I was already focused on something else, something outside of myself. Shane; I went straight to Shane’s place and got him out of bed. We hit his MMA gym, the one he trained at, then went for lunch. Then we started drinking.
Mostly, I started drinking.
Shane wasn’t usually one to let a man drink alone, but he had a fight tonight. So I basically followed him around for the rest of the day. We met some of Lamar’s buddies for a while. Lamar made me eat dinner. Then we rounded back to Shane’s fight; it was in some derelict warehouse down by the Port of Vancouver cargo terminals. Illegal fights tended to happen in seedy places like that.
I bet a shit ton of cash on the fight. On Shane.
He lost, which was rare.
I knew that meant he’d be having some woman licking his wounds for the rest of the night, so I cleared out.
We hit another bar, then Lamar finally convinced me to go home. He was the only one I’d told what happened; I didn’t tell Shane. So Lamar was looking out for me, trying to make sure I didn’t self-destruct.
Smart man. I was actually considering finding myself some blow.
What a stupid idea.
Fucking reckless. Not who I was anymore.
So instead I ended up sitting on the patio outside my bedroom, smoking up, playing “Long Train Runnin’” quietly, too slowly, on one of my acoustics. It was a form of fucked-up therapy, but it worked for me. At least I wasn’t high on blow, fucking some random fangirl, like in the old days.
Angeline found me like that. Just playing the song over and fucking over. Trying to desensitize myself. Raze memories by anesthetizing myself.
The truth was, I didn’t want to feel.
“Hey, you.” She’d come quietly up the exterior stairs and rested a hip against the railing. She studied me, her head tipping slightly like I was no longer right side up.
Maybe I wasn’t.
I straightened and looked at her. She was wearing another one of my T-shirts. I wasn’t even sure why it bugged me.
“What is that song?” she asked me when I said nothing. “You play it so much…”
“It’s nothing.”
“I recognize it. I think. CCR?”
That fucking bugged me, too. Because the Doobie Brothers sounded nothing like Creedence Clearwater Revival. “It’s just an old Doobie Brothers song.” I put the guitar aside.
Her lips quirked. “Doobie Brothers.Is that really a band?” She wandered over and sat on my lap, draping an arm around my shoulders.
“You really don’t know music, do you.”
She sighed. “Much less than my sister. I’m not gonna pretend it’s my life’s passion or anything.” She played with my hair. “I like music. I follow some bands. I’m not an authority on the subject, as you noticed.” She frowned a little. “I’m not really an authority on anything.”
“Maybe you will be, one day.”
That just seemed to make her sad, or something. “Yeah. Maybe.”
I couldn’t really handle her sadness right now, or whatever put that look on her face. I nudged her off my lap, getting up.
“What’s wrong?” she asked me.
I lit up a blunt. “What’s wrong with you?” I countered, but my tone said I didn’t really want to know.
She hugged herself uncomfortably, looking out into the night as I smoked. Then she met my eyes again. “I guess I was just thinking… my sister was an authority, so young. She was so talented on the bass as a teenager, already.”
“She probably practiced a lot.”
