Authors: Paula Stokes
I think of my sister’s accusation, that I manage to screw things up for myself every April 5th. But this isn’t about that either. I may have done dumb things in the past, but I’m not sabotaging my relationship with Amber. This is about her changing, not about me being stuck on infinite repeat.
I
turn off the water and step out of the shower onto the cold tile floor. I dry off with one of the hotel’s big fluffy towels and then change into a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt.
I hear the door to the hotel room open. Amber’s back. I push my wet hair out of my eyes and grab my toothbrush from my toiletry bag. I brush vigorously and then spit my toothpaste into the sink. Taking a deep breath, I stroll casually out of the bathroom to face her.
“Hey,” she says. Her eyes are red and her shoulders slump forward. She looks like she’s going to fall asleep before she even makes it to the bed.
“Hey, yourself.” I sit on the edge of the bed and motion for her to sit next to me. “Let’s talk.”
She perches on the edge of the bed and buries her face in my chest. “I don’t want to talk,” she says. “I just want to be with you.”
“We have to stop pretending everything is fine.” I push her hair back from her face and look down at her.
Amber pulls away. “What’s gotten into you lately? You’re the last guy I expected to go all self-righteous on me. I thought your official position was to live and let live.”
“Not drinking was a big deal to you, Amber. And now suddenly it’s not. I get that your world is bigger now, but what’s next? Coke? Heroin? Am I going to hear about you overdosing on the news?”
“Why are you being so dramatic? Everyone drinks.”
“I don’t care about everyone. I care about you. Sorry if I sound like a total
Boy Scout
, but I already have to worry about the band coming between us and you fending off Nate’s advances on tour.”
“Micah, I—”
I hold up a hand. “No. It’s fine. I can deal with that, because I love you and I trust you. The band is your future. You
should
be putting it ahead of me.” I shrug helplessly. “I hope you guys make it. I’m just not sure what that means for us. I feel like I want the old Amber back and you want me to be fine with the new Amber . . .” I trail off. Suddenly I realize I’ve been doing the exact same dance with my mom—me trying to keep everything exactly the same as it was when my dad was alive and her trying to pretend everything is fine the way it is now.
“I’m still me,” Amber says.
“Are you?” I gesture at her dress. “Your clothes are different. Your attitude is different. You’re losing weight you don’t need to lose. And now you’re drinking. I can’t handle worrying about you coming home from every trip as a totally different person.”
Amber leans her head against my shoulder, oblivious to my thoughts. “You’re probably right about the drinking. It was just easier to go with the flow than try to explain myself. It was easier to . . . fit in.”
“You’re the lead singer. You’re supposed to stand out.”
Her lips curl into a tentative grin. “Good point.” She sighs. But I can’t do this music thing and feel like I’m disappointing you if I don’t stay exactly the same.” Her smile vanishes. “This is a big deal. Even if it weren’t a big deal, people change, you know? That’s life.”
“Yeah, but it’s one thing for you to change and another for you to let other people tell you who to be.”
“I don’t even know who I want to be, Micah. I just know I need to be free to figure it out.”
Her words punch me in the gut. “That sounds like you’re breaking up with me,” I say, my voice going hoarse. Part of me knew earlier in the evening that this is how things would play out, but I guess I didn’t want to believe it.
“I don’t want to, but look at us. When did it get so hard to talk to each other?”
When you went away
, I think.
When your band became your first love and your cell phone became your best friend. You blew me off twice
. But I don’t say any of that, because maybe it’s not true. Maybe there were problems earlier that I just refused to notice. Either way, there’s no point in assigning blame.
With one finger, Amber traces the noose tattoo peeping out from beneath my barbed-wire bracelet. “Why didn’t you tell me about the other night? About it being the night your dad died.” When I don’t say anything, she keeps going. “Trinity called me. What I don’t get is why I had to hear it from her.”
“I tried. I couldn’t make the words come out.” I pull my wrist free of her grip. “And then you kept getting all those damn texts.”
“What about now?” She peers at me through a curtain of white-blonde hair. “Can you make the words come out now?”
“Would it make a difference?”
“I’d feel like you trust me,” she says. “No matter what we decide, I still want you in my life. I want to be there for you.”
“What is it exactly that you want to hear?” My voice hardens. “You want to hear about the blood? About the pitiful way everyone looked at me after it happened? About how the cops had to lure me into the back room of the store so I didn’t end up watching them put my dad in a body bag?”
“I want to know why you blame yourself.”
“Because it was my fault,” I practically shout. My hands curl into fists. “I’m the whole reason that night happened.”
April 5, six years ago
I
t was warm for April and the Pageant was packed. Hangman’s Joke opened for Roadkill, a local St. Louis band. Mom drove me there as usual, but she wanted to leave after Hangman’s set because she had to be up early the next day.
