Scars and Songs (Mad World)

by Christine Zolendz

  I looked at the huge monster of a man lying on the floor. His blood? I was in complete awe of her. What did he want from her? Rage boiled my blood. “Did he touch you? I swear to God, Grace, Iʼll kill him right now.”

  She gently placed her hand on my cheek, and my body calmed instantly. “He never got the chance, you came.”

  Relief. Pure raw relief surged through my shoulders. I looked at her beautiful eyes, welling with her beautiful tears and my heart stirred. It was too overwhelming, too awe inspiring. All I wanted was to tell her that I was falling for her, but I couldnʼt. I was stuck in Shaneʼs body and she seemed to know how much of a jerk he had been. I had no idea how I could change her thoughts about him. “Grace, I just got stabbed to save you. Can I at least have a kiss as a reward?” I wiggled my eyebrows up and down to make her laugh.

  She brought her plump pink lips to my forehead and gave me a small sweet lingering kiss.

  I busted out laughing, “Wow. A peck on the forehead is the equivalent to being stabbed to you? No way! Iʼm going to milk this one! You owe me, big time!”

  Slapping at my arm, she teased, “Shane, you could take your blonde bimbo home or me, and you wouldnʼt know the difference. But, I do owe you, so Iʼll think of something where I get to keep my clothes on.”

  There were a ton of people in the small room all of a sudden and my head started spinning. The stab wound was nothing much, I could feel that it didnʼt hit anything important. It looked a hell of a lot worse than it felt, because blood was everywhere. And unfortunately, I was all of a sudden completely sober.

  Grace slid my arm around her shoulders and helped me up. All I could do was smile and look at her. What girl in their right mind would pick up a bleeding guy off the floor without flinching? Someone like Grace. This only endeared me more to her. Shit.

  Conner had called 911 and the police were just coming in. An ambulance was pulling up just as Grace walked me outside.

  I tried like crazy to refuse going to the hospital, but no one listened to me. Conner and a few of the other regulars at the bar shoved me into the back of the ambulance. Before they closed the back doors on me, the blonde girl I was talking to at the bar and dancing with climbed in. Why is she here?

  Giggles, giggles and more giggling. “I bet you never had sex in the back of an ambulance before,” she giggled even more and slithered her hands up my leg.

  What the hell is wrong with this girl? “Um...well, no, I can honestly say that I have not had sex in the back of an ambulance.” I stopped her hands. “And, honestly, I never will. If you haven’t noticed the reason we’re sitting here, well, I got STABBED tonight! So, Iʼm not really in the mood. Do you kind of understand that?”

  She licked her lips slow and sensual. “I bet I can get you in the mood,” she moaned. “Then I can go home with you and take care of you for as long as it will take. I can be your own personal nurse. I’ll even dress up.” She giggled way more than was freaking necessary.

  Ah, no. No thank you, you psycho skank. “Well, even though that sounds really tempting, I think Iʼm going to pass. But, thanks, really.”

  “Let me at least give you a...”

  The doors opened before she could finish and I launched myself past her and through them. The EMTs walked me into an almost empty emergency room, up to the front desk and right into triage. I was quickly seen, poked, and prodded. Two police officers came a few minutes after I arrived and questioned me about the incident.

  I had no information to give them though. I had never seen the guy before. I just saw something come up behind Grace in the darkness of the hallway and I ran to her. I didnʼt think. I just wanted her to be safe.

  “So tell us what happened when you ran back into the hallway,” one of the officers said.

  “I tried every room. I ran into the menʼs bathroom. Lea tried the womenʼs room. I tried the storage closets. When I tried the last storage room, it was locked.”

  The officer asking me all the questions was writing down all my answers. The other officer kept looking through the curtain of my little area.

  “I heard them scuffling behind the door and I kicked it in. It swung right open and the guy was trying to attack Grace. I grabbed him off her and started hitting him. All I was really concerned about was Grace and if she was hurt. There was blood everywhere so I figured he hurt her pretty bad. When I went to her, the asshole stabbed me. I never even saw he had a knife on him until it was in me.”

  “We have two other officers speaking to your friends in the waiting room right now. Grace is the blonde or the brunette in the waiting room?”

