Chapter Nine #2
He rocks onto the balls of his feet, staring up at the ceiling.
“You’re not gonna get your nose broken.” He hums. “Most likely,” he adds under his breath.
He rakes his teeth over his bottom lip as he considers.
He’s nodding even before he speaks, and I know I’ve got him. “Okay,” he says with a grin.
In my best Barbie voice, I say, “Let’s fucking go,” dropping into a growl for the last word.
A surprised laugh bursts out of Dax, a flash of sunlight in the middle of a thunderstorm. “You’re ridiculous,” he murmurs fondly. “Let’s go, Emo Barbie.”
We slip out of backstage and begin making our way through the crowd. It’s a risk, bringing him into a room full of people that are his exact demographic, but that grin he gave me? Worth it. This industry hasn’t been kind to him, and I want to reclaim this piece of it for him, with him.
Whatever melancholy had him in its grips earlier is slowly melting away, and I’m trying not to think too hard about the lengths I’d go to shield him from it, to keep that spark in his eyes.
As the crowd grows more densely packed, he reaches back for me, and I slide my hand into his without thinking. Sensation zings up my arm, like we’ve lost this round of Operation, but it doesn’t feel like losing. It feels a little too right.
As the opening song comes to a close, the lead singer jumps up onto a riser. “WHAT’S UP, COLUMBUS?”
The crowd screams back at him.
“Alright,” the frontman says on a pant, kneeling down onto one knee.
“As the first act, it’s my job to remind y’all to take care of each other.
If you see something, say something. That said…
” He smiles devilishly, and we all know what’s coming before he says it.
“Open up that pit,” he growls, the audible equivalent of a squiggly metal band font.
The crowd surges. If not for Dax’s hand in mine, I would be swept away as the center of the floor opens up, bodies pressing out in all directions to make room.
I sidle up behind Dax to keep from being separated, trying not to focus on all the places my body is now pressed up against his, the way his evergreen scent has me melting farther into him.
The next song begins, and the bass from the speakers reorders my heartbeats.
I always watch shows from the floor, but usually near the back, where I can see and hear everything without getting pushed or shoved.
It’s a rare day when I venture into the crowd, but never ever have I gone into the pit.
It’s not an experience I knew I wanted until tonight.
It scares me and thrills me in equal measure.
But if I’m going to do it with anyone, of course it would be with Dax.
I miss the version of myself I became with him.
I’ve already had so many of my firsts with him. What’s one more?
I watch as people begin entering the empty space created in the middle of the floor, an anticipatory grin spreading across my face.
It looks so unorganized, all elbows and flying limbs, but yet, there’s an unspoken rule, the wall of people at the edge of the pit holding the line and shoving bodies back into the melee when they get too close to the edge.
I envy their ease in their bodies. My growth spurt hit in middle school, making me half a head taller than my classmates, most of whom never caught up to my height.
Most days, I still feel like that gangly preteen, my long limbs less runway-model chic and more car-dealership inflatable guy flailing in the wind.
Dax guides me in front of him so I have a clear view of the stage.
We’re only two bodies deep of the pit, and he keeps an arm around me, not touching me, bracing for the inevitable surge.
Sure enough, when the bass drops to a slow chug and the first breakdown begins, the pit swells and expands.
Dax pushes back, his other arm coming up to tug me against him, a veritable wall behind me, not letting anyone touch me.
When the crowd settles, I know I should reestablish our careful distance, but… I don’t. He doesn’t.
I’m grateful my back is to him, my face burning with the headiness of so much of me touching so much of him, our no-man’s-land blown to smithereens.
The crowd recalibrates to accommodate the growing mosh pit.
The girl to my right smiles over at me, and I can’t help but return it.
Being in the crowd might be a sacrifice of personal space, but I’d forgotten how much fun it is to watch a show from here.
Then her gaze flicks up to Dax, her mouth forming a small o.
I hold a finger to my lips, and she closes her mouth, nodding once in understanding.
Even with my flimsy disguise, Dax is too damn recognizable.
The song continues to build, the upcoming breakdown undeniable, the blast beats of the drums a warning to take a breath before the plunge.
