Chapter Twenty
Twenty
For the third time this summer, I wake up already panicking.
Where am I? Whose bed am I in? Did the tour van leave without me?
My pulse charges against my chest, muscles braced against each racing thought before I’ve even opened my eyes. A train rattles past outside, and I suck in a fractured breath, placing myself back within the present. I’m at home. I’m in my own bed. And, yes, the tour van left without me. Thank God.
My breathing starts to even, and I open my eyes to see that, again, for the third time this summer, I’m tangled up in Renee Roberts.
She’s curled into me, cheek pressed just below my collarbone with her hair mussed up, blond strands falling every which way across my gray tank top.
Her bare leg is hitched up, thigh pressed against the waistband of my briefs.
She slept in nothing but my threadbare band T-shirt, a red one I dug out of storage, just for her.
Like so many nights following a Cold Sweat show, I crawled into bed with someone, but unlike every time before, I’m sober, and she’s no stranger.
I know Renee Roberts better than I know myself most days.
I know how to cheer her up and piss her off in equal measure.
I know her favorite musicals are Grease and Rent, and I know the lyrics to my half of that stupid duet she always wants to sing.
I know the taste of her tattoos, and how she moves when I trace them with my tongue.
Renee shifts the smallest bit in her sleep, the soft skin of her thigh shifting against mine.
Heat pools between my hips at the memory of last night—Renee, in the kitchen, stripped down to tattoos and moonlight.
How her breath wavered when I ran my hands up her thighs and pressed my thumb into the treble clef tattooed over her hip.
The curve of her back as she stood, palms pressed to the quartz countertops, peering over her shoulder with a devilish grin that I kissed right off her mouth.
The warmth of her moans as they spilled into my palm, how I kept her quiet with one hand and drew loud moans out of her with the other.
I spun lazy circles on her clit, then faster ones, building speed and pressure and grinding my hips against her ass until she came apart, a pinched moan opening into a full, glorious sound I would’ve happily drowned in.
I licked the taste of her off my fingers, and when I slid them back inside, the way she said my name…
God, what was it about the way she said my name?
It poured out of her like a prayer. Like a plea. Like Renee needed me.
I know I need her too.
A shard of morning sun slices through the window and over Renee’s cheek, casting shadows off her eyelashes.
They flutter as she stirs, curling deeper into me, so close that it’s almost impossible not to kiss her.
My lips skid across the crown of her head, breathing in her eucalyptus shampoo.
Three months ago, I thought I might not survive sharing an Uber with Renee Roberts.
Now I feel like I may not survive anything without her.
It’s a terrifying thought that swings into another.
I’ve been here before. I know how this ends.
My memory whirls back to junior year of college, waking up in our apartment but not in my own bed.
Gin, Chrissy, and I were practically magnetized by that point, an indivisible cluster of friends, and I can feel it still—that free fall of fear when I woke up nuzzled into Gin’s neck.
I remember thinking, This is it. You had friends, and you ruined it.
And it wasn’t true, but it would be, four years later. It was only a matter of time.
I don’t want to think it. I don’t want to feel it either.
I want to stay here in this perfect, beautiful moment beneath this perfect, beautiful woman and pretend it will always be like this, but the deep breaths aren’t cutting it.
As my pulse climbs, I slip out from beneath Renee, who groans and rolls over, cocooning in my sheets.
My heart squeezes tight, then stretches out, an accordion trapped in my chest. I want to keep her there.
This—us—I’ve longed for this. But it certainly wasn’t a part of the plan, and I know how Renee is about plans.
She told me she saw me as only a friend, and then I went and kissed her anyway, and then…
fuck. What do I say? And how do I say it without saying too much or blurting out something stupid like the truth?
Like Hey, Renee, I know it’s way too soon to say this, but I think I might have feelings for you.
But don’t worry—it might just be that my dad died about a year ago and my emotions are treating me like one of those rage rooms where you pay to swing a sledgehammer at old TVs!
I know you said you saw me as a friend, and I don’t want to mess that up, but, hey, while we’re talking about it, maybe we should fuck again?
I stumble past my bedroom door and, without any conscious decision to pace, begin to stalk the width of my living room.
On the wall, I lock eyes with my idols on the covers of a hundred Rolling Stone magazines.
What would you do? I want to ask them, but it wouldn’t make a difference if I could.
If this wall could talk, this communion of sinners wouldn’t know any better than me.
Still, I pray to each one. To Saint Janis Joplin.
To Saint Tina Turner. To anyone who could tell me how to undo this mess without fucking it all up, getting knocked back to lonely like I did when I ruined my relationship with Gin.
I said all the wrong things, and where did it get me?
Like most of my early twenties, the night Gin and I broke up isn’t a clear memory.
It’s a few random frames of a bad indie film I’m destined to summarize to therapists for the rest of my life.