  I couldnʼt hide my smile. Grace was waiting for me? “Grace is the one with the jet black hair and light gray eyes.”

  The officer shook his head. “A beautiful girl like that, the guy probably tried to pick her up and she turned him down. Itʼs a good thing you were there.”

  After a while, someone came in and stitched me up, smiling that no major organs were punctured. He wanted to give me something to kill the pain, but I said no. I never took anything stronger than over the counter medicine, I didnʼt trust Shaneʼs body to not get addicted to anything again. Besides, twenty-one stitches are like a paper cut compared to having your wings ripped from your body. I didnʼt even flinch.

  I hesitated in the doorway to the waiting area and watched Grace for a minute before anyone noticed I was there. Worry lines creased her forehead and she sat staring at her feet, biting down on her bottom lip. Was she upset about what sheʼd been through tonight? Was any of that worry for me?

  I quietly sat down next to her and leaned my elbow on her shoulder, “Were you worried sick about me?”

  She rolled those beautiful bedroom eyes, but gave me a dazzling smile. “No, Shane. I knew your big fat ego would block the knife somehow.”

  Looking at me for a few silent seconds, her expression spoke everything to me. Thank you. I need you. I want you, but I canʼt. I wonʼt. But, my God, I want to.

  It hurt like hell.

  We shared a cab with Conner and Lea; nobody said a word the entire ride. Conner and I had the driver drop the girls off in front of their apartment.

  When the driver pulled up, Grace looked over to me with a sad look, “Oh, Shane. I forgot to mention it, but Brianna wanted me to tell you to call her. We made her call a cab, sorry.” She looked to Conner and Lea, “We thought it would be longer, and well, she was annoying to look at really.”

  “Whoʼs Brianna?” I asked. Oh, was that the blonde girl’s name? I hadn’t even wondered where she went.

  Grace looked even sadder and stepped out of the cab. I watched her walk up her front steps and the thought of not spending the rest of the night with her made me feel like half a man.

  The cab pulled away and I wondered why I felt such intense feelings for someone that I just met. Someone I knew almost nothing about. Was it just because she looked so much like my lost love that I wanted to be with her to fill that ache in my heart?

  “Hey, you sure you’re okay, man?” Conner asked.

  “Yeah, bro. Golden.” Less than five minutes later, Conner and I were back in our apartment. He patted me on the back and trudged to his room. “Night, knock if you need me,” he said. Before he got there, I heard him telling Ethan everything about my ER visit, and then Ethan telling him everything he knew about Alex.

  I locked my door and threw myself onto my bed. I took out my phone and called Grace. There was no way I wanted to call it a night with her. Her phone rang a few times and then went to voicemail; her sweet voice echoing through the line. Iʼm not near the phone, leave a message and Iʼll call you back. Thousands of poetic stanzas ran through my mind. What message could I leave that would make her call me back? Probably nothing. This is Grace Iʼm calling, nothing in the world would make that beautiful creature want to call me back, unless I annoyed her enough. “Grace, itʼs Shane. Give me a call back tonight, doesnʼt matter what time. Call me or I swear Iʼll ring this phone all night.” Whoa, great going, Casa
nova, that was awful.

  Okay, I definitely needed to leave another message way better than that idiotic one. Like the freaking stalker that I was quickly becoming, I called her again. Her cell rang and rang. What could I quote into her voicemail? What words of long ago would move her? She had looked so sad when we dropped her off in front of her apartment; I wanted to make those beautiful lips smile. What had she been sad about? Was it because of the attack? Shouldnʼt she have been scared? She wasnʼt though. She was brave and strong. What had she said when she walked out of the cab?

  “What do you want, Shane?” Her voice cut into my thoughts. Itʼs not her voicemail, she answered the phone!

  “Who is Brianna?” I answered. How was it possible that those words could have crossed my lips? This girl made me an idiot. She tongue-tied me like no one else.

  “Um, the stunning blonde you picked up at the bar and danced with,” she replied. Was that a giggle I heard? “She went in the ambulance with you, Shane. How could you not know who Iʼm talking about? Anyway, why are you calling me and asking about it; more importantly, who gave you my number so I can plot their slow death?” She was definitely giggling at me!