“You need to be up early too,” she reminded me. “I don’t want to hear about you falling asleep in class.”
“Come on, Mom. Please,” I begged. “I’ve never seen Roadkill before. Dad will stay with me and I promise I’ll go right to sleep when we get home.”
She exchanged a glance with my dad. “Your father is probably tired, Micah. He’s had a long day.”
My dad mopped some sweat from his forehead and shrugged. “Never too tired to support local music. Let him stay. We’ll leave before the encore so we can avoid the traffic. He’ll be in bed by midnight.”
“That’s still really late,” my mom started. But I knew she’d give in. My dad had this magical persuasive power over people—they always gave in. Even I would have given in if he’d told me I needed to go home right away.
My mom shook her head but then gave us both a hug and headed for the parking lot. We watched her from the corner of the club to make sure she got to her car okay and then went back inside, threading our way through the crowd until we were at the very front of the stage.
Roadkill came out twenty minutes later, all screeching guitars and booming bass. It was only the third show Dad and I had watched together. Standing there in the dim lights, clapping my hands to the beat, I felt more alive than ever. Back then, all I wanted to do was live in the music world. I wanted to play guitar just like my dad, be in a band, make him proud.
When Roadkill went offstage, I turned toward him, ready to leave.
“Don’t you want to stay for the encore?” His hazel eyes gleamed with mischief.
“But Mom—”
“Will be asleep. She’ll never know. Besides, I can take you backstage to meet Jimmie James.”
Jimmie was a legend. He had gone to Hazelton High and worked at a local record store before his band got signed to a major label. Roadkill toured across the whole country, but they stuck to smaller club venues because they liked the personal interaction with their fans. Jimmie liked to talk about how he’d never forget where he came from.
After the show, Dad took me backstage, just as he promised. Jimmie was leaning back against the wall, sipping from a bottle of water and nodding to people as they walked past.
Dad waltzed right up to him. “Yo, Jim,” he said. “This is my kid, Micah.”
“What’s up?” Jimmie gave me a high five and signed the brim of my Cardinals baseball cap. “I like a man who supports the local team,” he said.
“I like your hair,” I blurted out.
He ran a hand through his mohawk and then winked at me. “It holds all my power.”
“I might have to look into one of those,” Dad said. He and Jimmie laughed. Then my dad turned to me. “Better get you home. School starts early.”
“Right. Stay in school,” Jimmie said. He gave us both a wave as we headed back to the front of the club. The crowd had mostly gone, nothing but a few diehards still lingering about, hoping the band members would make their way to the club bar for a drink eventually. A few of them shook Dad’s hand as he made our way to the door. We burst out into the night, our hair and T-shirts slick with sweat.
“I think I want a mohawk like Jimmie James,” I said.
Dad laughed. “We’ll ask your mom how she feels about that.”
“If she can have tattoos, I should be able to get a mohawk,” I insisted.
“When you’re her age, you can have all the funny haircuts you want.” Dad headed around to the side of the club and I followed him. We walked along the sidewalk, marveling at the painted totem sculptures that lined the way to the Pageant’s parking lot—someone’s idea of art. In the daylight they looked bright and bizarre, like something out of
Alice in Wonderland.
At night they took on a menacing feel, more like twisted monsters stalking the club-goers.
We ended up trapped in a line of cars on Delmar Avenue, the traffic my dad promised my mom we’d leave early to avoid. Dad started pounding out a beat on the steering wheel as soon as he pulled onto the street, something he always did when he was working on a new song. I didn’t want to disturb him, so I started playing games on my phone. Using my finger as an ax, I decapitated zombie after zombie in the newest version of something called Killdead Enterprises that all my friends at school were playing.
Dad and I finally made it to the highway and headed north toward Hazelton. And then we hit another pocket of traffic—an accident maybe, or road construction. It was too late for anything else. My dad braked hard and I slid forward in my seat, my phone slipping from my hands and ending up on the floorboards.
Dad’s head snapped toward me. “Put your seat belt on,” he said.
“Sorry.” I retrieved my phone and then buckled my seat belt.
The traffic slowed to a standstill. Dad fussed with the AC, muttered under his breath, and then cranked down his window.
I kept looking back and forth from the traffic to my phone. “I’m thirsty,” I said. “Let’s get off the highway and go get slushies or something.”
Dad glanced over at the nearest exit and then back at the string of cars in front of him. “I guess we could.”
We cut through the traffic a lane at a time and exited onto a street I’d never seen before. “What about McDonald’s?” he asked.
“They don’t have slushies.” I pointed down the street to a gas station. “They do.”
