And I fell apart.
I see... Oh I don't know why there's something else.
I wanna drum it all away...
Oh, I said, "I don't, I don't know whether I was the boxer or the bag."
Ah yeah, can you see them out on the porch? Yeah, but they don't wave.
But I see them round the front way. Yeah.
And I know, and I know. I don't wanna stay at all.
I don't wanna stay. Yeah.
Pearl Jam
Chapter Twenty
Shamus
I walk in the door of my house in Gig and go straight for the fridge and a cold beer. Everyone agreed to meet up at the Aloha House for some beers and relaxation tonight. I expected more fanfare when we got off the plane, but it was Tayla there to meet us explaining that a wedding emergency was taking place and that the girls would meet up with us all later.
I didn’t know and I didn’t ask if Cassa was going to be there. Maybe it’s my ire, but I was done kissing her ass. I don’t know, have no clue what happened to us, but I was also done asking. I had hoped that she would have been there at the airport, tears in her pretty eyes and that all this shit could have been worked out. Instead, I am left questioning what happened to us. Cass had always been the one for me and I never questioned if we would find that groove again, but I started questioning it the minute I started the PR tour.
I don’t doubt that it’s what went wrong, I know being gone ninety percent of the time can cause one hell of a strain I just never thought it would get this bad. I just want what we had back. We had been so strong and I let an angry old man get in my head. I blame my dad for all the disaster that my leaving caused. It wasn’t just the nightmare that unfolded for Sass, but my life had been hell too. I was drinking every night just so I could sleep without all my mistakes running a play by play through my mind all night. Once I learned she was married, I buried my dick in any chick that was willing, even though it was her I thought of every time. I treated all the women like they were my playthings and at my disposal. At times it had become such a second nature that Cal and I actually made a game based on the hair color of thefangirls. Now even the idea of going back to that life made my stomach turn in protest.
God, I don’t want this!
But looking at the way things are isn’t going to work either. I need her to see reason and talk to me. I can make her listen and see we have amazing we don’t need painful.
Deciding that the only option I have right now is to go tonight, in full swag and do everything I can to get her heart racing, get her beneath me and remind her of all the pro’s we have and force her to tell me her con’s.
*
Cassa
“Talk to me Cass.” Carrie says as she lay beside me in my bed with Candey on my opposite side. They have the essentials for thisfreindervention… tissues… wine and chocolate covered caramels.
I have been crying since we left lunch. Part of the pain is from Roni and her“face it” lecture and the rest because she is right. I haven’t faced anything. “What is there to talk about? I haven’t faced anything. I haven’t talked to Shame about anything since the night I told him about Cory trying to kill me.” I sit up and turn so I can look at them both. “I can't ask him why he left me. I can't!” I am pleading hoping they understand.
“Why Hun?” Candey asks and drops a caramel in her mouth.
Okay… so they don’t get it. Note taken.
“I get it.” Carrie says and places her hand on my knee. I wonder if she read my thoughts, but I say nothing, letting her speak. Carrie knows what it’s like to live through something horrific. This is her field of knowledge. “When Chad and I had sex the first time, we did things that I never thought I would be okay with. I wonder sometimes if I was truly ready for the blowback from meeting Chad. Remember that night after the first show I went to and me and Noah got into it outside?”
I see a dark, sad, look cross Candey’s face and I instantly remember it being the night she saw Noah goingdown on a fangirl and the tears that lasted days after that. I also remember the fight between Carrie and Noah and the graphic nature of the fight.
“Yeah.” I say not wanting to dredge up all the memories of that night for both their sakes. Shame and I had made love that night so fiercely because we were safe and in love and not dealing with excess like our friends were… oh how the times have changed.
“Chad asked me to tell him about my dad that night and I refused. My refusal lead to him asking questions that I couldn’t answer. I had the answers, but I didn’t have the strength to tell him them. I woke the next morning to an awful nightmare and overheard Chad and Noah fighting about the altercation. It was what Chad said though that broke it all down for me. He was all in, he always had been. We had sex that night for the first time and after and I was freaking out he told me that he loved being with me, but not with my dad there controlling it.
“I of course went to Noah and freaked thinking I had blown things to shreds and Noah brought me down. It’s not about telling the gritty details Hun. It’s about letting him in. If there is anything I know babycakes, it’s that he wants to fix it. I know he can't, you know he can't but he is a man and men are tough and loud and perverse. He sees this as his fault for leaving, no matter how obnoxious that is, and I get it, it’s way obnoxious, but it’s the men. Chad takes full blame for me leaving the concert the night I was attacked. He swears he should have pissed off thousands and tanked the band to protect me. It’s ludicrously sweet.”
I let her words soak in, I take them in and see where she is coming from but I still have those fearful doubts. I want so bad to scream and fit and yell about the unfairness of it, but fear I’ll never come back from the pain if I let it out.
“You’re right, I don’t know, maybe I need a mental institution to get my head straight.”