  “Oh, man. I thought her name was Lori. Did you get upset when I was dancing with her?” Holy crap, it was as if I had lost the brain to mouth filter in this body! What the...it’s like I’m malfunctioning.

  “Shane, why in the world would I care if you danced with someone? Is that why you called me?” Not the answer I really wanted to hear. How about a HELL YES! It drove me crazy! I want you to come over right now!

  A laugh sputtered out of my damn lips. A laugh. More like a girly freaking giggle. I sighed loudly at my own stupidity. Why did I even bother to call her? She would never give me the time of day. What was I hoping for?

  “No, I just wanted to see how you were doing. Itʼs not every night that someone attacks you, right?” And, Grace the thought of someone hurting you almost killed me. The thought that someone had touched you, caused you pain in any way, made me what to bring the heavens down.

  “Iʼm absolutely fine, exhausted, but fine.”

  I felt like a chump calling her. “I programed your number into my phone when I called you on Leaʼs phone looking for Tucker. I didnʼt think youʼd mind.” I desperately tried to change the subject. “I was about to grab something to eat and then go to bed, what are you doing?”

  “Iʼm climbing into bed right now,” she yawned.

  The thought of her slipping her sexy legs under her sheets made my whole body stiffen. I couldn’t even wrap my head around the thoughts her words brought to my mind. “Oh,” I managed to reply. My chest ached as much as my damn body did at her voice. “That’s a thought that’s going to last me all night.”

  “God, Shane! Shut up! Why does everything have to be sexual with you? Have you seriously never had a platonic friendship with a female before?” Even though I knew the words were serious, I could hear the laughter in her voice.

  “No. Ah, Grace, look, I just called to see how you were doing. Like I said, it’s not every night that someone attacks you, right? Or does this happen often?” I asked again in a playful tone.

  “I really am fine, Shane, but it’s not every night that someone tries to protect me from someone who attacks me. I don’t even know what to say, because thank you just doesn’t seem to be enough. You kind of amazed me tonight.”

  Then she just talked with me. At some point, my heart stopped and I could barely breathe listening to her words. When my heart started thundering in my chest again, I let myself fall limply against my pillows and laughed with her until the sun came up.

  When we disconnected, I was so much more taken with her than I had been when I first laid eyes on her and my heart felt twisted. The truth was, Grace should steer clear of my cursed life and me. I would never be whole for her. But, that girl had a way about her that made me feel like anything was possible.

  Chapter 7

  I rolled myself out of bed around five o’clock on Thursday evening. And the conclusion I came to as I stumbled through the hallway into the kitchen looking for coffee: Staying up on the phone all night with a girl that spun your body into a whirl of fucking tense sexual emotions will cause a man to sleep for eleven hours straight. It also made me feel higher than a kite. My body was strung tight and I practically bounced off the walls of the kitchen with a strange euphoric energy.

  “Hey, good evening, Sleeping Beauty. Glad you remembered to get up for the auditions tonight,” Ethan quipped as I made coffee. “Who the hell were you laughing and talking to on the phone all night?”

  Crap, this was going to be a shitty conversation. “Grace,” I murmured, slowly bringing my eyes to meet his.

  Ethan dragged his gaze away from the coffee maker and directed a threatening look right at me. “Don’t go there, Shane,” he said grimly. “Dude, you’re going to end up crushing her if she falls for you.”

  “Well, thank you, buddy, for the fucking vote of confidence,” I said, finding my black leather motorcycle boots and shoving my feet into them, then glaring back at him.

  “Shane. Look me in the eye and tell me you won’t hurt her,” he deadpanned.

  “Drop it, Ethan. I’m just getting to know her; I’m trying to be a friend. I called her last night to see if she was okay after what happened. That’s it. We talked. Leave me alone about it.”

  “Fine. Let’s just go down to the studio and see who shows up for auditions. Alex, Bray and Conner are already downstairs. Waiting,” he said storming out. “Oh, and while you were sleeping all day, Alex is fine. He didn’t have to stay the night in jail. Tucker’s dad got him released. Not that you seem to give a shit about anything but your dick.”