Dad glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was almost midnight. “All right,” he said. He turned into the gas station and pulled into a spot in the almost-deserted parking lot. “Are you coming in?”
I was on a tricky level where you had to kill multiple zombie guards with each slash of your ax to get through to the boss. Then you had to hit the boss fifty times in like ten seconds to beat him. I’d gotten past the level once before, but I was doing better that time. If I could make it through the boss without losing another life, it’d be my best showing ever. “Can you just get me a mix of cherry and Coke?” I asked, without even looking up.
“Sure thing, kiddo,” Dad said. “Keep the doors locked, okay? This is kind of a sketchy neighborhood.”
“Uh-huh.” I barely heard him.
I was halfway through killing the boss when I heard the shots. I thought it was a car backfiring, only when I looked up the only car around wasn’t running—it was sitting at one of the pumps. The older woman pumping gas dropped the hose, got in her car, and drove off so fast she didn’t even put her gas cap back on.
I still wasn’t sure what had happened, but my chest suddenly got tight. My heart began to pound, light and quick, like someone was tapping on my breastbone from the inside. And that’s when I saw the guy come running out of the store. With a mask on, and a gun in his hand. The tapping became a punching. Without thinking, I ducked down in my seat. It took me a few seconds to remember my dad was still inside. Terror can be like that. When your life feels threatened, it’s like this whiteout experience where the rest of the world goes away.
But then the guy disappeared, the gas station rushed back, and I was out of the truck in a fraction of a second.
“Dad!” My feet were flying. My brain racing. I could hear sirens already. I slammed full force into the glass front door of the shop, nearly breaking my wrist in the process. The clerk had locked it.
“Dad!” I screamed again. I banged on the door.
From behind the cash register, a balding middle-aged man looked over with wide, scared eyes. After a minute, he came and let me in.
I pushed past him, my mind making all kinds of bargains with the universe.
Just let my dad be okay, and I’ll go to church. Let him be okay and I’ll never be rude to my mom again. I’ll eat my vegetables. I won’t skip class. Please just please let him be okay.
My dad was lying on the floor, motionless. For one brief moment, I felt hope. There wasn’t enough blood. Just the smallest of stains in the middle of Dad’s Boondock Saints T-shirt. But the second I saw his eyes, I knew he was already gone.
A
mber sits cross-legged on the bed and stares at me for a moment without speaking. Her eyes are wet, but she doesn’t cry. She just shakes her head. Finally, she says, “The universe can be a cruel, cruel bitch.”
“Happy now?” I ask. I do feel strangely better after spitting all that out. Lighter. Or I will, anyway, until she starts yammering on about how it wasn’t my fault.
Amber shakes her head again. “Of course I’m not happy. I hate that you suffered like that. That you
still
suffer. But I’m glad you finally told me.” For a second she looks like she’s going to hug me or something. But then she exhales deeply and falls back onto the bed. “It has been a mega-exhausting night, hasn’t it? I’m glad we get to sleep in tomorrow.”
“Really? That’s it?” I ask suspiciously. “You’re not going to tell me how the whole thing wasn’t my fault or how I should just let it go or how I should
talk to someone
about it?”
She looks up at me. “You did talk to someone. Me. And we both know you didn’t pull the trigger. But I’m not going to tell you not to blame yourself.”
“Why not?” I ask, surprised.
“Because I know you. And it wouldn’t help. Plus I get it. I know what it’s like to replay those moments where you make choices that seem so meaningless but then turn out to be major. Like why? Why did I have to do that exact thing at that exact moment?”
“Yes, exactly,” I say. “So many random things had to line up for my dad to die. If I had done one thing differently he’d still be here.”
She nods. “Maybe you’ve just been waiting for someone to tell you it’s
okay
to blame yourself a little.” She pauses. “It’s okay to feel however you feel. Maybe it’s terrible to say, but I might blame myself a little bit too.”
I fall back on the bed next to her. “It’s not terrible. It’s honest,” I say, looking up at the ceiling.
She turns to face me. “Well I hope you forgive yourself someday, but I think you should be able to take as long as you need.”
“Thanks,” I say. “You’re the only one who gets it.” And in this instant, I see the Amber I fell in love with again, the girl who speaks her mind and never judges anyone about anything. The girl who understands me like no one else. Maybe there’s a new gloss on her, a Hollywood shine meant to sell records and appeal to the masses, but underneath she’s still partly the same Amber.
I just don’t think I can hold on to her.
“I’m sorry I’ve been a shitty friend lately. I’ve been totally in my own world,” she says.
“Maybe that’s it. Maybe that’s the problem. Our worlds don’t overlap anymore.”
“Maybe not.” She blinks hard, a tear taking shape on her pale eyelashes. “So what do we do about it?”