Chapter 12

Darryl Nelson

My chest aches watching Stevie’s mismatched eyes gloss over with tears. This isn’t how I picture spending the one night I am going to get to spend with my girlfriend in the flesh, especially coming off the fucking high I am feeling after performing with Darls and the other guys in Meliora.

But with her words still ringing in my ears, I can’t unfreeze my arms to comfort her. ~‘It’s so much harder than I ever thought it would be.’~ Why am I so fucking difficult to love?

I think, after all the time we’ve been estranged, that things are finally back on track, heading the way I’ve always imagined—the two of us together forever. I know it’s sappy for a guy to think like that—fucking sue me!

Nearly ripping the shitty curtain that keeps my bed private off the rail, I stomp downstairs to where everyone else has congregated, looking around angrily when I don’t immediately see Stevie. “Looks like you can’t keep your girlfriend satisfied,” Axl smirks. “She leaves looking ~very~ friendly with that blond guy.”

With a growl, I step forward to pummel his dumb fucking face some more, but Dalia grabs my arm. “Yeah, that’s okay…you can drown your sorrows in my sloppy seconds.”

“Say one more thing, and I’ll break your fucking hand so badly you’ll need help holding that tiny dick of yours to take a piss,” I hiss. Dalia shakes her head. “Shut the fuck up, Axl.”

Still holding my arm, I allow Dalia to lead me back up to the stairs to the seats and to grab my pack of cigarettes out of the front pocket of the hoodie I am wearing. I snatch the cigarette out from between her lips as soon as she lights it, placing it in mine and taking a deep drag on it.

We smoke in silence for a bit, fragments of conversation drifting up to us from the lounge area. From the sound of it, Axl storms off the bus not long after we retreat up here.

“So…you and Axl?” I raise a questioning eyebrow at her choice of man, and she snorts. “Yeah, when we were, like, eighteen,” she laughs. “Before I grew up and got some actual sense!”

My echoed smile fades on my lips. Noticing, she tilts her head to the side. “So…how long have you been with your girlfriend?”

The whole story of mine and Stevie’s friendship and falling out and subsequent making up tumbles out of me. I blow out a breath, running my hands through my hair. “So, yeah…that’s everything. But it’s like…she knows me in some ways better than anyone else, but at the same time, she has no fucking idea what it’s like to go through all this dark shit I’ve had to deal with. And now there’s all this shit hanging over my head with my mom…”

“What’s up with your mom?” she asks. “She gets diagnosed with cancer,” I swallow the lump that always appears in my throat when I say that word. “We’re still waiting for the results of her last round of tests after chemo.”

“I know what you’re going through,” Dalia lays her hand over mine, and I bite my tongue at her platitudes—nobody knows what I’m going through. “My mom died of breast cancer when I was thirteen. She was my best friend, and going through the terrible teenage years without her there to help me learn how to do my makeup or hold my hand through my first break-up…it is really tough.”

A tear rolls down her cheek, and before I realize I’ve done it, I cup her cheek and rub the teardrop up with my thumb. She gives me a sad smile and nuzzles into my hand a little.

***

Two days.

Two ~fucking~ days.

That’s how long Stevie is avoiding my calls.

My mood is what can only be described as black. Smit and Evan tiptoe around me, and Mikey watches me like a hawk, just in case I fall into a pit of depression and drugs and alcohol. I feel like telling him that he should be more concerned about the inanimate objects because my fists are fucking itching to destroy something.

I find it hard to concentrate on stage, too—missing beats and playing the wrong song at the wrong time. It’s almost a good thing that Axl’s hand recovers enough that I only have to do that one show for him, even though I kinda want to do more.

“Dude!” Smit frowns at me as we come off stage, panting a bit from his exertions. “What the fuck is up with you?! Where’s your head tonight?”

I shrug my customary scowl in place, striding past him to our changing room, eager to check my phone on the minute possibility that Stevie might have answered one of my many texts or phone calls.

She hasn’t.

Cursing, I open my contact list and scroll down, hovering my thumb over her dad’s number. Shaking my head, I carry on to her sister’s name and press call.

~“Hey, pipsqueak, how’s life on the road treating you?”~

“Yeah, good, thanks, Care-bear. How’s life with you?”

~“Uhm…complicated, but no change there, right?!”~ She laughs. ~“So, what can I do for you, Darryl?”~

“Have…have you heard from Stevie?” I lift my other hand and start chewing on my thumbnail.

~“Not recently. Why?”~ She sighs down the line. ~“Have the two of you fallen out again?”~

“Kinda?” I rub the back of my head, noting that I need to get my hair cut again. “She takes something the wrong way and gets upset, I think…plus there’s this guy she’s been hanging out with all the time, too.”

~“Look,”~ she sighs again. ~“I don’t want to be the big, bad older sister, but maybe things were never meant to work out between the two of you like you wanted. I mean, you’re both so young still.”~

“Fuck you, Carrie! You’re only nine years older than us, and you’ve never even had a steady fucking boyfriend! Don’t even try to give me relationship advice. We know what we’re doing.” I regret my outburst almost as soon as the words leave my mouth.

There’s silence on the other end of the line for long enough that I have to take my phone down from my ear to check she’s still there. ~“You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll tell Stevie you’re asking after her.”~ I open my mouth to apologize, but Carrie is gone this time.

~Fuck!~ I am just charming the pants off all the McGabe girls this week, huh?!

I scroll down to Rhea’s number but throw my phone down with another choice word—I know what kind of tirade I’d get from Rhea, and I really don’t want to have to listen to how much of a fucking asshole I am.

Smit and Evan catch up with me and are talking in quiet voices. At least I am consistent—if I piss one person off, I piss everyone off.

Sighing, I stoop and grab my phone, deciding to try Stevie one more time. It rings—which is more than it has done some of the times I’ve tried her—and I feel my hand gripping the phone tighter as I anxiously wait to see if she actually answers this time.

~“Hello?”~ The deep male voice answering my girlfriend’s phone makes me stop my manic pacing.

“Who the fuck is this?!” I demand.