall enough to almost hit the ceiling. The announcement of Irene taking her old bunk back was made with Troll focusing on some practicality that didn’t make sense. Even so, Shandor hasn’t asked why I’m back with the crew.

  “That depends on how you fare. If the plague eats you up, we’re leaving ASAP. Oh and we’re not having that discussion again; I’m throwing you over my shoulder if I have to.”

  “Shandor, please—don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” I say, not because he’s bossy, but because music is Shandor’s life; if his reputation as a roadie got sullied, I’d never forgive myself. I’ve ignored his advice, put him in a toug
h position on this tour, but I can keep up my façade for the remainder of the leg. It’s the least I can do.

  “We’re done here in a week. When do the girls need us?”

  “Yesterday,” he smiles out. “They know how it works though. They’ll wait until Clown Irruption’s on break.”

  As I pick up my toiletry bag and start toward the bathroom, he calls me back. “Is it over?” he asks. “All the way over?”

  My shoulders lift in a shrug, telling him without words what I hadn’t decided until I woke up this morning: I’m not done fighting. Since I’m not on Emil’s bus anymore, it’ll be harder, but I need to seize my last chance to mend the rest of my plague-ridden life.

  All things considered, I doubt I’ll be rehired for Clown Irruption’s next tour. In seven days, the chance of running into my love fire again is one in a million—heck, less. Of course I’ll fight. Because once you’ve caught it, the plague never ebbs.

  Tonight’s show was hectic, feverish, a frenzy of light and sound with its decibel peak ruled by Emil. My plague drank whiskey on stage, something I haven’t seen him do before. On “The Entertainer,” he shot himself in the heart instead of in the head, and didn’t get off the floor until Bo hiked him up by an arm.

  Now I’m in the meet-n-greet watching him, white shirt unbuttoned and splattered with stage blood. Emil is so drunk I don’t understand how he’s still standing, but he slurs some convo with a few fan girls and dips them in half-hearted dance moves until they fall and he stumbles over them too.

  I’m surprised he doesn’t kiss them and take them up on their offers; coincidentally, they all live in our hotel? A couple of them say they’ll have a party, a small one, very small. Supposedly, it’ll be just Emil and the two of them. Three of them at the most. Four.

  He waves them off, blinking slowly with a lift of his lip that resembles a smile. Journalists write and take pictures, Cheshire-cat smirks on their faces. The new bad boy of rock-n-roll!

  The hotel’s got it wrong. I watch Troll realizing that between our blocked-off rooms two singles should have been a double. The hotel apologizes profusely. Emil volunteers loudly. I listen to Emil spell out the number on his key.