The pit has worked itself into such a frenzy that it’s organized itself into a circle pit, the momentum of the mass of swirling bodies like a black hole, sucking you into its gravity.
“You ready?” Dax asks, his mouth pressed against the shell of my ear so I can hear him.
I tilt my head back, staring at him wide-eyed, my gaze flitting between him and the pit.
I grew up wrestling with my brothers who were twice my size, but I knew I could trust them not to actually hurt me—my twice-broken nose was my own klutziness’s fault both times.
I’ve been to more shows than I can count and have rarely seen anyone hurt.
It’s not the strangers in the pit that I don’t trust—but my own abysmal spatial awareness.
I shake my head tightly, chickening out.
“I won’t let anyone fucking touch you,” he promises with a growl I feel in my toes. He punctuates his statement with a bop to my nose, and I smile weakly.
I shake my head again. “Not yet.” I’m flying high out of my body from all the ways we’ve casually touched in the past few minutes, how very not casual I’m feeling about it. I need to center myself, to regain awareness in my limbs, before I fling myself into the fray.
He nods, and all I can see is the man I fell in love with, the one that was so, so patient, who effortlessly threaded the needle of pushing and respecting my boundaries. His gaze sweeps over me before ducking down, bringing his face to my eye level to check in with me. “You okay if I go?”
I nod.
He turns to the guy behind us. “Watch out for her,” he says before pushing his way through the wall of bodies. I barely register the guy taking Dax’s place, filling the gap he left at the edge of the pit.
Dax is immediately sucked into the circular flow of bodies, right as the breakdown begins to build. The venue goes dark, an audio clip from V for Vendetta coming through the speakers. “Beneath this mask there is an idea, Mr. Creedy. And ideas are bulletproof.”
The lights come back up and their vocalist is atop the riser.
In a fry scream, he yells, “You cannot fucking bury me!” A ding of the drummer’s cymbal punctuates the prebreakdown callout before the rest of the band jumps back in with punishing intensity.
As the mosh devolves into the chaos of a push pit, a laugh works its way out of me and I look for Dax automatically, needing to share it with him.
I don’t know how I find him amidst the chaos, how he finds me after being spun around, but we do. From opposite sides of the pit, our gazes catch and lock, and he beams, dimple on full display, eyes nearly shut from the force of his smile. I can hardly breathe around my heart in my throat.
I thought my feelings for him were a phantom limb, my brain refusing to accept what we lost. But these feelings are real, present, my heart kick-starting with a jolt.
Of course on the fringes of a fucking mosh pit I’d realize this.
I thought we could do this and be friends.
And we are friends. But we’re not just friends.
We never have been, and I don’t think we can be.
For me, that will always be doing it halfway, and I’m not the type to half-ass anything.
I am whole-ass into this man, always have been, always will be.
It’s why this is so impossible, because right now, that’s what we have to be: halfway.
One interview. One article. But then… Then what?
I’m grateful for the press of bodies on all sides to keep me upright.
I’m positively buzzing with the force of everything coursing through me.
Three years and he’s still the first person I look to when something’s funny, the one I could find blindfolded, the only one I would consider flinging myself into a pit for—just to see him smile.
Dax breaks eye contact for a moment to haul someone back to their feet, and I’m not sure what my face is doing, but from the way his smile softens, everything I’m feeling must be on full display. I know, he seems to say.
This. This feeling. The one I only get standing in a crowd, scream-singing my heart out with a bunch of strangers. I get it for him, too. And right now, sharing this with him… I want to feel like this always. I want him to feel like this always. This man’s joy is my lifeblood.
I forget, for a moment, that we’re in the middle of a crowded room, that there’s a man growling demonically on the stage, kids throwing haymakers in the pit, pinwheeling across the venue floor. It’s just me and Dax, grinning like idiots at each other from across the room.
I forget until the song ends, when someone with too much momentum flings themself against the edge of the pit, knocking into Dax, sending his hat flying. I know exactly what’s about to happen, and before I even consciously make the decision, I’m already making my way to him.