I remember stumbling back from a night out with Solas.
I don’t even think Cold Sweat had a show, but if we did, I was definitely too drunk to play.
I remember walking through my front door and right into Gin’s birthday party.
The party I sort of planned and forgot about entirely.
I was late. I was wasted. The rest of the night flickers and skips in my memory.
I spilled whiskey on my Sonny Bono costume.
Collected what felt like hundreds of looks of disgust and disappointment from all Gin’s friends.
I don’t recall specifically what anyone said, but there were snide comments disguised as jokes, and I know that I tried to laugh along.
After that, the flickering edge of the memory fades into the moment I stepped up for my turn at karaoke—what should’ve been me and Gin performing Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe”—but someone put the microphone in my hand, and I realized it wasn’t the same karaoke machine I rented.
It was a better, nicer microphone, a fancier machine that Renee must’ve gotten to replace the one I’d picked out.
Like my machine wasn’t good enough. Like Renee thought I wasn’t good enough for Gin, and there I was, whiskey soaked and proving her right. And then, something snapped.
I’ll never have a transcript of exactly what I said that night, but I remember spitting venom into that microphone.
All the worst inside thoughts flew out, all at once.
I was hurting. Flailing. Desperate to make myself the joker instead of the punch line, to show everyone how much better I was than this stupid party.
I played stages across the country. I shared a mic with Willie Nelson.
I didn’t need to take shit from these losers who only held a microphone on karaoke night.
I was the real thing. I was a rock star.
Who gave a shit what they thought anyway?
Then Renee ripped the mic from my hand. I can still hear the screech of feedback before it thudded to the ground, and Gin shouted for me to get out.
That we were done. Renee shoved me out the front door, and the memory ends there.
Fade to Blackout Alice. Fade to being all alone.
For years, I was so devastatingly alone.
“Alice?”
Fuck.
At some point, I must’ve stopped pacing; I’m doubled over on the couch, hands fisted in my hair like I might rip it out in clumps.
I’m panicking, yes, but it’s more than that.
It’s like I’ve been gulped down by an enormous, ruthless feeling.
I chase it through my memory, following its tracks: Turbulence.
Car accidents. The giant drop ride at the fair.
Terror—I recognize it now—it seeps into my bones.
“Are you okay?” Renee’s voice is as gentle as the dab of a paintbrush, but it stings like cleaning a wound, and I wince. She takes a step toward me, and I flinch away, looking up just in time to catch the last flicker of confusion before it bolts from her eyes. All that’s left behind is hurt.
“Alice, please don’t do this.”
“I’m fine,” I say, robotic.
“You’re obviously not fine.”
I turn away. “I’m fine.”
“That’s bullshit, and we both know it.”
“Don’t tell me what I’m feeling.”
“Then look at me, Alice,” Renee begs. “Look me in the eye and talk to me instead of shutting me out if you’re so completely fine.”
My muscles clench until they vibrate, and my apartment blurs at the edges of my vision. I focus on one spot, staring down my monstera plant. A fresh green shoot has split off from one of the stems. New growth. So why am I waiting for the pot to shatter?
“Alice,” Renee says. “Please.” The hurt in her voice leaves me raw.
Say something, I think. You’re losing her. But I’ll lose her much faster if I say too much. Because that’s what I do. I open my big mouth, I say the wrong thing, I make everything worse, and I end up alone.
I fist my hands, taking a drag of the air like the world is one big cigarette. It doesn’t take the edge off. Right now, I am all edge. My heart feels stranded in the center of a tightrope. Too scared to go forward. Too far gone to turn back. I’ve been here before. I know how this ends.
I hear shuffling, and when I work up the nerve to look, I see Renee has put on a pair of sweatpants she must’ve swiped from my dresser, last night’s clothes balled up beneath her arm. I let my gaze creep up as far as her jaw, which sets as she turns for the door.
“Renee.” I finally blurt out, just to keep her from leaving.
She turns over her shoulder. “What, Alice?”
“Just…please, Renee. I don’t know what to say.”
From the way her jaw works, I know that alone was the wrong thing.
“And what am I supposed to do?” Renee bites out. “Stand here and wait for you to figure it out?” Her voice is clipped and cold, an icicle snapped off a gutter. “What do you want from me, Alice?”
Everything, I think. But I say the opposite.
I say nothing. There’s one last quivering silence; then the door clicks.
Creaks. Slams shut. Renee is gone. A silent sob wrenches deep in my chest, but I crush it down, pulverizing the pain until it’s beyond recognition.
Nothing but dust. I don’t want to feel, so I go numb. Like always. Classic Alice.
Dad,
Figured I’d tell you I ruined things with Renee. I was feeling kinda guilty about only writing to you when things are bad, but then I remembered you’ll never read this because you’re dead.