  I took off after him out of our apartment and down the steps to the studio that we had built in the basement of the building. I stopped dead when I reached the doorway. Four people were waiting in the hallway with guitar cases in their hands. Four fucking people and Tucker was one of them. My muscles tightened immediately. I had a shitty feeling that Mad World would be out of gigs for the next six weeks.

  Tucker barged his way through the studio door when I opened it, carrying a 30 pack of Budweiser. He wore a pair of those 1970 nuthugger jeans, converse sneakers and an old worn out Poison tee shirt circa 1990. “Hey, posers! Anybodywantabeer? I think I got like eight left in here,” he said slurring his words. Well, if we didn’t find someone to replace Alex for the next few weeks, at least we knew the auditions would be very entertaining with Tucker as tanked as he was. Let’s see 30 beers minus 8 equals, yeah, tanked.

  Walking right in the studio behind Tucker were the three other guys there to play for us. They each took a beer from Tucker, which pissed me off at all of them instantly.

  Ethan quietly sat himself behind his kit, and Brayden was already leaning up against the wall with his bass in his hands. Alex sat on one of the couches with his casts lying across his chest, Conner sat beside him. I grabbed my guitar from its stand and nodded at the guy closest to me. “Okay, let’s get this shit over with. Why don’t you just start playing whatever you’re good at and we’ll jump in? What’s your name, by the way?”

  “They call me Axe,” he sneered, plugged his guitar into Alex’s amp, and played a heavy thrash rhythm. The guy was good, he had really fast fingers and he flew through riffs. I jumped in with him when he played an old school Metallica song and when it was over, Alex gave me a slight nod with his head as if to say he liked him.

  Tucker stood up, took a huge gulp of beer and yelled, “That fucking sucked! Next!” Then he threw his empty beer can at the guy. When the guy didn’t move fast enough to his liking, Tucker pegged the rest of the applicants with more cans of beer until I grabbed him around the waist and subdued him. By the time I reached him though, it was too late; the three guys wanting to take Alex’s place were running down the hallway away from the studio.

  Alex jumped into Tucker’s face, casts flailing around, “What brand of douche are you? If I had
my hands out of these casts I would slap you like a little girl.”

  Tucker tried shrugging himself out of my hold, “You know this is all bullshit anyway. Who knows your shitty ass music better than me?”

  I palmed his face and mushed him away from me before I got too angry and started really wailing on him. “Grab Alex’s guitar then and see if you can even remember how to hold it.”

  We all watched in horror as Tucker drunkenly tried to strap Alex’s precious guitar on, banging it into the speakers and amps, stumbling and struggling with it as he tried to stand up straight.

  “You have got you be kidding me,” Ethan growled when Tucker finally got the guitar strapped to him. Backwards. Then his legs seemed to buckle under him and he dropped heavily to his knees on the floor.

  Alex’s eyes widened and his jaw flew open. “Get my guitar! Get it away from him! Get it! Geeeeet Ittttttttt!” he yelled.

  Ethan jumped over his kit, symbols crashing to the floor, ran for Tucker and yanked the guitar right off his neck. Tucker’s response was to laugh and crawl back to his case of beer and snap open another one.

  I watched all the expressions on my band mate’s faces and my stomach dropped for them. Since the day we met Tucker, he had always been a royal pain in our sides. I didn’t even know why we still put up with his crap.

  Shaking my head, I glanced at Conner who was talking on the phone with a giant smile plastered over his lips. “Well, that is going to be awesome to watch. Okay, babe,” he was saying into his phone. Sounded like he was talking to Lea, probably about something naughty. Crap, I envied him. An amazing fantasy danced before my eyes of those words falling from my lips as I spoke with Grace. I could think of about ten thousand things it would be awesome to watch Grace do. Ugh. Get a grip, Shane!

  Nodding to the rest of the guys, I sat down hard on the floor of the studio and laid my guitar across my lap. Alex, Braden and Ethan followed suit and started discussing all the many wonderful ways to kill Tucker. All while Tucker sat crossed legged and giggled. Idiot.