“$37. $35 plus a $2 campus service fee baked in. Don’t worry about it, though,” I assure her. “You don’t owe me anything.”
“You’re so sweet.” She sniffles. “They aren’t playing my song yet. I’m only here for Soul Biter. Opening act. Like I said. Chase Holt is, like, a total sellout now. I mean, good for him for being out and gay, but after his big hit ‘Hate Me For a Reason’ five years ago when he had more of a country sound, he went in a rock direction to ‘appeal to the masses’ or some shit. Guess that’s why they have Soul Biter opening. The genres sorta overlap, barely, whatever.”
“Maybe give this Chase Holt another chance,” I suggest. “We shouldn’t ditch things we love the second they become …” I look down at my phone. “… less exciting.”
“Are you even getting a drink? You don’t look like a drinker.”
“I am tonight. Want something? It’s my treat. You like White Claws? Hmm, 7 bucks … eight-and-a-quarter percent tax, so 7.58 … plus that venue fee they sneak in there, 8.58, so $17.16 for two …”
“Whoa, damn, dude, you’re freaky good at numbers.”
“Calms me,” I mutter, shrugging it off as I squint at the prices.
She sighs. “Tonight was gonna beperfect. The seller seemed so authentic, too. You think you can depend on someone, and then shit like this happens, and … like, why bother having any faith in humanity or anyone ever again?”
Her words are hitting a touch too close to home.
“It’s for the best,” she says, reading my mind. “Whoever stood you up tonight, just, like … to fuckin’ fuck with them, y’know?”
I take a long breath, then pocket my phone. “To fuckin’ fuck,” I agree. She seems to appreciate my mirroring of her sentiment. Then I guess her song comes on, because she screams in my face, and off the nameless emo girl goes, tearing through the crowd.
I’ll probably never see her again.
And standing in this line that hasn’t moved in ten minutes, I stare off, and the quailing, surprisingly sultry vocals of the rock band worm their way into my ears.Abandon…Oh, oh, my abandon…The darkness holds my hand in your sweet abandon…
I see AJ laughing with his crew as they talk about how insane their trip will be, hitting waves in Cali, kicking back on the sand.
You never know what holds you…Oh, oh, until it’s gone…
AJ throwing back another beer, losing track of time, or maybe entirely aware of it, knowing I’ll forgive him, oh, but look at Paris, she’s right there on the other side of the room, just within reach.
Back into my sweet abandon…Until it’s all gone, gone, gone…
Then I see myself, staring out the window of a different room, out in the countryside, alone, while my parents discuss my future in a newly-renovated office made just for me, andall summer I’m counting stars, and I’m counting scoops of ice cream served with a smile on my face at my summer job at T&S’s, and I’m counting the days of my life as they burn away one sunrise at a time …
Everything, everyone, gone, gone, gone…
I discover a sudden need to vomit.
I ditch the line and shove my way through the crowd. I burst into a hallway and race toward a restroom sign. Locked. I hurry down another corridor, everything fuzzy and far away, until I’m totally turned around and lost. Apparently every restroom in this building is playing hide-and-go-seek with me, so I find a waist-high trash bin at an intersection in the hallway and clutch it for dear life with my head half inside, awaiting the inevitable.
It’s something far worse than vomit that comes.
It’s tears.
Oh, no. Tell me this isn’t happening. Not in a back hallway of some rundown college-tour-dump-pad venue with shitty security. And I’m alone here with sad-boy lyrics dancing a waltz with the nightmares in my head like they’re my new best friends.
Tell me I’m not about to be trapped for another long summer of having my soul sucked out of my feet with every aching step in my dusty Texas town with too much love to give.
Tell me my life isn’t over before it’s started.
The response I get is the shuffling of a nearby shoe.
I lift my head a fraction of an inch and spot a guy in skinny jeans, a white ribbed tank, and an opened flannel shirt leaning against the wall, partly obscured in shadow, eyes on me.
“Sorry.” I let go of the bin, immediately grow dizzy, and grab hold of it again. “Didn’t realize I … had an audience.”
“Don’t we always,” he mutters back, not quite a question.